In the Moredechai Richler novel, while growing up in
the heart of Montreal's Jewish ghetto, Duddy Kravitz
is obsessed with his grandfather's saying, 'A man
without land is nothing.'

Here in the Middle East, in this land of the Torah,
the Bible and the Koran there are stories of families
and villages where houses and land were bartered for
two chickens. Those were simpler times.

In February of this year in Israel, I arrived in the
Upper Galilee Village of al-Bea’neh a
few hours after it had been under siege during a house
demolition. In its wake, it left
over twenty injured, five houses destroyed, the
uprooting of an olive grove and dozens of kindergarten
students traumatized by the effects of tear gas. For
a period of time, ambulances were refused entry to the
village area.

This happened a few months before Land Day, near the
Iron Triangle where the three neighbouring villages of
Sakhnin, Arabeh and Dirhana witnessed the clash
between villagers and police on March 30th, 1976 when
Israeli forces confiscated 22,000 dunams in the
villages of the Galilee and considered them as closed
military zones and later carried out intensive
settlement acts in the area. The confrontations that
erupted as a result of Israeli government policy
claimed the lives of 6 Arab citizens, 96 were wounded
and another 300 arrested.

Arriving in al-Bea’neh the next day, I saw the old man
whose home had been torn down beginning to replant new
olive trees. Despite the beatings, there was this
sense of optimism, regeneration and a sense of the
community coming together to respond in a productive
way.

In the village council office, they discussed the
brutal Israeli policy of home demolitions over Arabic
coffee and Gauloise cigarettes before setting off on a
2,000 person demonstration with the residents. On the
table were tear gas canisters used by the police the
day before which were clearly marked that they had
been manufactured in the United States.

According to the Arab Association for Human Rights
Report, resident Salah Mohammed Saleh al-Dhabbah
needed surgery to his skull due to a fracture caused
by a policeman who hit him over the head. Another
resident had internal bleeding in the eye, broken ribs
and a broken nose. By declaring one section a
“restricted zone,’ the military gave authorization to
its forces to use violence indiscriminately. This
resulted in the beatings of several residents
unconnected to the house demolition.

More than 3,000 homes, agricultural land and other
properties have been destroyed by Israeli security
forces in Israel and the Occupied Territories in the
past three and a half years according to Amnesty
International.

Placed within the context of the Or Commission report
which followed the deaths of thirteen Arab citizens in
October 2000, there is widespread concern about how
the police culture discriminates against its Arab
citizens. And certainly at every home demolition, in
carrying out the state’s policies this culture is on
display both within Israel and the Occupied
Territories.

This policy of land dispossession administered by
bulldozer has a long history. Home demolitions being
carried out today in the Galilee, the Negev, East
Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza are exacting a heavy
toll largely outside the gaze of the international
community.

According to Amnesty International, over
3,000 homes, vast areas of agricultural land and
hundreds of other properties have been destroyed by
the Israeli army and security forces in Israel since
October 2000. Home demolitions in tandem with the
state assassination policy are the more violent
examples of Israeli state policies implemented to
address security needs. There is a growing
belief that these tactics used in the name of
defending state security are disproportionate to the
threat posed by both Palestinians and Arab citizens
within Israel.

Selective permitting, restrictive planning regulations
in the Arab sector and discriminatory policies in the
allocation of state land all contribute to a toxic
environment which perpetuates itself and is
unfortunately carried out in state policy.

In the case of unlicensed houses, restrictive approval
processes lead to many people making the decision to
build without a permit. In the case of houses
destroyed for security needs, the actions of the
military in carrying out demolition orders is
disproportionate to the threat posed by such
buildings. In fact, the collateral human damage
caused by carrying out these policies magnifies and
perpetuates the systemic dysfunction in the region.

American International Solidarity Movement human
rights activist Rachel Corrie was killed during a home
demolition in Rafah in March 2003 by a Caterpillar
bulldozer used as part of the military operation.
Though Israel has ruled it an accident, the US
government is considering an investigation.

In March 2003, a mother of ten children who was nine
months pregnant was killed in her bed in the middle of
the night when her home collapsed while Israeli
soldiers blew up a neighbouring house. Residents of
Jenin, Nablus, East Jerusalem, villages along the
Separation Wall and in Gaza cities like Rafah are
particularly targeted.

In the Negev, the Bedouin population already reeling
from lack of access to basic services such as water,
sewage, electricity, education and health care are
faced with regular home demolitions, chemical spraying
of arable lands and the possible passage of the
Removal of Intruders Law which would streamline the
legal process to remove them from their lands.

All of this is happening under the watchful eye of the
United States, the EU and the UN in contravention of
international law and UN resolutions. There is a
feeling that the international power brokers need a
more credible framework to hold Israel and its
neighbouring countries accountable for their human
rights records.