From: Kimberly Stevens (stevensk@mailhost.mechsysdesign.com)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2003 - 06:47:34 PDT
for certain members of the list who don't think that israeli bulldozers are
used under the guise of "anti-terrorism" weapons to bulldoze down homes of
suspected terrorists and aleged suicide bombers families read on:
(this in no way is a discussion of political viewpoints on my part, simply
clearing up the perception of misinformation)
Article courtesy of COUNTERPUNCH @ counterpunch.org
August 13/19, 2002
Fortress Israel
The Message of the Bulldozer
by Jeff Halper
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) deplores this week's
decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice against permitting judicial
review for families of Palestinians whose homes are targeted for demolition
because a family member has been involved in (or even suspected of) terror
attacks. True to the pattern of many years, the Court has accepted the
argument of the army that such demolitions take place as integral parts of
military operations. Israel's High Court thus permits the setting aside of
fundamental human rights in favor of military considerations (which are but
extensions of the governmentOs political goals).
What human rights are violated by this decision?
The right of innocent individuals not to be held legally accountable for the
actions of relatives. Blood ties cannot be the basis of demolition someone's
home. The notion that individuals may be punished for crimes of others
without any criminal charge being made against them forfeits the elementary
protection that the legal system owes to every person.
The right of every person to due process and judicial review. Punishing
individuals not charged with any crime, or denying them recourse to the
court if they are faced with punitive actions, constitutes extra-judicial
punishment. When an entire family is punished for the suspected deeds of one
of its members, this is collective punishment. Both violate the essence of
both Israeli civil law and international humanitarian law.
The demolition of houses or destruction of other private property of
individuals residing in occupied territories is explicitly forbidden by the
Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 53), as is collective punishment (Article
33).
This sad decision, which immediately effects 49 Palestinian families whose
homes may be demolished at any time, represents the steady erosion of
Israeli democracy as it tries to cope with popular resistance to an illegal
Occupation. In its decision, the High Court itself subordinates the rule of
law, not to mention human rights, to the requirements of military
repression. In the simplest terms, it condones and permits war crimes.
Absolute rule over another people is possible only by denying them
fundamental legal protection. In the end, this must destroy the very moral
and legal basis underlying democracy and law.
For the past six years ICAHD has been working on the issue of house
demolitions. Every time we think: "OK, we've exhausted the subject, let's go
on to other, perhaps more pressing issues," the systematic destruction of
Palestinian homes returns to the center of the conflict with a vengeance. It
happened in the Jenin refugee camp, where the indomitable drivers of the
massive D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers labored for three straight days and
nights demolishing more than 300 homes in the densely packed camp, thereby
becoming the heroes of the invasion. And it is happening today as Israel
demolishes dozens of houses belonging to families of terrorists, a form of
collective punishment that is clearly a war crime.
Why? Why does house demolitions remain at the center of the conflict? Why
has it been at the center of the Israeli struggle against the Palestinians
since 1948? There are many specific reasons given: security, deterrence,
punishment, self-defense, warfare, "illegal" construction, enforcement of
the law and on and on. But one element remains throughout: The Message.
Sharon, like his predecessors, never tire of warning that Israeli attacks on
the Palestinians will continue "until they get The Message." What is The
Message? As stated by Sharon and the others (going back some 80 years to the
"Iron Wall" concept of Jabotinsky and Ben Gurion), The Message is: "Submit.
Only when you abandon your dreams for an independent state of your own, and
accept that Palestine has become the Land of Israel, will we relent." But
The Message goes even deeper, is more sinister than that. The Message of the
Bulldozers is: "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." "Transfer" has become an acceptable topic of television
talk shows. And that is why house demolitions remain so prominent, the
bulldozer beside the tank. Because in the end this process of reoccupation
is one of displacement.
The bulldozer certainly deserves to take its rightful place alongside the
tank as a symbol of Israel's relationship with the Palestinians. The two
deserve to be on the national flag. The tank as symbol of an Israel
"fighting for its existence," and for its prowess on the battlefield. And
the bulldozer for the dark underside of Israel's struggle for existence, its
ongoing struggle to displace the Palestinians from the country. For Israel
has always treated the Palestinians as an enemy, never as a people with
collective rights and legitimate claims to the country with which it might
someday live in peace. In 1948 Israel played an active role in driving 75%
of the Palestinians from the Land. Over the next four or five years the
bulldozer, following the tank, systematically demolished 418 Palestinian
villages. Since 1967, as Israel's tanks suppress Palestinian resistance to
the Occupation with increasing frequency and ferocity, its bulldozers (aided
by artillery and missiles) have demolished more than 9000 Palestinian homes
and counting. Even as I write this, a day after the Israeli High Court of
Justice gave its consent to demolishing houses of families of terrorists
without warning or a chance to appeal to the court, houses are being
bulldozed in Bethlehem and Gaza with dozens more threatened throughout the
Occupied Territories. And not only. Throughout Israel proper, in the
"unrecognized villages" and Palestinian neighborhoods of Ramle, Lod and
elsewhere, houses continue to be demolished 54 years later. Jews now live in
Palestinian houses in Israel's major cities and Palestinian villages have
long disappeared under the agricultural fields of kibbutzim and moshavs.
Amidst this destruction 150,000 housing units have been built for the
400,000 Jews living across the 1967 border.
The bulldozer remains at the center of the "action" for the simple reason
that repression and control alone do not secure the country for those the
Jews whose claim excludes all others. Those with competing claims the
Palestinians must be displaced if the Jews are really going to take
possession, or at least confined to small islands where they cannot
interfere with or challenge Israeli dominion. (The announcement this week by
the Ministry of the Interior that Palestinian Israelis would be stripped of
their citizenship if proven "unloyal" to the State extends the work of
bulldozers.)
But just as Israel cannot insulate itself from the Occupation, so too it
cannot escape the ravages of its own house demolitions policy. Fear that the
displaced might yet rise again and claim their patrimony prevents Israelis
from enjoying the fruits of their power. The country has been seized by
rising xenophobia and national--religious fanaticism. Polarization
characterizes the relations between the right and left, Jewish and Arab
citizens, Jews of European and Middle East origin, the working and middle
classes, religious and secular. Israelis are "hunkering down," increasingly
isolated from the world. Young Israeli men and women are themselves
brutalized as they are sent as soldiers to evict Palestinian families from
their homes. Even the beauty of the land is destroyed as the authorities
rush to construct ugly, sprawling suburbs and massive highways in order to
"claim" the land before Palestinians creep back in. Aesthetics, human
rights, environmental concerns, education, social justice these are the
finer things of life that cannot coexist with displacement and occupation.
"Fortress Israel," as we call it, is by necessity based on a culture of
strength, violence and crudity.
In the final analysis, it will be the bulldozer that razes the structure
that once was Israel.
and don't forget the student from Washington State who was crushed to death
defending one of these houses this March.
http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6710/671050.html
Now enough of this....lets get back to talking about the vehicles...please!
--Ms. Kimberly Stevens Office Administrator
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