Israeli army destroys the house and farm of the al-Rajabi family - photo by CPT

Two CPTers arrived at the main road near the house and saw six military jeeps, three police vehicles, and three intelligence service vehicles at the site. Initially, the Israeli authorities prevented CPTers from approaching the scene. When they asked soldiers why they were demolishing the farm, a soldier replied, “Because we are the army.”

From the place where they could view the demolition, the CPTers could see Caterpillar and Hyundai bulldozers destroying a farm building and a caravan (mobile home) in which the family lived. The children of the family came to the main road and one of the boys told them that he could take them through the fields to get a closer view of the destruction of his father’s farm.

By now, the two bulldozers had started to demolish a large corrugated iron barn where the family kept their cows; it destroyed milking machines and other equipment worth over 8000 USD in the process.

The farmer told CPTers, “Destroying my home…I can rebuild and while I am rebuilding I can stay with another family member but destroying my farm—it’s not only destroying my livelihood but also the livelihoods of three other families; our farm is our bread and butter.”

The farmer has two wives and fifteen children to support and now he is worried how he will manage financially. He was looking at his one hundred cows, who were sitting in the oppressive heat. The farmer said that if they were not milked soon, they would die.

On May Day, all Israeli government offices are closed; the Israeli military evidently was not observing this national holiday when it destroyed the livelihoods of these four families.

Source: IMEMC

Ehud Barak, Israel’s increasingly hawkish defense minister, approved an intelligence recommendation to demolish the houses of Hakim and Ajmad Awad, two cousins from the Palestinian village of Awarta.

Jeff Halper: Well let me give you a broader picture about the whole thing and then we can go back and put it into context. I think what’s coming down the pipeline is that Israel today has basically finished this. We’ve gone beyond the occupation. The Palestinians have been pacified and from Israel’s point of view the whole conflict, the whole situation has been normalised.

Netanyahu went last month to Washington to meet with Obama. When he came back his adviser was asked what was new about this meeting. And his adviser said, “This is the first time in memory that an Israeli Prime Minister met with a US president and that the Palestinian issue was not even mentioned, it never came out.” So, in that situation where the US is really paralysed because Netanyahu has both parties in congress and Obama does not want to do anything – Netanyahu is going to make the last move in nailing this whole thing down.

Israel could well annex Area C. Area C is 60 per cent of the West Bank. Now, the European council general in Jerusalem and Ramallah, a couple of months ago sent a report to the EU, saying that Israel has forcibly expelled the Palestinians from Area C. Forcible expulsion is hard language for European diplomats to use.

So Area C has less than 5 per cent of the Palestinian population. In 1967 the Jordan Valley had about 250,000 people. Today, it’s less than 50,000. So the Palestinians have either been driven out of the country, especially the middle class, or they have been driven to Area A and Area B. That’s where 96 or 97 per cent of them are.

The Palestinian population has been brought down low enough, there is probably somewhere around 125,000 Palestinians in Area C, so Israel could annex Area C and give them full citizenship. In other words Israel can absorb 125,000 Palestinians without upsetting the demographic balance, you see. And then, what is the world going to say? It’s not apartheid; Israel has given them full citizenship. So I think that Israel feels it could get away with that. No one cares about what’s happening in Area A and Area B. If they want to declare a state, they can declare a state. Israel has no interest in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron.

The US, by the way, has already agreed that the settlement blocks are part of Israel. Annexing Area C does not go so much beyond the settlement blocks. It’s just pushing the envelope a little bit more. Then you come to Jerusalem. I think what Israel is going to do is that it will give the Palestinians in the north and the south, in Beit Hanina, Shuafat, Tubat… it will allow them to have Palestinian citizenship. Israel, in a sense, gets rid of 100,000 Palestinians. What the government has already indicated it was going to do is that the wall around Jerusalem will be the border. So what’s happening today is that because of the house demolitions and the policy of freezing the constructions Israel is allowing - it’s still illegal of course - but Shuaffat and Anata, have now been cut out by a huge wall a huge terminal.

The tremendous building behind the wall is still in Jerusalem, so  Palestinians are moving from inside the wall into that area. And the same thing is true in the north. So you are getting maybe another 100,000 or so Palestinians to move into those areas. Then, once they are there, Israel cuts them off. Israel now says the wall is the border, we give up Anata, Shuafat – and so in a sense, what you’ve done is join those areas into Area C. So now Israel has the whole country, its isolated the 97 per cent of the Palestinians into area A and B. Jerusalem is now 80 to 85 per cent Jewish because these big Palestinian populations you either got them out completely like Shuafat and Anata or inside the wall you’ve given them Palestinian citizenship so you don’t have to deal with them. So Israel retains kind of that centre.

Israeli border policeman and soldiers try entering a building during recent Land Day demonstrations. Land Day commemorates the murder of Palestinians by Israeli forces during a 1976 protest against the occupation. (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)

And it’s over.

In other words, we’re finished. Israel is now from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, the Palestinians have been confined in Areas A and B or in small enclaves in East Jerusalem, and that’s it. Now the wrinkle is that I think they will do this with the agreement of the Palestinian Authority because Fayyad is a neoliberal.

Fayyad is saying to Israel, we don’t need territory. If you give us economic space, to do business, and our business class can do okay and we can trickle down to our working classes, it’s good enough. So we don’t need Area C. As a matter of a fact what the European Counsel General said in its report is that the Palestinian Authority has given up Area C. Completely. When government or agencies come to the Palestinian Authority for investments, the PA tell them invest only in Area A and Area B. Do not invest in Area C. They’ve given up C.

The idea is that Israel allows trade, to move freely between these Palestinian enclaves. I call it “viable apartheid”. I think Fayyad has developed a viable apartheid, saying that in the neoliberal world we need economic space, not territorial space. You let us move our goods freely into the Arab world, you give us an access to the Israeli market, and it’s fine. In other words, all the developments, like this new city Rawabi for upper-class Palestinians, are in the contours of Area A and B. They are now building a highway from Ramallah to Jericho; the Japanese are building it with the PA. Then either the Japanese or USAID will build from Ramallah to Bethlehem so greater Jerusalem, with E1, will be incorporated into Israel.

I think you can get into a deal where Israel annexes Area C, it’s taken Jerusalem, they’ll give the Palestinians something symbolic like control of Haram Al Sharif/The Temple Mount, you can put up a capital in Abu Dis again. Basically, what I am saying is not only that they are they going to nail this down but they will do it with the agreement of the Palestinian Authority. If you give Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians in Area C and the PA agrees, that’s economic peace that Netanyahu and Fayyad talk about. So that’s the big picture.

FB: So when people talk about a Palestinian state on 22 per cent of historical Palestine, it’s not even that, right? The number is much smaller.

JH: Yes, what Fayyad is saying is our state does not have to be on any particular amount of territory; our state is an economic state and we can work around you annexing this and that because we can make our cities. The idea is that Israel we’ll give them a bit of Area C, to put the enclaves a little bit more together. So you still have the cantons, of the north, the south and Gaza. So they will still be cantonised but what Fayyad is saying is we can make a go of that. Both Netanyahu and Fayyad have moved from a territorial conception of two states to an economic conception of two states, which is a whole different kind of thing.

The problem that the bosses have is how to sell that to the Palestinian people. But it seems to me that this is what is coming down the pipeline.

What Israel is relying on, maybe the PA as well, I don’t know how to put this exactly. Israel feels that the Palestinians have been defeated. It’s over. Resistance is impossible because of the Israeli army, the Palestinian proxy army, the wall, I mean, you can’t mount a third intifada. Israel policy since the Iron Wall of 1923 has been despair.

I wrote an article about this once “Despair as a policy“. The Zionists have always always said that once the Arabs despair, and Jabotinsky put it interestingly “despair of the land of Israel ever becoming Palestine” - that was the end, victory for them. Israel feels that it’s what we have got now. If you go today to the West Bank, Gaza might be different, you’ll hear the people say that they don’t care anymore, let me have a job, let me live my life and I’ll be happy. In a sense, Fayyad feels he can respond to that.

FB: Some pogroms took place recently when a group of Beitar soccer fans attacked Palestinian workers in a shopping mall. Were those people a few bad apples, or are these type of events do indeed say something about Israeli society?

JH: They are more than bad apples. They are not completely Israeli society either. This football team in Jerusalem is connected to the Likud. In Israel many football clubs are associated with political parties. There is a very close relation between the ideology of Likud and Begin and the Beitar football team. They see the Arabs as the enemy. So it reflects about a third of the Israeli public, that is very committed to expansion, settlements, see the Arabs as the enemies. It reflects that.

You know, in Beitar, their chants, it’s not just the pogroms. They chant everytime their team scores a goal, “Death to the Arabs”. That’s what 20,000 people chant. Beitar for example has never ever had an Arab player. The Arabs are beginning to be more prominent in Israeli football teams. Not in Beitar Jerusalem. This pogrom is kind of an extension of this. It’s all in the context of kids, for the most part its kids that have seen Israel moved into a neoliberal economy, more and more Thatcherite, and you have tremendous income disparity in Israel. Israel is now in the OECD, it has one of the highest income disparity I think, maybe the US excluded.

Kids have got no real future, that’s part of the context too. Those kids come from the housing projects, very much like National Front in France or EDL in England, people that only have this racist emotional outlet for their frustrations, and football is great for that. It channels anger away from the government. That’s why they sponsor football teams!

FB: How important are the words we use, in your opinion when it comes to Palestine/Israel? Ilan Pappe recently told me that we should rethink our dictionary/vocabulary. Can we objectively still talk about peace/occupation? Shouldn’t we talk about the right to resist and apartheid instead?

JH: For sure. We deal a lot with words in our analysis. There are two words, because I think occupation is an old word. We are way beyond occupation. I think we are also way beyond apartheid. There are two words that capture the political reality but don’t have any legal substance today. One of them is Judaisation. It’s a word that the government uses, to Judaise Jerusalem, the Galilee, so that’s a Judaisation process that really is the heart of what’s going on. But it has no legal reference. So one of our project, we’re working with Michael Sfard and some other lawyers, is to try to introduce those terms into the discourse with the idea of trying to give them some legal frame.

We have to try to match the political process, the political reality, because it is unprecedented in the world. Another term is “warehousing” because I think that captures what’s going on better than apartheid. Warehousing is permanent. Apartheid recognises that there is another side. With warehousing it’s like prisons. There is no other side. There is us, and then there are these people that we control, they have no rights, they have no identity, they’re inmates. It’s not political, it’s permanent, static. Apartheid you can resist. The whole brilliance of warehousing is that you can’t resist because you’re a prisoner. It’s like prisons. Prisoners can rise in the prison yards but prison guards have all the rights in the world to put them down. That’s what Israel has come to.

They are terrorists and we have the right to put them down. In a sense Israel has succeeded with the international community, and the US especially to take out of this situation the political. It’s now solely an issue of security, just like in prisons. It’s another concept that does not have any legal reference today but we’d like to put that in because warehousing is not only in Israel. Warehousing exists all over the capitalist world. That’s why I am writing about Global Palestine. I’m saying that Palestine is a microcosm of what’s happening around the world.

FB: You recently wrote: “Unlike most of my comrades, I do not think that activism by itself can achieve political results…until a reinvigorated Palestine National Council (PNC) or other representative agency can be constituted, a daunting but truly urgent task, Palestinian civil society might coalesce enough to create a kind of interim leadership bureau”. Is this being done in your opinion and what could we, solidarity activists, do better?

JH: No, and that’s the problem. Because even if there is a collapse of this political situation we are talking about and new possibilities emerge, like a one state, bi-national or regional confederation, all kinds of possibilities that don’t exist today. And let’s say BDS and resistance have an effect. I really believe this conflict is unsustainable. I don’t think Israel can win. So if Israel’s project collapses, then what? Because today, there is no Palestinian agency.

The only Palestinian agency is the PA – and it has no legitimacy. And then, in a way, to tell you the truth, I was a little bit upset with the Palestinian Left when Abu Mazen (President Mahmoud Abbas) went to the UN to ask for recognition of Palestine and they undercut him. Not because they were wrong; I could agree with them. I agree that it does not help, but don’t do that two weeks before he goes. This whole thing was gelling for a year. So you say, a year, nine months before, no. We don’t accept this. You don’t undercut the person who for most people represents Palestine two weeks before he goes. Where were you before?

The other question I have for people who say that Abbas has not legitimacy, that he should not have gone… so what? I mean, we have to liberate Palestine, right? And Abu Mazen is not the one to do it, so what? I kept asking all those people, so what do you suggest? You’re against him going, fine. So what are you suggesting? The only thing they came back with, weakly, was BDS. BDS is a tool, not a strategy, it’s not going to liberate Palestine. It’s a tool. OK, let’s say BDS succeeds, Israel is brought down to its knees by this tactic. So what? Who is going to pick up the pieces? There is no agency. Who is going to decide if it is a two-state solution, a one state, who is going to negotiate? That’s the real problem.

The only agency that has that mandate, legitimacy, and is really representative is the Palestine National Council (PNC). I have no idea where that initiative is going. I understand in a way why they are not talking about it because it’s very delicate and they are doing it quietly. I mention this but I am not writing about it, because it’s not my issue, it’s a Palestinian issue. But the point is that without Palestinian leadership and without an agency, we’re stuck. I feel that we’ve gone as far as we can go.

We’ve brought this to governments, we’ve raised public awareness, we’ve had campaigns, we’ve done this for decades, we’ve made this collectively, one of two or three really global issues. But without Palestinians we can only take it so far. This is their moment. If there is no PNC and the PA is either going to collapse or be collaborationist, then what? I am trying to challenge a little bit my Palestinian counterparts. Where are you guys?

To tell me “BDS” is not the answer, that’s a tool. In some ways, the Palestinians that we work with owe us a certain strategy. Even if they don’t want to get into the details of this PNC thing, they should say something is cooking. Because what’s going to happen is that people will get fed up, depressed, and move on to other issues. There are many issues around the world.

One word embodies that: colonialism. For the Palestinians it is definitely settler colonialism. There is no question, it’s obvious. People coming in from Russia, saying it’s my country. Okay. For the Jewish point of view it is no settler colonialism. There is a genuine feeling that there is a tie to this country, they speak Hebrew - in other words, the Jews are not strangers.

You can agree to disagree or whatever but the problem is that as the colonial discourse gets stronger and stronger in the Palestinian left, there really is going to be a deligimitisation of anything Israeli. It’s important because our conception with the left in Israel has always been that whatever the solution was, it had to be inclusive, like in South Africa. Now, there is a retreat from that. In other words, the alternative to the South African model is the Algerian one.

Once you liberate Palestine you guys go back to to where you came from - you’re out of here. That is why I don’t think it is settler colonialism. There is no mother country. It isn’t like France where you could go back to France. Where are the Israelis going to go back to, especially now with all those new generations? It’s not being articulated, nobody is saying it. It’s being articulated under the rubric of normalisations.

The Palestinian Left is pulling back from working with groups like ours, even the anti-Zionists like ourselves. You see it, for example, in the global march to Jerusalem. It’s always phrased as “this is a Palestinian and international struggle”. Where are we? Even non-Zionist? Where are we? The answer that I got from a few people was “we put you with internationals”. Which is wow, that means something.

My problem is that I cannot obviously be part of a struggle which is not inclusive. It deserves to be addressed in-house, in the movement, not in public. I was forced to bring it up in the global march to Jerusalem. I was pressed to endorse the march publicly but they said not as the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions because we can’t use the word Israeli. You have to endorse the march as the head of the committee against house demolitions. I said no and that set up a whole discussion. An organiser of the march wrote that this whole issue of inclusivity was a western preoccupation.

We are at a very crucial stage here where first of all the Palestinians have to take over and second of all, there has to be an end goal. If in fact the left is starting to say “it’s colonialism” and we are not working with you guys anymore, this has tremendous implications.

Over the past few days settlers led by Arieh King have been harassing Palestinian residents of Beit Hanina where, according to King, settlers will “very soon” take over four houses, plus an additional two houses in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where violent nighttime evictions aided by the Israeli police have become commonplace. The immediate target of window-breaking, curses, violent encounters and now a police search of the home “for weapons” is the Natche family of Beit Hanina.

King is the front-man for Irving Moskowitz, a wealthy owner of bingo casinos in Hawaiian Gardens, a poor Latino community near Los Angeles, who is bankrollingsome 17 settlements around East Jerusalem to “buffer” the Old City and “Judaize” East Jerusalem (see the StopMoskowitz website.) A friend and benefactor of Netanyahu, Moskovitch was behind the opening of the tunnels under the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem in 1996 that resulted in the deaths of 80 Palestinian protesters.

Police raid the Natche family home in Beit Hanina, ostensibly searching for weapons. The Natch home is under threat of eviction by settlers. Photo courtesy of Felizitas Hoffmann

The Moskowitz/King strategy is to establish settlements in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods, often in houses acquired by dubious and violent means. Among the settlements established or on the way are the City of David (Silwan), just below the al-Aqsa mosque; Ma’ale Zeitim and Ma’ale David in the Ras-el-Amud quarter on the southern side of the Mount of Olives; Beit Hoshen on the Mount of Olives, where several Palestinian families were violently evicted from their homes and which flies an enormous Israeli flag; Beit Orot, on the northern part of the Mount of Olives, where last year Mike Huckabee laid the foundations for an expanded settlement; the Shepherds Hotel and Sheikh Jarrah, now renamed Shimon Hatzadik; a plot in the village of Anata to the east of the Hebrew university; and now the homes in Beit Hanina.

While King, Moskowitz and other organized settler groups frame their taking of Palestinian homes as “reclaiming” Jewish properties from before 1948, Palestinians are legally prevented from even approaching the courts to reclaim their lost properties in “west” Jerusalem– the homes, businesses and lands that once comprised 40% of the now all-Jewish part of the city. King works through a company called The Israel Land Fund that, according to its website, “is dedicated to enable all Jews (Israeli and non-Israeli citizens) to own a part of Israel. It strives to ensure that Jewish land is once again reclaimed and in Jewish hands. House by house, lot by lot, the Israel Land Fund is ensuring the land of Israel stays in the hands of the Jewish people forever.”

Just how sleazy the settlement racket is can be gleaned from The Israel Land Fund’s website. It employs, we learn, three full-time employees who “are well versed in Arabic, and all served as officers in the Israel Defense Force.” It adds menacingly and tellingly: “These skills are frequently called into play in their dealings with Arab sellers and with the local population in areas that the Fund is active.” The Fund’s employees are proficient in English, we are told, “since the Fund’s main proponents are from the English speaking public.”

The “process” of acquiring an Arab property, described on the website, also offers insights into King’s methods. First, “the buyers [i.e. Jews] will be shown properties or land they may be interested in purchasing, without directly identifying the property. This is to prevent the possibility of over-exposure of the property [read: the neighbors, or even the people living in the home who think they own it, might find out] which may result in the cancellation or withdrawal of the property by the seller [not necessarily the owners nor the people who believe the home belongs to them] or cause damage to the deal.” Only when “the buyers” are sufficiently committed will The Fund then conduct negotiations on their behalf. “It is only at this stage, once the ILF is convinced of the seriousness and authenticity of the buyers, that the ILF will reveal the seller and enable the buyer to visit the property.”

The “settlement business” cannot function, of course, without extensive official support. Settler groups and their lawyers are able to keep even weak or non-existent cases in court for years with the help of their deep pockets and compliant judges. Palestinians, even those with strong cases, simply cannot afford the expenses of litigation. If a Palestinian or his children run afoul with the law, especially in cases of alleged stone-throwing, the settlers, through their lawyers and sympathetic police, can extricate the person – for a price, often his home. The municipality is enlisted either to threaten families who are targeted for various building violations with fines or to issue demolition orders against their homes, and building permits elsewhere are used as inducement to get Palestinians to leave targeted areas, such as Silwan.

Deals are also struck. Rumors are that the Natche home in Beit Hanina will be offered to a poor Palestinian family in the Old City whose home is small and cramped but is strategically located for purposes of judaization. Poor and vulnerable families are enticed to sell for exorbitant sums (hence we don’t want to “over-expose” a potential property), or houses are “bought” from an absentee relative in some far-off country and the family evicted in the middle of the night without even knowing their home was sold. (Good lawyers can solve any legal complications.)

So from the Natche family to the judaization of Jerusalem, compliments of a California bingo parlor-cum-casino operated on the backs of low-income Latinos and English-speaking Jewish “buyers”.

We, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA, write to you, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Episcopal Church, to support and encourage you in your efforts to selectively divest from corporations that are complicit in Israel’s ongoing policy of occupation and Jewish colonization of Palestinian land under Israel’s control. We are pleased that you have taken a leadership role to divest in hopes of bringing peace to the people of Israel/Palestine.

We are concerned that the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA), the Israel Action Network, and similar groups, which claim to be the “voice of American Jews,” have launched a coordinated smear campaign to label your divestment efforts as divisive, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and anti-Semitic.

Although the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA is an inclusive organization, we do have substantial Jewish representation. Our Board of Directors consists of fifty percent American Jews. To the degree that we are Jewish, we clearly state that the JCPA and the Israel Action Network do not speak for us.

It is our belief that the JCPA and Israel Action Network, rather than being the “voice of American Jews,” are actually acting in this matter on behalf of the Government of Israel.

The JCPA and Israel Action network, according to their own websites, are a part of the United Jewish Federation, which in turn is the parent organization of United Israel Appeal and partner of the Jewish Agency of Israel. Testimony at the 2011 Russell Tribunal Hearings in South Africa reveals that United Israel Appeal and the Jewish Agency of Israel are legally a part of the Government of Israel and serve as part of the central mechanism for Israel’s system of apartheid. At a minimum, the JCPA and Israel Action Network have a responsibility to disclose to the public and to your churches this association and conflict of interest.

We all have a moral responsibility to end our own complicity in human suffering. We appreciate the steps your churches are taking to ensure that your investments are consistent with opposing oppression and restoring justice to Israel/Palestine.

In support of peace,

Dear General Assembly Mission Council and General Assembly Commissioners, and all our friends and compatriots in the PC (USA) community,

As the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), I have been proud to support the efforts of the Presbyterian Church to address Israel’s 45-year Occupation, and especially those of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI), in translating a courageous moral stand against oppression into concrete actions. (Being a graduate of Macalester College, where my mentor, Chaplain Maxwell Adams, would certainly have supported your positions, makes me doubly proud to be part of your community.)

I have worked with MRTI for many years on the issue of the Occupation. I have shared information with the Committee’s members (especially regarding Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes, now numbering over 26,000, including Beit Arabiya, a home visited by many Presbyterian delegations that was demolished two weeks ago for the fifth time). I have hosted MRTI fact-finding missions here in Israel/Palestine and have served as a resource person in its meetings in the US. I have also been privileged to participate in three General Assemblies (with another ICAHD representative attending a fourth). I know the MRTI members and have always been impressed by their professionalism, the thoroughness of their research and the clarity of their publications, as well as by their moral thoughtfulness when it comes to such an issue as the Occupation, so entwined with the sensitivities of Christian-Jewish history and relations.

Certainly the measures advocated by MRTI, which have steadily gained support in the larger Church itself, are responsible and effective ones. In fact, targeting Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett Packard for divestment until they have ceased profiting from

the Occupation emanates directly from the mandate MRTI was given by the General Assembly: identifying companies profiting from the occupation, engaging with them, which MRTI has done for the past six years or so, and only then calling for divestment. It is clear that this process has been exhausted, and

that the GA’s card “has been called” by these corporations. Not to respond drags Presbyterians into active if non-direct complicity with these companies in suppressing the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom. The GA must disassociate itself morally and institutionally from such policies while actively trying to end the oppression itself, all of which a precisely-targeted and fairly implemented divestment campaign does.

As part of the Israeli peace camp, I can testify as to how important your support is to us, not to mention how vital it is to the beleaguered and isolated Palestinians themselves. Knowing this, as you well do, should help you put into perspective the expected attacks by segments of the organized Jewish community such as the JCPA. According to their own website, one of its senior officials and the head of its “Israel Action Network” that prepared the statement attacking you “communicates regularly with U.S. government representatives and maintains an ongoing liaison with senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem and the United States.” These organizations of self-appointed “leaders” do not speak for the wider Jewish community, some 70% of which are not affiliated with any synagogue, Federation or Jewish organization. They represent a portion of the 30%, and even here they get their marching orders from the Israeli government, which uses them to attack those who oppose the Occupation. The “officials” representing the JCPA are neither elected nor are they known to the vast majority of Jews. They may certainly express their opinions and even those of the organizations they represent, but their views cannot be taken as representative of the broader Jewish community in any way.

In fact, their “views” are only that: views – and even then the view of the Israeli government. As is common with such organizations claiming to be supporting Israel (but actually doing it great harm in the long term), the JCPA’s criticism is not based on a disagreement over facts or analyses, which they cannot confront, but rather over “intentions” (to “delegitimize” Israel, etc., etc.). Worse, they cast legitimate and necessary opposition to something as fundamental as an Occupation that has deprived millions of people of their basic rights and even lands, homes, livelihoods and identities, as somehow “anti-Semitic,” as if violations of human rights and the denial of social justice – though issues that define American Jewry – can be reconciled with Jewish history and values. The truth is that a position based on human rights, that of MRTI and of the PC(USA) in general, is a “Jewish” position.

We in Israel who work tirelessly for peace are comforted that MRTI exists, is active and receives the support it does from the Presbyterian Church. We urge you to continue to give practical expression to your moral concerns by supporting the divestment campaign, and not to let external attacks divide you or weaken your resolve. We look forward to the day when we all come together at Beit Arabiya to celebrate the end of Occupation and the dawn of a just peace. In that you will all have been instrumental.

In solidarity,

On January 23, 2012, Israeli authorities demolished Beit Arabiya, the Abu Omar home rebuilt by ICAHD with a team of international volunteers in the summer of 2011, and structures in the East Anata Arab al-Jahalin Bedouin community, displacing 52 people including 29 children.

These figures are added to the list of more than 26,000 Palestinian structures that Israel has demolished since 1967 in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, all in violation of international law and leaving tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children traumatized and homeless. In 2011 alone, Israel demolished more than 600 structures, displacing over 1000 Palestinians – nearly twice as many as in the previous year. Israel’s policy of house demolitions and evictions is illegal under international law, and its purpose is to disenfranchise entire Palestinian communities and expropriate their land. Recent statements from the EU and UN are explicit and call for these demolitions to stop immediately. These bodies will be aware of ICAHD’s rebuilding of Beit Arabiya in July.

Since its founding in 1997, ICAHD has rebuilt 185 Palestinian homes, all done as a form of political non-violent resistance to Israel’s policy of demolishing Palestinian homes and displacing the Palestinian people. ICAHD calls for the end of the Occupation and for a solution based on justice – the only way to achieve a sustainable peace for both Palestinians and Israelis. A just solution will contribute to stability in the Middle East and the wider world.

Since 2003, hundreds of internationals have joined ICAHD’s annual summer rebuilding camp. They have worked with Palestinians and Israelis who stand side by side, refusing to be enemies, demonstrating in a powerful way that there are partners for peace.

We want the 2012 ICAHD summer rebuilding camp to demonstrate, more than ever, international outrage over Israel’s cruel policy and the growing solidarity among individuals and organizations who believe that the oppression and displacement of the Palestinian people must end.

To facilitate this, ICAHD seeks organizations that will join with us in sponsoring the rebuilding, plus individual participants who are committed to learning more about the realities on the ground so that they can return home as ambassadors for ICAHD’s message of justice for Palestinians.

Accommodations
Because of the demolition of Beit Arabiya, alternative living arrangements will be provided near the site in Anata, northeast of Jerusalem. Two large tents will be in place, one for women and one for men, and portable toilets and temporary shower blocks will be constructed. We will prepare a communal area for gathering, talks, film screenings, and a place to enjoy the delicious home-cooked Palestinian food provided by Arabiya Shawamreh as she and her husband, Salim, host the camp with ICAHD staff.
Camp participants are expected to honor local Muslim community traditions. Internationals will be rewarded with a unique opportunity to learn something about both life under occupation and the rich heritage and cultural practices of the local people. New friendships with Israelis and Palestinians, including Bedouin from the Jahalin tribe, will form as we work together in solidarity.

The location is near the Judean Desert, so it will be hot during the day with temperatures over 86 degrees F; however, it is dry heat and evenings are usually cool. Participants need to be robust and enthusiastic about working in these conditions.

Schedule

Dates: Sunday, July 1 – Monday, July 16, 2012

In addition to the rebuilding, a full program is provided to help international participants acquire deeper understanding of the situation on the ground. Field trips allow participants to witness the reality in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and within Israel and will include outings to places such as Jerusalem and its periphery, Hebron, the Negev Desert, the Jordan Valley, and Lod. The educational aspect of the program includes: films and meetings with Palestinian and Israeli activists and experts who provide political analysis. The primary focus will be the legal position concerning house demolitions, displacement, and Israel’s Apartheid policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians both in the OPT and within Israel, although other issues will also be covered.

The cost of the 2012 camp is $1750 (American dollars) per person. The fee includes the following:

•  Accommodation in tents
•  Three full meals a day and beverages between meals (except during 3 free evenings when participants are away from the camp and are free to purchase food of their preference)
•  All field trips and educational programs
•  ICAHD materials/resources

A discounted rate $1250 (American dollars) is available for a limited number of full-time university students whose applications demonstrate their commitment to justice for Palestine.

Not included in the fee are:

•  Airfare and transfer to and from Jerusalem before the start of the camp and return to the airport at the end of the camp
•  Meals and beverages during free time
•  Personal spending money (a wide range of Palestinian products is available and buying them helps to support the Palestinian economy)

A commitment to fund-raising is also needed because the funds collected for participation in the summer camp do not cover the cost of rebuilding. Therefore we strongly encourage participants to engage their local communities (professional bodies, religious communities, trade unions, etc.) to raise funds for rebuilding, and we hope that a minimum target of $1000 (American dollars) per participant can be achieved.

ICAHD is known internationally as a leading peace and human rights organization that has observer status at the UN. ICAHD seeks participants who are committed to using the information learned to counter Israel’s Occupation policies. ICAHD reframes the conflict from a human rights perspective and believes that greater involvement from civil society is necessary to achieve progressive change in the Middle East. This is why we seek participants who are committed to using the knowledge and analysis gained during the camp to educate their professional bodies and other networks.

The ICAHD summer rebuilding camps have been an annual event since 2003, and since then hundreds of internationals have participated in what for many has been a life-changing experience. Recommendations include Clare Short, former British MP and ICAHD UK patron:

“I participated in the camp because I am a great admirer of ICAHD’s work so I wanted to experience the reality of the work on the ground. Whilst there I was surprised and impressed by the quality of the visits which were arranged for various afternoons. I have visited the Occupied Territories often and follow the situation quite closely but still learned a lot by actually seeing more of the reality on the ground.”

ICAHD hopes that you will help make the 2012 summer rebuilding camp the most significant to date.

All those interested in joining the camp are invited to complete an application form.

Please contact:

For the USA and Canada, email: summercamp@icahdusa.org

For Finland, email: icahd@icahd.fi

For Europe and all other countries, email: summercamp@icahduk.org

Applicants invited to participate in the 2012 ICAHD summer rebuilding camp will take part in two, 2-hour webinars prior to travel and will receive a recommended reading list to familiarize themselves with issues.

Deadline for the first round of application forms is March 15, 2012.

Download application here: 2012 Summer Camp Application (docx, 147.82 kB)

Even as I write this, the bulldozers have been busy throughout that one indivisible country known by the bifurcated term Israel/Palestine. Palestinian homes, community centers, livestock pens, and other “structures” (as the Israel authorities dispassionately call them) have been demolished in the Old City, Silwan, and various parts of “Area C” in the West Bank, as well among the Bedouin – Israeli citizens – in the Negev/Naqab. This is merely mopping up, herding the last of the Arabs into their prison cells where, forever, they will cease to be heard or heard from, a non-issue in Israel and, eventually, in the wider world distracted by bigger, more pressing matters.

An as-yet confidential report submitted by the European consuls in Jerusalem and Ramallah raises urgent concerns over the “forced expulsion” of Palestinians – a particularly strong term for European diplomats to use –from Area C of the West Bank (the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control but which today contains less than 5% of the Palestinian population). Focusing particularly on the rise of house demolitions by the Israeli authorities and the growing economic distress of the Palestinians living in Area C, the report mentions the fertile and strategic Jordan Valley (where the Palestinian population has declined from 250,000 to 50,000 since the start of the Occupation) plans to relocate 3,000 Jahalin Bedouin to a barren hilltop above the Jerusalem garbage dump and the ongoing but accelerated demolition of Palestinian homes (500 in 2011).

At the same time the “judaization” of Jerusalem continues apace, a “greater” Israeli Jerusalem steadily isolating the Palestinian parts of the city from the rest of Palestinian society while ghettoizing their inhabitants, more than 100,000 of which now live beyond the Wall. Some 120 homes were demolished in East Jerusalem in 2011; over the same period the Israeli government announced the construction of close to 7,000 housing units for Jews in East and “Greater” Jerusalem. “If current trends are not stopped and reversed,” said a previous EU report, “the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders seems more remote than ever. The window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing….”

In fact, it closed long ago. In terms of settlers and Palestinians, the Israeli government treats the whole country as one. Last year it demolished three times more homes of Israeli citizens (Arabs, of course) than it did in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The demolition of Bedouin homes in the Negev/Naqab is part of a plan approved by the government to remove 30,000 citizens from their homes and confine them to townships.

None of this concerns “typical” Israelis even if they have heard of it (little appears in the news). For them, the Israeli-Arab conflict was won and forgotten years ago, somewhere around 2004 when Bush informed Sharon that the US does not expect Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders, thus effectively ending the “two-state solution” and when Arafat “mysteriously” died.

Since then, despite occasional protests from Europe, the “situation” has been normalized. Israelis enjoy peace and quiet, personal security, and a booming economy (with the usual neoliberal problems of fair allocation). The unshakable, bi-partisan support of the American government and Congress effectively shields it from any kind of international sanctions. Above all, Israeli Jews have faith that those pesky Arabs living somewhere “over there” beyond the Walls and barbed-wire barriers have been pacified and brought under control by the IDF. A recent poll found that “security,” the term Israelis use instead of “occupation” or “peace,” was ranked eleventh among the concerns of the Israeli public, trailing well behind employment, crime, corruption, religious-secular differences, housing, and other more pressing issues.

For the international community, the “Quartet” representing the US, the EU, Russia, and the UN in the non-existent “peace process” has gone completely silent. (Israel refused to table its position on borders and other key negotiating issues by the January 26^th “deadline” laid down by the Quartet, and no new meetings are scheduled). The US has abandoned any pretense as an “honest broker.” Months ago, when the US entered its interminable election “season,” Israel received a green light from both the Democrats and Republicans to do whatever it sees fit in the Occupied Territory. Last May the Republicans invited Netanyahu to address Congress and send a clear message to Obama: hands off Israel. That same week, Obama, not to be outdone, addressed an AIPAC convention and reaffirmed Bush’s promise that Israel will not have to return to the 1967 borders or relinquish its major settlement blocs in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. He also took the occasion to promise an American veto should the Palestinians request membership in the UN – though that would merely amount to an official acceptance of the two-state treaty that the US claims it has been fostering all these years. No, as far as Israel and Israeli Jews are concerned, the conflict and even the need for pretense is over. The only thing remaining is to divert attention to more “urgent” global matters so that the Palestinian issue completely disappears. Voila Iran.

Oh, but what about the “demographic threat,” that “war of the womb” that will eventually force a solution? Well, as long as Israel has the Palestinian Authority to self-segregate its people, it has nothing to worry about. While the Palestinian Authority plays the “two-state solution” game, Israel can simply herd the Palestinians into the 70 tiny islands of Areas A and B, lock the gates, and let the international community feed them – and go about placidly building a Greater Land of Israel with American and European complicity. Indeed, nothing demonstrates self-segregation more than Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s neoliberal scheme of building a Palestinian …something… “from the ground up.” By building for the well-to-do in new private-sector cities like Rawabi, located safely in Area A, by building new highways (with Japanese and USAID assistance) that respect Israeli “Greater” Jerusalem and channel Palestinian traffic from Ramallah to Bethlehem through faraway Jericho, by expressing a willingness to accept Israeli territorial expansion in exchange for the ability to “do business,” Fayyad has invented yet a new form of neoliberal oppression-by-consent: viable apartheid (viable, at least, for the Palestinian business class). And as in the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa, the Palestinian Authority maintains a repressive internal order through its own American-trained/Israeli-approved militia, a second layer of occupation. (During the 2008 assault on Gaza, one of the few places in the world where there were no demonstrations was the West Bank — where they were forbidden by the Palestinian Authority. Then-Prime Minister Olmert crowed that this was evidence of how effectively the Palestinians had been pacified.)

Indeed, by clinging to the two-state solution and continuing to participate in “negotiations” years after they have proven themselves a trap, the Palestinian leadership plays a central role in its own people’s warehousing. The reality – even the fact – of occupation gets buried under the diversions set up by the fraudulent yet unending “peace process.” This only enables Israel not only to imprison the Palestinians in tiny cells — witness today’s mini-ethnic cleansing, just one of thousands of micro-events that have the cumulative effect of displacement, expulsion, segregation, and incarceration, but it also enables Israel to then blame the victims for causing their own oppression! When a Palestinian leadership assumes the prerogative to negotiate a political resolution yet lacks any genuine authority or leverage to do so, and when, in addition, it fails to abandon negotiations even after they have been exposed as a trap, it comes dangerously close to being collaborationist. For its part, Israel is off the hook. Instead of going through the motions of establishing an apartheid regime, it simply exploits the willingness of the Palestinian Authority to perpetuate the illusion of negotiations as a smokescreen covering its virtual imprisonment of the Palestinian “inmates.” Once the current mopping up operations are completed, the process of incarceration will be complete.

Today the only alternative agency to the Palestinian Authority is segments of the international civil society. The Arab and Muslims people for whom Palestinian liberation is an integral part of the Arab Spring, stand alongside thousands of political and human rights groups, critical activists, churches, trade unions, and intellectuals throughout the world. Crucial as it is for keeping the issue alive and building grassroots support for the Palestinian cause that will steadily “trickle up” and affect governments’ policies, however, civil society advocacy is a stop-gap form of agency, ultimately unable to achieve a just peace by itself. We, too, are trapped in the dead-end personified by the two-state solution, reference to a “peace process” and their attendant “negotiations.” There is no way forward in the current paradigm. We must break out into a world of new possibilities foreclosed by the present options: a “two-state” apartheid regime or warehousing.

In my view, while advocacy and grassroots mobilization remain relevant, several tasks stand before us. First, we must endeavor to hasten the collapse of the present situation and, subsequently, when new paradigms of genuine justice emerge from the chaos, be primed to push forward an entirely different solution that is currently impossible or inconceivable, be that a single democratic state over the entire country, a bi-national state, a regional confederation, or some other alternative yet to be formulated. The Palestinians themselves must create a genuine, inclusive agency of their own that, following the collapse, can effectively seize the moment. Formulating a clear program and strategy, they will then be equipped to lead their people to liberation and a just peace, with the support of activists and others the world over.

A necessary and urgent first step towards collapsing the otherwise permanent regime of oppression in Israel/Palestine is that we stop talking about a two-state solution. It’s dead and gone as a political option – if, indeed, it ever really existed. It should be banned from the discourse because reference to an irrelevant “solution” only serves to confuse the discussion. Granted, this will be hard for liberals to do; everyone else, however, has given up on it. Most Palestinians, having once supported it, now realize that Israel will simply not withdraw to a point where a truly viable and sovereign state can emerge. The Israeli government, backed by the Bush-Obama policies on the settlement blocs, doesn’t even make pretence of pursuing it anymore, and the Israeli public is fine with the status quo. Nor does the permanent warehousing of the Palestinians seem to faze the American or European governments, or the Arab League. Even AIPAC has moved on to the “Iranian threat.”

Behind the insistence of the liberal Zionists of J Street, Peace Now, the Peace NGOs Forum run out of the Peres Center for Peace, and others to hang on to a two-state solution at any cost is a not-so-hidden agenda. They seek to preserve Israel as a Jewish state even at the cost of enforcing institutional discrimination against Israel’s own Palestinian citizens. The real meaning of a “Jewish democracy” is living with apartheid and warehousing while protesting them. No, the liberals will be the hardest to wean away from the two-state snare. Yet if they don’t abandon it, they run the risk of promoting de facto their own worst nightmare of warehousing while providing the fig-leaf of legitimacy to cover the policies of Israel’s extreme right – all in the name of “peace.” This is what happens when one’s ideology places restrictions on one’s ability to perceive evil or to draw necessary if difficult conclusions. When wishful thinking becomes policy, it not only destroys your effectiveness as a political actor but it also leads you into positions, policies, and alliances that, in the end, are inimical to your own goals and values. Jettisoning all talk of a “two-state solution” removes the major obstacle to clear analysis and the ability to move forward.

The obfuscation created by the “two-state solution” now out of the way, what emerges as clear as day is naked occupation, an apartheid regime extending across all of historic Palestine/Israel and the spectre of warehousing. Since none of these forms of oppression can ever be legitimized or transformed into something just, the task before us becomes clear: to cause their collapse by any means necessary. There are many ways to do this, just as the ANC did. Already Palestinian, Israel, and international activists engage in internal resistance, together with international challenges to occupation represented by the Gaza flotillas and attempts to “crash” Israeli borders. Many civil society actors the world over have mobilized, some around campaigns such as Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), others around direct actions, still others engaged in lobbying the UN and governments through such instruments as the Human Rights Council, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and international courts. There have been campaigns to reconvene the Tribunal that, under the Fourth Geneva Convention, has the authority and duty to sanction Israel for its gross violations. Dozens of groups and individuals alike engage in public speaking, mounting Israel Apartheid Weeks on university campuses and working through the media. And much more.

And here is where Palestinian civil society plays a crucial role, a role that cannot be played by non-Palestinians. If it is agreed that the Palestinian Authority must go if we are to get beyond the two-state trap – indeed, the dismantling of the PA being a major part of the collapse of the present system – then this call must originate from within the Palestinian community. Non-Palestinians must join in, of course, but the issue of who represents the Palestinians is their call exclusively.

Non-Palestinians can also suggest various end-games. I’ve written, for example, about a Middle East economic confederation, believing that a regional approach is necessary to address the core issues. The Palestinian organization PASSIA published a collection of twelve possible outcomes. It is obvious, though, that it is the sole prerogative of the Palestinian people to decide what solution, or range of solutions, is acceptable. For this, and to organize effectively so as to bring about a desired outcome, the Palestinians need a new truly representative agency, one that replaces the PA and gives leadership and direction to broad-based civil society agency, one that has the authority to negotiate a settlement and actually move on to the implementation of a just peace.

As of now, it appears there is only one agency that possesses that legitimacy and mandate: the Palestinian National Council of the PLO (although Hamas and the other Islamic parties are not (yet) part of the PLO). Reconstituting the PNC through new elections would seem the most urgent item on the Palestinian agenda today – without which, in the absence of effective agency, we are all stuck in rearguard protest actions and Israel prevails. Our current situation, caught in the limbo between seeking the collapse of the oppressive system we have and having a Palestinian agency that can effectively lead us towards a just resolution, is one of the most perilous we’ve faced. One person’s limbo is another person’s window of opportunity. Say what you will about Israel, it knows how to hustle and exploit even the smallest of opportunities to nail down its control permanently.

“Collapse with agency,” I suggest, could be a title of our refocused efforts to weather the limbo in the political process. Until a reinvigorated PNC or other representative agency can be constituted, a daunting but truly urgent task, Palestinian civil society might coalesce enough to create a kind of interim leadership bureau. This itself might be a daunting task. Most Palestinian leaders have either been killed by Israel or are languishing in Israeli prisons, while Palestinian civil society has been shattered into tiny disconnected and often antagonistic pieces. At home major divisions have been sown between “’48” and “’67” Palestinians; Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank have been effectively severed; and within the West Bank restrictions on movement among a bewildering array of “areas” – A, B, C, C-Restricted, H-1, H-2, nature reserves, closed military areas – have resulted in virtual, largely disconnected Palestinian mini-societies. Political divisions, especially among secular/traditional and Islamic factions, have been nurtured, not least by Israel. Overall, the Palestinian population, exhausted by years of sacrifice and resistance, impoverished and preoccupied with mere survival, has been left largely rudderless as many of its most educated and skilled potential leaders have left or are forbidden by Israel to return.

For its part, the Palestinian leadership has done little to bridge the wider divisions among those falling under PA rule, Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents of the refugee camps, and the world-wide diaspora, divisions that have grown even wider since the PLO and the PNC fell moribund. Indeed, major portions of the Palestinian diaspora (and one may single out especially but not exclusively the large and prosperous communities of Latin America), have disconnected from the national struggle completely. The Palestinians possess some extremely articulate spokespeople and activists, but they tend to be either a collection of individual voices only tenuously tied to grassroots organizations or grassroots resistance groups such as the Popular Committees that enjoy little political backing or strategic direction.

Ever aware that the struggle for liberation must be led by Palestinians, our collective task at the moment, in my view, is to bring about the collapse of the present situation in Palestine in order to exploit its fundamental unsustainabilty. The elimination of the Palestinian Authority is one way to precipitate that collapse. It would likely require Israel to physically reoccupy the Palestinian cities and probably Gaza as well (as if they have ever been de-occupied), bringing the reality of raw occupation back to the center of attention. Such a development would likely inflame Arab and Muslim public opinion, not to mention that of much of the rest of the world, and would create an untenable situation, forcing the hand of the international community. Israel would be put in an indefensible position, thus paving the way for new post-collapse possibilities – this time with an effective and representative Palestinian agency in place and a global movement primed to follow its lead.

But given the underlying unsustainability of the Occupation and the repressive system existing throughout historic Palestine – the massive violations of human rights and international law, the disruptive role the conflict plays in the international system and its overt brutality – collapse could come from a variety of places, some of them unsuspected and unrelated to Israel/Palestine. An attack on Iran could reshuffle the cards in the Middle East, and the Arab Spring is still a work in progress. Major disruptions in the flow of oil to the West due an attack on Iran, internal changes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, instability in Russia, and even the fact that China has no oil of its own could cause major financial crises worldwide. Sino-American tensions, environmental disasters, or Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban with unpredictable Indian reactions may all play an indirect yet forceful role. Who knows? Ron Paul, President Gingrich’s newly appointed Secretary of State, might end all military, economic, and political support for Israel, in which case the Occupation (and more) would fall within a month.

Whatever the cause of the collapse – and we must play an active role in bring it about – it is incumbent upon us to be ready, mobilized, and organized if we are to seize that historic moment, which might be coming sooner than we expect. Effective and broadly representative Palestinian agency will be critical. Collapse with agency is the only way to get “there” from “here.”

The Abu Omar family home prior to demolition, rebuilt by ICAHD in July 2011

As has become routine, I alerted our activists, plus journalists and foreign diplomats, and we rushed out to Anata. We knew we could not save the homes, but we could resist; stand in solidarity with the families, soaked, with their belongings, in the rain; document what was happening and broadcast this latest war crime to the world. It was another of those thousands of attacks on Palestinians that occur daily but never reach the newspapers – probably because there are so many and they are so routine by now that they are not, in fact, “news.”

By the time we reached Salim’s house – which we rebuilt in 2003 and have called Beit Arabiya ever since, the “house of Arabiya,” home to Salim’s wife and mother of their seven children – it was gone. Salim himself was afraid to go down the hill to see it because of the soldiers, but I ran down. Even in the dark and rain I could see the ruins of the home, and the family’s belongings that had been thrown out. But I couldn’t tarry. The bulldozers had moved up the hill and were in the process of demolishing a Jahalin Bedouin enclave there – part of the Jahalin tribe that was being removed and relocated on top of the Jerusalem garbage dump near Abu Dis.

ICAHD volunteers standing in front of the rebuilt home, July 2011

Our activists were already there, scuffling with the army and trying to reach the bulldozer to hamper its destruction. The soldiers, claiming that this was a “closed military area” but unable to produce any proper military order, attacked the activists physically and verbally. Itay Epshtain, ICAHD’s Co-Director, was hit with a gun and thrown to the ground. All the while, the soldiers cursed at “the anarchists and leftists.” One yelled at Rabbi Arik Aschermann from Rabbis For Human Rights to take of his skullcap because “he was a disgrace to Judaism.” But it was the women who received the most violent verbal abuse, in addition to physical. “May the Arabs here rape you!” one soldier yelled at an activist.

In the end, Beit Arabiya, six Jahalin homes and most of their animal pens were demolished before the army left. The bulldozer, protected by dozens of troops, belonged to a commercial contractor who was paid well for the demolitions by the Civil Administration, Israel’s military government in the West Bank that uses the word “civil” to downplay its military connections, and to make it appear that demolitions of “illegal” Palestinian homes are simply part of “proper administration.”

After staying with the families and promising to rebuild, we finally left to send out press releases; put out information on our website and social media; and begin mobilizing activists abroad and, through them, governments and UN bodies.

The Abu Omar family home after demolition, January 24, 2012

Only when we returned early in the morning did we learn that yet another house had been demolished: that of theAbu Omar family, a family of 17 people who lived in a home that had been demolished last year, which ICAHD had rebuilt in our 2011 summer rebuilding camp. We had thought the bulldozer and soldiers had left for the Border Police base on the hill opposite Beit Arabiya and the Jahalin, but in fact they had only gone around Anata. At 3:30 a.m. they pounced on the Abu Omar family, forced them out of their home, removed their belongings and demolished it. The family was so dazed by the sudden violence, terror, confusion and need to protect the terrified children that they hadn’t even thought of phoning us.

The IDF attack on three sites that for years have been identified with ICAHD’s resistance activities was clearly an official, government-sponsored, violent Price Tag assault on Palestinians in order to “send a message” to ICAHD. Out of the tens of thousands of demolition orders outstanding in the Occupied Territory, they chose these three. In fact, the “message” had already been delivered. Already at the second demolition of Beit Arabiya in 1999, Micha Yakhin, the Civil Administration official responsible for overseeing the demolitions in that part of the West Bank, told me: “We will demolish every home you rebuild.”

ICAHD has rebuilt 185 demolished Palestinian homes in the past 15 years, all as acts of political resistance -not humanitarian gestures – all funded by donations. We will rebuild the homes demolished Monday night as well. The coming together of Palestinian families and community members, Israeli activists and international peace-makers to rebuild homes is one of the most significant forms of resistance, solidarity and mobilization. But Israel demolished 200 homes last year alone in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, of more than 26,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territory since 1967. Resistance cannot keep pace with the massive Price Tag assault that is the Israeli Occupation.

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

This article was originally published in +972 blog.

As its name suggests, Beit Arabiya belongs to Arabiya Shawamreh, her husband Salim, and their seven children — a Palestinian family whose home has been demolished four times by the Israeli authorities and rebuilt each time by ICAHD’s Palestinian, Israeli, and international peace activists before being demolished again last night.

At around 11p.m. Monday, a bulldozer accompanied by a contingent of heavily armed Israeli soldiers appeared on the Anata hills to promptly demolish Beit Arabiya, along with residential and agricultural structures in the nearby Jahalin Bedouin compound. Three family homes were demolished along with numerous animal pens; 20 people including young children were displaced, left exposed to the harsh desert environment. While standing in solidarity with Palestinians, ICAHD staff and activists were repeatedly threatened by Israeli soldiers. ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain was beaten and sustained minor injuries.

Beit Arabiya was issued a demolition order by Israeli authorities back in 1994, following Israel’s refusal to grant a building permit. It has since been demolished four times and rebuilt by ICAHD activists four times. Last night’s fifth demolition came following a reissue of the demolition order last Thursday. ICAHD Director Dr. Jeff Halper, standing astride the ruins, vowed to support Salim and Arabiya in rebuilding their home. “We shall rebuild, we must rebuild as an act of political defiance of the occupation and protracted oppression of Palestinians,” said Halper.

Beit Arabiya has become a symbol of resistance to the Judaization of the Occupied West Bank and Israeli demolition policy. “ICAHD is as determined as always to rebuild [Beit Arabiya] and [persevere] in its struggle to bring about justice and peace,” added Halper.
Salim and Arabiya, along with their neighbors and friends, stood last night and watched as this tragedy unfolded once again. Arabiya and Salim have dedicated their home as a center for peace in memory of Rachel Corrie and Nuha Sweidan, two women (an American and a Palestinian) who died resisting home demolitions in Gaza. In the past decade ICAHD has hosted numerous visitors at Beit Arabiya and based its annual rebuilding camp at the house, rebuilding 185 demolished Palestinian homes.

Earlier this month, ICAHD extended an invitation to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing to visit Beit Arabiya during her country visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory scheduled for later in the month. “It is our hope that while we cannot extend the same hospitality to the Special Raportueor, Prof. Raquel Rolnik will visit the ruins of Beit Arabiya and report on the utter cruelty and illegality of Israeli policies and practices, and that members of the international community will follow in her footsteps,” said ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain.

For more information and coordination of visits to Beit Arabiya, please contact Itay Epshtain at itay@icahd.org or +972-54-2623306

Slider Photo Credit: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/MCC