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Toward A Third Intifada

2006-05-28T11:27:00.000+03:00

This article was first published in the Baltimore Sun, 28th May 2006, and is a modified version of the preceding article.

Toward a Third Intifada
Fred Schlomka – Kfar Saba, Israel

Besides cementing relations between Israel’s new prime minister and President Bush, Olmert’s ritual visit to the White House was little more than a photo opportunity. While Bush seems to understand that negotiations are a prerequisite to any successful redrawing of Israel’s borders, he also described Olmert’s unilateral ideas as “bold”. As he hedges on supporting the Israeli “convergence” plan, Bush is also pushing legislation intended to isolate the new Palestinian government with sanctions and further impoverish its people. At the same time Israelis continue to thicken the settlement blocks and prepare for partition of the West Bank. Ongoing construction of settlements, completion of the “security fence”, and the unilateral redrawing of the country’s borders are not a move towards a just peace, or the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, but an attempt to separate Israelis from the bulk of the Palestinian population.

The Hebrew term ‘Hafrada’ which means “separation” or “apartheid” has entered the mainstream lexicon in Israel and determined much of the government policies since the Oslo process began in 1993. Ever increasing restrictions on Palestinian movement and employment during the 1990s, combined with settlement expansion that doubled the number of Jewish settlers, set the stage for the eruption of the Second Intifada, or uprising, in 2000. Palestinian employment also plummeted during the mid-nineties when Israel initiated the policy of replacing Palestinians with migrant workers from Africa and Asia. These workers now account for about 5% of the population of Israel and have virtually eliminated the need for cheap Palestinian labor. The resulting economic hardship, combined with military incursions, an Orwellian labyrinth of permits, roadblocks, and Jewish-only roads, paralyzed Palestinian society and made a mockery of the Oslo Agreements.

Hafrada has since entered a new state of development. Using Palestinian acts of terror as justification, successive Israeli governments increased restrictions on Palestinians and built the “Security Fence”, cutting a wide swath through the West Bank and effectively annexing tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land and key aquifers, in addition to the settlement blocks. Then came last year’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza leaving behind the most impoverished enclave in the eastern Mediterranean. Not content with withdrawal, and with US support, Israel has largely cut off the area from the outside world though a sea blockade, a no-fly zone, and a border with Egypt subject to continuing Israeli control. Thus the “withdrawal” from Gaza has only served to separate the imprisoned population from their Israeli guards while deepening their isolation.

The Bush administration and Mr. Olmert’s refusal to fully engage the Palestinian Authority only continues US and Israeli policy. They have been telling us for years that ‘there is no partner’, and as a result no serious negotiations have taken place since the Camp David and Sharm El-Sheik meetings between President Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. The current Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority now provides a convenient pretext for Israel to continue their 5-year policy of no negotiation and unilateral action. As Israel and the USA tightens the matrix of control, Palestinian anger may erupt again. Once the new Hamas security forces have sorted out their differences with the Fatah-controlled police, they might turn once again to the common enemy. Hamas could cancel its fifteen-month truce. The Israeli Army’s recent show of force and arrest of Hamas official Ibrahim Hamed in the West Bank city of Ramallah only adds fuel to the fire, and demonstrates that Mr. Olmert has learned little from the experience of his predecessors. These military incursions and continuing repressive measures will only serve to stir the pot and ensure the next uprising. Israelis want peace and quiet, and are less interested in peace with justice, unfortunately the ongoing government tactics will bring them neither.

Without hope for a real peace in the horizon most Palestinians are turning inward, seeking ever-elusive ways to keep their families intact and put food on the table. But make no mistake, as conditions for Palestinians continue to decline, and Israel moves ahead with the partitioning of the West Bank, further revolts from the beleaguered population are inevitable. Israelis are also turning inward, but the Third Intifada could be looming in front of them like an approaching tsunami, and their ignorance of its arrival echoes the complacency prior to the Intifadas of 1987 and 2000.

Fred Schlomka is an Israeli businessman and a board member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He is a 2003 Fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation in New York and the founder of Mosaic Communities in Israel. Email: fred@schlomka.com

This article may be reprinted without prior permission provided the author's credits are included.

The West Bank Partition – Towards the Third Intifada

2006-05-21T12:47:00.000+03:00

This article was first published in the Jordan Times 25th May, 2006

How can Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stand up in front of Israel’s Parliament as he did in early May, pronounce himself ready for “…..negotiations with a Palestinian Authority committed to the principals of the Roadmap…..”, and the very next day rebuff Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when he called to inquire about a meeting? Meanwhile the new government continues to ‘thicken’ the West Bank settlement blocks with ongoing construction and prepare plans for the partitioning of the West Bank in a unilateral redrawing of Israel’s borders. The system of fortifications called a ‘Security Fence’ by the Israeli Government includes 24-feet high walls that often cut through neighborhoods and isolate Palestinian villages on the ‘Israeli side’. It is fast defining the new borders of the Israeli State despite repeated government statements over the past four years that the fence was a purely security consideration.

Security may indeed be part of the equation, but the term ‘Hafrada’ (separation or apartheid in Hebrew) has entered the mainstream lexicon in Israel and determined much of the government policies since the Oslo process began in 1992. Ever increasing restrictions on Palestinian movement and employment during the 1990s, combined with settlement expansion that doubled the number of Jewish settlers, set the stage for the eruption of the Second Intifada in 2000. The build-up to the revolt began during the mid-nineties when Israel initiated the policy of replacing Palestinian labor with migrant workers from Thailand, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and African countries. These workers now amount to almost 5% of the population of Israel and have virtually eliminated the need for cheap Palestinian labor. The resulting economic hardship for Palestinian workers, combined with military incursions, an Orwellian labyrinth of permits, roadblocks, and Jewish-only roads, have paralyzed Palestinian society and made a mockery of the Oslo Agreements.

‘Hafrada’ has since entered a new state of development. Using Palestinian acts of terror as justification, successive Israeli governments deepened the already repressive restrictions on Palestinians and constructed the ‘Security Fence’, cutting a wide swath through the West Bank and effectively annexing hundreds of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land and key aquifers, in addition to the settlement blocks. During this ongoing land grab in the West Bank, Sharon pushed through last year’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, leaving behind the most impoverished enclave in the Eastern Mediterranean. Not content with withdrawal, Israel has largely cut off the area from the outside world though a sea blockade, a no-fly zone, and a border with Egypt subject to continuing Israeli control. Thus the ‘withdrawal’ from Gaza has only served to separate the imprisoned population from their Israeli guards while deepening their isolation. The recent promise of limited funds to the Palestinian Authority by the USA and Europe may be too little, too late, and not nearly enough to stem the humanitarian disaster.

Olmert’s refusal to engage the Palestinian Authority only continues pre-existing Israeli government policy. Keep in mind that there have been no serious negotiations since the Camp David and Sharm El-Sheik meetings between President Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. The current Hamas controlled Palestinian Authority now provides a convenient pretext for Israel to continue their 5-year policy of no negotiation and unilateral action. Anger is once again building on the Palestinian street, and not against Hamas, but against the Israeli regime that is tightening its matrix of control. Once the new Hamas security forces have sorted out their differences with the Fatah controlled police, they might well bury the hatchet and turn once again to the common enemy. Hamas may yet cancel its year-long truce. Olmert would do well to learn from the experience of his predecessors. Maintaining a cauldron of resentment among an occupied population is a recipe for disaster, and continuing repressive measures designed to keep the lid on outbursts of protest by Palestinians will only serve to stir the pot. Israelis want peace and quiet, and are less interested in peace with justice, but the ongoing government tactics will bring them neither.

Without hope for a real peace in the horizon most Palestinians are turning inward, seeking ever-elusive ways to keep their families intact and put food on the table. But make no mistake, as conditions for Palestinians continue to decline, and Israel moves ahead with the partitioning of the West Bank, further revolts from the beleaguered population are inevitable. Israelis are also turning inward, but the Third Intifada could be looming in front of them like an approaching tsunami, and their ignorance of its arrival echoes the complacency prior to the Intifadas of 1987 and 2000.
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Fred Schlomka is an Israeli businessman and a board member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He is a 2003 Fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation in New York and the founder of Mosaic Communities in Israel. Email: fred@schlomka.com
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This article may be reprinted without prior permission provided the author's credits and this footer is included.

Redlining and the Israeli Real Estate Industry

2006-04-15T12:49:00.000+03:00

This article was first published by the Jordan Times 19th April 2006

The recent Israeli elections were followed by a number of pronouncements by US officials praising democracy in Israel. However democracy is much more than elections, and many freedoms that Americans take for granted are not available in Israel. For example, Israel’s Arab citizens suffer from discriminatory real estate and housing practices of the sort that were outlawed in the US almost 40 years ago.

Redlining, or restricting home purchasing by African Americans and other minorities in ‘white’ neighborhoods was once a common practice by realtors in the USA. Due to the 1968 Fair Housing Act, they are now required by law to treat all homebuyers equally. However in Israel the practice of redlining has been entrenched since the founding of the state.

The Israeli real estate industry, housing developers and the government, restricts Arab citizens of Israel, 20% of the population, in their housing choices. Contributing factors include marketing strategies by realtors and housing developers, segregated planned communities by non-profit developers, and government control of the most of the country’s property. As a result, virtually all new homes and pre-owned homes are sold exclusively to the Jewish population. Arabs mostly ‘make do’ with owner built homes in tightly zoned towns and villages, often having their homes demolished as a result of the lack of appropriate zoning and building permits.

The largest real estate development company in Israel, Industrial Buildings Corporation (IBC) is part of the Fishman Group with a market value exceeding $1.5 billion. IBC develops, and manages 230 infrastructure projects for tens of thousands of housing units in 80 locations throughout the country for the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), the Ministry of Housing and local authorities. All of the company’s projects are marketed to Jewish-Israelis and foreign buyers only.

The leading real estate brokerage firm is Anglo-Saxon, part of Africa-Israel Investments Ltd with a 2004 net profit of over $92 million. Their network of 55 offices, none of which are in an Arab locality, have marketed tens of thousands of homes exclusively to Jewish and foreign buyers. Other realtors, including Century 21 and ReMax follow the same pattern of selective sales, effectively excluding Arab buyers from the real estate market.

For example no homes have been sold to Arabs in the fast-growing new city of Modiin with a population of over 60,000. When Arabs try and gain access to segregated communities they are met with organized resistance and legal restraints. This happened in the northern Israeli town of Karmiel when the ILA cancelled a offer in October 2004 for leasing 26 lots. The cancellation was in response to a petition submitted to the Haifa District Court against the ILA, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and the Karmiel Municipality, by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Arab Center for Alternative Planning. Rather than extend the tender so that Arabs could lease land, the court allowed the ILA and JNF to withdraw the offer.

Government tactics to restrict housing choices include offering grants, low interest mortgages and tax incentives to Jews only, and requiring army service for residents. However the most blatant form of discrimination is exercised through the government’s control, through the ILA, of most of the land in Israel.

The ILA manages a total of about 78 million acres or 93% of all the land in the state. The 1961 Agreements between the JNF and the Israeli Government stipulates that the ILA would administer all JNF-owned lands. A primary objective of these documents is to prohibit land allocation to non-Jews. These agreements also redefined the JNF as a Public Authority in Israel, yet their charity organizations operate in numerous countries and have 501c3 non-profit tax-exempt status in the USA, possibly in violation of the US tax code. Their international activities are closely linked with the real estate industry in Israel and hundreds of segregated Jewish communities have been built on JNF land.

Thus today there are over 4.5 million Jewish-Israelis with free choice to live anywhere in the country while the 1.2 million Christian and Muslim Arab citizens are mostly relegated to a mere 3.5% of the land that they still own. Africa Israel Investments, The Fishman Group, or Industrial Buildings Corporation could not practice such blatant Redlining and segregation in their projects in Europe and the USA. Housing and land reform in Israel is long overdue and perhaps it’s time for investors to prod these companies, and the Israeli Government into the 21st century.
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Fred Schlomka is an Israeli businessman and a board member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He is a 2003 Fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation in New York and the founder of Mosaic Communities in Israel. Email: fred@schlomka.com
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This article may be reprinted without prior permission provided the author's credits and this footer is included.

The New Political Divide in Israel

2005-11-22T12:35:00.000+02:00

I started wondering where the members and voters where going to come from for Sharon's new political party. He will definitely split the Likud, taking with him at least a third of their votes, maybe more. But where will his additional support come from in order to give him a strong presence in the next Knesset? He'll gain some from the other right wing parties, National Union, Yisrael B'aliyah, and the NRP. However it's unlikely that Shas or Union Torah Judaism voters will shift. A few from the conservative wing of the Labor party may jump ship, especially since Peretz, a leftist labor leader, in now at the helm of the party.

It's ironic to note that Sharon was at the forefront of the repeal of the legislation that allowed for direct election of the prime minister for he has great personal support today in the electorate. Many who might vote for him as prime minister and their own party for the Knesset would be loathe to vote for his new party. Sharon benefited from this law in the 2001 elections and then campaigned for its repeal. He may live to regret it.

This Morning in Israel

2005-11-21T11:34:00.000+02:00

So it seems there is to be early elections. Not unexpected. Now that we have Peretz, a so-called leftist in charge of the labor party, Prime Minister Sharon is in process of reinventing himself as a centrist and will establish a new party. Never a dull moment in the Holy Land. But will the next elections change the facts on the ground? Will the Palestinians come any closer to establishing a viable sovereign state. I think not. Sharon's government continues to expand the West Bank Settlements, gobbling up Palestinian land at an ever-increasing rate.

Notwithstanding Peretz's commitment to evacuating West Bank Settlers, the best that the Palestinians can hope for is a truncated state chopped into poverty stricken Bantustans amid a sea of upper middle class Jewish settlements. Look forward to the third Intifada.

Hope for the Future

2003-07-23T10:22:00.000+03:00

This presentation was delivered to audiences throughout the United States during July 2003
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I live in a land where people feel there is very little hope for the future. Israelis are gripped by fear of random violence and existential threats. and see no way out. Palestinians are imprisoned behind walls and fences confining another deprived generation inside the refugee camps and towns that have become prisons. Hope is in short supply.

This is not new in the Holy Land. My own family were victims of the madness of 1948 when the region erupted into violence and chaos. My father had arrived in Palestine in 1936, tortured and broken by the Nazis. He married my mother who comes from 5 generations of Palestinian Jews. My father was an ardent socialist who saw no future in Zionism and finally took my mother and brother out of Palestine to Scotland where I was born. We were another kind of Palestinian refugee, Palestinian Jewish refugees. Like many refugees my traumatized family failed to adjust in critical ways to our new environment and were dislocated from our community, our traditions, and our people. First my father died at a relatively young age, then my mother’s mental health deteriorated and she was confined to an institution for my entire childhood. My older brother committed suicide at fourteen, and I was left at eight years old dangling by a most slender thread of sanity and humanity.

So finally at sixteen years old I abandoned my life in Scotland and embarked on a journey of personal growth that took me to many parts of the world, and eventually led me back to Israel, and Palestine, where it all began. In the late 1970s I started meeting my mother in Israel for annual visits. My first visits were explorations of my Israeli family of numerous cousins, aunts and uncles; and also of Palestinian society. My mother speaks fluent Arabic having been raised there before Hebrew was widely spoken. We used to travel together to areas of Gaza and the West Bank and my first experiences of Palestinian Arabs was their warmth, and open hospitality. My Israeli family, of course, thought we were crazy, because like most Israelis, they believe that all Palestinians are terrorists and can’t be trusted. I was confused, and I remain confused, since these attitudes contradict my own experience. However I came to understand that these fears have a direct relationship to the emergence of Zionism over 100 years ago and the subsequent opposition of Palestinian Arabs to Jewish settlement in Palestine.

The emergence of the state of Israel was one of the great miracles of the 20th century. Our religious civilization was exiled for almost 2,000 years, wandering and settling in often-inhospitable places, clinging tenaciously to our religious and cultural traditions, and being influenced by the peoples among whom we lived. For long centuries the Hebrew language lapsed for use exclusively in prayer, religious ritual, and holy texts. Now it is the every-day language of millions of Israelis.

In the late nineteenth century, European Jews developed the foundation for the return to Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. These Europeans were products of western secular civilization; most of them did not practice Judaism but were influenced by the culture and political development of European states. They came to be called Zionists, and changed the course of history in the Middle East. Driven by the tremendous need for identity and security, they built a network of organizations and fundraising mechanisms that started to buy land and settle European and Russian Jews in large numbers. These new communities, and the organizations that supported them were planned to be separate and segregated from the surrounding Arab population in Palestine, creating a society within a society. Despite opposition from the indigenous Palestinian Arabs these communities grew successfully during the first half of the 20th century. Then, after 50 years of Zionist settlement, the horror of the Holocaust spurred the United Nations in 1947 to decree the partition of Palestine into two states and provide a haven for the Jews.

However for 500 years Palestine was not a state but an administrative region of the Ottoman Empire, encompassing what is now called Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Southern Lebanon, Southern Syria, and Jordan. Until the end of the Ottoman era after the First World War, peoples of all religions were known generally as Palestinians, but gave their first allegiance to the family, clan, and religion. Islam was, and still is, the dominant religion but there were also Christian and Jewish Palestinians prior to the 20th century. My own family were Palestinian Jews until the advent of the state of Israel. The growth of national consciousness among Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians paralleled the development of Zionism throughout the 20th century.

In 1948, after the cease-fire, there were by various estimates between 5 and 700,000 Palestinian Arab civilians who fled their villages to areas of Palestine that were outside the territory that became the State of Israel. Israel has never allowed these refugees to return, destroyed the over 400 villages that were their homes, and confiscated their lands which constitute the majority of all the land in the state of Israel. This disaster for the Palestinian People came to be known as the Nakbah, or catastrophe. In addition there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens in Israel today who also had their land and homes confiscated by the government.

This human tragedy has been compounded by over 50 years of violence, 50 years of civil war, 50 years of wars and conflict with surrounding countries.

Every day we are still killing each other over who has more rights to the tiny sliver of land in the Eastern Mediterranean. Every day we are killing each other’s children. Every day we send young Jewish and Arab soldiers and irregulars to kill. Every day we demolish more homes. Every day a bus is blown up, or a rocket fired at a residential neighborhood. Ever day there is terror. Every day there is fear. Every day people lose their final shred of hope.

When people lose hope then we also lose our will to survive. We become self-destructive. The wanton violence from Palestinians and the calculated attacks by Israelis are a symptom of this loss of hope. How else can one explain the suicide bombers, the poisoning of fields, the house demolitions, the terrorist shootings. These are not rational acts. When people have nothing to lose, life itself becomes worthless. Your life. Their life.

I have seen hope diminish among many of my colleagues in the Israeli peace & justice movement during the past three years of Intifada. Most of mainstream Israel and Palestine also have little faith in the future. Even the new Road Map is not enthusiastically received, with all its flaws and limitations. It requires an end to the Occupation but does not define the territory to be de-occupied. It does not require an early withdrawal from large settlements. It calls for early stage so-called provisional borders for the new Palestinian State. Today, these provisional borders are unilaterally being created by the Israeli Army by fencing in the centers of Palestinian population, and building a wall between the West Bank and Israel, a wall that is east of the Green Line and is de-facto confiscating hundreds of thousands of acres of prime Palestinian agricultural land. These ghettos in the West Bank are reminiscent of the Native American reservations, or the so-called black homelands of Apartheid South Africa, which like the Palestinian Ghettos confined and restricted their inhabitants to a life of despair.

Even inside Israel itself the Palestinian population is under siege. 20% of our citizens are confined to less than 3% of the country. The government controls over 93% of the land and through the cynical use of zoning and land planning regulations effectively imprisons the Arab citizens to overcrowded and under serviced towns and villages. The government also mandates segregation in housing and public schools. Democracy in Israel today can only be defined, at best, as the tyranny of the majority, without checks and balances to protect minorities. Even if we sign a peace agreement tomorrow, we still have not developed a social and political system inside Israel that provides for equality of opportunity, and freedom of movement for all citizens. We have not learned how to live together, and the present war only exasperates an already untenable situation. Only by learning to live together within a democratic framework can any future peace be sustained.

And so, out of this morass, a new idea was born. The idea that private citizens could exercise their human and civil rights though organizing new facts on the ground, new communities and schools where equality and social justice are paramount concerns. Communities where Hebrew and Arabic have equal status. Communities where ordinary people can do ordinary activities together, where the restrictions of the larger society will not apply. In organizing to build these communities we can give hope and a prospect for a better future. In learning to live together we can lay a foundation for a future where all Israelis can pursue a life of freedom and dignity. In seeking a human solution to our conflicts we can help build a society that values liberty and inclusiveness.

Over the past year I have been working with a group of Israelis, Arabs and Jews, to develop a plan to build mixed, integrated communities across Israel. Our new organization, Mosaic Communities, becomes operational in October with myself as Executive Director. Essentially we are establishing a private affirmative action program to impact housing and education. In the United States these goals were developed through civic action and the legislative process, however in Israel this is currently unrealisitic. The civil rights revolution in this country developed when social and political conditions were optimum, and appropriate leadership emerged to lead the way. However it’s possible that if a group of whites and blacks, in the year 1920, had decided to build de-segregated housing communities across America, then the resulting new dynamic might have precipitated civil rights reforms much sooner. This is the process we are initiating in Israel.

The conditions in Israel are, of course, much different than the ‘Jim Crow’ era in the USA. However the results are similar and the resulting human tragedy lies at the heart of the ongoing violence.

Mosaic Communities intends to become part of the solution. Our program of action includes community-building activities that bring people together in a de-segregated environment. We have plans for mixed kindergartens, after school programs, adult education activities, and we will build communities where everyone will be welcome.

Our cooperative structure is bringing together a constituency of Jews and Arabs who are seeking a better life. Support for Mosaic is coming not only from progressive elements in Israeli society but also from mainstream Israelis. Collectively we will bring influence to bear on our people and our government, and in so doing we will facilitate the emergence of an alternate civil society. The time will come when the ever present discrimination in our economic, social, and educational institutions will no longer be tolerable for the majority of Israelis, and political action on a large scale will become possible.

The shape of this emerging new civil society is as-yet undefined. However the signs are evident in both the Jewish and Arab sectors in Israel. One of the most visible signs is the growth of the new Jewish/Arab social movement, Ta’ayush or Coexistance. Spurred by the Intifada they have become the vanguard of social and political change in Israel today. Comprising largely of young people, the activists of Ta’ayush address the issues of the Occupation, and issues of discrimination and oppression inside Israel.

Emerging bonds and common cause between Israeli Jews and Arabs are also evident as a result of the recent draconian economic program by our government which undermines the basic social safety net of all underprivileged Israelis, Arabs and Jews alike. There is also a large professional class of Israeli-Palestinians who are underemployed since most of the jobs go to Jews. These same Arabs are also increasingly frustrated by their confinement in their traditional villages and towns, through the lack of housing options elsewhere. Israeli secular society has had an ever-increasing influence on traditional Arab values and community life. Arabs can see the modern western lifestyles of many Israelis which remain tantalizingly out of their reach.

In addition there is tremendous pressure within Arab communities due to the housing shortage, since most communities are restricted from expanding due to zoning regulations which classify most Arab land as agricultural despite the desire of it’s owners and their communities to use it for housing. Many build anyway without permits and their homes are subject to demolition. There has been a tremendous upsurge in house demolitions inside Israel over the past year, as the government implements its program to establish more exclusive Jewish communities throughout the country. This year alone In the Negev Desert the Beduin have had a mosque demolished and fields poisoned from the air in addition to having homes demolished. In the town of Kfur Kasm just a few miles from where I live, an entire neighborhood of 17 homes was demolished earlier this year. In the meanwhile some Jewish kibbutzim are building neighborhoods, gas stations and shopping malls illegally on their agricultural land, and obtain retroactive building permits.

So our constituency in the Arab sector is there, waiting for opportunities in housing, propelled by social and economic reasons. Our constituency in the Jewish sector is also there, waiting for a framework within which to forge alternate lifestyles for mostly ideological reasons, the same reasons why many of you encourage your children to learn from, and mix with other cultures and races in American society.

However providing housing will only be the first step. The national, cultural, linguistic and religious differences between our residents will have to be bridged. Mosaic will need to develop the capacity to provide social and educational services to our communities. Each new community will have a kindergarten and school to serve not only the community residents but also to function as a magnet school for the surrounding area. There are currently only a handful of mixed schools in Israel so a great deal of research and experimenting needs to be accomplished in order to build a model curriculum that meets the communities’ needs. We are already planning to establish an integrated kindergarten near our new office in the center of the country, in order to begin to provide the service, and to evolve ideas regarding curriculum, use of language, and parent relations.

We anticipate that the new communities will also need integrated after school programs, and adult social and educational activities. We also plan to establish such programs before we build our first community. There are virtually no ordinary activities for children today in Israel that mix Arabs and Jews. I live in Kfar Saba, a Jewish town in the center of the country. We are surrounded by Arab villages and towns but there are currently no ordinary activities in the area where I can send my children to play and socialize with Arab kids. Our school is all Jewish, the baseball team is all Jewish, the dance class is all Jewish, the swimming pool is all Jewish, etc. etc. Mosaic Communities will build local programs that will bring children, and their parents, together. As these programs develop we hope their influence will help build a growing constituency for our communities as they are established.

Mosaic Communities recently elected our first board of directors comprising five Arab members and three Jewish members. We are currently building a base of support, conducting a fundraising campaign, and implementing a five-year plan to establish three pilot communities. I recently received a two-year fellowship from the Echoing Green Foundation in New York to establish the new organization. Echoing Green is funded by some of America’s largest corporations and is dedicated to seeking out emerging social entrepreneurs from all over the world who have developed new ideas that may have a profound impact on their society. This year I was privileged to be among the ten new Fellows selected out of a field of almost 1,000 applicants. We have also received a small grant from The New Israel Fund. However it is with limited resources that we launch the new organization. To implement our program we will need extensive resources and support, and I am seeking your help, morally, financially and practically.

In conclusion I would like to remind you that the United States government pours billions of dollars a year into supporting Israel. Why should your tax dollars support structural discrimination? If a small fraction of this support were to be allocated to assist the integration of housing and education we could alter the status quo in a generation. Please raise these issues with your government representatives. It is only with international support that Mosaic Communities can be successful and move our people and government towards a path of expanding democracy, freedom and security for all our people in Israel, and the possibility for hope might return.

Of Demolitions, Homelessness and Cruelty

2003-06-11T10:37:00.000+03:00

In my years of living in Israel I have never seen such a heartless and senseless act of cruelty such as was committed by the municipal government of Lod, a town in central Israel. A 23 year old Palestinian citizen of Israel who is confined to a wheelchair, Hany Zbedah, was removed from his house which was demolished with all contents inside.

It took over 200 police and paramilitary police, a helicopter and two bulldozers to destroy the 40 square meter (360 square feet) shed addition to his family home. The house itself has two rooms providing living and sleeping space for six people. After years of saving, Hany’s Father had renovated the small shed adjacent to their home in order to provide him with a better quality of life. The doors were extra wide to accommodate the wheelchair, a special bath had been installed so he could bathe in privacy, and a ramp built to the door providing access and a modicum of independence.

The house is owned by Amidar, the Israeli Government’s housing company. The shed addition had been existing since 1971. No permits were available for renovations to the building since the site has been slated for redevelopment at some future date. After being refused a permit for the renovation the family quietly went ahead and improved the property without altering the exterior except to paint it. Was the municipality happy that a poor family would try and improve their lot, and that of their most needy member? No, quite the contrary, they sent two companies of police and soldiers to flush out this menace to society, and left him sitting on the sidewalk while his newly renovated home was demolished with the contents inside.

Hany’s father sit’s languishing in jail, beaten and taken by Government stormtroopers when he non-violently protested their vile act. Two others suffered the same fate.

I sat with Hany for some time, as the bulldozers mopped up the rubble. His handicap is only physical, and has been with him from birth, restricting the movements of arms and legs, distorting his fingers, twisting his face so his words are slurred and head movements jerky. But when Hany smiles he lights up the space around him with a light that comes from a pure soul. Five minutes in his company are enough to convince you that there might even be hope for his Israeli Municipal tormentors who have done their worst with him but evoke no rancor or hate, only puzzlement and sadness. Hany’s eyes light up when he talks of his work repairing computers, and the Internet that has become his window to the world. One quickly realizes that here is a man with a quick mind and a ready answer to my probing questions. There is a quiet wisdom is his eyes, and a keen intelligence hampered but a little by his physical infirmity.

One wonders where the humanity has gone in a society that allows these atrocities to occur on a daily basis to minority citizens. And one has to ask the Jewish people in Israel where their outrage is, where their sense of common decency has gone, to allow any among us to be treated like dogs and garbage. Has the legacy of the Holocaust done this to us? Are we so traumatized as a people that we truly cannot see others as deserving a life? Are we so devoid of feeling that we cannot even consider a non-Jew to be worthy . . . of existence in this land?

The bombing today in Jerusalem was also a terrible thing. Fifteen people killed, many more injured. Lives destroyed, families shattered. Where do they come from these terrorists, and why? Over twelve thousand homes destroyed in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Where do they come from? Several hundred thousand people with shattered lives. Where do they come from? Children watching, their fathers beaten. Where do they come from? Women screaming. Where do they come from?

And yet I can only see Hany’s eyes, shining as he talked of his computers, as the bulldozed scraped the last of his house he was still smiling, at me, a Jew.

Hany’s email address is hanyz2@hotmail.com
I am sure that he would appreciate any words of kindness for today’s loss. Thank you

 2003 Fred Schlomka

Jerusalem Memorial Sculpture Garden for Rachel Corrie

2003-04-05T08:46:00.000+03:00

5-4-03
The day was hot on the eastern edge of Jerusalem. Half way up a steep hillside on the fringe of the village of Anata a group of 30 Israelis and Palestinians labored to build a sculpture garden in memory of Rachel Corrie. The sculptor was in attendance, supervising the installation of three small concrete houses within a cradle of debris from the nearby demolished home of the Shawamreh family.

The Shawamreh home had been demolished for the fourth time just two days before and already the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions had a bulldozer working to clear the site in preparation for another rebuilding. The work is supported and funded by the Global Campaign to Rebuild Palestinian Homes. Activists at the event vowed to keep rebuilding the house again and again until a just peace is achieved and the crimes of the Israeli government cease.

Sitting quietly on the grass was Arabia Shawamreh, mother of six children, and wife to Salim. She had spoken hardly a word for two days, and visited the hospital twice for seditive medication. Her heart was broken – again, and her hopes for a normal life in a family home has been shattered – again. Each demolition brought back the memories of the first time, when soldiers had hurled tear gas into the house and dragged and beaten Salim in front of Arabia and the children. Their story is an icon of the continuing suffering of the thousands of families who have had their homes demolished in the Occupied Territories, and in Israel.

Their story reflects the tragedy of Rachel Corrie who gave her life on March 16th 2003 in attempting to thwart a home demolition in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Her sacrifice and the sacrifices of all the Palestinian people were uppermost in everyone’s mind and they labored to build the memorial sculpture.

Rachel’s father, Craig Corrie, made a telephone call to the group from his home in the USA. Despite his continuing grief, he had words of encouragement for the work of the activists, and appreciation for the efforts to keep Rachel’s memory alive.

By noon the work was complete. The sculpture was in place and areas had been prepared for a future garden to be planted around it. The bulldozer clearing the nearby rubble was silenced and all present gathered in a circle at the memorial. Words of grief and hope were spoken in Arabic, Hebrew and English. Tears were shed and emotions were evident in the faces of the assembled company as they grappled with the issues of life and death, oppression and resistance.

Finally there was complete silence as each person walked to the memorial and placed a single flower on the sculpture. The only sound was the harp, playing softly in the background, soothing and poignant.

In attendance were members of the board of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and representatives of the International Solidarity Movement, Ta’ayush, Gush Shalom , The American Friends Service Committee, The Christian Peacemakers Team, and others.

The sculpture was created by Tel Aviv artist, Danny Reisner, and the harp music performed by Sunita Staneslow.

17 Homes Demolished in Israeli Town

2003-03-02T08:29:00.000+02:00

The Israeli authorities today demolished 17 partially built homes in the Arab town of Kfur Kas’m, 15 kilometers east of Tel Aviv. One might think that this quiet family centered town had become a hotbed of terror, and the houses were demolished as part of Israel’s punishment strategy against the Palestinians. But no, the people of Fur Kasumi are Israeli citizens and pay their taxes like everybody else. Today their tax monies were used to finance a military operation in support of a seemingly arbitrary government decision to demolish an entire new neighborhood.

Zuhar Mustapha Taha was sleeping in his partially built two-story house when he awoke at 3.a.m. to find the muzzle of an M16 rifle just inches from his face. The house was full of army and police, as was the surrounding neighborhood. At least 30 troops were in full combat gear. Zuhar was ordered out of the house and taken to the police station where he was held till 4 p.m. in the afternoon. Meanwhile the army cordoned off the neighborhood and bulldozers demolished 17 partially built houses being built by various members of the Taha family. Two homes were two-stories and the other fifteen were single story houses.

The story started in 1986 when the Israeli government decided that a tract of land owned by Mustapha Achmed Tacha was not being used for the purpose for which it was zoned, agricultural, and decided to confiscate it. Under Israeli law the government has the right to confiscate land it deems to be unused or underutilized for the purpose for which it is zoned. Town councils do not have the authority to overrule the central government on these issues even when the land in question is within their jurisdiction. The land in question is steep and rocky and useful only for olive trees or homes. Designating the land ‘agricultural’ is an old Israeli tactic to control the growth of Israeli Arab and Palestinian communities. This often results in absurdities such as individual building lots inside a village being designated agricultural.

However the land on the northern edge of Kfur Kas’m has been in the Tacha family for generations, from the time when the Ottoman Empire ruled Palestine. However since 1986 the Tacha family has waged a legal struggle to regain control of their land. The case currently pending in the courts and while no more construction was supposed to take place, no demolitions had been authorized. It is possible that the demolitions were illegal, even under Israeli law. In the meanwhile hundreds of thousands of dollars of construction work has been eradicated, and seventeen families have had their dreams shattered by an uncaring and cruel act.

This is not the first time that the people of Kfur Kas’m have had their land stolen. An industrial zone on the southern edge of the town has been annexed to the adjacent Jewish town of Rosh Ha-Ayin after promises had been made to the Kfar Kas’m municipality that they would retain jurisdiction and receive the property taxes from the zone.

Kfar Kas’m has a population of 15,000 and populated mostly by six large extended families. The Tacha family is the third largest numbering almost 2,000 people.

There are even greater tragedies in the town’s history. On October 29th, 1956 a unit of the Israeli Army slaughtered 49 men, women and children in cold blood. A full account translated from the Hebrew newspaper, Kol Haam, can be found by following the link above.

Hashem Rajabramzee Alyemani

2002-09-10T08:52:00.000+03:00

Hashem, his wife Rabee´ha and seven children live in squalid conditions on the eastern edge of Anata, a village on the fringe of Jerusalem. The family came originally from the village of Yatta, south of Hebron, where their home was demolished by the Israeli authorities in 1987. Like many others they had built their home without a permit. None are available but they built anyway since their growing family needed a roof over their heads. Their original house had been demolished and the land confiscated to make way for a by-pass road to the Kyriat Arba settlement.

After resettling in Anata HaShem and his family bought a small plot of land on the edge of what can only be described as a garbage dump, and once again built a home without a permit. This house was demolished in 1997. Now the family lives in a five meter shack (15 feet X 15 feet) with a sagging leaking roof and no glass in the windows. An old shipping container is attached to the shack and used for storage. A lean-to shed functions as a kitchen. Immediately outside their home are similar shacks where their cow, donkey and goats live. Flies cover everything, both inside and outside the house.

The nearby crest overlooks one of Israel’s largest West Bank military bases and the Judean Desert beyond. Ma’ale Adumim, Israel’s largest West Bank settlement is visible in the distance. The Jewish settlers there have a standard of living that HaShem and his family can only dream about. While the Palestinian family lives in a slum worthy of Nairobi or Calcutta, the local settlers have luxury apartments and every public amenity available.

HaShem is a tiler by trade but since he suffered a stroke, and a work accident broke his hand, he lives from day to day with whatever casual labor he can find. Some days he drives a tractor, but mostly he sits home. HaShem is a proud man, refusing charity directly, especially from his Palestinian neighbors whom he does not want to be beholden to.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions is exploring the possibility of building a small home for the family.

My Dear Friends

2002-08-22T13:07:00.000+03:00

A Letter to Israeli Protest and Resistance activists
Published in ‘News From Within’, August 2002

My dear friends,

Does this sound familiar:

“I don’t mind protesting in Tel Aviv but I’m not crazy enough to do it over the Green Line”

“I can’t go there, I might get arrested or shot. Anyway I have to pick up my kids from swimming lessons.”

“My wife won’t let me go. She’s concerned what the family will say if I get arrested”

And so on….. And so on….. These are some of the reasons I’ve heard from Israeli Jews who want to limit their participation in protest and resistance to the Israeli Occupation in The West Bank. My own excuse goes something like this. “My wife won’t let me be arrested. I’m expected home for dinner.” Most of us decide on our level of activism by our social schedule, family restraints, and work commitments.

Some of us commit inadvertant crimes as a result of protest activities and then become upset by the ensuing arrest and conviction. The young lady who threw a cream pie at Reuven Rivlin (Israeli Minister of Communications) last Autumn now has to serve a year of full time community service. She was quite upset by the sentence. However what a statement it would be for dozens of activists to commit similar ‘crimes’, perhaps a little worse, and end up in jail.

There is a small core of Israeli activists, probably less than a hundred who will go anywhere, anytime, and commit acts of civil disobedience in order to demonstrate their commitment to a just peace. Are the rest of us wimps? Or merely being rational about our protest activities. If we are in an armed conflict to determine the status of the West Bank and Gaza why are there no Israelis fighting side by side with Palestinians. A few Israeli Jews have indeed joined the PLO over the years but they are the rare exception.

The civil rights movement in the USA during the 1960s saw thousands of white Americans standing shoulder to shoulder with blacks in the southern states where institutional racism was the norm. They braved the brutal repressive measures of State authorities and many were jailed, some were killed. In South Africa many whites joined the African National Congress when it was defined as a Communist/Terrorist organization by the Apartheid government. What constrains Israeli political activists to restrict their activities to ‘safe’ protest?

For many activists the Zionist ethic still prevails. Even among the extreme left there remains a core belief that Israel must remain a Jewish state and any political program or activity that undermines the ‘Jewish Character’ of the state is to be avoided. Thus a recent Peace Now demonstration in Tel Aviv with the slogan "Get Out of the Territories – Get Back to Ourselves" supports the Zionist paradigm of separation from non-Jews, without reference to the inherent injustice of such a philosophy. It negates the existence of over one million Palestinian citizens of Israel who have little interest in ‘Getting back to themselves’ but are increasingly identifying with their brethren across the Green Line. Many, if not most Peace Now supporters would close ranks with the right wing if there was an imminant possibility of a single democratic state being formed from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, or if the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees was actualized. Their protest activities are contained within this framework.

Most of the other organizations involved in protest, resistance and peace activities similarly have agendas that restrict their activities. Some, like Rabbis for Human Rights, Bustan l’shalom and Tay’aush combine humanitarian relief with political protest and resistance activities. Others have purely political agendas. There is very little agreement among groups regarding strategy or even the ultimate goals of the ‘Peace Movement’ beyond vague statements such as ‘End the Occupation’. We don’t even agree on which occupation. Some refer only to the West Bank and Gaza, others include the Golan Heights and a brave few discuss Haifa, Jaffa, and the 400+ Palestinian villages in Israel now covered with rubble, Jewish settlements and kibbutz fields.

The great peace activist Ghandi discussed the resistance strategy of filling the jails to overflowing with political prisoners who refuse to accept the brutalities of oppression. He was not only talking about Indians, or South Africans, or Palestinians, he was talking about us – Israeli Jews.

So what are the strategies that will take us into the unknown, the slippery ground of activities defined by the state as criminal acts? Shall we destroy the machines of war, perhaps chain ourselves to tanks, or declare a mock curfew in Tel Aviv as some fine young people did a couple of months ago. Couragous acts of creative resistance would result in a cadre of political prisoners that would give hope to the Palestinian people that some of us really do care. No matter how hungry they get, most Palestinians would prefer to see Israeli activists in jail for their resistance than bringing supplies of food and water bought with donations from our rank and file. Perhaps we should be raiding the industrial food processing plants and corporate supermarket chains that have profited from the captive Palestinian economy, and deliver the booty to the Palestinians. Now that would be a political statement - - and a crime that would put us in jail. Maybe I’ll be arrested for suggesting it. At least that would be a start in the right direction. Oops, what am I saying! I need to talk to my wife before I can be arrested.

So where does this leave us, my activist friends. Shall we all get together and hatch a grand plan to fill the jails with activists? Or shall we continue our tepid brand of protest and complain when the army fires tear gas while we attempt to transport humanitarian supplies to Palestinians who only half want them in the first place. Make no mistake, I point the finger first at myself. Do I rise to the challenge or listen to my wife who needs her husband to come home every day and my two young children who need their daddy to be close. Then I think of all the dead Palestinian and Israeli Children, those senseless deaths that took them forever from their daddys’ love. How great a personal price should we pay to avenge all those deaths? How great a sacrifice can we demand of ourselves to redeem our society of the stain on our honor? I have not yet found my answer. Have you?

Dabash Family – Sur Bahair, Jerusalem

2002-06-27T08:55:00.000+03:00

The Dabash family patriarch, Ahmed Dabash, is in his eighties, a gentle old man with a white Kaffeyah on his head, looking every inch the proud father of four sons and an extended family of 55 people. Their family history in Sur Bahair extends back before the Ottoman Empire claimed Palestine and beyond. Five or six hundred years of continuous residence. The lore has been handed down from father to son, with tales of the great Grandfather’s exploits as a soldier in The Ottoman Army. Now, as residents of annexed East Jerusalem the family are de-facto Israeli citizens.

The village of Sur Bahair is home to 14-15,000 Palestinian Muslims and sits at the crest of a hill overlooking the valleys separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem and Beit Sahour. It is a pastoral scene of olive trees and farming plots, marred only by the lines of Israeli tanks on the opposite hills. The tanks occasionally fire shells into Beit Sahour and Bethlehem, seeking the perpetrators of real or imagined resistance to the Israeli Occupation. Usually it is the innocent who are killed or maimed. Sur Bahair is hemmed in on three sides by encroaching Israeli settlements. Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, Hermon Anatseev, Har Homa, West Talpiot and the growing suburbs of Jerusalem. A four lane highway circles one side of the village, a stark strip of concrete forging a link to Maale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, east of Jerusalem. Thus the Jerusalem Municipality is ensuring territorial contiguity for the ever-expanding Jewish presence on the land, without regard of the rights of the existing Palestinian population, and in violation of International law.

The four sons of the Dabash family are thrifty, hard working men. Ibrahim works for Israeli radio, Mohammed is an ambulance driver, Omar drives a bus for the Israeli national company, Egged, and Imad is a driving instructor. Imad is also a volunteer for the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, Mogan David Adom. Together they support their father, wives and children, a total of 55 people living in a single home of perhaps 150 meters (approx. 1,400 square feet), the size of a suburban home in the USA or Europe. Fifty-five people! Their home is immaculate; the children friendly and well behaved. Exactly the kind of decent people anyone would welcome as neighbors.

Two of the brothers, Omar and Imad, bought a small building plot in 1997 from the Abu Kaf family and spent their life savings to build a home for their two families and father. The other two brothers were to keep the original home, thus allowing all their families to live in relative comfort instead of on top of one another. Over $100,000 was invested in the new home. The family paid cash, the net result of endless years of savings and dreams, and by the beginning of June 2002 the home was being painted and almost ready to occupy. . On the 11th June those dreams were smashed by the Jerusalem Municipal authorities.

At 8am, without notice, over 200 police and combat troops arrived and stationed themselves around the home and the adjacent neighborhood. Then the Caterpillar bulldozers arrived and proceeded in a short time to totally destroy the home. The work of years reduced to rubble in a few hours. The hopes of 55 people reduced to shattered reams. And why?

Jerusalem has a policy of restricting the growth of Palestinian communities. The land use planning regulations and zoning laws have decreed that the privately owned land in and around most Palestinian villages to be green space, “for the villagers own benefit” according to Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert. However the village families must build new homes to accommodate growing families. They must build, and they do it in the traditional fashion by adding homes to the edge of the community, on their own land. If they try and apply for a building permit it will cost $20-30,000, go through a process often lasting years, and then be routinely denied. So the Dabash brothers, like many others, had gone ahead and built without a permit.

Currently the village of Sur Bahair has about 50 homes under threat of demolition with 7 houses destroyed so far this year. None of the families are offered any aid by the Jerusalem Municipality. This would be unthinkable for a Jewish family in similar circumstances. No social worker calls, no temporary shelter is offered, nothing. The family is left to their own resources.

The contrast to this situation is the adjacent Jewish settlements that are provided with spacious public areas, community facilities, subsidized synagogues, low cost housing and subsidized mortgages. Yet their encirclement of the villages is strangling the life out of Palestinian communities, reducing their daily existence to a fear of the bulldozer and the police. Even access to villages is often restricted through arbitrary closures of the winding roads that hug the hillsides and follow trails that are centuries, perhaps millennia old. Four lane highways now slice through the hills destroying the biblical landscape, and huge settlements built with no regard to the topography of the land. When unauthorized Jewish outposts are established with caravans, they are usually provided with army protection and become the nucleus of a new settlement. This is still continuing today.

The Dabash family story is repeated daily throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank as the expansionist policies of the Israeli government continues to create the Zionist dream. A total of 10,000 homes are under threat of demolition in the Occupied Territories. 10,000 families living with little hope. 10,000 families with no future. 10,000 families with 3-400,000 dependants. What are they to do?

Of Walls, Closures and House Demolitions

2001-08-14T13:09:00.000+03:00

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) coordinator Jeff Halper and myself arranged a trip to Kalkiliya today with a delegation from the European Union (EU). There had been some unconfirmed reports out of Kalkiliya about the separation wall that the Israelis are building so we thought we should see for ourselves.

We took road number 443 out of Jerusalem passing through the West Bank before entering Israel proper about 20 kilometers out of the city. Travelling in an armored jeep with diplomatic number plates was a new experience. It looks like an average Jeep but travels like a tank. We lumbered up the steep hills of Giv’at Ze’ev noting the continuous expansion of the sprawling settlement that Israel regards as a Jerusalem suburb, but in fact much of it is closer to Ramallah than Jerusalem. After two checkpoints we passed through Modi’in, a settlement city that straddles both sides of the Green Line and during the past fifteen years has sprouted endless American style suburban housing that appears like a blight on the rolling hills. It is essentially a bedroom community from which people commute to work in the coastal region and Jerusalem. Modi’in is planned to eventually be one of the largest cities in Israel.

As we approached the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway we chose the road to Kalkiliya up route 443 that hugs the Green line on the Israeli side. As we cruised north we could see some of the West Bank by-pass roads emerging from the Central Highlands to link up with the new north-south Trans Israel Highway (route 6). These by-pass roads are an key component in the ‘Matrix of Control’ that links the Israeli settlements in the West Bank to Israel through a vast network of almost 400 kilometers of four-lane highways. Most of these roads have been built since the Oslo agreements were signed. The Trans Israel Highway has just opened a ten kilometer stretch from Nakhshonim to Kokav Ya’ir, just north of Kalkiliya. Eventually the road will stretch from the Lebanese border in the North to Be’er Sheva in the southern Negev Desert thereby opening the country to a new generation of commuters who will be able to live in the periphery and work in the center.

We took the newly opened section of route 6 and shaved ten minutes off our driving time to Kalkiliya. After calling our contact there, Kamal Jebril, we stopped on the route 6 overpass to view the famous ‘Wall’ from the Israel side. Route 6 goes straight past the boundary of Kalkiliya touching the Green Line. The seven-meter concrete wall runs parallel to the highway for about two kilometers and makes an imposing sight. There are two guard towers along its length with floodlights on top reminding me of a prison camp or, as a German colleague pointed out, the Berlin wall. Indeed its construction is very similar to the now defunct communist wall.

We next passed a roadblock for a perfunctory check, then headed for the Israeli Army checkpoint at the edge of Kalkiliya. An incongruous, character in full combat uniform greeted us. He could easily have been taken for a jolly buffoon were it not for his fully loaded M16 rifle at the ready. The soldier was an ultra-orthodox Jew with long graying hair poking out of his helmet and even longer peyes (sideburns worn by the ultra-orthodox) hanging down to his shoulder. He presented a formidable image. However he was polite and friendly, and after checking our documents we were ushered through.

On the other side we were met by a delegation from the Palestine Peoples Party (PPP) who had been alerted of our arrival. The PPP were the only Palestinian organization that recommended accepting the UN partition plan in 1947 and were later persecuted for this by the Jordanian authorities during 1948-67. After the Israeli conquest of the West Bank, the PPP was the only permitted Palestinian political party. As one of the few Palestinian groups not directly supporting armed resistance to the Occupation, they have become an important ally of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

While driving to the PPP office I noted how clean the streets were, compared to other Palestinian towns under closure and re-occupation. It was an indication that there was still a functioning municipal authority and a population that cared. Even some areas of East Jerusalem look much worse with smoldering piles of garbage on the streets and virtual anarchy in community affairs. Despite the fact that the Jerusalem municipality is responsible for all areas of the ‘united’ city, some neighborhoods look like the slums of Nairobi or Calcutta.

At the PPP office we met with Central Committee member Kamal Jebril and discussed the general conditions in Kalkiliya and the surrounding area. Kalkiliya today is under a nighttime curfew from 8pm, when the army comes and goes at will. During the day there is life on the streets but many shops stay shuttered, either they have nothing to sell or there are not enough customers. There is an Israeli-engineered economic dependence on Israel that is sucking the available cash out of the community. The residents are not permitted to sell any of their farm produce or other produced goods or services outside the city, or make purchases from other Palestinian communities since there is a ban on most travel in the West Bank (not for Jews). Shops in Kalkilya are permitted to purchase only from Israeli suppliers. Thus the economy of the town is steadily declining as their accumulated savings are drained into the Israeli economy. The story is similar in many other West Bank communities. However Kalkiliya is also completely surrounded by Israeli controlled territory, a town of 40,000, adrift and closed in a sea of settlements and tanks, with one road in and out, and a checkpoint that few are allowed to pass.

After discussion and formalities at the PPP office we went to take a look at the Wall. It was quite imposing and ugly, constructed of pre-cast concrete and towering above the adjacent houses and farm buildings. One fellow, Labil, had built a fine home in 1998 with his front door facing west towards a pastoral scene with stretch of woodland. Now he has a major highway 30 meters from his door with the Wall a mere 20 meters away. His life savings are in his home and the family is very scared that the Israelis will decide they need an additional buffer zone on his side of the wall and demolish his house. ‘What can we do but wait and see’ he said, ‘everything I have is in this house’. After coffee and hospitality in Labil’s home we took some photographs of the Wall and continued the tour.

We took a look at the police station that was completely demolished by tank fire along with the remains of the police vehicles in the parking lot. Three more demolished buildings were next, also destroyed by tank fire. We were told that no resistance had been offered to the Israeli army from these buildings and there was no rational reason for them to be targeted. Another building had been demolished by an explosive charge placed or thrown inside. We entered the building warily, as chunks of concrete were hanging down and the entire structure looked as if it might collapse at any moment. The flat ceiling of the room where the charge went off was now concave. It must have been a tremendous blast to do such a thing to a 40-centimeter thick concrete slab. We retreated to the street where more refreshments were being thrust upon us. Everyone we met appreciated out visit and urged us to make conditions in Kalkiliya known to the outside world.

Driving back to the PPP office Kamal pointed out the remains of his business office that had been flattened by tank fire. His only ‘crime’ had been to hold political meetings there. The business used to make concrete blocks for the local construction industry.

Back at the office we discussed how ICAHD could be of assistance to the people of Kalkiliya. Since civilian homes had been demolished it was possible that our Global Campaign to Rebuild Palestinian Homes might be able to fund the reconstruction of one or two houses. The campaign is enabled through the generosity of thousands of people around the world who host events and house parties where people can view a video about our work and are invited to contribute. In Israel and Palestine we assemble teams of Israeli, Palestinian, and International volunteers who work to rebuild homes in East Jerusalem, Jenin, Ramallah, Gaza, and now possibly Kalkiliya. Our volunteers rebuild homes not only to provide shelter for families but also as an act of resistance to the occupation and solidarity with the Palestinian families. ICAHD coordinator Jeff Halper promises Kamal that we will discuss the matter with our principal Palestinian Partners at the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights.

As we leave the city a great sadness comes over me. Everyone we had met had declared they wanted nothing more than to live in peace, have a decent home, employment, and a better life for their children. These are the basics of life that people all over the world share. No one showed any hatred towards Israelis but rather a desire to engage in dialog and achieve a just solution to the longstanding Palestinian grievances. Israelis continue to misunderstand their Palestinian neighbors and see only the attacks on Israeli civilians without comprehending the connections between Palestinian violence and the continual Occupation, land confiscations, settlement expansion, and growing extension of Israeli sovereignty. For a real peace Israelis will have to eventually accept that the ‘other’ nation in this land has equal rights to exist alongside the Jewish State.

(Fred Schlomka was Operations Manager of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions from 2001-2003)

life on the Israeli Riviera • part 7

2001-05-12T15:08:00.000+03:00

Today almost 100 cars with 300 Israelis followed a large truck carrying much needed food and other supplies to the besieged West Bank villages of Marda and Qiri. Israeli police and army patrols observed the convoy throughout the route but there was no attempt to intervene as they had done with the convoy last month . The organizers emphasized that in addition to providing the supplies, the trip was a show of solidarity between Israeli dissenters and the Palestinian people. The common theme uniting he activists was their opposition to the continuing closure and occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the Palestinian residents of Marda and Qiri had depended on steady employment in Israel prior to the policy of ‘separation’, which was implemented during the 1990s. Palestinians then found themselves replaced by imported workers from various African and Asian countries. These foreign workers now number about 300,000 in Israel. More recently the Civil War and the resulting closure of the West Bank has further reduced the number of Palestinian workers entering Israel. The closure also denies Palestinian farmers access to markets for their products, which also exasperates the poverty in the villages.

The food for the convoy was purchased with donations from Arabs and Jews in Israel and organized by the Israeli group Ta’ayush. Other organizing groups were the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and The Coalition of Women for a Just Peace. Activists from Peace Now, Gush Shalom and the Israeli Communist Party also participated in the event.

The convoy participants were enthusiastically welcomed in the villages and a solidarity rally was held at each location. The Israeli army kept a low profile, which allowed a festive atmosphere to develop on the streets. A member of ‘Jugglers for Peace’ provided entertainment for the village children with impromptu juggling performances, and villagers circulated with cold refreshments for the activists as the heat rose to 25 degrees Celsius.

The Palestinian village of Marda lies beneath a rim of hills occupied by the Israeli settlement of Ariel, approximately 20 kilometers over the Green Line and 40 Kilometers from Tel Aviv. Ariel is a constant bone of contention with the local Palestinians since Israel has maintained throughout the Oslo negotiations that the settlement must continue to be joined territorially to Israel by a finger of sovereign Israeli territory reaching deep into the future state of Palestine. This is one of the controversial issues that gave rise to the current civil war in Israel/Palestine. Stretches of the road to Marda were devoid of growth on one side to a depth of at least two hundred meters. Scores of olive trees had been uprooted by the Israeli army in response to stones being thrown. The army considers it irrelevant whether or not the owner of the trees had any connection to the stone throwers.

The village of Qiri is five kilometers from Marda and arrived at through a narrow hilly winding road. The road is lined with olive groves that harbor trees that were probably planted during the crusader era or even earlier. The road terminates at the village, which makes it easy for the Israeli army to block off access at will.

This is the fourth food convoy since December and more are planned. Donations are welcome. Contact Gadi Algazi at algazi@post.tai.ac.il

Life on the Israeli Riviera • Part 6

2001-05-01T13:29:00.000+03:00

Life on the Israeli Riviera – Part V

It’s getting closer! We’ve had 3 bombings during the past two weeks in Kfar Saba, a town so close to us that it’s hard to tell where one town ends and the other begins. Our little bubble of safety in Ra’anana is starting to crumble. Kids are being told to stay off the main street at rush hour when bombs usually go off. The forces of Palestinian liberation are making damned sure that no-one in Israel feels safe any more. My father-in-law and his wife were here for a visit last week from the USA. The morning after the latest bombing I hid the front page of the newspaper from him since we had been a few blocks from ground zero just a few hours before the action.

I took the in-laws to Tira, a town of Palestinian-Israelis near here. We went to the Saturday market full of factory seconds, bric-a-brac, and food. Before the war started the market was full of hundreds of Israelis in addition to Palestinians. I counted six Jews there last week. Not that Tira is such a hotbed of radicals and violence but Israelis are afraid to associate with anyone other than Jews. What are we afraid of? Bombs and bullets I suppose. But more than that we are afraid of our own existential reflection, that nemesis of Zionism; Palestinian nationalism. And in denying them legitimacy we deny our own liberty and continue to live in the ghetto.

In a recent essay Israel Shamir described himself as the ‘Third Dove’, like the feathered messenger from Noah’s Ark who ventured forth beyond the receeding floodwaters and never returned, finding the world a good and safe place. Far be it for me to deny Shamir his fantasies but surely the nation of Israel (as opposed to the state) must find it’s own third dove from within the bosom of it’s body politic, not from the statement of a marginal commentator. When our dove is ready we shall fly. I just hope to G-d it happens soon.

In the meanwhile depression has settled over the land. We all deal with it in our own way. My friend Nad and I get together on my rooftop veranda late at night and commiserate together.

Life on the Israeli Riviera • Part 5

2001-04-15T13:27:00.000+03:00

Since 1967, Israel has demolished more than 7000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, leaving some 40,000 people homeless. Since October more than 500 homes have been destroyed by tank fire, missiles and army bulldozers. Last week alone, the Israeli Civil Administration demolished 28 houses on the West Bank This week it's East Jerusalem's turn: 19 houses belonging to Palestinians are slated for demolition.

To protest the resumption of politically motivated house demolitions by the Israeli government approximately one hundred Israelis and two hundred Palestinians held a peaceful rally this evening. The recent demolition orders have threatened the homes of several Palestinian families in the village of Um-Tuba, south of Jerusalem. The village overlooks the new Israeli settlement of Har Nof, which is being built in violation of the Oslo agreements and UN resolutions. Palestinian Minister Faisel Husseini and Jeff Halper, the Coordinator of the Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) addressed the rally. Both men spoke out against the continued illegal building of settlements for wealthy Jewish Israelis and the recent demolition of numerous Palestinian homes in the same areas. The houses threatened by demolition in Um-Tuba are inhabited by impoverished Palestinians whose only option was to build tiny single room homes for their families on land they own. The Israeli goverment has declared the land exclusively a ‘green area’ and therefor illegal to build on. The speakers pointed out that the tragedy unfolding at Um-Tuba/Har Nof is a microcosm of the greater tragedy of the Palestinian people who are living under continuing occupation while seeing their patrimony swallowed up by the subsidized luxury apartments and villas of the Israeli settlers.

In his remarks, Jeff Halper pointed out that house demolitions represent a cynical use of law and planning for purely political purposes. Immediately after the 1967 war a third of the land in East Jerusalem was expropriated for Jewish building. Of the rest, more than half was frozen as "green areas." Thus the 200,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are squeezed into small enclaves, unable to build modest houses on their own land, while the government builds tens of thousands of housing units for Jews only in the eastern part of the city. 80% of the building violations in Jerusalem occur in West Jerusalem; 80% of the demolitions happen in East Jerusalem. And while whole houses are demolished in the Arab sector, this never happens among the Jewish population.

At the conclusion of the rally several of the Jewish participants volunteered to sleep in the houses in order to be present to protest the arrival of bulldozers. The message was distributed later in the evening through an email network that more volunteers are needed to spend a night in the threatened homes. Hospitality has been offered by the villagers and Orient House in East Jerusalem is providing security.

Life on the Israeli Riviera • Part 4

2001-04-05T13:25:00.000+02:00

So now our so-called liberal newspaper, Ha’aretz, is describing Jewish terrorists as ‘hooligans’, ‘extremists’, and hot-heads. None of the English lessons I had at school defined certain words by the ethnic or religious status of the people being described. Earlier this week our home grown terrorists exploded a bomb inside a Palestinian shop in Hebron, then yesterday two Palestinians are shot while driving their car on a public highway. It seems to me that these activities are identical to the bombings and shooting that the Tanzin, Hamas and others have been perpetrating on the Jewish public. Now we have Kach offshoot, ‘The Committee for the Security of the Highways’ committing terrorist mayhem. Where will it end? Are we sliding into the anarchy of Lebanon?

I took my family to a Street Fair last Friday while many of my colleagues were off to the Land Day Demonstrations at Araba and other Palestinian towns. I felt a little guilty that I wasn’t participating but it was my daughter’s birthday. The Fair was in Pardes Hanna about half way between Tel Aviv and Haifa. It reflected some of the dramatic changes in Israeli society over the past ten years. The fair is perhaps best described as combining the atmosphere of a New Age Festival with a Renaissance Fair. There were jugglers and stiltwalkers, a harp player and a one-man band. The food was rustic and organic and many participants wore costumes that were a blend of the Middle East and Medieval Europe. A good time was had by all.

Apparently the Land Day demonstrations went off successfully and peacefully without my participation. The police kept their distance and allowed the local Palestinian leaders to control the ‘hot-heads’ that might want to throw stones or damage property.

The Jews of Israel are now feverishly preparing for the Seder (Passover feast) and the ritual recital of the Haggada which retells the story of the slavery and Exodus from Egypt. But what of the quasi slavery of our Israeli prostitutes and foreign agricultural and construction workers. Will we remember them as we sit with our families on Saturday night and remember our own oppression so long ago? Will we stop for a moment and reflect on the oppression and hardship of others, of our cousins across the green line? My own family is also busy cleaning and preparing for the Seder, our first since making Aliyah (immigrating) last summer. We will be hosting a family from Peru who also immigrated are currently staying at the Merkaz Klita (Immigrant’s Hostel) which is not the best place to celebrate a holyday. The apartments are tiny, the children noisy, and sometimes the neighbors are of questionable character. So we will share our table with another family of new Israelis and wonder anew at the miracle of the Exodus and the realization of the dream, ‘Next year In Jerusalem’ which has been forever recited at the Seder. Perhaps the Palestinians in exile also have a mantra of returning to Jerusalem. We will ponder this as we read the Haggada this year.

Perhaps we all need a new mantra:
‘This year we’ll share Jerusalem’

Life on the Israeli Riviera • part 3

2001-03-29T13:22:00.000+02:00

I got a call from a customer in Kfar Saba this morning telling me that she couldn’t meet me at the apartment I was painting for her because the police were still picking up bodyparts near her house in the aftermath of the latest suicide bombing. Two boys and the bomber were dead. So I went to work anyway and saw for the first time that a barricade was set up at the edge of town as police checked the occupants of every car. Later, as I was finishing up my job, my customer showed up, approved the work and paid the bill. Neither of us mentioned the bodyparts, or the barricade, or the war.

Then I was home, just a few kilometers away, preparing for my daughter’s birthday party. Her little friends showed up as planned and we made music, painted a mural, ate birthday cake and had a juggling show. The war was not mentioned but our bubble is becoming more fragile.

Last Friday my son ran a 3 kilometer section of the annual Ra’anana marathon. His first time. It was fun. We all cheered. Then I dropped off the family at home and went to the Rantis action on the Green Line with 200 other Israelis who proceeded to demolish army closure barricades with their bare hands. A token resistance to the occupation. Those of us feeling smug about our activity should take heed to the comment following my previous report. Until we (Israelis) stand with our Palestinian cousins and share the risks of their rebellion, our actions will have little impact on the larger Israeli public. Who among us has the strength, the courage? Could the blacks in the United States have achieved the civil rights reforms in the sixties if it were not for the solidarity of a few whites that marched with them. Then again their citizenship and the US constitution protected them. But some were still killed. Then again, in Israel we have no constitution and the Palestinians have no citizenship. ………..

Tonight I was at a political meeting in Tel Aviv with some leftist movers and shakers, and we watched our army on television bombing Gaza and Ramalla in retaliation for the earlier bombing. A celphone call came in from Hebron from the Christian Peacemakers Team. The settlers there were on the rampage there, burning Palestinian cars and setting fire to the Market. Nothing about this on the television news. Some of us went into action calling the army, the police, and all the major media and wire services. It’s amazing how much activity can be generated when everyone at a meeting has a celphone. Half an hour later we saw the settlers being subdued (gently) by the army on television.

It could be that Sharon intends to beat the Palestinians into submission while herding them into ever smaller areas, then call those areas a State and tell them to take it or leave it. After all, the American colonials got away with the same tactic with the Native Americans. Why not Israel?

It’s all pretty depressing.

Life on the Israeli Riviera • Part 2

2001-03-18T13:17:00.000+02:00

I went to work today with a new worker. He’s a nice thirty-something middle class gentleman from Peru who came to Israel six months ago with a starry eyed Zionist dream that has been shattered by the reality of today’s Israel. Ever since his boyhood he has nurtured a naive vision of a caring Jewish State that is completely at odds with the militarist Israel of 2001. What a cosmic joke has been played on my friend by the emissary of the Jewish Agency in Lima. In Peru he was a respected manager of a major hardware store chain, an officer at his synagogue, and a solid member of the middle class with a nice home. In Israel he is staying at a slummy Absorption Center (immigrant’s hostel) with his wife and two kids, and has found his skills and experience irrelevant in a society that really doesn’t care why he came here, and even less about his welfare. So now he’s my painting helper working for wages that I’m ashamed to be paying. So where does that leave me?

Am I also a victim or a protagonist of this Zionist game that shuffles the Jews of this world out of their homes and into a matrix of beaurocracy and government control in order to provide more children to become Zionist cannon fodder. I hope not. But I do wonder most days about the reasons for my children becoming Israeli, and I hope the answers that come are the ones that will allow me to sleep at night when my children are grown. I took them from a secure home in the heartland of America and brought them to a land where the next day might be the last. But surely our Civil War will end and we will finally come to terms with our Palestinian cousins and learn to share this land with all who live here. Am I also naive?

Among my Israeli leftist friends I am the only one who actually goes out every day and builds calluses on my hands in order to put food on the table. But they are the ones with the rigid ideologies about the working class and the theories about the means of production and the political structures that will bring us all a final equality, brotherhood, sisterhood, and all that crap that died with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. I would be happy for the killing to stop and the people to be able to go to the store for a loaf of bread without having to confront a conscript soldier from Russia or Brazil who has closed the road and makes our grandmothers climb over mud and rocks to get around the road that is closed but they let them go around it.?.?! Only some times they shoot at them because they are really not supposed to go around it. . . . for a loaf of bread, or going to school, or looking for work. . . they shoot at them.

Yet I live in a town not 7 kilometers from the aforementioned scenario. And here my eight-year-old daughter can walk herself home from school without a care in the world that some jerk with a gun will accost her and humiliate her. Why can my daughter have that freedom and her counterpart in Qalkylia cannot? Why can we be safe in our little bubble of security and they cannot? Why are Jewish human rights somehow more important than anyone else around here? It’s a little belated to keep pointing to the Holocaust as a reason for all our oppression of our neighbors. My dad was in a camp. I hate the Nazis too. But for G-d’s sake that was fifty years ago already. Let’s give it a rest! The world won’t forget. We’ve made sure of that. Maybe it’s time to show how magnanimous we can be, and open our doors, our arms, our hearts, to those who have unfairly borne the brunt of our redemption.

Life on the Israeli Riviera • part 1

2001-03-03T13:14:00.000+02:00

We had our annual Purim parade here in Ra'anana today. Our main street, Rohov Ahuza, was packed with people watching float after float of enthusiastic children playing instruments and having a good time. The mayor of Ra'anana led the way in an open American style convertable automobile. Security was everywhere, making sure that the Israeli elite and their children could have their fun depite the dirty little war going on outside our secure municipal bubble.

Our quiet upper-middle class town of 60,000 is about 20 kilometers north of Tel Aviv, just a little bit inland from the coast. Another 7 kilometers to the east of us is the Green Line and the town of Qalkiliya, a Palestinian community that has been a locus of Intifada activity, with a strangled economy and little hope for the future. I wake up every morning trying to come to terms with the dichotomy between my life and theirs, between the life I provide for my children and the funerals that they have for theirs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fat cat or stock option high tech wiz kid like so many of my neighbors. No, I go out every morning and get dirt under my fingernails or covered in paint as I fix up the houses and apartments for my better off neighbors. In the local lingo I'm called a Shiputznik, one of the few Jews left in Israel who is willing to get dirty for a living.

Life can be quite surreal around here. Having a street festival for Purim while our army and vigilante settlers are killing a few more Palestinians is just the tip of the iceberg. We also go to the park and have picnics on Saturdays, throw lavish birthday parties and chat about the relative merits of a vacation in India or Peru. Our tree lined main street is full of sidewalk cafes and dress shops that are frequented by the fashionable ladies of Ra'anana. We have a country club where the good people spent time swimming or working out in the gym while catching up on local gossip.
All this has been built on the systematic exploitation of Palestinian and now foreign workers.

Oh yes, now that we and the Palestinians are busy shooting and bombing each other, Israel has become one of the world's largest importers of cheap foreign labor. They don't get visas, their employers do, and then the Chinese, or Philipino, or Thai workers are held in a kind of indentured servitude at the whim of the employer. Just outside Ra'anana there is a huge Amdocs (a high tech company) building going up that has within its barbed wire compound a collection of at least twenty huts which house the captive foreign labor. They are the kind of huts that you might have in your garden to keep tools in, or your dog.

So that's it in a nutshell. Life on the Israeli Riviera. Just one more thing. This isn't a war of national liberation that the Palestinians are waging here. No-one in their right mind believes any more that it's possible to establish two states on this itty bitty piece of land with everyone already living on top of each other. No. We're having a civil war. There is only one country here. Call it Israel, call it Palestine or call it any damn thing you want. The facts on the ground are here to stay. The settlers are not moving. We're all settlers here! And the Palestinians aren't moving either, or the 250,000 foreign workers, or the 1,000,000 Russians, most of them Christians, who arrived over the past ten years. I wish the dumb politicians would just declare a state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, give everyone the vote and get on with building a democratic nation. Anything else is just BS.

Housing Segregation in Israel – Strategies for Change

2000-04-10T21:43:00.000+02:00

The recent Israeli Supreme Court decision allowing the Kaadan family to live in Katzir, a community developed by the Jewish Agency, will have far reaching implications in Israel. This landmark ruling sets the stage for further challenges to Israel’s segregationist housing practices. How the decision will affect the policies and behavior of the Government, and the various quasi-public agencies that develop land for Jewish housing remains to be seen. It is clear that there will not be a United States style ‘affirmative action’ plan in the foreseeable future and the activist non-profit sector will no doubt continue to be the vanguard for progressive social change. Israel is already deep into a national conversation regarding the Zionist foundations of the Jewish State, and the historical narratives that underpin it. One facet of this conversation is the issue of housing segregation and the limited opportunities for Israeli Arabs. The Supreme Court’s decision sets the stage for a democratic transformation of the country’s housing situation. However it is important to look to the historical roots of the problem before attempting to formulate solutions.

Cities, villages and neighborhoods in Israel are defined largely by the ethnic or religious character of the communities living within their confines. Thus Tel Aviv is a ‘Jewish’ City, whereas Nazareth is an ‘Arab’ town. Jerusalem is divided by ‘Jewish West Jerusalem’, ‘Arab East Jerusalem’, ‘The Jewish Suburbs’, and ‘The Old City’. The Old City is further divided into Muslim, Christian, and Jewish neighborhoods. Virtually all of the smaller towns and villages in Israel are either exclusively Jewish or Arab. These separate or segregated living arrangements have their roots in the established traditions of each community, a century of animosity, and more recently are largely mandated by Israeli law. It is the history, and social repercussions of the mandated aspects of the segregation I would like to explore, especially since the democratic character of Israel is being undermined by these longstanding segregation policies, first by the Yishuv, then by successive Israeli governments since the founding of the state. The West Bank and Gaza Strip have separate problems and are in danger of becoming cantonized into something similar to the former South African system. The future ‘Palestinian State’ seems to be emerging as a collection of over 20 separate areas each of which is surrounded by Israeli settlements, by-pass roads and a matrix of civilian and military controls on the movements of the Palestinians between these islands of population. Hardly a state by anyone’s definition. However The root of the housing issue is within the pre-1967 borders of what is considered ‘Israel proper’, and for the purposes of this essay I will focus on the housing issue within these borders.

Since the beginnings of Zionism in the nineteenth century there was no serious consideration given to the concept of integration with the indigenous Arab residents of Palestine. It was recognized by the early Zionists that land would have to be wrested away from the Arabs if a Jewish State was to have any hope of emerging. In 1882 Ben-Yehuda wrote to Rashi Pin in Vilna that “ … we shall easily take away the country [from the Arabs] if only we do it through stratagems … “ By the time the Jewish Agency Constitution was signed in 1929, land purchases had been codified into a segregationist policy. This was reflected by the lease contracts of Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund) and Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund a.k.a. United Israel Appeal)), which state: “land is to be acquired as Jewish Property…..the title to the lands acquired…..shall be held as the inalienable property of the Jewish People”. In 1961, through a covenant between Keren Keyemeth and The State of Israel, the authority to administer all publicly owned land in Israel was transferred to The Israel Lands Administration. Jewish land ownership in Mandatory Palestine rose from 2% in 1918 to approximately 15% in 1948. Most of this land had been purchased over the years from absentee owners in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. Any tenants on the land at the time of purchase were evicted, usually without compensation. Thereafter the property could not be leased or sold to ‘Aliens’. An ‘Alien’ under Israeli Law is anyone not eligible to reside there under the Law Of Return’, in other words non-Jews. Deed covenants are often used by private landowners for the same purpose.

Since the establishment of the state in 1948 a number of laws were enacted to take advantage of the vacant land left by the fleeing Palestinians who were not permitted to return to Israel after the armistice. The estimated numbers vary from half a million to well over 700,000 displaced persons. Whether they fled of their own free will or were coerced or expelled by the Israelis I will leave aside for now. Suffice to say that they were not permitted to return and by 1951 over 1,400,000 Jews were housed on ‘absentee’ Arab property. This was accomplished with a semblance of legality through Israeli Legislation including the Emergency Regulations Concerning the Cultivation of Waste Land (1949), The Absentee Property Law (1950), and the land Acquisition Law (1953). During the 1950’s The Land Acquisition Law was to transfer to State ownership at least 3,200 square Kilometers (2,000 square miles). Keep in mind that all of these land transfers could not legally be sold or leased to non-Jews and have been used since then exclusively for Jewish residential communities, industry, and agriculture. In the meanwhile the remaining Palestinian population (now citizens of Israel) was under military rule from 1948-5, confined to limited locales, and needed permits for travel within Israel. During this era, Palestinian citizens of Israel who were caught outside their home area without a permit were often deemed infiltrators and deported from the country.

So the stage was set quite early in the Israel’s history for the physical separation of Jews and Arabs in Israel, which continues to the present day. While the early Zionists may have had a national imperative to create and promote segregation, the conditions in Palestine at the beginning of the twentieth century (or in 1948) have little resemblance to modern Israel. One only needs to look at other countries’ experience with segregating their population based on ethnicity, religion or race. It is a legacy of colonial attitudes that defined non-white or non-western populations as ‘inferior’ in intellect. At the time of the early Zionist settlements slavery was still rampant in much of Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. The legal segregation in the European colonies was an accepted fact of life well into the twentieth century, and led to Apartheid in South Africa, and the Jim Crow laws in the United States. Both of these regimes have been swept into the trashcan of history. Unfortunately Zionism is perpetuating some of the worst kind of discrimination through almost complete separation of the two main ethnic groups in Israel, not only in housing but within the national economic and cultural milieu. The parallels with the history of the southern United States are quite striking. Not only do the Arab citizens participate in the segregation by acquiescing to separate housing, school systems, and public services, but the Israeli and American Jewish definition of civil rights in Israel has come to mean separate but equal. This philosophy was rejected by the United States Supreme Court in Brown vs. The Board of Education in 1953. Apologists for the Israeli system often cite the higher standard of living that Arab Israeli’s enjoy compared to other Arab countries, or right to vote and be represented in the Kinesset. However all these rights and more were accorded to American Blacks prior to the civil rights movement but it still did not conform to a legal or moral definition equal rights with white citizens. Similarly the Israeli democracy will not be fully realized until all citizens enjoy not only the same rights under the law but are permitted the free exercise of these rights. This includes being able to live anywhere in the country.

Perhaps the time is soon coming when consideration must be given to a repeal of the authority of Keren Kayemeth and Keren Hayesod, and the supporting legislation and government regulations, regarding discrimination in the allocation of State funds for housing, and housing related financing. Especially since the Supreme Court has declared housing segregation illegal in most circumstances. In the final settlement with the Palestinian refugees there will undoubtedly be some compensation for lands lost through the wars of 1948 and 1967. It is unlikely though, that any confiscated land will be returned to its former owners. Thus it becomes even more of a moral imperative to redress the remaining discrimination towards Palestinian/Israelis. The final Status talks with the Palestinian Authority may include a limited right of return to Israel for family re-unification, and the right of return to the new Palestinian State. As the Israeli public becomes accustomed to these new ideas, the time will become ripe for repeal of additional laws that have created unequal citizens, especially in housing, education, the arts, and employment.

In addition to allowing all citizens the basic right to live where they choose, the entire complex system of land allocation, city planning, and zoning will need to be adjusted through a process that allows for the natural growth of all communities, rather than giving priority to Jewish concerns. Perhaps a future enlightened government of Israel might also create new neighborhoods explicitly as integrated communities, in much the same way that state and local governments in the United States have created favorable conditions for the development of mixed communities in the USA. However it’s doubtful that government sponsored affirmative action in housing will be seen anytime soon in Israel.

In the meantime private citizens, businesses, and non-government organizations could have some impact on this issue though lobbying and creating new ‘facts on the ground’. Private development companies could initiate projects designed to be promoted to prospective Jewish and Arab residents, and individuals wanting to live in a diverse community could seek out opportunities. Perhaps the time has come when, in the words of Israeli Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak “We do not accept the conception that the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish state justify discrimination between citizens on the basis of religion or nationality.”

 2000 Fred Schlomka

Fred Schlomka is President of Cultural Gateways International which operates in Kenya and the Palestinian Territories. The company recently created a housing development division to establish integrated Jewish/Arab neighborhoods in Israel. Mr. Schlomka plans to move back to Israel later this year with his wife and two children
Email: fred@musicmax.com