West Bank Journal: Last Update -- The Israeli Activist Festival

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I met other Israelis taking action on many fronts. Jeff Halper, head of the Israeli Committee on Home Demolitions, together with Salim Shawamre, told the story of Salim's house, which had been demolished four times by the Israeli authorities and rebuilt five. 11.000 Palestinian homes have been demolished since 1967, as part of the ongoing program of control and dispossession. Salim, who is an Israeli-Palestinian, was unable to get a building permit to build a home for his family on his own land in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Israeli policy prevents Palestinians from building or expanding their living quarters within Israel proper, leading to overcrowding and public health hazards in Palestinian towns and neighborhoods. Those who take matters into their own hands risk soldiers coming in the middle of the night, ordering the family out of their house, and bulldozing it. In the Occupied Territories, homes are destroyed because they are in the path of the wall, or too close to the border, or because someone in the extended family is accused of a bombing or simply organizes even nonviolent resistance to the occupation. Last year, I'd gone to a demonstration at Salim's house to represent the International Solidarity Movement shortly after Rachel Corrie was killed trying to prevent a home demolition in Rafah. Then, they were beginning to rebuild the house as a peace center.

"But how many peace centers can we have?" Salim asked.

"Eleven thousand? People need a place to live."

Halper outlined how the wall was a long-planned strategy of Sharon & Co., conceived back in the 1970s. The expansion of settlements was a deliberate strategy to claim territory with 'facts on the ground'. During the Oslo peace process, the number of settlers doubled, undermining the Palestinian's belief in the good faith of Israeli leaders. Now the wall would consolidate the settlement blocs, annexing them to Israel proper. The new Trans-Israel highway, running close to the West Bank, was part of the plan. It would open up new population centers in the relatively empty eastern spine of the country. Currently, most Israeli's live close to the coast. The road would transfer population eastward, integrating the settlements into huge urban blocs extending out from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Modi'in. The most fertile and productive land of the West Bank, and the prime aquifers beneath it, would become a de facto part of Israel. Any real two-state solution would become impossible: there would not be enough of Palestine left to form a viable state.

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