ICAHD Alternative Tour - Dec. 7, 2007

Photos from ICAHD tour (if the pictobrowser isn't working)

Yesterday I went on a tour sponsored by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

The tour was marketed towards average Israelis in order to "learn about the facts on the ground in East Jerusalem. Visit settlements and Palestinian neighborhoods. This tour is intended for anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, to go a little beyond the 'Them and Us' discourse, and to learn from a guide who has in-depth knowledge of the issues and an alternative perspective."

I thought it would be interesting to hear what an Israeli peace organization says to a group of average Israelis. The tour guide was Eyal Niv, who was a lieutenant in the IDF for five years, serving in a technological unit. He recently completed a double major BA in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies & Communications at Hebrew University. Eyal is certified to teach Hebrew as a foreign language by Hebrew University, and currently teaches at the Holy Land Institute in Sho'afat (East Jerusalem). He is also studying for his MA in sociology and anthropology and speaks Hebrew, Arabic and English.

My personal objective: just listen and learn.

It turned out to be quite the interesting tour, and I may have to go on more of them.

The tour departed from Ra'Anana (near Tel Aviv), but they picked me up at about 9:30 just after the Qalandia checkpoint, and we were on our way.

Our first stop was Nof Zion, a settlement currently under construction in East Jerusalem. It will take over about 500 acres or so of land in East Jerusalem and require the demolition of several Palestinian homes.

Then we went into the Holy Basin, near the City of David, which is where archeologists are digging to establish the historical ties of Jews to Jerusalem. It is funded by El Ad CEO Yitzak Tshuvaand other benefactors, and is selectively focusing only on the Jewish narrative, which is of concern because it disrupts the site for those who might also want to learn about the other historical residents of Jerusalem. The site is guarded by a private militia (similar to Blackwater). In the surrounding area, there are about 50 Palestinian homes that have been officially taken over by settlers, and residents say that there are others that have not "gone public."

Then we stopped in in Ras al Amud to see theMa'ale Zietim settlement (which is sponsored by an American named Irving Moscovitz), which is right beside the Dome of the Rock in the old city. The completion of this settlement will cut off the old city from the West Bank and prevent contiguity so that East Jerusalem can be the capital of the Palestinian state.

Then we went to the neighborhood of Silwan, where almost 90 homes are scheduled for demolition to make way for settlements and learned a bit about the convoluted process that Palestinians have to go through in order to try to prevent house demolitions. Some tidbits: of the 70+ square km in East Jerusalem that were annexed into the municipal borders after 1967, Palestinians can only request permits to build on about 9 square km of the area--most of which was already built up in 1967. The rest is reserved for green space, Jewish settlements and security. This means that if Palestinians build outside of the approved area (remember, the approved area is built up!), they risk demolition. The process of applying for a permit is also prohibitively expensive - approximately 100,000 NIS (a bit over $25,000) - which doesn't include the cost of all of the engineers and other professionals required to create the plans. It is also extremely bureaucratic. I have a barely comprehensible chart of the process that you have to go through in order to get one of the Palestinian permits. I will have to scan that later, since I can't find a link to it on the ICAHD site. Most homes built after 1967 are unpermitted, and there are 20,000+ homes that have received demolition orders (which do not expire).

There are over 100 demolitions each year. When a house receives a demolition order, there must be at least 30 days notice. However, the demolition order just has to be placed on the property--not to the property owner. Sometimes they are hung in an out of the way place, or even just thrown onto the yard, which means that the resident may not even know about it. When they arrive to demolish the house, they usually come after the men have left for work. The family has 30 minutes to get their belongings out of the house, and then foreign workers come and toss other items out the window (so that Israel doesn't have to compensate them for their personal belongings). The demolition can take as little as 20 minutes, up to several hours.

When a demolition begins, men from the surrounding neighborhood end up coming home, out of concern that their own homes could be next. This not only invokes fear into the community, but causes economic hardship in the form of lost income.

Last, we drove along road 443 - an Israeli only road - and stopped near Ma'aele Addumim, which is part of one of the giant settlement blocs that Israel wants to incorporate into the Israeli state if there is a two state solution. Annexing Ma'ale Addumim and the other settlements in the bloc will effectively cut the West Bank into two non-contiguous sections.

That's no problem for Israel, however--Israel has plans to create a transportation corridor to re-route the Palestinians away from settlements and Jerusalem by creating tunnels and other separate transportation infrastructure, which will necessitate the removal of the Jahalin Bedouin, a nomadic tribe who originally lived in the Negev before 1948.


Other tidbits they offered (and observed) during the tour (from my notes):

Palestinians pay taxes at a higher rate than other Jerusalem residents because they have to show proof of residence every 6 months or risk losing their property. The tax receipt is one form of proof.

Palestinian neighborhoods do not receive the same services as the Jewish areas of Jerusalem--they often lack garbage service, adequate water supply, have no public transportation (they must use private bus services), do not have properly maintained roads or sidewalks, and lack educational facilities (there is a shortage of 1,400 classrooms in East Jerusalem).

The comment was made more than once that Palestinians in East Jerusalem are not politically active, and even if they were, many of the policies that affect them are not controlled by the municipality, but by the Israeli government (residents of East Jerusalem are not Israeli citizens although they do pay the same taxes).

The guide also pointed out that most Israelis are apathetic about the situation and would prefer to just live in security and not have to deal with Palestinians, leaving the situation in the hands of those who are active--the ideological types such as the settlers.

Home demolitions are not about security - only 1 in 12 are even marginally related to security issues. Most are due to lack of permits or other eminent domain issues. If it was about security, then they might need to rethink their strategy - studies have shown that 55% of suicide bombers experienced house demolitions.

International law states that it is permissible for israel to build a security barrier if it wishes, but it should be along the Green line. The separation wall is almost entirely inside West Bank territory, and it zigs and zags all over the place in order to annex settlements and other resources, such as water supply and fertile farmland.

The separation wall is often credited for stopping terrorism inside Israel, and it is true that cutting off access makes it somewhat harder. However, people can and do move through the checkpoints, and as one can see in Gaza (where there is also a separation wall), rockets could be fired over it or people could tunnel beneath it. Therefore, the closure of the West Bank is only one factor in reducing terrorism. Other reasons given: the unilateral ceasefire/hudna given by the Palestinians in the West Bank, no more Arafat, and Israeli domination during the 2nd intifada and through the use of checkpoints.

Maele Addumim has lots of non-ideological settlers (people who live in settlements for economic reasons, rather than religious/Zionist ideals), but the settlement is useful for creating facts on the ground that will enable Israel to acquire more resources.

On water issues:
The World Health Organization recommends that people receive 100L/day per capita for their basic needs - drinking, cleaning, work, etc. Palestinians receive on average about 60 L/day per capita. The settlements receive about 600L/day per capita.


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Later in the tour, the guide asked us to consider the following questions in regard to what we saw: Is it legal? Is it moral? Is it wise?

For me, it was an emphatic no...but I'm not sure what other people on the tour thought. Some of them were certainly troubled, but they kept fixating on security issues, and when I was dropped off at Qalandia, I said to the group that anyone who wanted to come to Ramallah was welcome to be my guest. The final words I heard from one man were: I will come to Ramallah when the Palestinians want peace with Israel. They don't want peace.

I told him that I disagreed with that assessment, but that unfortunately didn't have time to debate the point with him...and off I went. There are a lot of people on both sides that think that there is "no one on the other side to talk to." It isn't true.

One thing that would help immensely is if Israelis could see beyond the typical Zionist narrative to see how negative the impact of the creation of Israel and the subsequent actions it has engaged in during its efforts to root itself in the Middle East have been on the Palestinian people. It was not a "land without a people for a people without a land," any more than North and South America were empty when the colonists arrived. What seems like a heroic narrative to one people is a narrative of conquest and destruction to another. That needs to be acknowledged.