More than two hundred people gathered in the West Bank town of Anata last month to celebrate the rebuilding of Beit Arabiya, home of Salim and Arabiya Shawamreh family. Since 1998, this home has been demolished five times by the Israeli government but rebuilt each time by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) as a political act of resistance to Israel’s demolition policies, which are illegal under international law.
 

The home was rebuilt during ICAHD’s tenth annual rebuilding camp that attracted more than thirty internationals that stood side by side with Israelis and Palestinians who refuse to be enemies, demonstrating that there are partners for peace. Within two weeks, the pile of rubble left after the demolition of the house in the middle of night on 23 January earlier this year, was transformed into a fully functioning house with extensive terrace, made possible by nearly one hundred additional volunteers, including international youth, part of summer delegations to Palestine who worked with temperatures soaring over 30 degrees C and with limited water supplies.
 

 

During the camp, ICAHD provided an extensive educational programme allowing camp participants to witness the situation on the ground and learn about the requirements for a just and sustainable solution for both Palestinians and Israelis. As the camp drew to a close, the internationals, ranging in age from 18-75, said that the camp far exceeded their expectations in every way. “It’s been the most positive two weeks of my entire life. I was so glad to see so many young people here; their commitment to peace with justice gives me hope for the future,” said Gordon from the USA. “This has been an intensely emotional experience. We’ve rebuilt a home, which is great – but knowing that we’ve rebuilt Beit Arabiya, the symbol of hope to all Palestinians, enabled us to participate in their steadfastness,” added Galen from the UK. 
 

 

Every year hundreds of Palestinians are forced from their homes, homes built on land they own. Since 1967 Israel has demolished more than 26,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. ICAHD has rebuilt a total of 186 Palestinian homes illegally demolished by Israel and is determined to see this cruel policy stop. ICAHD Director, Dr. Jeff Halper, calls the rebuilding "an overtly political act of defiance. By rebuilding, we set alternative facts on the ground." The Shawamreh family applied three times to the Israeli Civil Administration for a building permit and was refused each time, as were 94% of Palestinian permit applications since 1993. Having no other alternative, they proceeded, as have thousands of other Palestinian families, to build their home, in which they lived for five years despite having been issued a demolition order.

On June 27th, the United Nations Human Rights Council received the annual report of Prof. Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the OPT. Falk highlighted the disturbing case of Salim and Arabiya Shawamreh, and stated it was “illustrative of a common Palestinian complaint that their property rights are indirectly usurped through the denial of formal permits and the subsequent issuance and execution of demolition orders.” The UN expert further highlighted that “while it will be rebuilt once again next month, the family will live under the threat of having its home demolished at any moment. The ever-present threat of Israeli bulldozers perverts the sense of normalcy so essential for raising children.”



Read More of Rebuilding Camp participants life-changing experiences:

Rebuilding Camp Participants Explore Judaization

Rebuilding Camp Participants Recall Experiences of First Week



Photo Essay: West Bank Home Demolished by Israel is Rebuilt



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The Halper Road-Show Resumes: ICAHD Director Dr. Jeff Halper to Visit the US

After a hiatus of a few months, Dr. Jeff Halper, ICAHD’s Director, is going back on the road for a month-long speaking tour in the US. Dr. Halper, who is also responsible for ICAHD’s international advocacy, especially among civil society groups and organizations, will be speaking across the US, before going on to meet some of ICAHD’s partners in Paris.

The tour will open a broad new area of discussion for ICAHD: Moving beyond our long-standing position that the two-state solution is dead towards a positive embracing of the one-state solution. Although, as an Israeli organization, we would have preferred to follow the Palestinian lead on this, Israeli prolonged occupation of Palestinian land and people, the virtually complete warehousing of the Palestinians in the OPT, the lack of even a pretense of a political process and the weakness of the PA bordering on collaboration, have all forced upon us the need to point to a way out of the conflict.



ICAHD has a lot to offer in this regard. First of all, a useful framing. Rather than a polarizing stand based on anti-Zionism, ICAHD’s framing argues that it is in fact Israel’s prolonged occupation, supported by the US and Europe, that has left the one-state solution as the only alternative. Israel’s occupation can no longer be considered temporary, and that places the burden on Israel to invoke Palestinian’s right to self-determination, and presents the inexorable logic of the one-state solution as the product of Israeli policy. Hence the overall title of Halper’s tour:

A SINGLE DEMOCRATIC STATE IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE: THE ONLY OPTION (Besides Apartheid) THAT ISRAEL AND THE U.S. HAVE LEFT US

The second contribution of the ICAHD framing is to insert an “Israeli” voice into the one-state discussion. A critical Israeli voice, to be sure, but one that asks: if the one-state solution is to be genuinely inclusive (what that means is an as-yet unresolved issue in itself), should the new state be a merely democracy of “one person-one vote,” which ignores the national component of both peoples, or a bi-national one, despite the fact that growing numbers of both Palestinians and Israelis reject the national character of the other) – or a combination? In other way, too, a proposed solution has to be fleshed out enough that people can be assured of its essential justice, a precondition for its political adoption.



During his speaking tour, Dr. Halper will give the keynote speech at a Sabeel conference in Albuquerque. Accompanied by Salena Tramel, ICAHD USA’s new Executive Director, Halper will also devote attention to the UN in New York, where ICAHD has consultative status, and has been vigorously involved in calling for an International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion that establishes a new normative paradigm of prolonged occupation; reinforces the alienable human rights of the Palestinian people to development and self-determination; and depicts the scope and magnitude of Israel's illegal policies and practices in the OPT, beyond what are IHL breaches, and what was referred to in the 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Wall; and upholds the legal obligations of all states and international organizations to cooperate to end Israel's breaches, and prolonged occupation.

Portland Sept 20 – Sept 23, Phoenix Sept 23 – Sept 26, Albuquerque Sept 26 – Sept 30, New York Oct 1 – Oct 8, Boston Oct 9 – Oct 12, Philadelphia Oct 12 – Oct 14

The EU’s Schizophrenic Attitude Towards Israel

Within a matter of weeks the EU has made statements that differ drastically concerning its relationship to Israel. On 14 May the EU’s 27 foreign ministers unanimously condemned Israel’s settlement expansion plans, its demolition of Palestinian homes and displacement policies as well as settler violence and provocations. It commented on the deteriorating living conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank and said that Israel’s policies “threaten to make the viability of a two-state solution impossible.”

On 5th July the European Parliament passed a landmark resolution condemning Israeli policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It focussed on home demolitions and forced displacement and used the strongest language to date. Noteworthy in the facilitation of the Parliament resolution was the EU Heads of Mission reports on East Jerusalem and Area C, which referenced ICAHD’s legal and political analysis extensively. We believed that years of advocacy efforts that span Jerusalem, Geneva and Brussels culminated in that historic resolution, unprecedentedly referring to the EU-Israel Association Agreement as a means of coercing parties to justly resolve the conflict.



Therefore ICAHD, along with all other organisations working on peace with justice for the Palestinians, was dismayed to learn that as a result of the annual EU-Israel Association Council meeting held on 24 July, the EU decided to increase its trade and diplomatic relations with Israel and has identified 60 new activities in 15 fields. This decision will simply reinforce Israel’s belief that it can continue act with impunity as it persists with its occupation policies in violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

In June 2008, the EU decided to condition the upgrade of its relations with Israel to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the implementation of the two-state solution. In June 2009, the EU decided to freeze the upgrading of its relations with Israel and stressed that it must be based on respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. The EU states that it is committed to the observance of human rights and international law yet has failed to adhere to its own policy.

ICAHD recalls that Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement stipulates that "relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement."

ICAHD further calls all EU Member States and multinational organs to cooperate to bring an end to Israeli prolonged occupation, and illegal practices and policies that arise from it. All EU Member States and multinational organs must consider appropriate measures to exert pressure on Israel to end the prolonged occupation, including appropriate sanctions, and the severing of diplomatic relations. Further, ICAHD calls for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement until Israel complies with international law, and ends its illegal policies and practices and prolonged occupation.



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UN Special Committee Determines Israel Maintains a System of Permanent Oppression

The UN Special Committee on Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories in its preliminary observations published July 20th, drew attention to two areas of immediate concern in the West bank, including East Jerusalem, the Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian homes, and violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians. The Special Committee concluded that Israel established and maintains a system of permanent oppression.

The committee expressed deep concern over the demolition of Palestinian homes by Israeli authorities. Witnesses asserted that home demolitions had increased at an alarming rate over the last three years, with 330 homes and other structures demolished in 2012 alone. Since 1967, the report noted, some 26,000 Palestinian structures had been leveled by Israeli occupation authorities.
The committee found that home demolitions aimed chiefly at cleansing the land of its Palestinian population. This year alone, over 500 Palestinians – more than half of them children – had been rendered homeless by Israeli demolitions, the report noted.



“These Israeli practices lead the Special Committee to one over-arching and deeply troubling conclusion,” Ambassador Kohona, Special Committee Chair, underscored. “The routine demolition of homes and the displacement of Palestinians; the widespread violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians; these practices amount to a strategy to either force the Palestinian people off their land or so severely marginalize them as to establish and maintain a system of permanent oppression.”



ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain briefed the Special Committee last week, and presented a statement focusing on illegal Israeli practices of demolition, displacement and land expropriation, and highlighted the impact of prolonged occupation on Palestinians rights to development and national self-determination. ICAHD called Special Committee members to register grave concern with Israel's continuing deplorable practices of house demolitions, land expropriation, and its adoption of policies resulting in inadequate housing and living conditions for Palestinians living under prolonged occupation.

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Human Rights Council Adresses Prolonged Occupation 

The UN Human Rights Council yesterday morning (July 2nd 2012) held a dialogue with Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on OPT. Prof. Falk, introducing his reports main recommendation that the Human Rights Council should commission a study on the adequacy of international humanitarian law to cover situations of prolonged occupation and provide Israel and the international community with appropriate recommendation, and that the Human Rights Council should give increased attention to Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the normal functioning of the United Nations.



Israel was not present in the room to take the floor. At the end of the meeting, the President of the Human Rights Council, Laura Dupuy Lasserre, called on Israel to resume its cooperation with the Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Addressing the Council, ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain stated that Israel’s continued demolitions and expanded settlements were politically motivated, hindered development, and exposed Palestinians to ethnic displacement. Palestinian communities were left ever more isolated and the window of opportunity for a two-State solution had closed. Israel’s occupation could no longer be considered temporary, and its implication for the right to development and self-determination should be addressed and redressed by means of an International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the legality of prolonged occupation.



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ICAHD’s In-depth Study Tours – Autumn 2012

Our alternative tours program includes in-depth study tours which go beyond the traditional tourist sites as the political realities that affect Palestinians and Israelis are explored. Participants witness the situation on both sides of the divide and travel to different geographical areas. Unique opportunities are provided to meet ICAHD staff and other key leaders to gain first-hand, in-depth knowledge and some of the latest analysis. Participants also meet extensively with Palestinians to hear their stories.



The next study tours will take place in November 2012. An eleven-day tour will look at the general situation. Participants will meet with around twenty organisations as we learn about a wide range of subjects including house demolitions, displacement, education under occupation, refugees, water disparity, lack of freedom of movement, and women’s issues. Price: £840 or $1260.

A shorter tour of seven days will have international law as its focus. During it we will examine the success and failure of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The tour is suitable for those with a legal background, and others interested in reflections on international law and its application in the OPT. Price: £720 or $1080.



Cost per person includes the full tour programme and staying at good three star hotels at half board (bed, breakfast and evening meal), sharing a twin-bedded room with ensuite facilities, tour leader, guides and tips inclusive. Not included are: flights, lunches, travel insurance.

Preparation for the tour and follow-up provided.

“This tour is transformational. It is essential for those who wish to gain a deep and authentic understanding of what is actually happening in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and to act as ambassadors for developing real peace and justice in this region. It is also an opportunity to witness individuals demonstrate outstanding resilience and courage in the face of extreme constraints and harshness. I cannot recommend this tour enough.” Dr. P de Zulueta, London, Nov 2011

For more information please contact tours@icahduk.org  Deadline for applications is 20 August 2012.