Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 14:02:40 -0500
Subject: Israeli Army's Campaign of Revenge and Ethnic Cleansing



>Demolitions and Repression
>The Israeli Army's Campaign of Revenge and Ethnic Cleansing
>http://www.mediamonitors.net/halper3.html
>
>by Jeff Halper
>On July 3, after an Israeli from the settlement of Susiya in the southern
>West Bank was found murdered, and without any suspects being identified or
>arrested, the Israeli army unleashed an unprecedented campaign of revenge
>and ethnic cleansing against the entire civilian Palestinian population of
>the area. (The same day the Israeli government authorized a whole-scale
>campaign of assassinations as well.) As this is being written (Thursday
>evening, the 5th of July), we are in the third day of this campaign.
>
>The first 24 hours witnessed the demolition of at least five Palestinian
>homes in the city of Yata, which was completely sealed off to the outside
>world, leaving the army to act with impunity towards the civilian
>inhabitants. Reports are that up to a thousand residents were forced from
>their homes before demolishing dozens of them. The army also attacked
>residents in the entire rural area between Yata and the area around Jibna
>where the Palestinian "cave-dwellers" live. Additional houses were
>demolished, wells and reservoirs destroyed and the agricultural
>infrastructure severely damaged. Even the Channel 1 Israel news spoke of
>the army as acting out of "revenge." If this is so, the Israeli army, which
>once prided itself as a "defense" force whose moral code included "purity
>of arms," has been reduced during the repression of the past months into a
>mere gang. The fact that no outside observers were allowed into the entire
>West Bank south of Hebron during this 24-hour period, including journalist
>and human rights observers, and even the Red Cross was prevented from
>providing humanitarian aid to the hundreds of families affected, raises
>fears about acts of violence and intimidation committed with absolute
>impunity by an army against a defenseless civilian population (most of the
>area affected is in Israeli-controlled Area C). Not only does international
>law forbid such actions, but the Fourth Geneva Convention requires Israel
>as an occupying power to protect the civilian population under its rule and
>provide for its welfare.
>
>Among the families whose dwellings were destroyed was Rasmiya Nawaja Jamal,
>a woman in her 60s whose husband Mohammad was murdered by settlers from
>Susiya ten years ago (no one was ever tried). Rasmiya, who ekes out a
>living as a shepherd, managed to raise 12 children on her own, the family
>living in an underground cave. Since her compound is situated close to
>Susiya, the family has endured harassment for many years, including
>settlers riding horses through her living area. Two years ago the Israeli
>Civil Administration demolished the cave, claiming that the Nawaja family
>had no permit to live there. Rasmiya then constructed an ingenious compound
>over her demolished cave, made of skeletons of automobiles. She and her
>smaller children lived in the shell of a mini-van, her son and his family
>lived in the cab of a truck, and a pick-up truck was converted into a
>stable. Rasmiya used the fenders to fence off her gardens, and even
>constructed a cooking area of solar panels. On Tuesday morning the army
>returned and destroyed Rasmiya's compound, as well as those of her
>neighbors, making more than 50 people homeless. They also uprooted more
>than 1000 olive trees belonging to Rasmiya and her neighbors, and destroyed
>all their cisterns.
>
>This morning we received word that Civil Administration bulldozers were
>destroying homes, farming structures and cisterns in the area of Jibna.
>This is where, two years ago, the Israeli army tried to force the area's
>3000 farming families out of their cave dwellings where they had lived for
>generations. In October, 1999, the Israeli army declared their lands --
>some 100,000 dunams of land (25,000 acres) south of Hebron -- as a "closed
>military area." (In fact, this was only one of 16 orders closing vast
>tracts of land throughout the West Bank at that time.) The land, though
>semi-arid and rural, is home to an entire society of Palestinian farmers
>who had farmed and grazed that area for centuries, developing a unique
>culture around the many caves that dotted the mountainous landscape. The
>expulsion order affected, at that time, around 42 families, consisting of
>around 730 people (among them some 500 children), were violently and
>brutally driven from their homes.
>
>They army claimed they needed the land for a "firing zone," but in fact it
>is coveted because it connects the Israeli city of Arad with the
>settlements of the area and creates a corridor from Israel to Kiryat Arba
>and Hebron. At that time ICAHD and other Israeli human rights organizations
>initiated an appeal to the Supreme Court, which ruled in March of 2000 that
>the families would be allowed to stay in their homes until the issue of
>their residence was resolved. Since that time, the Civil Administration has
>admitted it cannot find fault with the families' claims to the land.
>Today's action, then, was intended to by-pass the Supreme Court by simply
>demolishing the houses under the guise of "security." One of the caves,
>belonging to the family of Musa Jabarin, was demolished today, together
>with four other houses, a number of cisterns and many farming structures
>essential for the economic survival of the community. Clothes, furniture,
>dead chickens, pieces of pens and chicken coops lie scattered over the
>ground. (Pictures will be posted on the AIC website:
>www.alternativenews.org). Many other families were ordered to remove their
>belongings and preparations were made to demolish their homes as well. But
>an appeal to the Attorney General's Office has resulted in the Civil
>Administration being ordered to desist -- at least for the time being.
>
>It should be noted that according to Amnesty International Israel has
>demolished at least 7000 Palestinian homes since 1967, to which more than
>500 have to added since the second Intifada began.
>At a time when Sharon is being feted by the Chancellor of Germany and the
>President of France, Israel's occupation and the actions it engenders
>stands in stark violation of international law. Collective punishment is
>explicitly forbidden in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the
>demolition of houses constitutes a grave violation of Article 53. The
>increasing use of international courts to enforce accountability to human
>rights covenants (upon which Israel itself has signed) should put the
>Israeli government and its agents on notice that they may find themselves
>one day being tried for war and civil crimes. Besides the simple injustice
>and moral indefensibility of such actions.
>
>Contact your political representatives, write in your local newspapers, let
>your voice be hear in your community against this increasingly brutal
>Occupation which is destroying Palestinian and Israeli societies alike.
>
>Jeff Halper (53) is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
>Demolitions (ICAHD) and a Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion
>University. He has lived in Israel since 1973.
>Source:by courtesy & © 2001 Jeff Halper
>
>----------------
>To leave the list, send a <unsubscribe afsonet> command to
><majordomo-AT-ualberta.ca>
>or, if you experience difficulties, write to <afso-AT-ualberta.ca>
>
>----- End forwarded message -----
>






     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---