http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,158%257E125691,00.html
Uprooting Palestinians makes Israel less secure
By Omar Jabara,
Denver Post
Thursday, August 30, 2001 - Frantically snapping photographs with my camera, I
tried to capture as much of the house demolition as possible on film. I had
seen several Palestinian families in the Israeli-occupied West Bank digging
through the rubble of their recently demolished homes trying to salvage what
they could. However, up until that day in 1985, never had I witnessed the
bulldozers in action since the Israeli army executes most Palestinian home
demolitions between midnight and 3 a.m.
As usual, the Israeli soldiers and bulldozers show up without warning and give
the occupants 15 minutes to leave with whatever they are able to carry.
In this particular case, the family was told their home was being demolished
because it was built on Israeli military property. This came as news to the
Palestinian owner, since his family had owned that particular parcel of land
for more than 150 years, 113 years before the creation of the state of Israel
in 1948. Once his home was reduced to rubble, the owner was handed a document
ordering him to pay the bulldozer fee or be sent to prison.
Due to the number of home demolitions and land confiscations since 1967, this
man's village alone - Al-Asaweya - has been reduced from 2,500 acres to less
than 20, as Israel continues its quest to expropriate as much Palestinian land
as possible before signing a peace deal.
Since 1967, the Israeli army has demolished or sealed (by filling all entrances
and windows with concrete) more than 6,000 Palestinian homes, while 750,000
acres of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza have been confiscated and
given to Jewish settlers. Some 2,700 of the house demolitions and sealings in
the West Bank and Gaza occurred after 1987, and there are currently 2,000
demolition orders in effect waiting to be executed.
In addition to the home demolitions and land confiscations, Israel
intentionally killed 25,000 Palestinian olive and fruit trees and bulldozed
10,000 acres of Palestinian agricultural land, for inexplicable "security
reasons," in the last year alone.
These Israeli tactics to uproot Palestinians from their homes and farms are
hardly new. In fact, they date to the creation of the state of Israel on the
land of Palestine in 1948.
Moshe Dayan, Israel's highly celebrated war hero, was unequivocal in 1969 when
he boasted about how the state of Israel came into being: "Jewish villages were
built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these
Arab villages and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist;
not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. There
is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab
population."
Of the 475 Palestinian villages and towns in Palestine, 385 were bulldozed by
Israel and 780,000 Palestinians were forced to flee for their lives to the
surrounding countries.
Israel's largely successful efforts to destroy and expropriate Palestinian
homes and land over the last six decades have understandably outraged the
Palestinian population and made Israel more vulnerable to attacks from people
who have nothing left to lose.
Until recently, Israel refused to even recognize the existence of the
Palestinian people, hoping they would get tired of having their homes destroyed
and land confiscated and just go away. As esteemed former Israeli Prime
Minister Golda Meir said to the Times of London on June 15, 1969: "It was not
as though there was a Palestinian people, and in Palestine considering itself
as a Palestinian people, and we came and threw them out and took their country
away from them. They did not exist."
Israel's demands for security will remain elusive as long as it continues to
uproot and humiliate the Palestinian populace through home demolitions, land
confiscation, orchard destruction, assassinations and routine torture. What
type of reaction was Israel expecting?
Omar Jabara (ojabara@sprynet.com) of Arvada is a former Colorado Voices
columnist and the son of Lebanese immigrants. Guest commentary submissions of
650 words may be sent to The Post editorial page.
