Q: What is ICAHD-USA?
A: ICAHD-USA (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA) is an independent non-profit organization working to educate the American public on all aspects of the Israeli Occupation, including the demolition of Palestinian homes. ICAHD-USA believes that the only chance for a genuine peace in Israel/Palestine is to end the Occupation and support mutual self-determination of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. Whatever form a political settlement takes in the future, a just and lasting peace must provide all the peoples of the region with security, dignity, freedom and economic opportunities. Through speaking tours, informational campaigns, our web site and fundraising efforts, we share information and resources.
In early June 2007, ICAHD-USA launched the Constructing Peace Campaign with a commitment to rebuild every Palestinian house demolished in the 41st year of Israeli Occupation. ICAHD-USA is working with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)-Israel and ICAHD-UK to help us implement the Campaign. ICAHD-Israel is the only organization based in Israel/Palestine with a long track record of rebuilding demolished Palestinian homes.
Q: How many Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel?
A: Since the beginning of the Occupation in 1967, at least 18,000 homes have been destroyed in the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem. Tens of thousands of other homes have been left uninhabitable. Altogether around 50,000 people have been left homeless. More than 15,000 homes have been seriously damaged. Mosques, churches, and water wells have also been destroyed. Close to a million olive and fruit trees have been uprooted or cut down.
Q: How did you arrive at the number of 18,000 demolished homes?
A: At least 6,000 houses were demolished immediately following the 1967 war. Four entire villages were razed while hundreds of ancient homes were destroyed in Jerusalem’s Old City to create a plaza for the Wailing Wall. Then in 1971, Ariel Sharon, at that time Commander of the Southern Command, cleared 2,000 houses in the Gaza refugee camps to facilitate military control. (During his tenure as Prime Minister he oversaw the demolition of another 1500 homes in Gaza.) At least 2,000 houses in the Occupied Territories were destroyed in the course of putting a stop to the first Intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Another 1,700 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories were demolished by the Civil Administration during the course of the Oslo peace process (1993-2000). Since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000, about 5000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed in military operations, including hundreds in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and other cities of the West Bank, over half of those in Gaza. Hundreds of shops, workshops, factories and public buildings, including all the Palestinian Authority ministry offices in all the West Bank cities, have also been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. According to Amnesty International, more than 10% of the agricultural land of Gaza has been cleared during this time. Wells, water storage pools and pumps which provide water for drinking, irrigation and other needs for thousands of people, have also been destroyed, along with miles of irrigation networks.
From the fall of 2000 to the present, about 1900 Palestinian homes have been demolished by the Civil Administration for lack of proper permits (see below). More than 628 Palestinian homes have been demolished during the second Intifada as collective punishment of families of people known or suspected of involvement in attacks on Israeli civilians. In half these cases, the occupants had nothing whatsoever to do with the acts in question.
Q: Why does Israel demolish homes in the Occupied Territories?
A: The motivation for most demolitions is to insure Israel’s permanent control of the Occupied Territories. Home demolitions are part of a systematic policy designed to force Palestinians to abandon the land they own to make way for Israeli settlements, to construct the “Separation Barrier” or Israeli-only bypass roads, and generally to “thin” Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants.
A report issued in 2004 by B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, highlights three types of house demolitions:
Q: Are Israel’s house demolitions legal under international law?
A: No. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Occupying Powers are prohibited from this kind of activity. Article 53 reads: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons…is prohibited.” Under this provision, the practice of demolishing Palestinian houses is banned, as is the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure.
Q: What is an Israeli settlement?
A. Since 1967, Israel has established over 214 settlements in the West Bank. More than 450,000 Israelis now live beyond the “Green Line:” more than 200,000 in the West Bank and the other 240,000 in East Jerusalem. Contrary to popular belief, settlement expansion gained momentum during the years of the Oslo Peace Accords. During that time the Israeli government extended large settlement blocs strategically in the north, around East Jerusalem, and in the South. These large settlement blocs, which look like modern subdivisions, offer high quality government subsidized housing to the people who live there. In 2005, when over 7500 settlers were forcibly removed from Gaza in a much-publicized campaign, a report by Settlement Watch found that this removal was far outweighed by the resettlement of 14,000 people in Jewish settlements in the West Bank that year. For example, the East Jerusalem settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim projected growth from 30,000 to 45,000 inhabitants or settlers in that year, which they expect to double to over 70,000 settlers by 2010.
In addition to these large settlement blocs, ideological and religious Jews have established smaller settlements throughout the West Bank. These Jews are acting on their belief that the land is Biblically ordained for the Jewish people. Many settlements are serviced by special bypass roads that cut through wide swaths of Palestinian land and are restricted to Israeli vehicles. All settlements and roads are guarded by Israeli soldiers and checkpoints placed to insure the safety of settlers at the expense of the freedom of movement of Palestinians on their own land within the West Bank.
Q: What does the building of the Wall have to do with the demolition of Palestinian homes?
A. The Israeli government’s policy of settlement expansion, house demolitions, and construction of the Wall work together to accomplish what B’Tselem characterizes as an illegal land grab. The path of the Wall snakes deep into the West Bank, serving as a barrier that encircles and “protects” these illegal settlements. At the same time, Israeli government policy is to refuse to give building permits to Palestinians who want to build on their own land if it sits in the designated path of settlements or the Wall. Israel then issues demolition orders for the houses that Palestinians, desperate for a place to live and angry about policies that deny them the right to build on their own land, build anyway. So while the Israeli government demolishes homes built “illegally” for lack of a permit that they refuse to grant, they build huge settlement blocs and the Wall in contravention of international law as well as historical and common understanding of the rights of an occupying nation.
Q: Why do some people refer to apartheid when they are talking about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories?
A. Apartheid is the forced separation of populations in which one people establishes a regime of permanent and structured domination over another. Apartheid was first used to refer to the legal, social, and cultural practices of white South Africans (or Afrikaaners) who institutionalized racial, economic, and legal discrimination against native South Africans and other non-European groups.
Israel is building huge settlement blocs in the West Bank, housing literally hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers on Palestinian soil. The Wall (or “Separation Barrier”), a 26 foot high concrete wall in some places, an electrified fence in others, follows the outer edge of these settlements, essentially annexing huge areas of the West Bank into Israel. If you look at a map showing the footprint of the Israeli settlements, you see that they essentially break the West Bank into four small islands surrounded and essentially controlled by Israel.
Former President Jimmy Carter, a “hero” to Israelis for his brokering of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, is one of those suggesting that the term “apartheid” is appropriate to describe what is happening to Palestinians. It is not difficult to see the similarities with what were once black African “homelands” within South Africa – areas with extremely limited self-governing authority because they were politically and economically dependent on South Africa. South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu concurs, “I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.”
Indeed, Israel itself calls its policy hafrada, which means separation, the exact meaning of the word apartheid. We do not believe that the safety and security of one people, be they American or Jewish, can ever be obtained by the systemic and oppressive treatment of another. In fact we claim it is in Israel’s best interests when people name what the government is doing, since it is these horrific actions of the Israeli government that threaten the future of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians alike. This is why people use the word apartheid when referring to Israel/Palestine.
Q: Who is ICAHD and what is your relationship to them?
A: ICAHD-USA is working with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)-Israel and ICAHD-UK, two independent organizations with their own boards and staff, to help ICAHD-USA implement its Constructing Peace Campaign to rebuild every house demolished during the 41st year of the Occupation. ICAHD-Israel, based in Jerusalem, is the only organization in Israel/Palestine with a long track record of rebuilding demolished Palestinian homes. ICAHD is an independent Israeli human rights organization; their familiarity with realities “on the ground” gives their analysis a special authority, greatly appreciated by diplomats, fact-finding missions, the media and the public. ICAHD conducts tours of the Occupied Territories from a critical peace perspective, sends speakers on informational tours, initiates campaigns to secure a just peace, and participates in international conferences. In addition, ICAHD aids Palestinians seeking to protect their homes from the Israeli authorities by arranging legal assistance. ICAHD also works with other human rights organizations to present legal challenges to Israeli actions and policies in the Occupied Territories.
Q: Is ICAHD-USA rebuilding the homes of terrorists?
A: In February, 2005, the Israeli military abandoned its practice of demolishing the homes of the families of people it accused of being “terrorists” after an internal military report concluded that this practice not only fails to reduce the level of violence against Israel, but harms Israel’s own interests. As part of the Constructing Peace Campaign, ICAHD-USA will rebuild homes demolished for administrative reasons – the lack of a permit that Palestinians cannot obtain, to make room for expanding Israeli settlements, to construct the 26-foot high Wall that cuts deep into Palestinian territory, to create a network of Israeli-only bypass roads, and to “thin” Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants. We actively support those Palestinians, Israelis and internationals who rebuild together in acts of nonviolent opposition to the Occupation. ICAHD-USA denounces all forms of terrorism. At the same time, we also denounce the Israeli policy of house demolitions.
Q: Some houses are demolished after they have been rebuilt. Why rebuild them?
A: House demolitions are not a natural disaster. Unlike building after a flood, house demolitions are the result of policies – and these policies can be changed. Under all peace plans, including the Road Map, the Israeli government is required to end house demolitions. We build homes as nonviolent political acts of resistance to the Occupation. We and the families whose houses are rebuilt realize that there is a chance the houses will be demolished again. One of the rebuilt houses, the Shawamreh family home in Anata, has been demolished four times, and even now a fifth demolition is threatened. We rebuild nevertheless – time and time again if necessary – as a way of saying “no” to Occupation and the policies that perpetuate it. This represents a cooperative peacemaking process from the ground up, as Israelis, Palestinians and internationals join hands against unjust policies of the Occupation.
Q: What are donations to ICAHD-USA used for?
A: Donations to ICAHD-USA are used to support our Constructing Peace Campaign, through which we intend to rebuild all those homes demolished during the 41st year of the Occupation. In addition, ICAHD-USA uses donations for educational activities, such as the production of brochures, books, press releases, films, speaking tours and specific campaigns for disseminating information or mobilizing public opinion about the devastating impact of Occupation on both Israelis and Palestinians.
