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5/17/2004 02:20:00 AM | Justin Israel's "Gaza pullout" Plan Morphs Into A Spree of Palestinian Home Demolitions Sharon's proposed withdrawal of all settlements from the Gaza Strips has devolved into a bitterly ironic joke that's left 1000's homeless. For days, the army has been systematically demolishing homes in Rafah along the line of a security trench that they're trying to widen. Worse, the Israeli Supreme Court has just legitimated the policy by rejecting Palestinian efforts to seek legal redress in court. Did I miss something? Wasn't it the Israeli houses in the Gaza Strip that were supposed to be coming down as part of the Sharon plan? Unfortunately, these demolitions are eclipsed in western media by Palestinian terrorist actions. Moreover, terrorism allows Israel to justify their actions on security grounds. It's important to recognize, though, that even during the 90's peace negotiations, the demolitions continued, justified by an archaic clause in the Israeli legal system which allows the state to claim any land that is not continuously cultivated. Amnesty International describes the procedure as follows: The test which the Israelis apply is that any land shown by aerial photo not to have been cultivated each year for a 10 year period is liable to be forfeit - not to the village but to the 'state'.This law is leftover from Ottoman rule and is exercised almost entirely on Palestinians. As far as I can tell, the Israel government has no record of compensating people for these housing demolitions, as most other democratic nations would when they need to grab land for some public project. (No source I've found makes mention of Israeli compensation, which leads me to believe it doesn't happen, but if anyone has information otherwise, please correct me.) Perhaps Israel has a point when it justifies its demolition policy on security grounds, but when you look at their history of demolitions in peace times, it begins to look more like a convenient excuse. The biggest irony of all: This blog's spellchecker confuses "Sharon" with "sharing"... Obviously, part of the vast Zionist conspiracy. perma link |
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