Briefing Paper September 2019 (23)
What Israel’s demolition of 70 Palestinian homes was really about
Gideon Levy Ha’aretz 3/8/19
The devastation is vividly visible through his office window: the scene of an explosion. The remnants of a blasted apartment building, his life’s enterprise, a house of cards that imploded. He had planned to build 13 stories here, and had completed nine, but last week the forces of destruction swept across the site and brought down it and nine other buildings. They left only the bottom two floors intact, but the blast wrought above them by soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, with crates of explosives scattered on every floor that produced a tremendous aftershock, makes it impossible to use the remnant of the bottom floors. The building’s owner casts a sad gaze over the ruins, his eyes damp and red from a lack of sleep, and he says softly, not for the first time:
“I’d like to ask Meni Mazuz how this is this going to help security” – referring to the judge who wrote the High Court of Justice’s decision letting the demolition proceed. The question hangs ruefully in the air. The whole world of Muhammad Abu Tair, who owned the building that was toppled, lies in ruins along with the structure itself. “There is no justice at the High Court of Justice,” he says. “For years I’ve heard people say this, and now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I will never go the High Court again. Its rulings are written by the IDF and the defense establishment, not by the court.”…
In the name of security, Israel violated the Oslo Accords, its own planning and construction regulations, and the principles of natural justice. The buildings were too close to the separation fence to Israel’s liking, and the High Court acceded tacitly to the wrongdoing. Abu Tair’s suggestion – to build, at his expense, a high concrete wall to maintain Israel’s security and dot the area with security cameras, also at his expense – was rejected outright by Israel. But the breaches in the fence created by the soldiers and the police who took part in the demolition were still there this week, without anyone bothering to repair them: mute evidence of the “security concern” lie. Every child in Sur Baher knows that this destruction had nothing to do with security. Israel only uses this as an excuse to implement its policy of a silent population transfer in Jerusalem…
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