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The Occupation Manual (29)
Posted on: Mar. 11, 2015
By Josh Harkinson
A few weeks before Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his controversial address to Congress, theJerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Prime Minister was considering a campaign trip to Hebron, a right-wing settler community in the Israel-occupied West Bank.
The proposed March 10 trip to Hebron, which would have been the first by an Israeli PM in more than a decade, raised eyebrows among Israel’s political class and inflamed tensions with Palestinian groups. Last week, Netanyahu called it off, citing security threats.
Here in the United States, meanwhile, few politicians have questioned why American taxpayers continue to subsidize the Hebron settlers, accused by international observers of human rights violations that includethefts, battery, and murder. In 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available, an estimated 45 percent of the settler community’s funding came from the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund, whose status as a tax-exempt nonprofit allows Americans to write off donations to the group.
“The Hebron Fund has supported, either directly or indirectly, a wide array of acts that are definitely not charitable,” says John Tye, the legal director for the global activist group Avaaz, which last week petitioned the IRS to revoke the Hebron Fund’s nonprofit status. “They are basically using a small group of Jewish settlers in the West Bank to push Palestinians out of their homes. These settlers are arming themselves, they are engaged in military and paramilitary acts, some of them have connections to terrorism, and they are committing a wide range of crimes against Palestinians.”
The Hebron Fund declined to make anyone available for comment for this story, or to respond to my written questions.
Hebron, a community of some 200,000 Palestinians located about 30 miles south of Jerusalem, is home to several ancient Jewish holy sites. The modern Jewish occupation began in 1967, after the Six Day War. The Hebron Fund was founded in 1979 to support the settlers, who now number around 850.
After years of conflicts between Palestinians and settlers, the historic center of Hebron has come to be known as “The Ghost Town.” It is largely abandoned, with the doors of Arab shops welded shut by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) during the second intifada. Palestinians are forbidden from entering much of the area. In other parts of downtown Hebron, Jewish settlers live in buildings above Palestinian shops. The shopkeepers have stretched nets and metal grates over the streets to catch the garbage that settlers routinely throw from their windows:
The behavior of Jewish settlers in Hebron has been repeatedly denounced by human rights groups. In 2001, Human Rights Watch called Hebron “the site of serious and sustained human rights abuses,” including “a consistent failure [by IDF] to protect Palestinians from attacks by Israeli settlers.” In 2011, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem wrote that settlers “have been involved in gunfire, attempts to run people over, poisoning of a water well, breaking into homes, spilling of hot liquid on the face of a Palestinian, and the killing of a young Palestinian girl.”
In 2013, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed “deep concern” at the abusive treatment and harassment directed at a Palestinian activist in Hebron by settler groups and the IDF. Breaking the Silence, another Israeli human rights group comprised of IDF veterans, offers guided tours of Hebron—but only rarely, the group writes on its website, due to “the Hebron settlers’ violence towards our tours and the limited ability of the Hebron police to protect our tours from this violence.”
Just in the past two months, according to B’Tselem, vandals in the Hebron area have destroyed Palestinian olive groves in four locations.
At least one former member of a terrorist organization has joined the Hebron settlement. Baruch Marzel, a one-time spokesman for the extremist Kach Party, which is listed by the United States and Israel as a terrorist group, lives in Hebron’s Tel Rumeida outpost. In 2011, he helped organize a manhunt for a Palestinian man, Hani Jaber, who’d just been released from jail after serving 18 years for killing a Jewish settler. Posters appeared on Hebron walls with Jaber’s face and the words, “Rise up and kill him.”
At times, the Hebron Fund has specifically sought to raise money for controversial settler activities. In 2007, according to Salon, it held a fundraiser on a cruise ship in New York’s Hudson River to support a settler who’d taken property from a Palestinian family. A year and a half later, the Israeli government ruled that the house had been illegally seized from the family and ordered the settlers out. Once evicted, the settlers set fire to Palestinian houses, olive trees, and cars—25 people were wounded, including a man shot at close range.
The United States tax code does not provide detailed information about what can disqualify groups from nonprofit status, though precedent suggests that it includes illegal and discriminatory behavior. In 1974, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that the IRS was justified in revoking the nonprofit status of Bob Jones University over its refusal to admit black students.
The Hebron Fund has not released detailed financial information, making it impossible to determine whether it directly bankrolls prohibited activities. Yet Tye of Avaaz argues that the settlements’ finances are sufficiently fluid and dependent upon the Hebron Fund to make it inherently complicit in any abuses. “I can’t tell you precisely where every dollar has gone,” he says. “But when there is a doubt, the legal burden is on the Hebron Fund to produce documents that show how its money is spent.”
This isn’t the first time a group has asked the IRS to revoke the Hebron Fund’s nonprofit status. In 2009, a similar complaint was submitted by the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The IRS never responded.
Though Tye believes there’s already sufficient public evidence to revoke the fund’s nonprofit status, he at least wants the IRS to conduct a thorough investigation. A spokesman for the IRS declined to comment on the case, citing a federal law that bars the agency from discussing specific taxpayers.
*** Mother Jones is a nonprofit news organization that specializes in investigative, political, and social justice reporting.
Source:
Since its occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem following the 1967 war, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has destroyed more than 18,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). 
Meanwhile, Caterpillar, Inc., a U.S. company, has sold bulldozers to the IDF knowing they would be used to unlawfully demolish homes and put civilians in danger.
Why Are Homes Demolished in Palestine?Since 1967, the IDF has routinely demolished homes of Palestinians in the OPT. The practice of home demolitions, forced expulsion and land seizures increased dramatically after the second intifada began in September 2000. In the first four years of the second intifada, the IDF used bulldozers to destroy more than 4,000 Palestinian homes.
The IDF has provided several reasons for this practice, one being the need to create “buffer zones” in the OPT. In fact, the IDF’s home demolitions are part of a broad-reaching practice of collective punishment through “demographic engineering.” Through home demolitions, Palestinian populations are forced to move from areas deemed strategic or of interest to Israel and displaced from the agricultural land where they and their ancestors have lived and made their livelihoods. In addition to forcibly displacing more than 70,000 civilians, home demolitions have injured or killed Palestinian civilians, including the victims in Corrie, et. al. v. Caterpillar, Inc. Much of the world community, including the United Nations, the United States, and human rights organizations, has consistently condemned these demolitions.
How is Caterpillar involved?
Caterpillar has supplied the IDF with bulldozers used for home demolitions since 1967. Caterpillar has sold D9 bulldozers to the IDF knowing they would be used to unlawfully demolish homes and endanger civilians in the OPT. Caterpillar continued to sell D9’s directly to the IDF even though it knew that the bulldozers were being used to commit war crimes and other serious violations of law. The Caterpillar D9 bulldozer is over 13 feet tall and 26 feet wide, weighs more than 60 tons with its armored plating, and can raze houses within minutes. Caterpillar has had constructive notice of the human rights violations committed with its bulldozers since at least 1989, when human rights groups began publicly condemning the violations. Since 2001, human rights groups have sent over 50,000 letters to Caterpillar, Inc. executives and CEO Jim Owens decrying the use of its bulldozers to carry out human rights abuses.
The Facts
- More than 18,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since 1967.
- More than 4,000 of those homes were demolished after September 2000.
- From September 2000 until 2004, over 2,500 homes were demolished in Gaza; 1,600 of those were located in Rafah, a 2.5 mile long strip of land along the border of southern Gaza.
Corrie, et. al. v. Caterpillar, Inc. In 2005, a lawsuit was brought against Caterpillar, Inc. by families represented by CCR, the Ronald A. Peterson Law Clinic at Seattle University School of Law, the Public Interest Law Group PLLC, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The suit charges that Caterpillar violated international, federal, and state law by selling D9 bulldozers to the IDF knowing they would be used to unlawfully demolish homes and endanger civilians in the OPT. In doing so, Caterpillar aided and abetted the war crimes committed by the IDF by knowingly providing assistance that had a substantial effect on the commission of the violation.
The five families in the case include Palestinians whose family members were killed or injured when Caterpillar bulldozers demolished their homes. The parents of Rachel Corrie, an American who was killed by a D9 while protecting a home in the OPT, are also plaintiffs in the case. The claims against Caterpillar, Inc. for selling bulldozers to the IDF include violations of:
- The Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a 1789 statute giving non-U.S. citizens the right to file suits in U.S. courts for international human rights violations.
- The Fourth Geneva Convention, Additional Protocol I, and customary international law, which prohibit war crimes such as collective punishment and destruction of civilian property not justified by military necessity.
- The Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), passed by Congress in 1992, which allows individuals to seek damages in U.S. courts for torture or extrajudicial killing, regardless of where the violations take place.
- In 2005, Judge Burgess in the Western District of Washington granted Caterpillar’s motion to dismiss the case without permitting discovery or hearing oral argument. CCR appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and oral arguments were heard on July 9, 2007. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal on September 17, 2007, under the political question doctrine. Plaintiffs filed a petition for rehearing or en banc which is currently pending.
The Plaintiffs
The Al Sho’bi family: Mahmoud Omar Al Sho’bi is from Nablus in the West Bank. In April 2002, a D9 bulldozer destroyed Mr. Al Sho’bi’s family home without warning in an IDF attack in the middle of the night. His father Umar, his sisters Fatima and Abir, his brother Samir, pregnant sister-in-law Nabila and their three children, ages 4, 7, and 9, were all killed. The Fayed family: Fathiya Muhammad Sulayman Fayed’s home was bulldozed during an IDF incursion into the Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002.
Hundreds of buildings were destroyed allegedly to clear paths for IDF tanks. During the demolition, her son, Jamal, who was paralyzed, needed assistance to get out of the house. While the IDF briefly stopped bulldozing so Fathiya could help Jamal, they quickly resumed demolition. Fathiya escaped, but was unable to get Jamal out, and he was killed. The Abu Hussein family: A D9 demolished the Abu Hussein family home in the al-Salam neighborhood of Rafah in 2002. Destruction began without warning at 5:00 a.m., injuring six family members inside. After being warned, IDF halted active demolition but fired on neighbors and relatives trying to evacuate those in the house. The Corrie family: Rachel Corrie, an American activist, went to Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led movement using nonviolence to resist the Israeli occupation. In March 2003, Rachel stood in front of the Nasrallah family home to protect it from demolition while the family was inside. Despite her fluorescent orange jacket and fellow activists waiving to stop the soldiers, they drove over Rachel, crushing her to death.
The Khalafallah family: In a July 2004 incursion into Khan Yunis Refugee Camp, the IDF demolished over 70 homes. At midnight, a bulldozer approached the home of Ibrahim Khalafallah and his wife Eida, where they lived with their 5 children, 2 daughters-in-law and 4 grandchildren. Ibrahim, in his 70’s and sick, was unable to move. When the bulldozer hit the house, Eida tried to stop the driver, but he continued, destroying the home and killing Ibrahim.
Attached Files
http://ccrjustice.org/files/1.24.2011%20Caterpillar%20Factsheet%20.PDF
Source:
http://ccrjustice.org (Center for constitutional rights)
http://972mag.com/
Posted on: August 2013
By Idan Landau, translated from Hebrew by Ofer Neiman
When people summarize the Zionist project, with the fanfare of victory or the gloom of defeat, one thing will be certain, they will be puzzled over one strange mystery. 
How could so many people associate Zionism with creation and construction, and not with regression and destruction? After all, in parallel with the endless construction frenzy,especially beyond the green line, the hum of bulldozers has always been audible: beating, breaking, shattering. Housing projects for new Jewish immigrants were built in record speed. Build-your-own-house neighborhoods, neighborhoods for IDF career officers, commuter suburbs, and luxury residential towers popped up everywhere; and at the very same time, the angel of Zionist history left more and more piles of ruin and devastation behind.
The demolition policy has, of course, been the Arabs’ share. From time to time, the state demolishes a tiny shred of a Jewish outpost in the occupied territories; just going through the motions, while bowing sanctimoniously to the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ). Let no one compare the master race, whose members have the benefit of myriad legal options when building their house, to the enslaved race, whose members are denied access to land, everywhere, by mountains of legal barriers; those who wish and even succeed in building their home on stolen land, to those who wish and fail to build their home on their own private land; those whose house will be protected by the sovereign through a reign of terror imposed on their neighbors, to those who can only dream of having the sovereign’s protection.
And perhaps those analysts in the future will inquire further as to why so few Israelis knew about this devastation at all, even though it took place constantly, week by week. Hardly a day goes by between the Jordan River and the sea, without a demolition of an Arab home by the State of Israel. And they will be baffled by the short Israeli memory, a memory that had forgotten long ago that the foreign British rule had committed the same crimes against us. And the greatest mystery of all will regard those who had known, yet had always assumed that the demolition policy was right, appropriate, legally justified; those who had assumed, with unquestionable simplicity, that half of the population between the river and the sea, which happens to be the Arabic-speaking half, was also delinquent by nature, simply unable to abide by the laws of planning and construction; and not only that, the other half also suffered from such staggering folly and shortsightedness, that it brought those endless demolitions upon itself, impoverishing itself to perdition in the process. After all, would there be anything simpler than lawful planning, and lawful submission of plans, and lawful attainment of permits, followed by construction? In short, is there anything simpler than being Jewish?
Yes, that is what law-abiding Israelis think to themselves, and someone will be perplexed by this as well one day. Let us now put all this perplexity aside, and get back to the dismal reality of rubble and furniture lying upside down. It happens all the time, with hardly any media coverage; reports go through one ear and come out through the other. The hum of bulldozers is the constant background noise of Zionism. Listen to it for a few moments.
In 2011 alone, Israel demolished around 1,000 houses in the Bedouin villages in the Negev. The Ministry of Interior refuses to disclose data for 2012.
In 2012 alone, Israel demolished around 600 buildings throughout the West Bank. As a result, 880 people, more than half of them children, have lost their homes. Around 90 percent of the demolitions were carried out in Area C, and the rest in East Jerusalem.
As of now, more than 400 houses in neighborhoods of East Jerusalem are under the threat of imminent demolition.
Since 1967, Israel has demolished more than 28,000 Palestinian buildings in the Occupied Territories.
37 percent of state owned land on the West Bank has been allotted to Jewish settlements since 1967. Over the same period, just 0.7 percent of this land has been allotted to Palestinians.
Since 1967, East Jerusalem’s Palestinian population has grown by almost 250,000; throughout the same period, only 3,900 building permits have been issued in that part of the city.
Nearly half of East Jerusalem still does not have zoning plans, after 46 years. 35 percent of the planning area has been designated as “open view areas,” on which construction is prohibited. Just 17 percent of Palestinian East Jerusalem is available to residents for housing and construction, and these land resources have been nearly exhausted. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have no legal way of building houses.
Between 2005 and 2009, the construction of 18,000 housing units in Jerusalem was approved; just 13 percent of them were in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
In most parts of East Jerusalem, building density is restricted to 75 percent. In West Jerusalem, the rate goes up to 150 percent.
180,000 Palestinians who reside in Area C have to settle for just 0.5 percent of this area for legal construction.
In 2009-2010 just 13 out of 776 requests for building permits by Palestinians in Area C were approved, no more than 1.7 percent.
Demolition orders have been issued against the majority of the buildings in the 180-year-old village of Hirbet Susya, home to 250 people, and the same goes for the inhabitants of the Hirbet Dukaikah and Hirbet Zanuta (Hebrew), home to 550 people. The State of Israel intends to wipe out entire villages in Area C.
And what happens when you demolish the wrong house? Mistakes (by Jews) are paid for (by Arabs), and then you confess (to Jews) and get a warm embrace:
Excluding bodily and psychological harm, no graver cruelty can be inflicted on people than the demolition of their home. The financial consequence for most people is the loss of most of the capital they had accrued throughout their lives; being pushed back 20-30 years as far as their financial independence is concerned. But the demolition amounts of course to much more than that. It’s a demolition of the personal, intimate space where one’s most precious memories were formed; for a child – it is the space where all her/his intimate memories were formed. Every little detail of the house, seemingly trivial to the outside observer, is loaded with intensive meaning to those living in it. The tree in the backyard, the angle formed by shadows penetrating the room, the cracked door frame, the personal arrangement of clothes or toys. All these are wiped out in a brutal instant when the bulldozer goes over your house, and you are bound to feel disconnected – sheer detachment and floating in an alienating, impersonal space; this word, which has undergone such appalling devaluation in our language – “Trauma” – describes the situation precisely.
The State of Israel demolishes, time and time again. Here is a sequence of such demolitions, a devastating sequence, from the beginning of the year up to the past few days. It is impossible to document everything. Hundreds of photos, of every single house demolished by the state in the past six months, cannot be uploaded. One must perceive the catastrophe, but it is imperceptible. For now, we will settle for a sample. Hail the demolishing hero.
In 2011 alone, Israel demolished around 1,000 houses in the Bedouin villages in the Negev. The Ministry of Interior refuses to disclose data for 2012.
In 2012 alone, Israel demolished around 600 buildings throughout the West Bank. As a result, 880 people, more than half of them children, have lost their homes. Around 90 percent of the demolitions were carried out in Area C, and the rest in East Jerusalem.
As of now, more than 400 houses in neighborhoods of East Jerusalem are under the threat of imminent demolition.
Since 1967, Israel has demolished more than 28,000 Palestinian buildings in the Occupied Territories.
37 percent of state owned land on the West Bank has been allotted to Jewish settlements since 1967. Over the same period, just 0.7 percent of this land has been allotted to Palestinians.
Since 1967, East Jerusalem’s Palestinian population has grown by almost 250,000; throughout the same period, only 3,900 building permits have been issued in that part of the city.
Nearly half of East Jerusalem still does not have zoning plans, after 46 years. 35 percent of the planning area has been designated as “open view areas,” on which construction is prohibited. Just 17 percent of Palestinian East Jerusalem is available to residents for housing and construction, and these land resources have been nearly exhausted. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have no legal way of building houses.
Between 2005 and 2009, the construction of 18,000 housing units in Jerusalem was approved; just 13 percent of them were in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
In most parts of East Jerusalem, building density is restricted to 75 percent. In West Jerusalem, the rate goes up to 150 percent.
180,000 Palestinians who reside in Area C have to settle for just 0.5 percent of this area for legal construction.
In 2009-2010 just 13 out of 776 requests for building permits by Palestinians in Area C were approved, no more than 1.7 percent.
Demolition orders have been issued against the majority of the buildings in the 180-year-old village of Hirbet Susya, home to 250 people, and the same goes for the inhabitants of the Hirbet Dukaikah and Hirbet Zanuta (Hebrew), home to 550 people. The State of Israel intends to wipe out entire villages in Area C.
And what happens when you demolish the wrong house? Mistakes (by Jews) are paid for (by Arabs), and then you confess (to Jews) and get a warm embrace:
Source:
http://972mag.com/
Posted on: 25 November 2014
The Israeli Government’s use of house demolition as a punitive measure in response to alleged acts of violence by Palestinians must end immediately, two United Nations experts 
urged today, adding that the practice – which targets Palestinian homes in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory – is a violation of human rights law.
“All acts of violence require a firm response from the Israeli authorities, and those responsible should be tried before a court of law and sentenced for their crimes,” Makarim Wibisono, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, affirmed in apress release, adding, however, that the State “cannot go beyond what is sanctioned by international law.”
Mr. Wibisono’s remarks follow the 19 November demolition of the East Jerusalem home of Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi, the Palestinian man accused of committing last month’s car attack in Jerusalem that claimed the lives of a 22 year-old woman and a three-month old child.
In addition to Mr. Al-Shaludi’s home, Israeli authorities have slated at least six other homes of Palestinian suspects located in East Jerusalem, Askar refugee camp, and Hebron, for demolition or sealing – the practice of completely or partially closing off the rooms of a home with concrete or metal sheeting, prohibiting family members from accessing their homes, at times indefinitely. Meanwhile, following a recent deadly attack against a Jerusalem synagogue, a number of other house demolitions are reportedly being prepared.
“In the case of Mr. Al-Shaludi, who was shot and killed by Israeli police at the scene of the attack, the demolition of his home in the middle of the night served no other purpose than to punish his innocent parents and five siblings, rendering them homeless,” Leilani Farha, the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, explained.
“Simply put: the use of house demolition as a punitive measure is a form of collective punishment contrary to international law,” she continued. “Israel must immediately end its use of this devastating practice.”
The recent house demolitions come within a context of increasing tensions – marked by a number of fatal incidents – between Palestinians and Israelis.
However, the two Special Rapporteurs warned that an upsurge in demolitions would “only add to the frustration and despair felt by the people living under prolonged military occupation, and sow the seeds of more hatred and violence for the future.”
“The only means to stop this cycle of violence is for Israel to place human rights at the centre of its policy-making,” Mr. Wibisono concluded.
Source:
-Why does Israel demolish Palestinian homes?
The policy of house demolitions has two goals: first, to make life so miserable for the Palestinians that they leave the country. It is estimated that up to 300,000 Palestinians have left the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the past ten years, most of them middle-class, young, educated, and economically active. This is what we refer to as “selective transfer,” and it is intended to weaken Palestinian society and make it more malleable to Israeli rule. Second, to drive Palestinians off their land in Area C and into Areas A and B. This has largely succeeded. Area C is 62% of the West Bank, yet today contains only about 5% of the (West Bank) Palestinian population.
-How many houses have been demolished since the Occupation began?
Since 1967, about 27,000 Palestinian homes and other structures (livestock pens and fencing for example) crucial for a family’s livelihood, have been demolished in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), including East Jerusalem. It is impossible to know how many homes exactly because the Israeli authorities only report on the demolition of “structures,” which may be homes or may be other structures. When a seven-story apartment building is demolished containing more than 20 housing units that is considered only one demolition. Some homes are as yet incomplete when they are demolished, but the financial loss to families (70% of the Palestinians live below the poverty line, on less than $2 a day), plus the inability to obtain decent and adequate housing, constitutes a fundamental violation of tens of thousands of people to shelter.
-What are the reasons given by the Israeli government for demolishing Palestinian homes?
Throughout the OPT Israel follows a policy of not granting Palestinians building permits. How is this done in a country that claims to be a democracy? Discrimination against Palestinians (and this is true for the Palestinian citizens of Israel as well) is embedded in the dry technicalities of planning, zoning, and administration. Almost the entire West Bank has been declared by Israel “agricultural land,” so that when Palestinians request permission to build on their own properties they are refused. Virtually all of East Jerusalem has been zoned as “open green space,” meaning a Palestinian can own land but cannot build upon it, the land being “reserved” for future urban development (read: Israeli settlements and roads). In Jerusalem, moreover, the official policy of the Israeli government is to maintain a 72%-28% majority of Jews over Arabs in the city (the actual ratio today is about 64%-36%). All urban policies related to housing and residence – permits for Palestinians to live in the city (they only have permanent residency that can be revoked, not Israeli citizenship), land expropriation and zoning restrictions, house demolitions, settlement expansion into Palestinian neighborhoods, the isolation of East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian society and its subsequent impoverishment, routes of highways through Palestinian communities or, conversely, neglect of Palestinian infrastructure – are tied to what in Israel is called the “Quiet Transfer,”: reducing, fragmenting and isolating as much as possible the Palestinian presence in order to “judaize” Jerusalem (an official term actually used by the Israeli government in planning).
-Are house demolitions a form of punishment to terrorism?
No. In only 2% of the 27,000 cases of demolition were security reasons given. In fact, the IDF officially stopped their policy of punitive demolitions in 2005.
-Why do Palestinians build if they know their houses are likely to be demolished?
Palestinians simply have no choice. The Israeli Occupation has lasted for over 45 years, two generations. Couples have families, often 7-8 kids, and their kids have kids; they all need places to live (In Palestinian culture, a young man cannot marry unless he can offer his bride a home). Most continue to live in inadequate conditions, often crowded in with their parents, whose own home is too small and cannot be enlarged. Those that are desperate make a cold calculation: Israel has issued tens of thousands of demolition orders. Maybe, if I build, they won’t come for a year, maybe three years; maybe I’ll “win the lottery” and they will never come. So, left without a choice, Palestinian families gamble. For most, simply a decent home where they can live in security and raise their families is just a dream.
-If the West Bank is zoned as agricultural land and Palestinian building in East Jerusalem is prevented to preserve open green space, then how did Israel manage to construct the settlements – about 350,000 Israelis living in more than 120 officially-recognized
The answer is simple: Israelis sit on the planning committees. The Jerusalem municipality constitutes the District Planning Commission and the Ministry of Interior has the Regional Planning Commission. To rezone land from agricultural/green space to residential takes a minute if that is the intention of the these planning bodies, both of whom vigorously advance the settlement movement while restricting (or completely preventing) Palestinian construction. Then there is the Civil Administration, Israel’s military government, who through the IDF Commander of the Central Command can expropriate any land in the West Bank for “immediate military purposes”, that often later become Jewish settlements.
– Are Israel’s house demolitions legal under international law?
No. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Occupying Powers are prohibited from destroying property or employing collective punishment. Article 53 reads: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons…is prohibited.” Under this provision the practice of demolishing Palestinian houses is banned, as is the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure.
-Are Israeli settlements legal under international law?
No. Under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is prohibited from establishing settlements: “The Occupying Power shall not transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.”
– What other international laws does the Israeli Occupation violate?
Virtually all of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands violates human rights conventions – and especially the Fourth Geneva Convention that forbids an occupying power from making its presence a permanent one. Thus:
- Articles 50 and 51 of the “Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Convention” emphasize the protection of civilians in time of war. “The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians…. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations.”
- Article 3 prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment,” a routine element of Palestinian life under Israel’s occupation.
- Article 32 forbids assassinations, and any brutalization of the civilian population, including their treatment at checkpoints and in “security searches.”
- Article 33 prohibiting pillage would obtain to Israel’s extensive use of West Bank and Gazan water resources, especially as they are denied the local population. It also prohibits the use of collective punishment, as represented by the imposition of closure, curfew, house demolitions and many other routine actions of the Occupation Authorities.
- Article 39 stipulates: “Protected persons [residents of occupied lands] who, as a result of the war, have lost their gainful employment, shall be granted the opportunity to find paid employment.” It thereby prohibits the imposition a permanent “closure” on the Occupied Territories, such as Israel has done since 1993.
- Article 64 forbids changes in the local legal system that, among other things, alienate the local population from its land and property, as Israel has done through massive land expropriations.
- Article 146 holds accountable individuals who have committed “grave breaches” of the Convention. According to Article 147, this includes many acts routinely practiced under the Occupation, such as willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury, unlawful deportation, taking of hostages, extensive destruction, and appropriation of property. Israeli courts have thus far failed to charge or prosecute Israeli officials, military personnel or police who have committed such acts.
- The PLO also bears a measure of responsibility for the violations of its own people’s rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention. According to Article 8, the PLO had no right in the Oslo Agreements to abrogate their rights and suspend the applicability of the Convention, since “Protected persons may in no circumstances renounce in part or in entirety the rights secured to them by the present Convention.” Had international humanitarian law been the basis of the Oslo peace process rather than power-negotiations, the Occupation would have ended and the conditions for a just peace would have been established, since virtually every element of Israel’s occupation violates a provision of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
-How much of the OPT do Palestinians actually control?
All the OPT comprises only 22% of historic Palestine between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. The fragmentation of the Palestinian territories began in the Oslo “peace process,” when in the Oslo II agreement of 1995 the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B and C. Today the Palestinian Authority controls Area A (18% of the West Bank, though in fact Israel invades at will) and Area B (another 22% of the West Bank, although Israel controls the security and patrols the territory). Area C, 60 of the West Bank (where the settlements are), is under full Israeli control. East Jerusalem, where 240,000 Palestinian live and which the international community considers occupied territory, has been formally annexed by Israel and, from Israel’s perspective, is not part of the occupied territories. The PA is forbidden to have any presence in East Jerusalem. Gaza, only 6.5% of the OPT, is under PA/Hamas control. Under the Oslo agreements Gaza is considered an integral unit of the OPT and should be treated as one in the same as the West Bank. In fact, Israel has besieged and isolated it completely in the late 1980s.All in all, then, the Palestinian sort of control about 40% of the OPT and thus only 10% of historic Palestine.
– What aspects of the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza are most likely to be denied or ignored by the average Israeli?
All of it. It’s hard to convey, but Israeli Jews just don’t care about the Occupation. They don’t see it, it does not affect their lives, they live in relative prosperity and security, the “Arabs” (the term Palestinians is not even used) are “over there” somewhere – in short, the Occupation (another term we don’t use in Israel, preferring just to refer to “the Territories”) is a non-issue.
Source:
http://www.icahd.org
Posted on: January 1, 2012
By Emily Schaeffer
The report analyzes Israeli policy and practice in East Jerusalem under law and international humanitarian law. 
The report concludes that Israel is perpetrating serious violations of these laws by denying the right to adequate housing, development, and self-determination, as well as violating the prohibition on residency revocation.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Jerusalem is known as one of the holiest sites in the world to three major religions:
Judaism, Christianity and Islam. What is less well known is that while members of all three religions reside in the city today, the city is divided both geographically (East and West Jerusalem) and demographically. Likewise, far fewer are aware of the assertive efforts made on the part of the Israeli authorities for over four decades to ensure that the Palestinian population – both Christian and Muslim – remains small in numbers and weak as a society. In order to accomplish this goal, a sophisticated set of policies and practices have been put into place, whose implementation has become increasingly aggressive and widespread over the years. The result is the daily struggle for over 300,000 Palestinian East Jerusalem residents between securing authorized housing and adequate infrastructure, maintaining residency, health care and education benefits, and generally remaining financially afloat. Indeed, as this report will show, many of these hardships are the result of Israel’s violation of several norms and obligations under international law.
This report first provides in Chapter II a general overview of these policies and practices by presenting a summary of the dedicated work and research of many of the region’s most established human rights organizations. Following this summary, in Chapter III we present a visual representation – in the form of a flow chart – of the current situation in East Jerusalem, which we view not as the tragic accumulation of various unrelated circumstances, but rather a cause-result set of policies and practices that ultimately accomplish a very specific goal. With these policies and practices as a backdrop, we then propose in Chapter IV a new normative framework – or legal “language” – for examining and critiquing administrative home demolitions in East Jerusalem. This framework outlines five major areas of international law to which Israel is subject and applies them to the set of policies and practices applied in East Jerusalem, forming conclusions about Israel’s failure to adhere to these norms.
Lastly, this report offers its overall conclusions.
A note on the home demolitions data provided in this report
Throughout the report data is presented regarding the situation in Jerusalem, including figures on home demolitions. It must be noted that there is no uniform data on the number and frequency of home demolitions. Administrative home demolitions in the city of Jerusalem are conducted by two different authorities – the Municipality and the Ministry of Interior – and only the former regularly publishes data on demolitions. The total numbers of home demolitions provided by the authorities therefore differ from those collected by human rights organizations based on their observations and reports from the field. What is more, these numbers alone cannot express the type of building, the percentage of the structure that was demolished, or how many families’ homes were affected: for instance, regardless of whether an unlicensed section (such as a balcony or room) of a building (residential or commercial) was demolished, or an entire multi-story residential building, the incident will almost always be recorded by the authorities as one demolition. From what we know about demolition patterns in East versus West Jerusalem, we can assume that the majority of demolitions in East Jerusalem are demolitions of whole structures and often entire homes owned by Palestinians, whereas demolitions in West Jerusalem are most often partial demolitions, or of businesses rather than homes. Additionally, the practice of “self-demolition” – whereby a building owner, rather than the authorities, demolishes a building under demolition order – is not comprehensively documented in any official government data; the unofficial data that is available is included here.
In this report, we are clear about the source of all figures, and we indicate where figures vary. It should be noted, however, that despite the variance in the data on home demolitions over the last decade, all figures reflect a significant disparity in demolition frequency between East and West Jerusalem, disproportionate to the incidence of building violations in each sector, and therefore are telling of the selective implementation of the law and the deliberately different policies toward the Jewish sector versus the Palestinian sector of Jerusalem.
Posted on: 08, 2015
Over 500 rabbis from Israel, Britain, the US and Canada have called on the Israeli prime minister to stop demolishing Palestinian homes. Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) say Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance is against “international law and Jewish tradition.”
RHR’s open letter came after the Israeli PM announced the destruction of over 400 Palestinian homes in the Israel-controlled part ofthe West Bank, the territory known as Area C.“Thousands have been forced to build without permits, and great human suffering is caused when hundreds of homes are demolished each year in Area C alone,” RHR stated in their letter, adding that Israeli planning and zoning laws “severely restrict the ability of Palestinians to build homes, even on the lands that the State recognizes as belonging to them.” According to the rabbis, there has been “no representation or true ability for Palestinians to determine how to properly plan for their communities since local and district planning committees were abolished in 1971. The army plans for them.”
In late January, the United Nations accused Israel of illegally demolishing the homes of 77 Palestinians, including many children, in East Jerusalem and the districts of Ramallah, Jericho and Hebron. “In the past three days, 77 Palestinians, over half of them children, have been made homeless,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement, adding that some of the demolished structures were provided by the international community to“support vulnerable families.” “Demolitions that result in forced evictions and displacement run counter to Israel’s obligations under international law and create unnecessary suffering and tension. They must stop immediately,” the OCHA said.
According to the UN office, during 2014 Israel carried out a record number of demolitions in East Jerusalem and Area C. “The Israeli authorities destroyed 590 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C and East Jerusalem, displacing 1,177 people — the highest level of displacement in the West Bank since OCHA began systematically monitoring the issue in 2008.” While Israel insists demolitions are carried out because homes are being built without construction permits, the UN’s OCHA says the planning policies applied by Israeli authorities in Area C and East Jerusalem “discriminate against Palestinians.” Palestinians are trapped in a vicious circle, where they build without permits to later have their homes razed to the ground. “Palestinians must have the opportunity to participate in a fair and equitable planning system that ensures their needs are met,” the OCHA said.
Source:
http://rt.com
Posted on: JANUARY 2012
Key facts
-Almost 1,100 Palestinians, over half children, were displaced due to home demolitions by Israeli forces in 2011, over 80% more than in 2010.
-4,200 additional people were affected by the demolition of structures related to their livelihoods.
-Israeli forces destroyed 622 structures owned by Palestinians, a 42% increase compared to 2010. This included 222 homes, 170 animal shelters, two classrooms and two mosques (one twice).
-The number of rainwater cisterns and pools destroyed in 2011 (46), was more than double last year (21), with tens of other related structures vulnerable to future demolition.
-Most demolitions (90%) and displacement (92%) occurred in already vulnerable farming and herding communities in Area C; thousands of others remain at-risk of displacement due to outstanding demolition orders.
-In East Jerusalem, there was a significant decrease compared to previous years, with 42 structures demolished*. However, at least 93,100 residents, who live in structures built without a permit, remain at risk of displacement.
-Over 60% of the Palestinian-owned structures demolished in 2011 were located in areas allocated to settlements.
-70% of Area C is off-limits for Palestinian construction, allocated instead for Israeli settlements or the Israeli military; an additional 29% is heavily restricted.
-Only 13% of East Jerusalem is zoned for Palestinian construction – much of which is already built up, compared with 35%, which has been expropriated and zoned for the use of Israeli settlements.
-Ten out of 13 communities visited by OCHA in Area C reported that families are being displaced because Israeli policies make it difficult for them to meet basic needs. The inability to build was one of the main triggers for this displacement.
- The forced displacement of Palestinian families and the destruction of civilian homes and other property by Israeli forces in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have a serious humanitarian impact. Demolitions deprive people of their homes, often their main source of physical and economic security. They also disrupt their livelihoods, reducing their standard of living and undermining their access to basic services, such as water and sanitation, education and health care.
- The impact on families’ psychosocial well-being can be devastating. Women often feel a loss of control over domestic matters and a heightened sense of insecurity while men experience increased stress and anxiety. For many children, the demolition, along with the disruption to education and increased tension in the home, results in depression, anxiety and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
- According to Israeli authorities, demolitions are carried out because structures lack the required building permits. In reality, it is almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain permits. The zoning and planning regime enforced by Israel in Area C and East Jerusalem restricts Palestinian growth and development, while providing preferential treatment for unlawful Israeli settlements. This treatment includes the approval of master plans and the provision of essential infrastructure, participation in the planning process, and the allocation of land and water resources.
- In Area C, a combination of Israeli policies and practices, including restrictive zoning and planning, settlement expansion, settler violence, and restrictions on movement and access, have resulted in fragmentation of land and shrinking space for Palestinians, undermining their presence. Israeli authorities have also indicated that they intend to transfer several Palestinian communities out of strategic parts of Area C, raising further humanitarian and legal concerns.
- Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank, has the obligation to protect Palestinian civilians and to administer the territory for their benefit. International law prohibits the forced displacement or transfer of civilians as well as the destruction of private property, unless absolutely necessary for military operations. Demolitions of homes and other civilian structures should end immediately and Palestinians should have access to fair and effective zoning and planning for their communities.
To keep reading the full report click on here
Source:
Posted on: June/July 2014
By Dale Sprusansky
Kareem Issa Jubran (l) and Amira Hass note that home demolitions in Area C of the West Bank are increasing. (Staff Photo D. Sprusansky)
Two long-time observers of the Israeli occupation of Palestine appeared at the New America Foundation (NAF) in Washington, DC on April 3 to discuss Israel’s treatment of Palestinians living in Area C of the West Bank. The event, organized by NAF’s new Israel-Palestine Initiative, was titled “Unrecognized and Unwanted: Demolition and Forced Displacement in Area C.”
Haaretz West Bank correspondent Amira Hass began the conversation by providing some background on Area C. Comprising 61 percent of the West Bank, she noted, Area C, which is under total Israeli civilian and military control, is home to approximately 300,000 Palestinians and 350,000- 400,000 Jewish settlers.
Area C’s borders are an inorganic creation of the Oslo II accords, Hass pointed out. “Area C is completely an artificial designation,” she stated. “It has nothing to with people’s organic development, the organic development of Palestinian communities.”
Israel is determined to rid Area C of Palestinians, Hass charged. “The Israeli intention is to guarantee that there are as few Palestinians as possible in this area so that they will be able to annex it to Israel,” she said. Indeed, Hass noted, Israeli soldiers have candidly told Palestinians living in Area C that they should move to Area A.
To advance this goal, Hass reported, Israel in recent years has increased the number of home demolitions it carries out in Area C. While one or two structures once were targeted for demolition, now entire communities are being destroyed, she said, adding, “There is more chutzpah to the orders.”
The Israelis legitimize these demolitions by saying that many Palestinian buildings are constructed without permits, Hass noted. But, she explained, Palestinians are forced to construct without permission because Israeli authorities rarely grant permits and refuse to develop master plans for Palestinian communities. (Israel is required to issue master plans for Palestine under international law.)
The sad irony, Hass said, is that Israel is always quick to issue master plans for illegal settlements in Area C. “Israeli authorities have developed thousands of master plans for Israeli settlers, but they do not develop master plans for Palestinian inhabitants,” she said.
Kareem Issa Jubran, field research director for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, used recent statistics to illustrate the unequal distribution of building permits. Between 2000 and 2012, he noted, only 211 of 3,700 Palestinian building permit requests were approved. During the same time span, however, more than 15,000 permits were issued for settlers.
Jubran explained that there is a similar disparity in access to water and electricity. As an example, he pointed to the Jordan Valley, where 10,000 Jewish settlers consume one-third of the available water and the remaining two-thirds is available to the area’s 2.5 million Palestinians.
Hass expressed outrage at Palestine’s unequal access to resources. “As an Israeli Jew, I’m filled with shame to see this discrepancy,” she said. “This is a policy of such blatant discrimination and double standards.”
While Israelis once felt some sympathy for Palestinians, Hass lamented that this is no longer the case. “Thirty or forty years ago I could sense some shame among the Israeli politicians and others,” she said. Young Israelis born in the settlements now believe they are entitled to more land and resources than the Palestinians, she lamented. “There is willful ignorance…and I see it everywhere,” Hass concluded.
Source:
http://www.wrmea.org/2014-june-july/human-rights-home-demolitions-and-land-seizures-in-area-c-of-the-west-bank.html
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