5-14-06, 10:02 am
Political Affairs: Your organization, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, works to stop home demolitions in the Occupied Territories. Can you describe the reason Palestinian homes are being destroyed there?
Jeff Halper: Displacement, dispossession is the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Zionist movement asserted exclusive claims to Palestine/the Land of Israel in the name of the Jewish people. The term 'transfer' was first used by the World Zionist Organization in 1911, and in 1948 it was largely carried out – some 750,000 Palestinians were made refugees, about 75 percent of the Palestinian population. The occupation of the West Bank, 'east' Jerusalem and Gaza in 1967 completed the conquest of the country. Since then Israeli has attempted to induce the emigration of as many Palestinians as possible and confine the rest to a collection of impoverished enclaves on BOTH sides of the 'Green Line,' its own Arab citizens as well as the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s 'convergence plan,' for which he is seeking American support, will impose once and for all a permanent, institutionalized domination of Israel over a tiny, non-viable and only semi-sovereign Palestinian Bantustan.
Israel’s policy of demolishing Palestinian homes is part of this plan of displacement. Between 1948 (after the fighting subsided) and the mid-1960s, Israel systematically demolished more than 400 entire Palestinian villages – two-thirds of the villages in Palestine. This was done both to 'transfer' the Palestinians out of the country and to prevent the return of the refugees. Even today some 150,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel remain trapped in more than 100 'unrecognized villages,' living since 1948 in sub-human conditions, bereft of all social services (including water, electricity and schools), their shacks threatened with demolition.
Since 1967 Israel has demolished a further 12,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories. Contrary to common assumptions, in 95 percent of the cases these demolitions had nothing to do with security. Thousands of Palestinian homes have been demolished in the course of military invasions of civilian population centers as a form of collective punishment. Listen to the testimony of Moshe Nissim, the indomitable driver of a massive D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer, an army reservist who labored for three days and nights without getting down from his cab to demolish Palestinian homes in the Jenin refugee camp during the March 2002 'Operation Defensive Shield.'
For three days I just erased and erased. The entire area. I took down any house from which there was shooting. To take it down, I would take down several more. The soldiers warned with a speaker, that the tenants must leave before I come in, but I did not give anyone a chance. I did not wait. I didn’t give one blow, and wait for them to come out. I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible. I wanted to get to the other houses. To get as many as possible. Others may have restrained themselves, or so they say. Who are they kidding? Anyone who was there, and saw our soldiers in the houses, would understand they were in a death trap. I thought about saving them. I didn’t give a damn about the Palestinians, but I didn’t just ruin with no reason. It was all under orders.Amnesty International, in its report Under the Rubble: House Demolition and Destruction of Land and Property (May 2004) comments that 'The largest single wave of destruction carried out by the Israeli army was in the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002. The army completely destroyed the al-Hawashin quarter and partially destroyed two additional quarters of the refugee camp, leaving more than 800 families, totaling some 4000 people, homeless. Aerial photographs and other evidence show that much of the house destruction was carried out after clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen had ended and Palestinian gunmen had been arrested or had surrendered.' Moshe Nissim, like the other once-lowly bulldozer drivers, became the heroes of the invasion, earning medals of valor from the army command.
Many people where inside houses we set out to demolish. They would come out of the houses we where working on. I didn’t see, with my own eyes, people dying under the blade of the D-9. and I didn’t see house falling down on live people. But if there were any, I wouldn’t care at all. I am sure people died inside these houses, but it was difficult to see, there was lots of dust everywhere, and we worked a lot at night. I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew they didn’t mind dying, but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you buried 40 or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down.
I didn’t stop for a moment. Even when we had a two-hour break, I insisted on going on….I had plenty of satisfaction. I really enjoyed it. I remember pulling down a wall of a four-story building. It came crashing down on my D-9. My partner screamed at me to reverse, but I let the wall come down on us. We would go for the sides of the buildings, and then ram them. If the job was to hard, we would ask for a tank shell. I couldn’t stop. I wanted to work and work. There was this officer who gave us orders by radio – I drove him mad. I kept begging for more and more missions. On Sunday, after the fighting was over, we got orders to pull our D-9’s out of the area, and stop working on our ‘football stadium’, because the army didn’t want the cameras and press to see us working. I was really upset, because I had plans to knock down the big sign at the entrance of Jenin – three poles with a picture of Arafat. But on Sunday, they pulled us away before I had time to do it.
I had lots of satisfaction in Jenin, lots of satisfaction. I kept thinking of our soldiers. I didn’t feel sorry for all those Palestinians who were left homeless. I just felt sorry for their children, who were not guilty….(quoted in '7 Days,' Yedioth Ahronoth Supplement, May 31, 2002)
A second major reason for the demolition of Palestinian homes is the lack of building permits. Although Palestinians seek to build homes on their own private property, the Israeli authorities refuse to grant them permits. Thus, in addition to thousands of homes that have been demolished in the Occupied Territories, we must also take into account the tens of thousands of homes that should have been built to provide minimal adequate housing to the Palestinian population but were not because of the lack of permits. In Jerusalem, for example, 10,000 'illegal' houses exist in the Palestinian sector, almost all with demolition orders, but another 25,000 housing units are lacking. This is an entirely artificial and induced housing shortage, since Palestinians own sufficient lands in the city and have the resources to build. But it is part of the policy of 'quiet transfer' that uses administrative, planning and legal mechanisms to force Palestinians out of the city, thereby ensuring a large Jewish majority.
The house demolition policy represents a policy of displacement, of one people dispossessing another, taking both their lands and their right to self-determination. Since people cannot survive or function without a house, the Message of the Bulldozers is clear: 'Get out. You do not belong here. We uprooted you from your homes in 1948 and prevented your return, and now we will uproot you from all of the Land of Israel.'
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) resists demolitions of all kinds. As Israelis we block bulldozers coming to demolish, we chain ourselves in the houses, we conduct campaigns to mobilize opposition to the policy in Israel and abroad, we turn to the courts and, when demolitions finally occur, we rebuild demolished homes with the Palestinians as political acts of solidarity and resistance. We have come to see house demolitions as the very essence of the conflict between our two peoples: Israel’s exclusive claim to the entire country in the name of the Jewish people at the expense of another people living in the country, a people being dispossessed by our own country. This is what gives the policy of house demolitions its special significance. When, as Israelis, we resist home demolitions and rebuild demolished homes as acts of civil disobedience, we are acknowledging the rights of both people to share the country. We are affirming our recognition that Palestinian claims carry equal authority to our own. And we are proclaiming loudly: We refuse to be enemies!
PA: Prior to his incapacitation, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon adopted a policy of withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. This policy met with praise from his supporters and was strongly criticized by others. Can you explain your view?
JH: Israeli withdrawal or 'disengagement' from Palestinian territories is a subterfuge, sand in the eyes. Following the immense success of Sharon’s 'disengagement' from Gaza (which has left the population literally imprisoned and starving), Ehud Olmert has announced his intention to determine the permanent borders of Israel during the remainder of Bush’s term in office (i.e. until January 2009). This means annexing the massive settlement blocs, 'Greater' Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to an Israel that expand from the present 78 percent of the country to around 85 percent, confining the Palestinians to five isolated, impoverished and non-viable 'cantons' (Sharon’s term) – the majority of the country’s population reduced to a truncated 15 percent of its land. The international community, led by the US, will put pressure on the Palestinians to accept this Bantustan as their ‘state.’
Of course, Olmert’s plan is presented with a positive spin characterized by terminology to do Orwell proud. Hitkansut or ‘withdrawing into oneself’ in Hebrew is the operational phase of ‘separation’ from the Palestinians, and seems exactly what the public wanted (a full 85 percent of Israeli Jews support the construction of the Wall, or 'Separation Barrier'). Perhaps that is the reason it generated no public discussion, no dissent and ended up a non-issue. It does not mean, however, withdrawal of Israel back to its pre-1967 territory, but rather a 'convergence' of Israeli settlers scattered throughout the West Bank into Israel’s major settlement blocs. Though the idea of leaving territories densely populated by Palestinians sounds good to Israeli Jews, it really means apartheid. And it will be imposed unilaterally because Israel has nothing to offer the Palestinians. True, they get 70-85 percent of the Occupied Territories, but only in truncated enclaves. Israel retains control of all the borders, Palestinian movement among the cantons, all the water and the richest agricultural land, the large settlement blocs including 'greater' Jerusalem (which accounts for 40 percent of the Palestinian economy), the Palestinians’ airspace and even their communications. Indeed, Israel retains all the developmental potential of the country, leaving the Palestinians with only barren and disconnected enclaves. Israel expands onto 85 percent of the entire country, leaving the Palestinians – the majority population or soon to be – with only about 15 percent, and that truncated, non-viable and only semi-sovereign. A Bantustan a la apartheid South Africa.
JH: The Wall (or the 'Separation Barrier' as Israel calls it) will be 95 percent complete by the end of 2007. It is composed of massive concrete slabs eight meters (26 feet) high around Palestinian population centers, an electrified fence fortified with cameras, watchtowers, trenches and electronic gates in the more rural areas. Altogether the Barrier is twice as high as the Berlin Wall and five times longer (more than 500 miles). And it is not linear as the Berlin Wall was. It includes secondary walls, fences, trenches, roadblocks and checkpoints that lock Palestinians into a maze of enclaves. In Jerusalem alone 55,000 Palestinians will be trapped in their neighborhoods, completely surrounded by towering walls. Thousands of Palestinians will be trapped between the border and the Barrier, as well as their richest agricultural land, much of which will be untellable.
An entire people is literally being imprisoned in concrete cells – and the Wall, a $2 billion project, will be permanent. Although it is sold as a 'security' barrier, in fact it is a border defining the Palestinian Bantustan. Built so that Israelis don’t see it, much of the Barrier divides Palestinian communities rather than separating between Jews and Arabs.
PA: Some observers of the elections in Israel are optimistic about the new ruling coalition's view of the peace process. Do you share this optimism? If so, why? If not, why not?
JH: For all the reasons discussed above I cannot say I am optimistic about the near future here. Israel feels that it is 'winning,' and it might be right. The US (and especially Congress) supports the Convergence Plan to the hilt, Europe is passive, the Arab and Muslim governments (though not the peoples) have abandoned the Palestinians in favor of relations with Israel (and through it, with the US), the Palestinians are isolated, imprisoned and incapable of mounting a new Intifada, Israel is poised to impose unilaterally a regime of apartheid with international approval.
Still, I am optimistic in the long run. Injustice, in the end, is unsustainable. It contains the seeds of its own destruction. By its very nature injustice is oppressive, exploitative, violent and immoral. It cannot be normalized and pushes oppressive regimes into extreme actions of repression that finally cannot be accepted by the international community. This is the case of the Israeli Occupation, I believe. I cannot say exactly how or when it will collapse, but like the South African apartheid regime it will collapse. I only hope the Palestinians will not be decimated by then.
PA: How has the political landscape in the Israel-Palestine struggle changed as a result of Bush policies in the Middle East (e.g. the Iraq war, the nuclear crisis with Iran, its stance toward other countries in the region and support for Israel)?
JH: One of the reasons Israel feels empowered is its success in prodding the US to attack and weaken other Middle Eastern regimes. Egypt and Jordan have been neutralized by massive American aid; Turkey is one of Israel’s closest military partners; Iraq (which Israel and its neo-con allies in the Bush administration pushed the US to attack) has been fragmentized, and Iran is on the way. So we are seeing the establishment of a Pax Americana/Israeliana over the Middle East. This is scary given the Pentagon’s recently published plan, entitled 'The Long War,' projecting a 20-year war against 'radical Islam.' Just as Israel was at the center of neo-con plans for American Empire, just as it has acted as America’s hired gun throughout the world, so we can expect a highly armed Israel to act at the beck and call of its American masters in the Long War (see my article in Counterpunch, 'Israel as an Extension of American Empire'). Given its usefulness to the US, allowing Israel its Occupation is a small price for the US to pay.
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