[News] Israel orders destruction of entire West Bank village

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Israel orders destruction of entire West Bank village

<http://electronicintifada.net/people/ryan-brownell>Ryan Brownell
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-orders-destruction-entire-west-bank-village/11461
5 July 2012

On 22 June, more than 500 Palestinian, Israeli 
and international activists came together in the 
Palestinian herding community of Susya, in the 
West Bank’s 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/south-hebron-hills>South 
Hebron Hills, to protest a recent Israeli high 
court ruling for the demolition of the village 
and the ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestinian land rights in the West Bank.

The activists, arriving by organized buses from 
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and independently from all 
over the region, met with the residents of Susya 
and attempted to march towards the location of 
the original Susya, which was demolished in 1986 
and is now an archaeological park.

They were confronted by Israeli soldiers, who 
fired stun grenades into and around the crowds of 
people, while several rounds of tear gas were simultaneously released.

On 6 June, 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-high-court>Israel’s 
high court issued a decision that prohibits Susya 
residents from building any new structures near 
the surrounding 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/settlements>Israeli settlements.

Six days later, Israeli officials ­ accompanied 
by soldiers ­ handed out 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/home-demolitions>demolition 
orders to the entire West Bank village. These 
orders referred to demolition decisions stretching back to 1995.


Settlers petition high court to wipe out village

The decision by the high court was in response to 
a 
<http://villagesgroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/regavim.pdf>petition 
filed by the Zionist organization Regavim, which 
called on the 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-civil-administration>Israeli 
Civil Administration ­ the body overseeing 
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank ­ to 
accelerate the demolition process for Susya and 
other Palestinian villages. The residents of 
Susya are being represented in the case by 
lawyers from Rabbis for Human Rights.

Regavim was founded in 2006 and describes itself 
as a social movement working “to promote a Jewish 
Zionist agenda for the state of Israel 
 [and] to 
prevent foreign elements from taking over the 
Jewish People’s territorial resources.” To that 
end, they have participated in more than twenty 
legal cases targeting Palestinian building rights 
in the occupied West Bank, the occupied Syrian 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/golan-heights>Golan 
Heights and the <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/naqab>Naqab (Negev) desert.

The Regavim website invites English-speaking 
visitors to watch 
<http://www.regavim.org.il/en/>a video whose 
narrator warns viewers, in a voice similar to one 
in a Hollywood film trailer, that “a non-Jewish 
territorial contiguity is being created, 
endangering Israel’s future and very existence.” 
This is accompanied by a visual backdrop of 
Israel, with the splintered areas of Palestinian 
population centers ­ in Gaza, the West Bank, the 
Naqab and the 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/galilee>Galilee ­ represented in blood red.


Racist planning

Yariv Mohar, a representative of Rabbis for Human 
Rights, explained to The Electronic Intifada that 
the group approaches the case with appreciation 
to the larger, comprehensive discrimination faced 
by the Palestinian residents of Susya and 
elsewhere in 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/area-c>Area C 
(an area comprising 60 percent of the West Bank 
that is under full Israeli control).

“We try to stress that the military rule of the 
Israeli Civil [Administration] in Area C is 
fundamentally discriminatory to Palestinians, and 
that this extreme case stems from the foundation 
of racist planning policies enforced by Israel,” Mohar said.

It’s immediately apparent that the arguments of 
the petition submitted by Regavim take not only a 
different tone than that of Rabbis for Human 
Rights, but a distorted understanding of Israeli 
settlements and native Palestinians in the West 
Bank. Regavim’s petition to the high court also 
represents a growing strategy among Zionist 
organizations to influence the judicial process.

In an argument explaining the demolition tactics 
of the Civil Administration that effectively 
illuminates Regavim’s philosophy, Article 47 of 
Regavim’s petition complained that “despite clear 
instructions from the government to focus on 
security-related demolitions, the Civil 
Administration avoids destroying such structures, 
and instead focuses on destroying cisterns, 
sheds, chicken coops, livestock pens and 
agricultural fields ­ in order to present a 
statistical balance with destruction in the 
Jewish [settler] sector” 
(“<http://villagesgroup.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/settler-front-group-presses-government-to-accelerate-the-demolition-frenzy-in-south-hebron-hills/>Settler 
front-group presses government to accelerate 
demolition frenzy, tripping itself up in the 
process,” The Villagers Group, 17 March 2012).

While the petition treats the Palestinian 
residents of Susya as illegal infiltrators of 
settler land, it does not acknowledge that Susya 
existed prior to the founding of Israel in 1948. 
Nor that many of the residents arrived as 
refugees who were expelled from an area in 
modern-day Israel ­ now called Arad ­ during the 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba>Nakba, 
the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the late 1940s.

Article 48 of Regavim’s petition explicitly 
outlines the discrimination faced by 
Palestinian’s applying for building permits, in 
an attempt to urge the Civil Administration to 
destroy Palestinian structures at a faster rate:

“It should be noted that from a separate FOIA 
[Freedom of Information Act] request by the 
plaintiff about construction permits awarded in 
the Palestinian sector it turned out that in 
2008, 74 such permits were issued, in 2009 six 
permits, and in 2010 only 7 permits were approved 
for the entire Palestinian sector of ‘Area C.’ It 
is well-known that every year, thousands of 
structures are built in that sector 
 the message 
internalized by the Palestinian public is that 
there is no need to apply for permits.”


Precedent for Palestinian communities in Area C

The oucome of the legal case will reverberate far beyond Susya village.

“At first blush, it may seem that this is ‘only’ 
about the threat to demolish the entire village 
of Susya, the homes of these simple cave dwellers 
of the South Hebron Hills,” wrote 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/arik-ascherman>Arik 
Ascherman, who is leading the Rabbis for Human 
Rights legal team, in an online public appeal. 
“However, the truth is that the results will 
affect the fate of hundreds of Palestinian homes 
throughout the occupied territories, perhaps 
thousands. The outcome may well have an effect on 
our major appeal to return planning authority for 
Palestinian communities in Area C to Palestinian hands.

“I have wanted to explode on the occasions that I 
have sat in the courtroom and heard Regavim 
pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes with 
misleading statistics and claims of reverse 
discrimination against settlers,” Ascherman added 
(“<http://rhr.org.il/eng/index.php/2012/06/please-come-to-support-palestinian-residents-of-susya-vs-regavim/>Please 
support Palestinian residents of Susya vs. 
Regavim and the Israeli government,” 4 June 2012).


Constant danger of demolition

The threat of property destruction is not one 
experienced by Susya village alone.

Fareed Aamar works as an administrator in Yatta, 
an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers at 
the very south of the West Bank where Susya is 
located. From his office in local government 
under the Palestinian Authority, he is placed in 
a difficult position of oversight in an area that largely falls under Area C.

“Whenever we try to apply for a permit to build a 
school or a clinic, it is rejected,” said Aamar. 
“Whenever we try to build one, it is destroyed by Israel.”

<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bimkom>Bimkom, 
an Israeli organization working on planning 
issues in the West Bank, reported that, from 
2000-2008, about 95 percent of Palestinian 
requests for building permits in Area C were 
rejected 
(“<http://eng.bimkom.org/_Uploads/24ProhibitedZoneAbstract.pdf>The 
Prohibited Zone: Israeli planning policy in the 
Palestinian villages in Area C,” 2008 [PDF]).

If the several previous Israeli demolitions in 
Susya were not enough reminder of what little 
authority he has to protect his community, the 
lack of respect he is paid by Israeli forces is a 
violent and frequent lesson in who exercises 
control of Palestinian life in Area C.

“It doesn’t matter who you are ­ farmer, mayor, 
activist, or a child in school,” Aamar added. 
“The soldiers come with their guns, and they tell 
you what will be. I work in government, but at 
the point of a gun, what can anyone do?”


“You cannot plan for tomorrow”

While the residents of Susya were handed the 
demolition orders last month, Aamar explained how 
the sense of unknown contributes to the already 
constant lack of security and normalcy for Palestinians in Susya.

“You can never know when they will come, only 
that they eventually will,” he said. “You cannot 
plan for tomorrow, or the next day, when Israeli 
forces could destroy your family’s home at any 
time. Every day now is like this.”

The immediate threat of demolition is only a part 
of the insecurity and racial inequality that are 
a constant reality for residents of Susya. Susya 
is located near the Israeli settlements of 
Carmel, Maon, Beit Yatir and a settlement also 
called Susya. Acts of violence and destruction 
from settlers against Palestinians are a frequent part of life.

“When settlers attack Palestinians here, there 
are often [Israeli] soldiers there watching,” 
Aamar added. “And when the settlers have roads 
and areas that only Jews can travel, it’s 
impossible to know when or where this will happen.”

He described the destruction of Palestinian crops 
and olive trees, and settlers routinely throwing 
rocks at Palestinian children walking to school. 
He said that many residents believe settlers are 
poisoning their water sources, killing animals 
and sickening local residents. This belief is 
made only more threatening by the utter lack of 
public services and basic facilities available to 
many residents of the village.

“The water pipes of Israel’s 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/mekorot>Mekorot 
water company pass several meters away from our 
village ­ they bring water to illegal outposts 
around us but we can’t get water from them,” 
Susya resident Nasser Nawajah wrote last month 
(“<http://972mag.com/palestinian-from-area-c-describes-life-in-constant-need-of-rebuilding/48302/>Palestinian 
from Area C on a life in constant need of rebuilding,” +972, 14 June 2012).

“We don’t have access to the water that flows in 
those pipes, even though this is our water, water 
that Israel pumps from the West Bank,” he added.

Not only are Palestinians denied access to the 
infrastructure enjoyed by Israeli settlements, 
whatever they build themselves is subject to demolition.

Last year set a new record of displacement as a 
total of 622 Palestinian structures were 
demolished by Israel, according to the 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/icahd>Israeli 
Committee Against House Demolitions. Of these, 
222 ­ or 36 percent ­ were family homes, while 
the remainder were livelihood-related (including 
water storage and agricultural facilities), 
resulting in the displacement of 1,094 people, 
almost double the number for 2010.

Since 1967, ICAHD reports, Israel has demolished 
more than 26,000 Palestinian homes in the West 
Bank and Gaza (“<http://www.icahd.org/?p=8096>The 
Judaization of Palestine: 2011 displacement trends,” 12 January 2012).


Who is violent?

After the protests on 22 June, Yariv Mohar of 
Rabbis for Human Rights told The Electronic 
Intifada that “it was really powerful to see such 
a variety of people out with us. It was a huge 
success, not just in terms of the great turnout, 
but also that it was entirely peaceful in the 
face of the typical [Israeli army] stun grenades 
and tear gas. It made it very clear-cut ­ who is violent and who is not.”

The case of Susya highlights the ways awareness 
and resistance campaigns operate, particularly in 
light of the complex relationship between 
Palestinian, Israeli and international 
organizations and solidarity groups working to 
protect Palestinian land rights. “It’s really 
important to focus on coordination. That means 
communication and cooperation at all times,” said Mohar.

He described how, as a Jewish-Israeli 
organization, Rabbis for Human Rights comes under 
particular pressure from Israel’s far-right for 
drawing a connection between the Israeli policies 
and the spiritual and moral lessons of 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/judaism>Judaism. 
“We talk about the Bible, and the connection of 
the Jewish people to the land of Israel. But we 
do not see this as an excuse for domination. That 
really seems to get some people mad.”


Hearing date in four months

Meanwhile, the residents of Susya will continue 
to be at the mercy of the high court’s decisions 
as the judicial process winds on.

In a decision described by Ascherman of Rabbis 
for Human Rights as “unexpected,” the high court 
judges ruled on 12 June to merge the different 
cases pertaining to Susya, and to set a further hearing date in four months.

The court is also scheduled to hear a petition 
from Rabbis for Human Rights later this month 
aimed at giving the Palestinian residents of 
Susya and Area C the authority to plan the 
development of their own communities. And 
activists are planning a follow-up protest in Susya this Friday, 6 July.

Yariv Mohar stressed that what’s at stake is 
worth the effort of legal battles, dangerous 
protests, the coordinating across different communities of activists.

“The civil resistance movement is the most 
inspiring force in the region right now,” he 
said. “It’s an incredible confluence of forces 
coming together for equal rights in a nonviolent way.”

Ryan Brownell is based in Nazareth; he can be 
followed on Twitter <https://twitter.com/#%21/ryanbmn>@ryanbmn.




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