Fri 17 September 2021:
TIME magazine has chosen prominent Palestinian activists and twins Muna and Mohammed El-Kurd among the world’s 100 most influential people for 2021.
TIME revealed its annual list on Wednesday, including Britney Spears, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Elon Musk and Tim Cook, with the sibling activists hailed for providing the world with a view into life under Israeli rule in East Jerusalem.
They became the face of a movement to stop Palestinians from being evicted from a tense East Jerusalem neighborhood, and they helped to influence international perceptions of Israel and Palestine.
The El-Kurd family, along with scores of their neighbors in the Sheikh Jarrah area, has been struggling for more than a decade to prevent Israeli settlers from forcibly removing them from their houses.
TIME noted: “Charismatic and bold, they became the most recognizable voices of those threatened with losing their homes in Sheikh Jarrah.”
“Around the world, their grassroots organizing helped inspire the Palestinian diaspora to renew protests. And in the US, long Israel’s strongest ally, polls show growing support for Palestinians, so far without any cost to public support for Israel.”
Tensions in Sheikh Jarrah erupted in the surrounding Old City in May, when Israeli forces attacked worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque, prompting Hamas terrorists in Gaza to fire rockets into Israel. Through viral posts and interviews, Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd, who were briefly detained by Israeli authorities this summer, challenged existing narratives about Palestinian resistance, humanizing the experiences of their neighbors and pushing back against claims that Palestinians were the primary perpetrators of violence.
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