AFTER THE BULLDOZERS, THE REBUILDING
By Virginia Baron

Kathy Kern and a companion being attacked by settlers during the team's regular patrol of the streets of Hebron. The settlers stole Kern's camera from her. Photo by Christian Peacemakers Team.

ANNE MONTGOMERY returned to Hebron in March to help rebuild the home of Waleed Zalloum.

Montgomery had been part of a Christian Peacemaker Team that protested when Israeli soldiers demolished Zalloum's home in 1996, despite the fact that Israel's then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres had ordered a halt to such demolitions in the much-fought-over West Bank city. Israeli police had dragged team members off the roof of the house and arrested several; the demolition had continued.

But this past March 28-Good Friday on the Christian calendar-a group of CPT members, 30 Palestinians and several internationals and Israeli citizens came to clear away the rubble left from the demolition in preparation for reconstruction. The rebuilding, said Montgomery, was "both an Easter symbol of hope amidst the Occupation's destruction and a concrete challenge to Israeli home-demolition policy."

Zalloum's home, deeded to him by his grandfather, is located between the village of Harsina and the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, where a monument is dedicated to Israeli right-winger Meir Kahane. According to a Feb. 27 CPT report, more than 2,500 Palestinian homes have been demolished since 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. The March rebuilding was the culmination of a 29-day public CPT "Fast for Rebuilding" (29 days, or 700 hours, for the 700 homes then scheduled for demolition throughout the West Bank.

Constructive Resistance
Rebuilding without permission is against the law in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli police were prepared to meet the challenge, especially since the Good Friday action would be followed on Easter Sunday by Palestinian Land Day, a yearly commemoration of Israeli land confiscation. (It was coincidental that Palestinian Land Day fell on the same day as Easter this year.) Tension among Israeli settlers was already mounting in anticipation of Land Day. Police Captain Zvika warned CPTers that he would declare the area a "closed military zone" if they continued to clear the rubble, meaning that their presence at the Zalloum site would violate Israeli military rules. CPT member Dianne Roe likened the "closing" of the area to "quiet[ing] the oppressed so as not to anger or provoke the oppressor."

THE DEMOLITIONS

Since 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, more than 2,500 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel. In East Jerusalem alone some 239 Palestinian homes were demolished between 1986 and January 1997. According to the Ramallah-based newspaper Al Ayyam, some 700 homes built without permits are presently scheduled for demolition.

The Israeli government asserts that the targeted homes were built without permits as justification for the demolitions. In Palestinian East Jerusalem, the lack of Town Planning Schemes for Palestinian neighborhoods and the difficulty in obtaining building permits have forced Palestinian families to either build without an Israeli permit or leave the city. If Palestinian residents of Jerusalem move outside of the city, they are liable to lose their residency permits and their right to live in
Jerusalem.

In the West Bank, the Israeli government has routinely denied building permits to Palestinians in areas outside Palestinian municipalities and villages for the last two decades. These restrictions on Palestinian building enable the Israeli government to confiscate Palestinian land more easily for such Jewish-Israeli development as settlement expansion and the construction of
bypass roads.

Some 93 homes were demolished under the Rabin-Peres government. After the election of the Likud government, 17 Palestinian homes were demolished. House demolitions were suspended, however, in September 1996, following the clashes that resulted after the opening of the Hasmonaen Tunnel in the Old City of Jerusalem. House demolitions began again after the redeployment of Israeli troops in Hebron in January. Since that time, 18 Palestinian homes have been demolished, and hundreds more are slated for demolition.
-CPT

According to e-mailed reports from CPT, a truck and bulldozer brought to remove rubble were blocked even before the area was officially closed. The rebuilders kept on removing rocks by hand and sledgehammer. Said CPTer Sara Reschley, "We were removing rubble, 'throwing rocks,' as a constructive form of resistance side by side with young Palestinian men whom we'd seen only a few days before throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers."

An hour later, soldiers arrived with the paperwork declaring the area a closed zone, and threatened to arrest anyone refusing to leave. At that point, many of the rebuilders left. Montgomery and Cliff Kindy, another CPT member, Arik Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights and two 19-year-old Palestinians, Imad Mohammed Shawer and Mamdoh Abd Al Asem Zaatari, continued working. From a crawlspace, Kindy called out to the soldiers, "Hey, you guys with helmets, come on down; there's a lot of rubble down here!" He continued to carry rocks until he was taken by the arm and arrested, along with Asherman. The two Palestinians, Shawer and Zaatari, were both treated roughly by the Israeli Defence Force soldiers-Zaatari, who resisted, even more harshly than Shawer, who cooperated with the arrest.

Asherman was released after being booked; the two Palestinians were imprisoned and charged with resisting arrest, violating a closed military zone order and attacking a police officer. Kindy was also imprisoned for violating the order and told he faced deportation after 48 hours. Earlier, after noting that over 100 Palestinian homes were slated for demolition, Kindy had said, "The activity on Friday will be an act of nonviolent resistance to that policy and an Easter sign that hope springs from despair, that life rises out of destruction."

Kindy ended his 29-day Lenten fast in a Hebron jail cell. He was held for two days and on Easter morning appeared before a judge who extended his detention for two more days. On Tuesday, April 1, he was escorted to Ben Gurion Airport and placed on a U.S.-bound flight.

Back at CPT headquarters in Chicago, director Gene Stoltzfus summed up the rebuilding attempt as "a positive event with powerful meaning of hope for Palestinians and Israelis working for peace." An action request went out that evening urging North Americans and Israelis to call, fax or e-mail Israeli officials to prevent Kindy's deportation and end the policy of demolishing homes.

Reducing Violence
CPT has maintained a violence reduction team in Hebron since June of 1995 at the invitation of the Hebron municipality and the town's Palestinian mayor. A project of the traditional U.S. peace churches-the Church of the Brethren, the Friends United Meeting, the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church-CPT defines its mission as offering "an organized nonviolent alternative to war and other forms of deadly conflict between groups."

Christian Peacemaker Teams have dedicated themselves not only to protesting, but also to making visible the daily injustices suffered by Palestinians, often in partnership with Israeli peace activists." In the past year, team members have provided a protective presence for Palestinians, accompanied school children and others who request protection, connected Palestinians with Israeli peace groups, facilitated discussions and classes about Christian nonviolent views of social change and reported through e-mail, fax, and personal contacts to an extensive network of activists and press in Israel and the United States. CPT has also devoted a large portion of its energy to blocking the demolition of Palestinian homes and assisting in their rebuilding.

On April 17, about two weeks after the action at the Zalloum home, Wendy Lehman, a returning veteran of the Hebron team, was refused entry into Israel. She had spent 18 of the previous 24 months in Hebron, during which she was arrested several times. U.S. Consulate representatives in Jerusalem have suggested that the refused entry may portend a new Israeli policy, and that others may be turned away or deported in the future.

ONE "MAP STORY"

Cartographer Abdul (Abed) Al Hadi Hantash surveys the land in Hebron and visits with families affected by changes in the map. Below is an excerpt from two CPT interviews with Abed May 28 and June 3.

Sinsana: A New Settlement
In the southwestern corner of the Hebron district lies a village called Aramadin, where 5,000 Bedouin live. On May 6 Israeli settlers and soldiers ... uprooted 1,200 olive trees and demolished two Bedouin wells in that area. Israel has confiscated thousands of dunnums (four dunnums equal one acre) of land for a new settlement called Sinsana. Sinsana will be located at Khallet Al Zhirat and Um Sidrah, both of which are part of Aramadin village.

When Abed surveyed the land on June 1 he could see that Palestinian families live in the area where the Israeli settlement is to be built. Already 15 families east of the proposed Sinsana settlement have received demolition orders. Another 50 families belonging to the Alshoo'r and Zagharneh extended Palestinian families have homes in the proposed Sinsana settlement area. In addition Palestinian families from the neighboring village of Adaharia have been denied access to their land, which the Israelis say they have already confiscated. According to Abed, there is even worse news about Sinsana settlement. The military governor has announced that Sinsana will serve as a security settlement. Israeli settlers there will be armed and will guard borders.
         -Dianne Roe, CPT

In response to an e-mail discussion and a question from an Israeli asking whether CPT also reports on "acts of Arab violence against Israelis, and are there any CPT initiatives aimed at reducing Muslim animosity towards Jews?," Hebron CPTer Kathy Kern answered that they report what they see. She concluded her letter by saying that "ultimately it is those Israelis who come to Hebron and tell Palestinians that they do not deserve to be physically abused, that they do not deserve to have their land taken and their homes destroyed, who reduce Palestinian animosity toward Jews."

Observers sometimes cannot help wondering if these attempts to rebuild demolished homes are meant to be anything more than symbolic acts of resistance; is it worth it when you know you will probably be kicked out of the country, and quite possibly barred from re-entry? At a dialogue group meeting in the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour in 1992, a Palestinian asked the Israelis present three questions: "Will you walk across the green line with us? Will you rebuild a demolished house with us? Will you take risks with us?" Their Israeli friends found the questions difficult to answer.

Yet recently Harriet Lewis, an Israeli peace activist who had gone to Hebron and accompanied CPTers to the homes of Palestinians, said those visits had been the first time she had actually met and visited Palestinians and sat and talked and eaten with them. It changed her life, she said. As a direct result of those experiences, she and an Israeli War Resisters International member, Amos Gvirtz, are trying to organize a committee of Israelis to rebuild demolished Palestinian homes.

Last November, Allegra Pacheco, an American-Israeli human rights lawyer based in Jerusalem told a group of North Americans, "I've never won a case. The best I've ever done is postpone a house demolition." Pacheco immigrated to Israel with the intention of doing human rights work for a short time, until the establishment of a Palestinian state. After that she planned to use her New York law firm experience to set up joint ventures between Israeli and American businesses. "I can't believe I'm still doing this after three years," she said.

In addition to trying to prevent house demolitions, she tries to stop the torture of Palestinian prisoners whose cases are handled by LAWE, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment. Pacheco readily admits that she has also been powerless to prevent torture. Her clients, who are regularly held under administrative detention without ever having charges filed against them, often suffer brutality during their imprisonment. Israel is, after all, the only country in 0the world where torture has been declared legal.

Human rights lawyers-both Israeli and Palestinian-who defend Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories have grown accustomed to losing land confiscation and house demolition cases in courts that cite land permit regulations drawn up in 1942 under British Mandate law. Attorneys request hearings and write appeals that are invariably rejected. At best they may succeed in obtaining a few more days for Palestinians to prepare for the loss of their homes or land that has been passed down within families for generations. According to Sarah Kaminker, former Jerusalem City Planner and currently a director of the Jerusalem Information Center, 291 homes have been demolished in the past three-and-a-half years.

It looks as if Allegra Pacheco and other human rights lawyers-and the Christian Peacemaker Teams-will be doing what they're doing for a long time to come.

CPT is presently recruiting volunteers to join Middle East teams during August 5-17, October 7-19, and December 10-22. Each team will end its time by engaging in a "witness highlighting home demolitions." Contact Wendy Lehman at CPT, PO Box 6508, Chicago, IL 60608; (312)455-1199; e-mail cptrich@igc.org.

[War Resisters League Website] [Nonviolent Activist Index]
July-August 1997: [Editorial: Murder By State] [After the Bulldozers, the Rebuilding] [The Wrong Stuff: The Military's War on Women] [Activist News] [WRL News] [Activist Review: Power Lines]

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