Orient House

Orient House, where untold quantities of Palestinian archival material is being held hostage by Israel

Orient House, where untold quantities of Palestinian archival material are being held hostage by Israel

The Orient House was the headquarters of the PLO in East Jerusalem during the 1980s and 1990s, and as such was an important political and diplomatic site in the city. As part of the Oslo negotiations, the Israeli government promised not to interfere in the ongoing operations of the Orient House, since the PLO was negotiating the final status of Jerusalem. In violation of this agreement, the Orient House was closed after an Israeli police raid in August 2001. A significant portion of the library’s archival collections were confiscated during the raid, including materials related to the Jerusalem negotiations, the 1991 Madrid conference, and the photography collection of the Arab Studies Society. The photography collection includes a unique body of materials relating to Jerusalem’s 19th and 20th century history. The library remains closed under an Ottoman era law, which is renewed every six months and posted on the front door of the building. The extent of the damage to the collections or what materials remain in the building is still unknown.