Keeping out the Arabs
By MEL FRYKBERG (Middle East Times)
In the middle of the night of June 11, 1967, amid the euphoria of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, 135 Palestinian families comprising over 600 people in the Mughrabi Quarter neighborhood of Jerusalem's Old City were roused from their sleep, removed from their beds by Israeli security officials, and ordered outside.
They were then forced to witness the destruction of their homes by Israeli bulldozers in order to create a plaza for Jewish prayer in front of the Western (Wailing) wall. At least 6,000 houses, many of them ancient and historical, were demolished immediately following the 1967 war and four entire villages were razed in the Latrun area.
According to a number of NGOs, including the Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions, since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza from 1967, more than 18,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories have been destroyed, leaving nearly 80,000 Palestinians homeless.
During the period of the second intifada or Palestinian uprising, from Sept. 2000 to May 2007, about 1,900 Palestinian homes were demolished by the Israeli Civil Administration for lack of proper permits.
Additionally, more than 628 Palestinian homes were demolished during the second intifada as "collective punishment," where an entire family would be made homeless if a member of the family had been involved in throwing stones or other resistance activity against the occupation.
However, according to ICAHD the Israeli authorities continue to demolish homes that they claim are illegally built without permits. But this is part of a deliberate policy aimed at ensuring a Jewish majority in Jerusalem, i.e. Judaizing the city against the demographic threat of a higher birth rate amongst Palestinians.
In order to make it very difficult for Palestinians, the Israeli authorities have instituted a number of procedures before they will issue the requisite building permits with the result being that there is a created shortage of more than 25,000 housing units for Palestinians.
These include proving ownership of land by means of registration, which is almost impossible for those third parties who required land under Jordanian law, as the previous owner is required to come in person to the municipality to change the name.
Another difficulty for Palestinians attempting to obtain the permits is that the Israelis won't issue permits where there is a lack of infrastructure, namely water, sewage and roads as the Planning and Building Law prohibits this. As Israel spends significantly less money on East Jerusalem's infrastructure than West Jerusalem's this further complicates the issue.
Furthermore, according to Margalit's book, crippling taxes for opening a building permit file, a roads and sidewalk development fee, a water and sewage fee, and a betterment levy fee can add up to approximately New Israeli Shekels (NIS) of 109,000, or over $29,000, a fee which many poor East Jerusalemites are unable to afford.
Hisham Shkoukani, the deputy minister of technical affairs, for the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Construction, told the Middle East Times that "Palestinians in East Jerusalem can wait up to two years and spend a lot of money waiting for a permit.
"Even after the long wait and the huge expense, many times the permits are not granted, and so housing and rentals in East Jerusalem are so dear that they compare price wise with the much more affluent city of Tel Aviv, and the queue of people waiting for homes grows ever longer," he added.
Finally, the majority of demolitions carried out in Jewish West Jerusalem are for minor infractions such as the illegal building of sheds, staircases, balconies. While in East Jerusalem demolitions are of entire dwellings and multi-storey apartment buildings, or significant portions of dwellings, states ICAHD.
Source:ME Times
This needs to be a blog. September 9, 2007
O'Connell goes nuts, same day.
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ex-IDF speak out!