[Professor Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), excoriates the recent Israeli Supreme Court decision permitting the army to bulldoze the houses of family members of those implicated in (or even suspected of) fomenting terror attacks. The decision is a violation of human rights on at least three counts: imputation of guilt by association, lack of due process, and violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention's proscription of collective punishment. 49 Palestinian families are immediately affected by this decision. Halper asserts that Israel's continuing emphasis on house demolition reflects many aspects of the present conflict, but above all the message that Palestinians must "submit" to Israel's claim to the land and the priority of Israeli Jewish settlement on it. Halper even suggests that Israel's flag should include two symbols of its might: the tank and the bulldozer -- that is, the sign of its military prowess and, the underside of that power, its willingness to displace Palestinians in order to fulfil the Jewish national dream. Indeed, Israel has demolished 9000 Palestinian homes since 1967 (this does not, of course, include the massive displacements of 1948). Halper points out that apart from the terrible toll such destructiveness has taken on Palestinian existence, there has also been a high cost for Israel in terms of mounting xenophobia, racism and social polarization and a sense of the tearing of the social (not to mention economic fabric). The efforts of ICAHD to address the depravity of house demolitions deserve widespread and generous support. --LS]
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) deplores this
week's decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice against permitting
judicial review for families of Palestinians who whose homes are targeted
for demolition because a family member has been involved in (or even suspected
of) terror attacks. True to the pattern of many years, the Court has accepted
the argument of the army that such demolitions take place as integral parts
of military operations. Israel's High Court thus permits the setting aside
of fundamental human rights in favor of military considerations (which are
but extensions of the government's political goals).
What human rights are violated by this decision?
This sad decision, which immediately effects 49 Palestinian families
whose homes may be demolished at any time, represents the steady erosion
of Israeli democracy as it tries to cope with popular resistance to an illegal
Occupation. In its decision, the High Court itself subordinates the rule
of law, not to mention human rights, to the requirements of military repression.
In the simplest terms, it condones and permits war crimes. Absolute rule
over another people is possible only by denying them fundamental legal protection.
In the end, this must destroy the very moral and legal basis underlying
democracy and law.
For the past six years ICAHD has been working on the issue of house
demolitions. Every time we think: "OK, we've exhausted the subject, let's
go on to other, perhaps more pressing issues," the systematic destruction
of Palestinian homes returns to the center of the conflict with a vengeance.
It happened in the Jenin refugee camp, where the indomitable drivers of the
massive D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers labored for three straight days and nights
demolishing more than 300 homes in the densely packed camp, thereby becoming
the heroes of the invasion. And it is happening today as Israel demolishes
dozens of houses belonging to families of terrorists, a form of collective
punishment that is clearly a war crime.
Why? Why does house demolitions remain at the center of the conflict?
Why has it been at the center of the Israeli struggle against the Palestinians
since 1948? There are many specific reasons given: security, deterrence,
punishment, self-defense, warfare, "illegal" construction, enforcement of
the law and on and on. But one element remains throughout: The Message. Sharon,
like his predecessors, never tire of warning that Israeli attacks on the
Palestinians will continue "until they get The Message." What is The Message?
As stated by Sharon and the others (going back some 80 years to the "Iron
Wall" concept of Jabotinsky and Ben Gurion), The Message is: "Submit. Only
when you abandon your dreams for an independent state of your own, and
accept that Palestine has become the Land of Israel, will we relent." But
The Message goes even deeper, is more sinister than that. The Message of
the Bulldozers is: "You do not belong here. We uprooted you from your homes
in 1948 and prevented your return, and now we will uproot you from all of
the Land of Israel. "Transfer" has become an acceptable topic of television
talk shows. And that is why house demolitions remain so prominent, the bulldozer
beside the tank. Because in the end this process of reoccupation is one
of displacement.
The bulldozer certainly deserves to take its rightful place alongside
the tank as a symbol of Israel's relationship with the Palestinians. The
two deserve to be on the national flag. The tank as symbol of an Israel "fighting
for its existence," and for its prowess on the battlefield. And the bulldozer
for the dark underside of Israel's struggle for existence, its ongoing struggle
to displace the Palestinians from the country. For Israel has always treated
the Palestinians as an enemy, never as a people with collective rights
and legitimate claims to the country with which it might someday live in
peace. In 1948 Israel played an active role in driving 75% of the Palestinians
from the Land. Over the next four or five years the bulldozer, following
the tank, systematically demolished 418 Palestinian villages. Since 1967,
as Israel's tanks suppress Palestinian resistance to the Occupation with
increasing frequency and ferocity, its bulldozers (aided by artillery and
missiles) have demolished more than 9000 Palestinian homes and counting.
Even as I write this, a day after the Israeli High Court of Justice gave
its consent to demolishing houses of families of terrorists without warning
or a chance to appeal to the court, houses are being bulldozed in Bethlehem
and Gaza with dozens more threatened throughout the Occupied Territories.
And not only. Throughout Israel proper, in the "unrecognized villages" and
Palestinian neighborhoods of Ramle, Lod and elsewhere, houses continue to
be demolished 54 years later. Jews now live in Palestinian houses in Israel's
major cities and Palestinian villages have long disappeared under the agricultural
fields of kibbutzim and moshavs. Amidst this destruction 150,000 housing
units have been built for the 400,000 Jews living across the 1967 border.
The bulldozer remains at the center of the "action" for the simple reason
that repression and control alone do not secure the country for those --
the Jews -- whose claim excludes all others. Those with competing claims
-- the Palestinians -- must be displaced if the Jews are really going to
take possession, or at least confined to small islands where they cannot
interfere with or challenge Israeli dominion. (The announcement this week
by the Ministry of the Interior that Palestinian Israelis would be stripped
of their citizenship if proven "unloyal" to the State extends the work of
bulldozers.)
But just as Israel cannot insulate itself from the Occupation, so too
it cannot escape the ravages of its own house demolitions policy. Fear
that the displaced might yet rise again and claim their patrimony prevents
Israelis from enjoying the fruits of their power. The country has been seized
by rising xenophobia and national-religious fanaticism. Polarization characterizes
the relations between the right and left, Jewish and Arab citizens, Jews
of European and Middle East origin, the working and middle classes, religious
and secular. Israelis are "hunkering down," increasingly isolated from the
world. Young Israeli men and women are themselves brutalized as they are
sent as soldiers to evict Palestinian families from their homes. Even the
beauty of the land is destroyed as the authorities rush to construct ugly,
sprawling suburbs and massive highways in order to "claim" the land before
Palestinians creep back in. Aesthetics, human rights, environmental concerns,
education, social justice these are the finer things of life that cannot
coexist with displacement and occupation. "Fortress Israel," as we call
it, is by necessity based on a culture of strength, violence and crudity.
In the final analysis, it will be the bulldozer that razes the structure
that once was Israel.
