Palestinians living in Area C of the West Bank, under Israeli control, have given up on obtaining construction permits from the authorities and instead build without them, leaving 3,000 structures in the territory under constant threat of demolition, according to a UN report.

“Over 94 percent of [Palestinian] applications for building permits in Area C, submitted to the Israeli authorities by Palestinians between January 2000 and September 2007, were denied,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report, ‘Lack of Permit’ Demolitions and Resultant Displacement in Area C, stated.

In the first quarter of 2008, 124 Palestinian structures were destroyed by the Israeli authorities for not having a permit; in all of 2007, some 208 structures were demolished. Between 2000 and September 2007 about 1,600 structures were destroyed, the report stated.

However, Major Peter Lerner from the Israeli Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (a division of the Ministry of Defense), said: “In the last two years we’ve approved 13 master plans for villages in Area C and another 14 are in process”, explaining that this meant fewer house demolitions would take place and more building would be able to go ahead.

According to the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the 1990s, the occupied Palestinian territory was divided into three categories: Area A was supposed to be under complete Palestinian control, Area B was split and Area C, comprising more than half of the West Bank, remained under Israeli control.

“Area C is under Israeli responsibility, as the majority of the [Palestinian] population do not live there,” said Lerner.

The majority of Palestinians live in Areas A and B.

It is in Area C that the demolitions continue today, with more than 400 Palestinian communities in that section. According to OCHA, over 200,000 people are affected by the Area C policies.

Children affected by demolitions

Children are particularly affected by the demolitions. According to a forthcoming survey by the Palestinian Counseling Center, demolitions lead to gaps in children’s access to education, health services and clean water.

Their schooling suffers and can lead to dropouts, the OCHA report stated.

“Even though demolition is a single event, its impact is similar to multiple and continuous traumas,” it said.

During a recent press conference in Jerusalem, Tony Blair, the envoy of the Quartet – the Middle East international body made up of the US, EU, Russia and the UN – said he was working with the Israeli authorities on issues such as home demolitions in Area C.

In general, Blair has stressed the importance of developing Area C for the future Palestinian state supported by the Quartet.

Area C not only connects the main population centres in the other two areas, but would also serve as the site for many needed projects, including waste-water treatment.

However, Area C is also home to the majority of Israeli settlements.

“While Palestinian development in Area C has been impeded, the expansion and development of Israeli settlements and other Israeli infrastructure has flourished … despite these settlements’ status as illegal under international humanitarian law,” OCHA said.

The report added that “Palestinian residential areas already have a population density double to that in the Israeli settlements.

Jeff Halper | ICAHD

The people of Palestine have done it again, taking their own fate in their hands after being let down by their own “moderate” political leadership and, indeed, the entire international community in their struggle for freedom. Early this morning they simply blew up the wall separating Gaza from Egypt, breaking a siege imposed on them by an Arab government in collaboration with Israel.

We, the peoples of the world, should take great pride and encouragement in this quintessentially civil society refusal to accept subjugation, to abandon their fate to governments, including their own, for whom the lives of ordinary people are simply grist for their political charades – Annapolis and its subsequent “peace process” being but the last cynical expression. For the Palestinians represent far more than just themselves. Their refusal to submit to the dictates of governments, or to governments’ lack of interest in the well-being of people in general, reflects the desire of billions of oppressed people for identity, freedom, a decent life and actualization of their collective and individual rights and potentials. Most of the oppressed, the “wretched of the earth” as Franz Fanon called them a half-century ago, are too preoccupied with the daunting daily struggle for survival to organize and resist. Others do resist in a myriad of ways, but are most often repressed by their own political and economic “leaders,” disappearing anonymously from view. In a few cases they have managed to mount effective resistance to oppression, even to prevail – though the billions spent on “counterinsurgency” warfare by the US, Europe, Russia, Israel and many “developing” nations augur ill for peoples attempting to overthrow oppressive regimes.

In this the Palestinians stand at the forefront, in the front lines of peoples’ insistence everywhere that their rights, well-being and fundamental values as human beings be respected by governments. And they do so (and I write this as an Israeli with great sorrow and shame) against one of the world’s strongest and most ruthless military powers – a power that has dispossessed them from 85% of their land, which is trying to transform its occupation into a permanent regime of apartheid, which has spent decades impoverishing and disenfranchising them; the fourth largest nuclear power which nevertheless casts itself as the victim. Not only have the Palestinians experienced the dehumanization all oppressed and colonized peoples experience, not only have they been made into the embodiment of the rich and powerful’s greatest fear, evil “terrorists” who may tear down their privileged “civilization,” but they have been turned into guinea pigs. Israel is able to gain an edge in the counterinsurgency industry and win entree into the heart of the American military/hi tech complex by turning the Occupied Territories into a laboratory for the development of fiendish weaponry and tactics intended for use against people.

And yet the Palestinian people – and in particular those who remain sumud, steadfast, in Palestine – continue not only to resist but to surprise and confound its would-be Israeli master at every turn. Despite unlimited control, a complete monopoly over the use of force, utter callousness and a vaunted Shin Beit, Israel’s military intelligence, Palestinians vote as they want, resist, carry on their daily lives with dignity – and blow huge holes in the walls and policies constructed in order to imprison and defeat them.

All this is not on the minds of those desperate people who surged into Egypt today. They may not have the “Big Picture.” Yet they deserve the respect and gratefulness of every person who cherishes a better world based on human rights and dignity, a world that is inclusive. As an Israeli Jew, I have been saddened and mortified that my own people, after all they have experienced, cannot see what they are doing to others. But on a larger scale, not as an Israeli Jew but as a human being, I take heart in the Palestinians’ active refusal to be ground under a global system that is producing unimaginable wealth and power for a few at the expense of the growing ranks of the wretched.

I am not a Palestinian; I am not one of the oppressed. I only hope I can use my privilege in an effective way in order to redeem the gift the people of Gaza have given all of us: the realization that the people do have power and can prevail even in the face of overwhelming power. We may each express our responsibility towards the people of Gaza in whatever way most suits us, but as the privileged we must do something. We owe the Palestinians and the Palestinians writ large at least that.

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

Prof. John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, called the Israeli government’s actions “serious war crimes” for which its political and military officials should be prosecuted and punished. The killing of more than 40 civilians this past week violates, he said, “the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention. It also violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets.” Indeed, the very legal framework invoked by the Israeli government to carry out this illegal and immoral act – declaring Gaza a “hostile entity” within a “conflict short of war” – has absolutely no standing in international law.

We call on the Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, to lead the Security Council to a decisive decision to end the siege on Gaza when it meets in emergency session on Wednesday.

We call on the governments of the world, and in particular the American government and the European Parliament, to censure Israel’s actions and, in light of recent attempts to revive the diplomatic process, to end all attacks on civilians, including the continuing demolition of Palestinian homes at an alarming rate.
We call upon the Jews of the world in whose name the Israeli government purports to speak, and upon their rabbis and communal leaders in particular, to speak out unequivocally against this offense to the very moral core of Jewish values.

And we call upon the peoples of the world to let their officials and leaders know of their repudiation of this cruel, illegal and immoral act – an act that stands out in its cruelty even in an already oppressive Israeli Occupation.

We condemn attacks on all civilians, and we acknowledge the suffering of the residents of Sderot. Still, those attacks do not justify the massive disproportionality of Israeli sanctions over a million and half civilians of Gaza, in particular in light of Israel’s oppressive 40 year occupation. Such violations of international law by a government are especially egregious and must be denounced and punished if the very system of human rights and international law is to be preserved.

The Israeli government’s decision to punish Gaza’s civilian population, with all the human suffering that entails, constitutes State Terrorism against innocent people. Only when Israeli policy-makers are held accountable for their actions and international law upheld will a just peace be possible in the Middle East.

The Alternative Information Center * Bat Tsafon * Gush Shalom * The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) * Physicians for Human Rights * The Coalition of Women for Peace

An Israeli peace activist who has been hailed for his “immense courage” and accused of demonizing his adopted nation will be the guest speaker at a special Cape Ann Forum on Sunday.

Jeff Halper will speak on “The Key to Peace in Israel/Palestine: Dismantling the Matrix of Control.” The free event takes place at Gloucester City Hall from 7 to 9 p.m., and includes a question and discussion period.

Ellen Solomon, a Forum spokeswoman, said Sunday’s event will likely spark some heated conversation.

It has already caught the attention of a local rabbi, who said he is “less than enchanted” by the Halper’s appearance here because of his views on Israel, including likening its policy on Palestinians to apartheid.

Halper’s appearance in Gloucester is part of his “Constructing Peace Speaking Tour” of the United States, which also includes several stops in Greater Boston next week.

Halper is an anthropologist who grew up in Minnesota and emigrated to Israel in 1973. He is the cofounder and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, formed to fight the demolition of homes of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

In Halper’s view, Israel seeks to isolate Palestinians in what amount to a “prison state.” Like inmates in a prison, he says, Palestinians might occupy 95 percent of the territory but remain powerless before the authorities who hold the remaining 5 percent – the prison walls, cell bars and locked doors. Israel’s checkpoints, regulations, settlements and other measures form its “matrix of control.”

With Ghassan Andoni, a Palestinian peace activist, Halper was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee. In its nomination, the group said Halper, in his work with the Committee Against House Demolitions, “often displays immense courage, confronting Israeli soldiers and risking arrest by sitting in front of bulldozers targeting homes for destruction.”

Rabbi Samuel Barth of Temple Ahavath Achim in Gloucester describes Halper as an ethical man and agrees with him that there are moral questions about the home demolitions. But he said Halper goes too far when he compares Israel, the only democratic country in the Middle East, to the racist regime of South Africa.

“It disturbs me greatly that in recent years, (Halper) has associated Israel with apartheid,” said Barth, a member of Rabbis for Humans Rights, which works to defend the human rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. “I don’t believe his motives are evil or wicked, but I will no longer support his appearances because he crossed the line from reasoned criticism to demonization of Israel.”

Barth said he plans to attend the forum and express his concern.

“I love the idea of the Cape Ann Forum bringing local people together in a very serious way to hear people reflect on important issues; I find myself in agreement with some and disagreement with others,” he said. “In that context, I’m less than enchanted with the invitation to Halper.”

The Cape Ann Forum was organized in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to encourage discussion of international issues and the place of the United States in the world.

Solomon, the Forum spokeswoman, said she believes it is important to hear the voices of Israelis who oppose official Israeli policies because too often in the United States only the official voice of the Israeli government is heard.

“Israel is a vibrant democracy, and there is a noisy and wide spectrum of public opinion – you can find it in the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz – about how to interpret and make policy about Palestinian-Israeli issues,” she said. “I hope the Forum will bring Israeli speakers from all along that range of opposing voices, and I hope Americans will listen and try to understand the situation more complexly and truly than we usually do.”

I’ve had a hard time communicating the swing of emotions I’ve been feeling since Tom Stern and I returned from the West Bank at the end of July. We were there for 3 weeks, staying with friends in Ramallah, on the ‘wrong’ side of the 30-foot high concrete “Separation Barrier,” and visiting some of the houses that ICAHD-USA has rebuilt through the Constructing Peace Campaign.

We have much good news to report. After each day of visiting houses we would return to our friends’ home tired, physically and emotionally. Every family we visited has a compelling and heartbreaking story; together these stories create a refrain of systematic targeting; a chorus of anguish over the demolition of a house, a life savings, a marriage, a healthy psyche, or a future worth hoping for. The irony is that the Israeli government’s mantra of safety and security serves as the public excuse for immoral and decidedly one-sided policies of land confiscation, settlement expansion, and bypass road construction. These policies have kept Palestinians in a constant state of danger and insecurity for over 40 years.

I tried to imagine what it would do to me to live like this, waking every morning wondering if today the soldiers might come to demolish my house, if today I’ll make it through the checkpoints to get to work or visit my family, if today the settlers will attack, if today I’ll be able to feed my family, if today…

As Tom and I traveled across the West Bank, the numerous checkpoints turned 20-minute trips into long and humiliating hours that few impatient Americans would tolerate. We came to realize that every interaction between Palestinians, even those who do not know each other, is accompanied by stories of Israeli mistreatment, discrimination, and arrogance. These are not anti-Semitic expressions of anger and despair. They are simple descriptions of the daily experience of being mistreated in arbitrary and dehumanizing ways.

It is in this context that we experienced some very poignant and even lighthearted moments such as laughing with a Hebron farmer whose house was rebuilt right in the middle of his fields. We sat next to the house, in the shade of low-hanging trees, joking with him about his many children as he pours us cups of steaming tea laced with sugar. He, like all those we meet over the course of three weeks, is deeply grateful for the rebuilding.

For every family, the life savings that go into the construction of their house are lost with its demolition. Without our help, these families could not rebuild their homes. These families and their rebuilt houses embody physical, nonviolent resistance to Occupation. In Hebron the houses sit directly underneath an illegal Israeli settlement. The ideological settlers here, notoriously mean-spirited, often throw rocks and trash at the Palestinians and threaten the farmers whose families have been in these fields for over a thousand years. The demolition of houses makes it easier for these settlements to expand; rebuilding makes it harder.

Seeing this first-hand helped me realize the importance of the Constructing Peace Campaign. We are not only providing a home to a family who desperately needs one, we are joining them in active, steady, dramatic (if not dramatized) resistance to the Occupation. To date, we have rebuilt 41 houses, plus a Bedouin village housing 25 families. Detailed information about many of these families and their houses can be found on the ICAHD-USA website under Campaign Updates.

Your support and assistance makes this campaign and these rebuilding projects possible. One easy way to help is to contribute to the costs of rebuilding. Each house costs between $5000 and $10,000 to rebuild. The rebuilding needs we have encountered far outweigh our current capacity. Again and again we heard heartbreaking appeals from families who are hoping to receive our help in rebuilding their homes. After seeing the enormous impact we can have with such a small amount of money, we aim to raise our goals and expand the scope of this campaign.

Help us build this campaign – and rebuild more houses – with a thoughtful gift. Your donation of $5000, $500, $50 or even $5 makes an enormous difference. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has previously supported this campaign and encourage you to continue that support. Financial contributions to ICAHD-USA are tax deductible and can be made securely online at our website through PayPal.

You can also contribute by helping organize a local campaign in your area; details about how to do this are offered on our website at www.icahdusa.org. Local campaigns serve a dual purpose of raising awareness about the Occupation and house demolitions as well as raising money to support the Constructing Peace Campaign.

I’ll end with a quote from one of the Palestinian contractors, a quiet, handsome man with a gentle smile named Hamis. Never without a cigarette, always calm, Hamis told us as we sat with a family in the shadow of an illegal Israeli settlement, “With these houses, you save the life of a family.” As a Jewish-American woman (especially during this period of the Jewish High Holy days), I feel strongly that with each brick placed into the rebuilt wall of a Palestinian family’s home, I am reclaiming a small piece of the promise of who I – who we – are meant to be.

As always, thank you for being part of the ICAHD-USA community and for all that you are and all that you do.

Below are two stories of families whose homes have been rebuilt through the Constructing Peace Campaign. Each family has a story, and we are grateful to them for letting us share their stories with you. Their names have been omitted to protect their privacy. Click here for more updates from the campaign.

M Family

Mr. M, right, with 2 sons & laborers.

Mr. M comes from an old-time Anata family. Anata, situated on the northeastern fringe of Jerusalem and dating from ancient times, is reputed to have been a Canaanite village in biblical times. Village lore claims that Anata residents originated from the same ancestor, Sheikh Abed Asalam Mohammed Al Rifai, who established a school of thought, Al Rifai Sufi-school, which is famous in the Arab world. During the Crusader wars, the Muslim leader, Salah Eddin Aiyoubi [Saladin], situated his administration in the village before he proceeded towards Jerusalem. Today Anata is administered in part by the Jerusalem Municipality and in part by the Israeli Occupation Authorities. However, all of Anata is east of the Green Line and was Occupied in 1967 by Israel.

Mr. M owns land on the eastern edge of the village in an area designated Area “C” under the Oslo agreements. He was refused a building permit by the Israeli authorities because the land was “zoned” as agricultural, but went ahead and built a home for his wife and 11 children. The police and paramilitary troops arrived without warning on the September 21, 2006, surrounded the neighborhood, and brought in the bulldozers. The family was given less than an hour to pack and remove their possessions from the house. When the time was up, and the house wasn’t emptied, the police sent in a contractor with African foreign workers in orange jumpsuits. They proceeded to throw the remainder of the family’s property out of the house. The Israeli government has had a policy over the past decade to replace Palestinian workers with workers from developing countries who are willing to work for low wages. They are also used for “dirty work” such as helping with house demolitions.

When Mr. M’s neighbors saw what was happening, they protested without violence and were met with gunfire. Three were wounded. The soldiers also shot out the tires of Mr. M’s tractor in an act of pure vindictiveness. Thus the family became homeless and virtually destitute. Mr. M is a laborer and part time farmer. In an ironic twist, the authorities have told him that the plastic covered greenhouse he uses for seedlings and growing tomatoes is illegal and will be demolished – despite the so-called agricultural zoning. Mr. M has also built a cistern where he collects rainwater in the winter and pumps it to his plants in the summer. The cistern is also under threat of demolition.

Mr. M’s home ready for window installation.

Mr. M says he wants a fair peace between the two peoples: “Why can’t I live in peace on my own property when Israelis can live anywhere they want? Why do I need a permit to go and pray in Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem when Jews from all over the world can come and pray at their holy places?”

Click here for more pictures from the rebuilding of the M family’s home.

K Family

Mr. K and four of his sons in the rubble of his previous house.

Mr. K is a Bedouin from the Be’er Sheva area in Israel’s Negev Desert. He migrated north in 1981 in search of work and a better life. He was also tired of the government’s treatment of his community in the Negev and was hoping for more opportunities and less interference from the authorities in the Jerusalem area. Like many Bedouin from the south, he settled in Anata, East Jerusalem, just beyond the municipal boundaries in what became known as Area “C” after the Oslo Agreement.

During the 1980s and 90s he married, raised a large family, worked hard as a construction laborer and gradually built a good size home for his family. The house he built eventually grew to more than 400 meters (3,600 sq. ft.) including a basement. This was a large house built over a very long time, with every penny of Mr. K’s savings going to the construction. The land under the house had been legally purchased but was “zoned” as agricultural land despite the fact that the growing village of Anata was burgeoning with people. Mr. K was refused a building permit by the “Civil Administration” (Occupation Administration) but went ahead and built his home. A demolition order was issued on his home in 1997.

Without warning on October 29, 2004, at 7:00 am, more than 200 soldiers and paramilitary police sealed off the neighborhood and ordered everyone to stay in their homes. Volunteers from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) were alerted and arrived at the house just before the demolition. However, the bulldozers arrived, and protected by police and army troops, went ahead and demolished the house. The family was rendered homeless, with their life savings gone and little hope for the future. The social services of the Israeli government offered no help to the family.

The rebuilt K house is almost finished.

Mr. K is grateful to ICAHD for building a small 30 meter (288 sq. ft.) house next to the ruins of his former home. Another house will be built for his son and his family in the near future. Mr. K asks that the American government stop supporting Israel and the horrors of the ongoing Occupation. Only then, he says, can we start to build a peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The campaign continues
In the last month, the Constructing Peace Campaign has seen an outpouring of support from across the United States. Peace is possible and it will come through the kind of cooperative, nonviolent, community building that this campaign represents. ICAHD-USA is committed to challenging the Israeli Occupation and strengthening the joint, Israeli/Palestinian resistance that occurs everyday.

For information on how you can support ICAHD-USA and the Constructing Peace Campaign, visit our donation page. The 5th annual ICAHD Israel Summer Rebuilding Camp just kicked off and you can find more information on that here.

The only reason given was that they were too close to the Hagai settlement and adjacent military post.

The ‘S1′ family has owned the land just south of Hebron for hundreds of years, long before any settlement building began. Mr. ‘S1′ divides his time between working as a laborer, attending to his small flock of sheep, and growing flowers and vegetables. The new home is almost complete but Mr. ‘S1′ is keeping the cave ready in case the army swoops down again bringing the bulldozers of destruction.

The demolished home of the S1 family

The cave where the family lived for 8 years after their home was demolished.

The completed exterior walls of their new house.

The completed interior walls.

Mr. S1 and three of his children.

In April 2007, soon after building a small 100 square-meter home (900 square-feet) for his young family, the Israeli government destroyed it. His wife and three children were traumatized and the family was homeless, left to the kindness of relatives and their only real asset gone. Mr. ‘J2′ is part of a large clan whose residence in the area just north of Hebron dates back 1200 years according to the clan patriarch. They used to own hundreds of Dunams (1 dunam=1/4 acre) and have slowly lost most of the land due to Israeli confiscations and settlement building. The largest Israeli settlement in the Hebron area is Kyriat Arba, much of it built on the families land.

J2′s demolished house before ICAHD rebuilds it.

Finishing the interior walls.

Ready for the roof.

A clan elder inspects the house.

The military blocked off the surrounding community while the bulldozers did their work. Mr. ‘J’ works as a laborer and also helps tend the crops on his family’s land. Surrounding the house are fields of ingeniously cultivated and well-pruned grape vines with tomatoes, legumes, and cucumbers growing underneath in the partial shade. Mr. ‘J’ is part of a large clan that used to own hundreds of Dunams (1 dunam=1/4 acre) and have slowly lost most of the land due to Israeli confiscations and settlement building. The largest Israeli settlement in the Hebron area is Kyriat Arba, much of it built on the family’s land.

“People can live together if the confiscations stop and settlement expansion ceases”, says Mr. ‘J’.

The demolished home of the J family

A nearly finished interior door frame

The new house is ready for the roof to be installed

The exterior of The J family’s new home

However Mr. G owns the tiny plot of land upon which he built a home for his wife and six children. He spent many years as a semi-skilled laborer saving his money, and building the 810 square-foot house in increments as funds permitted.

The home was demolished in 2000 leaving the family homeless and destitute.

The exterior walls are completed

The garbage dump next to the family’s home

The debris from the family’s demolished home

The view from the home’s front door