[Marxism] Israeli ethnic cleansing actively supported by US

[dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/15/israelandthepalestinians/print 

Area C strikes fear into the heart of Palestinians as homes are destroyed

Israelis defend rules that reject 94% of non-Jewish building applications



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In the end it came down to a single-page letter, written in Hebrew and Arabic 
and hand-delivered by an Israeli army officer who knocked at the front door. 
The letter spelt the imminent destruction of the whitewashed three-storey home 
and small, tree-lined garden that Bassam Suleiman spent so long saving for and 
then built with his family a decade ago.

It was a final demolition order, with instructions to evacuate the house within 
three days. 

If Suleiman was in any doubt about the Israeli military's intentions he had 
only to look outside his back door where large piles of rubble and broken 
concrete mark the remains of the seven of his neighbours' houses that were 
demolished in the same way last year. 

"How would you feel when you've spent 20 years finishing your life's project?" 
said Suleiman, 38, a teacher. He began moving his furniture out after the 
letter, from the civil administration of Judea and Samaria, the defence 
ministry department responsible for the Israeli-occupied West Bank, came on 
January 31. Now there are just a couple of plastic chairs in his front room and 
in the hallway the carpets are rolled up and ready to be moved. Clothes are 
piled on the floor and the shelves are empty, save for a stack of documents 
charting the story of the impending demolition. His brother, Husam, has already 
left the ground floor flat but the new washing machine and fridge stand still 
wrapped in plastic. Suleiman, his wife and two children wait for the bulldozers.

"Everything I did in my life was for what's now inside this house and now it's 
going to be destroyed," said Suleiman. "It's very hard for me to find somewhere 
else to live."

The Israeli authorities argue that Suleiman's house was built in a part of the 
West Bank known as area C, a designation from the era of the Oslo Accords which 
means Israel has full military and administrative control. In order to build, a 
Palestinian must apply for a permit from the Israeli authorities. If there is 
no permit - as in Suleiman's case - the building is liable for demolition.

Illegal

Area C covers 60% of the West Bank, home to around 70,000 Palestinians. It is 
also the area in which most Jewish settlements, all illegal under international 
law, are built. Compelling statistical evidence shows that while it is 
extremely hard for Palestinians to obtain building permits, settlements 
continue to grow rapidly. 

Research by the Israeli group Peace Now found that 94% of Palestinian permit 
applications for Area C building were refused between 2000 and September 2007. 
Only 91 permits were granted to Palestinians, but 18,472 housing units were 
built in Jewish settlements. As a result of demolition orders 1,663 Palestinian 
buildings were demolished, against only 199 in the settlements. "The denial of 
permits for Palestinians on such a large scale raises the fear that there is a 
specific policy by the authorities to encourage a 'silent transfer' of the 
Palestinian population from area C," Peace Now said.

This year there has been a marked increase in demolitions. There were 138 
demolitions between January and March, most in area C, compared with 29 in the 
last three months of 2007, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of 
Humanitarian Affairs. This year 400 Palestinians have been displaced as a 
result. At a time of a renewed peace process to create an independent 
Palestinian state, the reality in the West Bank is that Jewish settlements are 
growing and demolitions of Palestinian homes are on the increase.

The problems of the village of Far'un, south of Tulkarm, are complicated by the 
vast West Bank barrier, which here runs away from the 1949 ceasefire line that 
divides Israel and the Palestinian territories. The wide, steel fence, which 
passes just a few dozen metres from Suleiman's home, cuts off the village from 
a slice of its agricultural land and underground water reserves and has turned 
this area into a dangerous no-go zone: in December 2006, a 14-year-old 
Palestinian girl playing nearby was shot dead by an Israeli soldier. 

Suleiman's house and that of his neighbour Emad Hassahsi, which has also 
received a demolition order, were built before the barrier arrived, in an area 
they were told - and they have letters that appear to support their claim - was 
area B, in which Palestinians have administrative control and therefore 
somewhere they thought they could safely build. Only later did the Israeli 
military announce it was in fact area C. There are similar disputes about the 
exact delineation of the different areas elsewhere the West Bank.

Israel's civil administration offered no explanation for the rise in 
demolitions but told the Guardian: "The procedures that are carried out before 
the materialisation of a demolition order include: issuance of an order to 
cease building that is usually issued in the early stages of the construction 
of foundations; numerous deliberations at the high planning and zoning 
committee and of course an open door to the supreme court of justice. These 
procedures are valid for both Palestinians and Israelis alike." It said the 
buildings demolished in Far'un were "built illegally without the required 
licences".

One effect of the strict planning curbs is to limit the growth of Palestinian 
villages. "If you look at the way the Israelis are enforcing planning and 
construction regulations you see they are being enforced in a one-sided way," 
said Avi Berg, research director of the leading Israeli human rights group 
B'Tselem, which has worked on the Far'un case.

Settlement growth continues apace despite the fact that the current peace talks 
are based on the US Road Map, under which Israel is required to freeze 
settlement activity. In another report, Peace Now said that since the talks 
began at Annapolis last November, Israel was still building 500 homes in West 
Bank settlements and had issued tenders for 750 homes in East Jerusalem 
settlements. Reports suggest another 1,400 homes will be built in two 
settlements in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank.

The Israeli government defends the continued settlement construction 
particularly in the major settlements which it calls "population centres", 
saying it will not build new settlements or expropriate more land. "In the 
population centres and in Jerusalem the reality on the ground will not be the 
same in the future as it is today," Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said 
last month. "There will be more additional building as part of the reality of 
life and this is something that was explained ..."

Not all the cases of demolition involve homes. In January, Israeli forces 
uprooted 3,200 trees, destroyed water cisterns and stone terraces in fields 
near Beit Ula, close to Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Again this was in 
area C. The civil administration said the demolition was an "enforcement 
activity" carried out after legal warnings. 

But in this case the target was a â64,000 (Â51,000) project from the 
European commission which began two years ago to provide a livelihood for the 
villagers, several of whom also put their own money into the planting. 

"It was a tragedy for us," said Sami al-Adam, 46, a farmer who had put in 
45,000 shekels. "They're tearing me out by my roots. They want to destroy 
Palestinian farmers psychologically and economically."


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