Lawless Israeli House Demolitions

by Stephen Lendman

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) helps rebuild homes.

It resists Israeli "land expropriation, settlement expansions, by-pass road construction, and policies of 'closure' and 'separation.' "

Opposes demolition of Palestinian homes and other property.

Destruction of agricultural land and crops. Militarized occupation harshness. Treating Palestinians like subhumans.

Since 1967, Israel demolished over 28,000 Palestinian homes. According to its Interior Ministry. Jerusalem Municipality. Civil Administration.

UN bodies and agencies. Israeli human rights groups. International ones. ICAHD field monitoring. Various other sources.

Demolitions are politically motivated. Lawless. Unjustifiable for:

• punishment for any reason or none at all;

• building without virtually impossible to get permits on Palestinian owned land;

• land-clearing/military demolitions to steal Palestinian land for Jews; and

• other undefined reasons.

ICADH calls Israel's demotion policy a peace-destroying initiative.

Long-suffering Palestinians continue enduring Israeli state-sponsored terror. Institutionalized racism.

Apartheid harshness. Displacement. Dispossession. Deprivation. Long denied justice. In violation of core international humanitarian and human rights laws.

Prevented from living on their own land freely. Denied fundamental rights everyone deserves.

Frustrated by decades of Israeli occupation harshness. According to ICAHD, Israel maliciously destroys homes, businesses, agricultural land, livestock facilities and other Palestinian property.

Ethnically cleansing Arabs from land Israel wants exclusively for Jews. Confining them to cantonized worthless scrubland.

Powerless ghettoization by any standard. Institutionalizing Israeli domination. Enforced by militarized occupation harshness.

Foreclosing any viable Palestinian entity. Denying self-determination. Substituting "institutionalized discrimination and ethnic displacement," according to ICAHD.

Calling house demolitions and forced evictions "among Israel's most heinous practices." Continuing "on a broad scale."

Including against Israeli Arab citizens. Denied rights afforded Jews. Imprisoning them for demanding equal rights. Wanting to live free on their own land in peace.

Longstanding Israeli Judaization reflects pure evil. Punishing Palestinians for not being Jews. Committing grave international humanitarian law (IHL) violations.

Including the right to adequate housing. As stipulated under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25), stating:

"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 11).

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 17).

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Article 5(e)(iii)).

Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 16 and 27).

General Comments 4 (1991) and 7 (1997) of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Israeli OPT policies and practices constitute cruel and unusual treatment. Collective punishment.

Inhuman acts as defined in Article 7(1)(d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Violating the UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Breaching the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Violating Fourth Geneva principles. Other fundamental humanitarian and human rights laws, norms and standards.

Since 1997, ICAHD called for ending militarized occupation harshness. Forced evictions. Displacements. Dispossessions.

Demolitions of Palestinian homes and property. They continue out-of-control.

Under South African apartheid, pass laws segregated blacks from whites. Restricted their movements.

Required pass books be carried at all times. Produced on demand under threat of arrest and prosecution.

Restricted entry to cities. Forcibly relocated blacks. Denied them most public amenities. Many forms of employment.

Under Israeli militarized occupation, repression exceeds South Africa's worst harshness. A sophisticated form of social, economic, political and racial discrimination.

Strangulation. Slow-motion genocide. Incorporating the worst elements of colonialism and apartheid persecution.

Repression. Dispossession. Displacement. State terror writ large. Separating Palestinians from their land and heritage.

Denying them fundamental civil and human rights. Gradually eliminating them altogether.

Apartheid is racism's worst form. Militarized Israeli occupation is the worst type of apartheid.

Incorporating violence. Premeditated wars at Israel's discretion. Multiple daily community incursions.

Land theft. Home demolitions. Destruction of other property. Targeted assassinations.

Politically motivated mass arrests and imprisonments. Isolation. Policies constituting slow-motion genocide.

Israel requires all permanent residents and citizens over 16 to have color-coded ID cards.

For Palestinians, dictating where they may live, work, and move. Obstructing free movement under a Kafkaesque system of control.

Including Jews only roads. Permanent and mobile checkpoints, roadblocks and other barriers.

Control of border crossings, air space and coastal waters. Curfews for any reason or none at all.

Closures anywhere, any time without cause. Separation Wall land theft. Up to 12% of West Bank territory when completed.

Isolating communities from each other. Ghettoizing them. Eliminating many altogether.

Requiring discriminatory permits for work, education, healthcare, and other vital services.

Movement from one community to another. To and from the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Excluding Gaza nearly impossible to reach under siege. Or exit from for other areas.

Virtually impossible to enter or leave Israel without permit permission.

Required to build. Make home renovations. Grow crops. Open a factory or business.

Import equipment. Export crops or merchandise. Controlling virtually all other aspects of Palestinian life.

Enforcing harshness for political reasons. Building on Palestinian owned land without virtually impossible to get permit permission is prohibited.

Doing so assures demolitions. Lawless destruction of privately owned Palestinian property.

Violating fundamental international humanitarian and human rights laws. They don't matter.

Israel operates with impunity. State terror is official policy. Including lawless home demolitions.

Palestinians are afforded no rights whatever. Prisoners on their own land in their own country. By ruthless Israeli militarized occupiers.

On November 4, Maan News headlined "Israel forces demolish Palestinian homes in Silwan," saying:

On Tuesday, residents said they raided the community pre-dawn. Demolishing "two two-story buildings."

One "belonged to former Palestinian prisoner Khalil Abu Rajab."

"Israeli troops and intelligence officers escorted bulldozers to the Wadi Yasoul area and proceeded to knock down the walls of the building without allowing the family to remove property."

"Abu Rajab's family lived on the first floor of the building; the second floor was still being furnished."

"Construction on the building had only been completed five months before."

Demolition came without prior notice. Abu Rajab's lawyer unsuccessfully tried getting permit permission.

A second destroyed building belonged to Ishaq Abu Sbeih. He lacked required permit permission to build on his own land.

He lived on the fifth floor of a residential building. Decided to build a new house. To live on the ground floor. Given one of his children is physically disabled.

On Tuesday, Israel forced IDF murdered Muhammad Jaabis family members to demolish two animal barns in Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood.

Silwan tensions "boiled…in recent weeks," said Maan News. On October 20, extremist settlers took over 10 apartments.

Lawlessly in the middle of the night. Weeks earlier, another 25. After secretly buying them.

Doing so was universally condemned. Israeli police murdered Muatz Hijazzi in the same neighborhood.

Unjustly accusing him of shooting right-wing rabbi Yehuda Glick. Denying him due process. Judging him guilty by accusation.

According to ICAHD, Israel demolished at least 359 Palestinian homes and other property in 2014 so far.

It bears repeating. Doing so violates fundamental international humanitarian and human rights laws.

Ones Israel violates repeatedly with impunity. Over and over again. Because world leaders able to intervene responsibly support its worst crimes.

A Final Comment

On November 3, Mondoweiss discussed Israeli right-wing extremists demanding harsher crackdowns on East Jerusalem Palestinians than already.

"Let the police mow the lawn," they say. A hideous expression. A euphemism for extreme violence. Operation Protective Edge is Exhibit A.

So is the cumulative effect of daily persecution. Systematic ruthless state terror by any standard.

Extremist settlers want harsher practices. Shoot anyone throwing stones, some say. Even young children.

In July, Israeli soldiers used live ammunition against nonviolent Qalandia protesters. Killing three. Injuring over 200.

These type incidents aren't isolated. They repeat with disturbing regularity. Palestinian rights don't matter.

Israeli security forces target them with tear gas canisters, stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets, chemically-treated skunk water and live fire.

Avoiding Israeli violence is impossible, said Mondoweiss. Young children are shot for target practice. Others in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pre-dawn raids terrorize communities. Beatings and arrests follow. Young children are detained.

"…Netanyahu is broadening police powers to attack Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem," said Mondoweiss.

"After a meeting with top security officials last week week, (he) expedited passage of a law that would expand the legal definition of stone-throwing, casting an even wider dragnet through the streets of East Jerusalem to make the common form of resistance punishable by up to 20 years in prison."

Police attorneys want parents of minors held liable for charges brought against them. With punishments ranging from fines to incarceration.

Israeli security forces operate with impunity. Fear grips Palestinian communities for good reason.

Anyone can be targeted for any reason or none at all. Collective punishment is official Israeli policy.

Barbarism defines it. Lawless. Out-of-control. Vicious. Ruthless and then some.

Not good enough for extremist settlers. "(N)othing short of massacres will satisfy (their lust) for violence," said Mondoweiss.

Official Israeli policy indulges them all too often. Especially with Netanyahu in charge.

A world-class thug by any standard. A crime boss. Lawless. Ruthless. Mocking legitimate leadership.

Just societies would hold him accountable. In Israel, anything goes unaccountably.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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