So I would like to run through a few of the latest developments in Israel/Palestine, mostly having to do with home demolitions, which occur against Palestinians throughout historic Palestine. To start with, a friend of mine is facing jail time, and his only crime is that he opposed the demolition of a Palestinian home.
And home demolitions are something I have some personal experience with. Here is a home I used to stay in
And here it is after it was demolished
and of course, the rest of the village fared worse; and this is their village of course, I was only a guest.
This is in the South Hebron region. I diaried about it some time back, do feel free to check out the rest of the pics there if you like. Since then, their homes have been destroyed again, but I believe that ICAHD has been helping them out.
Along with ICAHD is another group, Taayush, and one of their volunteers is facing jail time for trying to non-violently prevent a home demolition at another village in that region. There is a very high level of settlement activity and army pressure on Palestinians in this region, because it is perfect for colonization; it has land with a less concentrated Palestinian population, as opposed to the neighboring citis as Yatta, Samu and Hebron (although there are settlers in Hebron, but that's a different story).
Here's Ezra when we were dealing with the army after a settler had just attacked me in the South Hebron region (the bald man pointing at the soldier).
he was yelling at the soldiers and talking with the people in the village, as he speaks both Arabic and Hebrew fluently, and then he gave me a ride to the police station. Here's what he's been up to recently;
and some more background info;
Israeli activist to be jailed for caring
Without international intervention, Israeli human rights activist Ezra Nawi will most likely be sent to jail. Nawi is not a typical rights activist. A member of Ta'ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership he is a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent who speaks fluent Arabic. He is a gay man in his fifties and a plumber by trade. Perhaps because he himself comes from the margins, he empathises with others who have been marginalised – often violently.
His "crime" was trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins from Um El Hir in the South Hebron region. These Palestinians have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years; they still live without electricity, running water and other basic services and are continuously harassed by Jewish settlers and the military – two groups that have united to expropriate Palestinian land and that clearly have received the government's blessing to do so.
People might assume that Nawi's impending imprisonment as well as other alarming developments (like the recent arrest of New Profile and Target 21 activists, who are suspected of abetting draft-dodgers) are due to the establishment of an extreme rightwing government in Israel. If truth be told, however, the rise of the extreme right merely reflects the growing presence of proto-fascist elements in Israeli society, elements that have been gaining ground and legitimacy for many years now.
What you see happening in this video, is, I would say that it is an act of terrorism in itself. What did these families do to deserve having their homes demolished like this? What possible good could it do? Did they do something wrong? Do you know what? Do you even know who they are? Do you honestly think that they will not suffer having their very home destroyed before their eyes? And why are the soldiers laughing in the face of their suffering?
Remember, terrorism is the act of violence against civilians for political gain, and the Israeli government is no stranger to such tactics. The entire policy of strangulating Gaza is an act of political violence against an entire population; change your elected government an submit to out dictates or we deny you food and medicine and the basics of survival.
The demolition of homes occurs throughout Historic Palestine, is not by any stretch of the imagination a response to terrorism; it is one of the many causes of Palestinian resentment and resistance to the Israeli occupation and state racism.
First, it is an act of collective punishment and a war crime to demolish homes, and many HRO's have said so for some time; the UN has just put out a report that thousands of homes in Jerusalem face demolition. Even when Israel would demolish the homes of Palestinians for acts of violence, it only amounted to a small percentage of the demolitions done (they stopped doing this in 2004 or so because they finally agreed with HRO's that the demolitions did not deter anyone; they just made people more angry, go figure). Don't believe me? Well check it out
On Monday, 19 January 2009, the Israeli army sealed off two floors in the family home of ‘Alaa Abu Dahim, who committed the terrorist attack at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva on 6 March 2008. The house is located in the Jabal Mukabber neighborhood of East Jerusalem. This is the first time in four years that Israel has sealed the house of relatives of Palestinians who carried out terror attacks against Israelis.
From 1967 to 2005, Israel implemented a policy of demolishing and sealing houses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to punish relatives of Palestinians who had harmed Israelis. Underlying the policy was the claim that, given potential attackers’ concerns for their families, it would deter Palestinians from carrying out terror attacks. In the framework of this policy, Israel demolished or sealed 667 houses from October 2001 to the end of January 2004, leaving more than 4,200 persons homeless.
In February 2005, Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon adopted the recommendation of a team appointed to analyze the matter, headed by Major General Udi Shani, that the policy should be terminated. The team found that house demolition does not serve to deter and causes greater damage than benefit. The team’s findings undermined the claim of deterrence that Israel had argued for many years.
Most are done due to lack of permits; Palestinians are denied permits, so they build illegally, which results in their homes being in danger of demolition. This is a way of controlling Palestinian demography, a way of keeping people hemmed into neighborhoods, towns and cities that are not given the ability to expand and grow. Why, you may ask? Because, as a Jewish state, such resources are directed to the Jewish sectors primarily. Don't believe me? Read my friend's book on the subject, its quite good;
State Practices and Zionist Images (Paperback) by David A. Wesley(Author)
Review
The author explores the activism demonstrated by Arab society in Israel in its struggle for progress, development, and full equality. Taking note of the commitment of Arab policy activists to the eventual success of this struggle, he calls upon the Jews of Israel to abandon the practices of Separatism and exclusion and to adopt instead a model of cooperation and partnership. --Hanna Swaid, Chairman of the Arab Centre for Alternative Planning, Ellaboun
The book is an important contribution to current scholarship on the Arab economy inside Israel. --Journal of Palestine Studies
[An] outstanding study of the structures and processes of development planning in the Galilee region of Israel... There are various reasons why this is, by some way, the most important book to date from Israeli anthropology. An ethnographic case study is presented that gets to the heart of the state and its government. But it does so in a way that frames the account as process rather than closed structure. A final thought, therefore, is that Wesley has effectively invited Israeli anthropologists to join the new historians in taking part in a project that invites the state to provide the space and conditions for both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to make a congenial home - as fellow and equal citizens. --jrai
Of course, if one is Jewish and/or a Jewish Israeli, the process of acquiring a home is a bit different;
and its not just homes; roads are also a part of the matrix of control
And let's run through what a couple Human Rights Organizations have to say on the subject of home demolitions;
Pretexts under which house demolitions are carried out:
Collective Punishment:
The Israeli government uses house demolitions as collective punishment in response to attacks on Israel; families of attackers or of people suspected of carrying out attacks as well as their neighbors or in some cases whole neighborhoods are subject to this illegal violation of human rights. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Occupying Powers are prohibited from destroying property or employing collective punishment. Article 53 reads: "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons...is prohibited." According to the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, 47% of houses demolished as punitive punishment were never the homes of attackers or suspected attackers on Israel but were houses adjacent to these homes. Additionally, only 3% of all occupants of demolished houses were given prior notice that the Israeli army would demolish their house or an adjacent one.
Military Operations:
The second reason given by the Israeli government for house demolition is an operational one which took place during military operations called "clearing operations". Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the destruction of property during combat is not illegal as such. Destruction is prohibited unless there is an absolute military necessity to do so. It has been observed however that large-scale demolition operations carried out on civilian homes in the name of necessary military operations immediately after an attack on Israelis suggest otherwise. Gaza more than anywhere else in Palestine has become the target of such actions and false justifications. Miloon Kothari a UN Special Rapporteur speaking to Diakonia in response to Israel's attack on Beit Hannoun on November 8th, 2006 said: " Since 25 June 2006, the most recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, I continue to receive alarming reports about deliberate attacks by Israeli forces resulting in the destruction of homes, civilian property and infrastructures in the Gaza Strip. Such acts have a devastating impact on civilians particularly, women and children, and create insecurity and psychological trauma. Thus, these forced evictions and unjustifiable destruction constitute breaches of international laws of human rights, war and humanitarian norms. International law strictly prohibits the destruction of private or public property when not absolutely necessary by military operations". Since the beginning of the uprising, 14,852 people have been made homeless by Israeli actions up to 2004.
Administrative policies:
The most common defense used for demolishing houses in east Jerusalem and Palestinian houses in Israel is for administrative reasons. The Israeli government demolishes houses in Area C (Palestine Areas under Israeli military and civil control) because of lack of building licenses even though attaining a building license in east Jerusalem or inside Israel is nearly impossible for Palestinians. Israeli army Legal Advisor Colonel Shlomo Politus told the Israeli Parliament in July 2003 that: "...there are no more construction permits for Palestinians," and the Israeli Army spokesperson told Amnesty International delegates in 1999 that "Our policy is not to approve building in Area C [of the West Bank]". Houses are demolished because Israel wants to expand the Israeli settlements in the West Bank as well as creating permanent facts on the ground.
BT'selem has more
Demolition of houses as a political act
Ostensibly, demolition of houses in Area C is a purely administrative procedure based solely on planning considerations. However, examination of the location and timing of demolitions and comparing them with the planning policy in the settlements indicate that the mass demolition policy serves objectives totally unrelated to planning. Palestinian homes are demolished in the context of a declared policy of strengthening and expanding Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and of creating permanent facts affecting negotiations over the final-status arrangements. Consequently, Palestinian houses are demolished to meet the following needs:
* Construction of bypass roads: Bypass roads are intended to enable movement of settlers and of military forces protecting the settlements. Houses lying alongside an existing or planned bypass road are designated to be demolished.
* Removal of Palestinians from areas adjacent to Israeli settlements: The Israeli authorities consistently demolish Palestinian structures that are perceived as hindrances to the establishment and expansion of Israeli settlement. The proximity of the houses to the settlements obviously is not raised as an official reason for the demolition in these cases.
* Prevent transfer of land to Palestinians: Israel demolishes houses in areas located on land that it wants to keep for itself in the final-status agreement. By pursuing this policy, Israel is preventing the Palestinian Authority from demanding the land on the grounds that Palestinians live there. Demolition of houses is a convenient way to expel residents from the area.
I leave you with the words of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu,
Netanyahu was helpful enough to elaborate on what he meant by "peace is in Israel's interest," when he said: "If Israelis can't build homes in the West Bank then Palestinians shouldn't be allowed to either," in reference to the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements and destruction of Arab homes.