The first time was in the 1950s, a few years after Israel's creation, when 80 percent of Palestinians had been driven from their homes to make way for a Jewish state.
Although they should have enjoyed the protection of Israeli citizenship, the Jahalin were forced out of the Negev and into the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan, to make way for new Jewish immigrants.
A generation later in 1967, when they had barely re-established themselves, the Jahalin were again under attack from Israeli soldiers occupying the West Bank. The grazing lands the Jahalin had relocated to with their goats and sheep were seized to build a settlement for Jews only, Kfar Adumim, in violation of the laws of war.
Ever since, the Jahalin have dwelt in a twilight zone of Israeli-defined "illegality." Like other Palestinians in the 60 percent of the West Bank under Israeli control, they have been denied building permits, forcing three generations to live in tin shacks and tents.
Israel has also refused to connect the village to the water, electricity and sewage grids, in an attempt to make life so unbearable the Jahalin would opt to leave.
When an Italian charity helped in 2009 to establish Khan Al Ahmar's first school -- made from mud and tires -- Israel stepped up its legal battle to demolish the village.
Now, the Jahalin are about to be driven from their lands again. This time they are to be forcibly re-settled next to a waste dump by the Palestinian town of Abu Dis, hemmed in on all sides by Israeli walls and settlements.
In the new location they will be forced to abandon their pastoral way of life. As resident Ibrahim Abu Dawoud observed: "For us, leaving the desert is death."
In another indication of the Palestinians' dire predicament, the Trump administration is expected to propose in its long-awaited peace plan that the slum-like Abu Dis, rather than East Jerusalem, serve as the capital of a future pseudo-Palestinian state -- if Israel ever chooses to recognize one.
Khan Al Ahmar's destruction would be the first demolition of a complete Palestinian community since the 1990s, when Israel ostensibly committed to the Oslo peace process.
Now emboldened by Washington's unstinting support, Benjamin Netanyahu's government is racing ahead to realise its vision of a Greater Israel. It wants to annex the lands on which villages like Khan Al Ahmar stand and remove their Palestinian populations.
There is a minor hurdle. Last Thursday, the Israeli supreme court tried to calm the storm clouds gathering in Europe by issuing a temporary injunction on the demolition works.
The reprieve is likely to be short-lived. A few weeks ago the same court -- in a panel dominated by judges identified with the settler movement -- backed Khan Al Ahmar's destruction.
The Supreme Court has also been moving towards accepting the Israeli government's argument that decades of land grabs by settlers should be retroactively sanctioned -- even though they violate Israeli and international law -- if carried out in "good faith."
Whatever the judges believe, there is nothing "good faith" about the behavior of either the settlers, or Israel's government towards communities like Khan Al Ahmar.
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' veteran peace negotiator, recently warned that Israel and the US were close to "liquidating" the project of Palestinian statehood.
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