AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2000, Pages 19, 64

Special Report

As Israelis Talk Peace (and More U.S. Aid), Demolitions of Palestinian Houses Soars Past 3,000

By Alan L. Heil Jr.

Even by Middle East standards, the continuing demolition of Palestinian dwellings by Israeli security forces places the ironies of history in shockingly bold relief.

Irony #1:

On June 5, the very day U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrived in Jerusalem for talks on ways of providing life support for the stalled Israel-Palestinian peace talks, 40 jeeps full of Israeli soldiers arrived with two bulldozers at the home of the Halifa family in Walaje, south of Jerusalem. Moments later, they demolished the dwelling. The charge: no building permit. The fact: the house stood on a plot of land which had been declared part of Greater Jerusalem by Israeli authorities in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention. An Israeli feminist human rights organization, Bat Shalom (Sisters of Peace) witnessed the act. In an e-mail circulated around the world, Bat Shalom said: ÒWe visited Walaje in the afternoon. The expression on the face of the lady of the house was that of frozen shock. She told us: ÔSo they pulverized the house. Then they insisted on demolishing my garden,Õ and she mimicked a soldier stomping on her poor tomatoes.Ó

Irony #2

On June 13, another Palestinian home was demolished in Jabel Mukabar, below the landmark Jerusalem Promenade. This house belonged to an Arab family which had been fighting for years to rebuild their crumbling old house. A permit for repairs was granted, but IsraelÕs Interior Ministry revoked this when part of the house collapsed and claimed there was no permit to build the structure. A court hearing was scheduled in early July to sort out the case. Early that morning of June 13, however, hundreds of military personnel showed up, with a representative of the Ministry of Interior, and bulldozers. The family begged for an hourÕs delay to permit them to consult their attorney and remove their personal belongings. The plea was ignored. Within minutes, the huge mechanized monsters of destruction went to work, and another of more than 3,000 homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank was turned into a pile of rubble. Death by demolition. Dr. Jeff Halper, head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, sat down in the path of the deadly machines, was handcuffed by the soldiers, dragged away, arrested, and held for several hours before being released on bail. For the family, no need to go to court now to determine the fine distinctions of permits to repair a dwelling, vis ˆ vis permits to build it. Instead, the Israeli head of the ICAHD would be in court to defend his right to stand courageously against yet another breach of international law.

Irony #3:

In late April 2000, members of the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) of Hebron and a delegation of women educators from the U.S. National Capital Presbytery showed up at a village just east of Hebron on the West Bank. They had been briefed by the CPT that the home of Akka Jaber was scheduled for demolition and they wanted to see what might happen. Jamey Bouwmeester of the CPT recalled the dayÕs events for a gathering of Sabeel North America at the Lincoln Park Methodist Church in Washington, DC on June 1:

Akka Jaber had lived all his life in the area east of Hebron. Two years ago, he got married, and wanted as a young groom to build a house in the village for his new family. But Akka couldnÕt get a building permit from the Israeli military occupation authorities. So he built it anyway, as many others have over the years. At the end of August 1998, an Israeli official came up to the new three-room cinderblock home and said: ÒYou have 30 days to demolish your houseÑif you donÕt do it, weÕll do it for you and charge you for it.Ó Akka did nothing, and one morning late in the month, he awakened to see the bulldozers out front. The family quickly evacuated and took out all its possessions. The home was destroyed in a few minutes. But neighbors were determined, and in just five days, they helped Jaber erect a new two-room house on the same plot of land. Earlier this year, the IDF returned with another warning notice. Twenty-seven days later, the bulldozers came back. The Jabers were outside, and heard them roaring toward the site. Their tiny children, inside, started screaming. Akka, resisting the soldiers, rushed into the house to grab his tiny baby and another two-year-old. They just managed to get out before the machines ploughed the structure and leveled it to the ground. Akka held the baby out to one of the Israeli soldiers. ÒHere,Ó he said, Òyou take him and raise him. I canÕt.Ó He was arrested on the spot and clapped into jail for 12 days. Among several charges: ÒAssault by infant.Ó Mind you, AkkaÑlike countless other Palestinian victims of house demolitionÑwas not a terrorist. True, he had not gotten a building permit, but in what country on the face of the earth is the penalty for not getting a building permit the destruction of not one, but two homes? AkkaÕs sentence was suspended after 12 days, but conditionally. There were to be no alterations on his property, or he would be re-arrested. As Jamey Bouwmeester put it: ÒHe couldnÕt build another homeÉhe couldnÕt even plant a tomato.Ó

Irony #4:

The official who has signed off on all the demolitions for the past year is Israeli Housing Minister Natan Sharansky, one of the great human rights activists of the 20th century. He was among the most prominent Soviet dissidents, known then as Anatoly Scharansky, released in a celebrated prisoner exchange with Moscow in the 1980s after years in Soviet prisons and extended negotiations between Western and Soviet diplomats.

A letter circulated by Bat Shalom and addressed to Interior Minister Sharansky recalls his own past, and contrasts it with the orders he so routinely signs today:

ÒYears ago, world public opinion rallied behind you to secure your release from the KGB jail. At that time, YOU protested against the racist policies of the Soviet government implemented against you, a Russian Jew. Now you became the initiator of state-sanctioned demolition of Palestinian homes. YOU, Ôthe hero of our timesÕ who as a young and healthy man so bitterly complained when the KGB confined you to a punishment cell where the Ôtemperature was almost always below 18 degrees C,Õ do not hesitate to send out entire Palestinian families with little babies, children and women into the open air of Jerusalem.

ÒThere are no geographic or ethnic borders to human suffering. So please do not try and tell us that you are only maintaining law and order. Let us refer you to p. 154 of your own memoirsÑthis is exactly what your KGB interrogator tried to tell you. And do not tell us that we are interfering in the affairs of a foreign state. This is exactly what international activists on your behalf were told by the Soviets. Stop the Palestinian home demolitions now.Ó

Alan Heil served as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East from 1968-71, and lived from the mid-1960s to early 1970s in Beirut, Cairo and Athens.