|
http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=468
It was another of those routine tragedies that are never
publicized. At eight in the morning we at ICAHD (the Israeli Committee
Against House Demolitions) received a call that the Border Police, Israeli
police and Jerusalem Municipality bulldozers were
massing below the Palestinian village
of Anata,
poised to begin another day of home demolitions. We never know of demolitions
ahead of time. The Israeli authorities responsible for demolishing
Palestinian homes – the municipality and the Ministry of Interior in
Jerusalem, the “Civil” Administration in the West Bank and the army – do not
provide advanced warning to us or, indeed, to the families themselves. Tens
of thousands of Palestinian families live with demolition orders on their
homes, some 22,000 in East Jerusalem alone,
where fully a third of Palestinian homes face demolition at any time. When we
received word of preparations for a demolition that morning, however, we knew
precisely which home would be targeted first: that of the Hamdan
family, the elderly parents their married son and daughter-in-law with their
five children, and an unmarried son. It was a home we had rebuilt for the
second time in last summer’s ICAHD work camp, when Israeli and international
peace activists joined with local Palestinians to rebuild as an act of
political resistance to the Occupation.
In fact, we had been present at the original demolition two and a half years
before, a report of which, entitled “The Miserable Occupation on a Miserable
Morning,” appeared on our website. At that time, 6:30 on a very cold and
rainy morning in late November, 2005, ICAHD staff, volunteers and activists
had rushed to Anata to witness, document and resist
the demolition of the Hamdan family home – and
subsequently of their next door neighbor. By the time we arrived the area had
already been blocked off by the Israeli Border Police, so we had been unable
to approach the houses. We watched from afar as a bulldozer systematically demolished
the homes, leaving a pile of rubble and the shattered families standing
amidst their belongings in the freezing rain, wondering where to go, where
they would sleep that night, how to survive without a home and any financial
resources. Later that day we learned that another five Palestinian homes had
been demolished: three in Beit Hanina,
one in Isawia and another one in A-Tur. The home of yet another family suffered an even more
grotesque fate. In a "compromise" with the court, the family is to
demolish half its house with its own hands, while the other half will be
sealed while the family attempts to obtain a building permit.
Only one small but devastating incident distinguished the Hamdan
demolition this past week from the normal routine. As Shaadi
Hamdan and I were standing in front of the home, we
were accosted by a slim, blond Border Policeman, probably of Russian origin.
“I was born to demolish Palestinian homes,” he informed us mockingly, a big
smile on his face, a swagger in his movements. “I love demolishing homes. I
wake up in the morning hungry to demolish homes.” With that he walked away. I
can’t convey the mixture of anguish, anger, bewilderment and resignation that
crossed Shaadi’s face at that moment. He simply
stood aside as his home was demolished for the second time.
I could not stand aside. Sensing that the forcible removal of the family’s
possessions (or most of them) was about to cease and the demolition begin, I
seized the moment and rushed into the home, planting myself in a corner of
what had been the kitchen before the surprised Border Police could react. The
head of the police unit rushed up to me sitting on the floor and ordered me
to leave. My conscience as an Israeli, a Jew and a human being forbids me to
permit this illegal and immoral act of demolition from taking place, I told
him. In fact, I informed him, I am placing you under citizen’s arrest for
violating the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 53), which prohibits the
demolishing of homes in occupied territories. I thereby asked the
accompanying policemen to arrest him. Sputtering, furious, he placed plastic
handcuffs on me and had me forcibly thrown out of the house.
Lying on the ground as the bulldozer commenced its evil work,
I noted what I often see at demolitions: police and soldiers standing around
laughing among themselves, eating sandwiches, swapping the latest sports
news. Taking advantage of their being distracted from the demolition itself,
I suddenly sprang up and made a run for the bulldozer. The police chased me
and wrestled me to the ground. Furious at this additional challenge to his
authority, the policeman in charge had me put in
tight metal handcuffs and, since I refused to walk, dragged down the
mountainside to an awaiting paddy wagon.
Nothing, of course, happened to me, besides a few bruises. The Border
Policeman “born to demolish” paraded around me repeating his delight at the
day’s events, all of which ICAHD activists recorded on film. But we Israeli
Jews enjoy a privileged position. We know the police or soldiers will not
shoot us, will not beat us, will not detain us for long, and so we exploit
that privilege in ways that Palestinians can’t. Shaadi
would have been shot for doing what I did. We also know another sad fact:
that unless an Israeli like me performs such a dramatic act, no one will
notice the demolitions that take place almost daily in Jerusalem, the West
Bank and, yes, Gaza. The news spread quickly throughout the world. I was
interviewed that day, my hands still in handcuffs, by radio stations from South Africa to Norway. I tried, of course, to
put my action in context, to stress that my experience paled next to the
crime that had been perpetrated upon the Hamdan
family by the Israeli authorities. But I knew the truth: only the arrest of
an Israeli makes the news; Palestinian suffering, as their very claim for
justice, is ignored. Still, resistance is necessary.
The Hamdan family is now in serious debt and
without a home of their own. The three family units have been scattered amongst
their relatives. We have offered to rebuild the home, but Shaadi
says he has no more stomach for the unending cycle of building and
demolishing. He doesn’t see the point of it, neither as an act of political
resistance about which no one seems to care nor as a
solution to his personal problems. Unable or unwilling to leave the country,
which is what Israel’s policy of house demolitions is all about, he will sink
into the woodwork, managing to survive out of sight as do millions of other
Palestinians. Overwhelmed by the scope of demolitions, it is unlikely we will
stay in close touch with him as well. With 18,000 homes demolished in the Occupied Territories since 1967 and thousands
more targeted, we will do our best to resist those demolitions we can reach.
We have rebuilt about 150 homes in the past eleven years, a drop in the
bucket in terms of those needing to be rebuilt but significant in terms of
acts of political resistance. Shaadi might not see
it, and the Palestinian Authority does not pursue it, but ICAHD has succeeded
in raising the issue of house demolitions among both governments and civil
society in countries around the world. Ending house demolitions is in the
first phase of the all-but-defunct Road Map.
Still, the demolition of the Hamdan home reminds us
that Israel continues to strengthen and expand its Occupation daily, through
the demolition of Palestinian homes, the expropriation of their land, massive
settlement construction, the building of a massive highway system that
separates Israeli from Palestinian traffic, the continued construction of the
Wall and in a hundred other ways that escape public attention – all in
violation of the so-called Road Map to which the US and Europe claim to be so
committed.
Our struggles against the Occupation must continue, of course, even if no
solution is apparent. Many of us in the critical Israeli peace movement
believe that the two-state solution has been eliminated by Israel’s
settlement policies (unless we accept the notion of a Palestinian Bantustan,
which we do not), but we doubt that a one-state solution will garner the
support needed to become a practical program. Many Palestinians like Shaadi feel isolated and even defeated; they persevere,
but are in desperate need of international support and protection until a
solution – or the will to impose a solution – emerges. We must redouble our
opposition to the Occupation in order to show Shaadi
that, in fact, the rebuilding his home is part of an effective political
movement that will achieve Palestinian national rights and a just peace. We
can begin with a minimalist demand that Rice, Blair, Ban and the other
international decision-makers should have insisted upon years ago: that Israel
end the demolishing of Palestinian homes NOW.
(Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at ).
|
