Elias Daoud Khoury is a
Jerusalem based
Palestinian ChristianPalestinian Christians are Arabic-speaking Christians descended from the people of the geographical area of Palestine. Within Palestine, there are churches and believers from many Christian denominations, including Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholic , Protestant, and others...
lawyer. He specializes in real property law. Elias made appeals several times to the
Supreme Court of IsraelThe Supreme Court is at the head of the court system and highest judicial instance in Israel. The Supreme Court sits in Jerusalem.The area of its jurisdiction is all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. A ruling of the Supreme Court is binding upon every court, other than the Supreme...
, and has had Palestinian politicians among his clients in Israeli courts.. Elias gained fame in the 1970s when he led a legal battle against the Israeli settlers of
SebastiaSebastia can refer to:* Sebastia: Sivas, Turkey is the provincial capital of Sivas Province in Turkey. Sivas first appears in history as Seabaste...
and
Elon MorehElon Moreh is an Israeli settlement located in the Samarian hills of the West Bank northeast of Nablus on the slopes of the Mount Kabir ridge....
.
Elias Khoury was born in the
GalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
. His father has lost the family land to Israel in the 1948 war, Nakba, took citizenship in Israel and believed he could work patiently through Israeli law to get his land back. Elias studied law at the
Hebrew University of JerusalemThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
and lived in the
Beit HaninaBeit Hanina is a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem on the road to Ramallah. It is bordered by Hizma to the east, Shuafat to the south, Beit Iksa and Nabi Samwil to the west, and Bir Nabala, al-Jib, Kafr Aqab and ar-Ram to the north. The total area of Beit Hanina is 20 sq. kilometers...
and
ShuafatShu'fat , also Shuafat and Sha'fat, is a Palestinian Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, forming part of north-eastern Jerusalem. Located on the old Jerusalem-Ramallah road about three miles north of the Old City, Shuafat has a population of 35,000 residents...
neighborhoods of Jerusalem. He has a practice in Jerusalem, formerly in its
Eastern partEast Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
and now in the West, specializing in real property law. He has represented clients at all Israeli court levels, including the Supreme Court of Israel, as well as in planning commissions. In the framework of his public activities, he has expressed concerns with the impacts of the lack of Arab participation in the urban politics of Jerusalem, while expressing understanding for the rationale. In 2008 he expressed concerns with a planned real estate deal between his own
Orthodox Church of JerusalemThe Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem , also known as the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, is an autocephalous Orthodox Church within the wider communion of Orthodox Christianity. Headed by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, it is regarded by Orthodox Christians as the mother church of all of...
and the State of Israel.
Both Khoury's father and son were killed in attacks. Khoury's father, Daoud Khoury, was killed when a booby-trapped refrigerator exploded in
Zion SquareZion Square is a public square at the east end of the Ben Yehuda Street Pedestrian Mall in downtown Jerusalem. It abuts Jaffa Road, Herbert Samuel Street and Yoel Moshe Salomon Street as well....
. Elias' son,
George KhouryGeorge Elias Khoury was a Palestinian Christian murdered by a Palestinian terrorist while jogging in the neighborhood of French Hill in Jerusalem...
, was mistakenly killed from
gunfireA firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...
on March 19, 2004, while jogging in the neighborhood of
French HillFrench Hill , also Giv'at Shapira is a neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem. It is located on territory occupied during the Six-Day War in 1967, later annexed to Israel under the Jerusalem Law in 1980...
in Jerusalem. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military branch of the
FatahFataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
movement, claimed responsibility. After it became clear that the victim was an
ArabArab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
it apologized, and offered to declare him a martyr for the Palestinian cause. but has also stated that the "barbaric act that will not change my world view, which includes deep faith in Palestinian rights."
On March 6, 2010,
The New York Times reported that Khoury had paid to have
Amos OzAmos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva....
's
A Tale of Love and DarknessA Tale of Love and Darkness is an autobiographical novel by Israeli author Amos Oz, first published in Hebrew in 2002.The book has been translated into 28 languages and over a million copies have been sold worldwide. In 2011, a bootleg Kurdish translation was found in a bookstore in northern Iraq...
translated into Arabic and distributed in
BeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
and other Arab capitals. Of his decision to pay for the translation and publication of the book, Khoury said: "This book tells the history of the rebirth of the Jewish people. We can learn from it how a people like the Jewish people emerged from the tragedy of the Holocaust and were able to reorganize themselves and build their country and become an independent people. If we can’t learn from that, we will not be able to do anything for our independence."