P.S. | Summer Camp Participant
Today saw the result of several days’ hard work rebuilding the home the Jerusalem City Council ordered to be destroyed. The destruction was carried out last week and we pulled together to swiftly put right that wrong.
First the doors and windows were completed, internal pointing finished off, tiles repaired and sinks and toilet units installed. By the late afternoon the Mustafa family were so keen to move back in that those working inside suddenly found themselves having to manoeuvre around an ever-increasing pile of household furniture and other items.
The team split into two groups with one half handing furniture over the fence from the garden, where the items had been stored out in the open, to the other half who then manhandled them along the track through the front door and into the house. There had of course been breakages in the rush to rescue their belongings. And carefully handling the plastic sacks of clothing, bedding and other household items gave a see-through glimpse into a family’s privacy violated.
On the one hand there was satisfaction at showing we would never give in, never surrender and abandon these innocent families to the repugnant repression of the Occupier. On the other, many volunteers felt deep and heartfelt anger at this repression, which has nothing to do with ‘security’ but everything to do with harassment and subjugation. We will never surrender to this. We will always resist and fight back. We wish the family well in their rebuilt home.
Great progress was made too in the Hamdan house, with floor tiling and grouting well underway, with only one more room to do and the stairwell to finish. And singing lessons for one of the rooftop cement-mixing crew!
The evening’s lecture was a first class, highly revealing and informative talk on the hidden and open financial and social costs of the occupation to Israeli citizens. We learned that behind the spin and gloss of an apparently vibrant Israeli economy was a lurking and imminent melt-down.
We learned that financial aid to the settlers cost Israeli society $3 billion a year, and the cost of maintaining the Occupation $6 billion a year, that whilst the Israeli population was growing only 2% a year, this was outstripped by the growth of settler population of 8% a year.
To pay for this the Government was having to sell off State enterprise – refineries, shipping lines, industries, but they are running out of State sector assets to sell. We learned that the cost of the Wall had quadrupled and that a former Occupied Territory General Officer, Ya’ir Golan, had said publicly that the reason for the Wall was to separate populations and not to protect Israeli lives – this latter aim could be done far more cheaply in other ways.
Private armed security personnel guarding banks, shops, and other public facilities, now outnumbered the total strength of the IDF. And that crime was soaring because the Police were mandated to fight terrorism not crime. There was a brain drain with academics leaving for better jobs abroad, which led to the final question - would Israel be around in 50 years’ time?
Well if it is, and they are still destroying homes in defiance of international humanitarian law, then rest assured ICAHD will be around too, resisting oppression and fighting back!
Mustafa family moving in to the newly built house
