Stopping Home Demolitions, Securing Jerusalem's Future

By Sadie Goldman Senior Policy Associate, Israel Policy Forum

http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/analysis/stopping-home-demolitions-securing-jerusalems-future

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 3:25pm

Look out from Mount Zion's observation point and you'll be "overlooking Biblical Jerusalem which sends visitors 3,800 years back in time to the days of Abraham, when the first foundations of the city were laid," reads the tourist brochure of the City of David ("Elad") organization. The tour begins from a vantage point with a scene both historic and familiar, the Western Wall, the dome of the Al-Aqsa mosque, and a hillside dotted with stone houses that look like they have been there for hundreds of years.

But that is not the whole story. Those stone houses form the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where a territorial battle has been raging for years and now threatens some 1,500 of Silwan's residents with homelessness. And the organization leading the tour is right in the middle of the battle.

Welcome to Jerusalem.

Silwan sits on the western edge of Palestinian Jerusalem, and just touches the old city's periphery. It was annexed by Israel in 1967, but remains an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, now home to approximately 50,000 residents. Jews did not live there until the early 1980s when David Beeri "cast his eye on Silwan," Meron Rapoport wrote in Ha'aretz. "The City of David is not populated," Beeri told his wife Michal, "we have to do something."

Beeri founded the Elad organization and set out to settle Silwan with Jews. He exploited a loophole in Jerusalem's municipal law that stipulates that absentee property--property deemed to be abandoned by its owners--would revert to the state.

But Rapoport found that Elad used "a very dubious implementation of the Absentee Property Law." "Dubious" because Beeri falsified information about properties that were not in fact abandoned. He also falsified his identity. "Beeri had his eye on the home of the Abbasi family. . . . David took a tour guide's card from his friend, placed his photo on it, put on the hat and the tag, and for a long time would take imaginary tourists on tours. . . . Slowly but surely he became friendly with Abbasi. In the early 1990s, the Custodian of Absentee Property declared the Abbasi home absentee property . . . and Abassi found David, the imaginary tour guide and imaginary friend, settling in his house while he, Abassi, was evicted."

Elad runs real tours now. Tourists are taken into tunnels that run underneath several Silwan homes to explore Jerusalem's biblical archeology. Elad also sponsors archeological digs. (Its excavations have sparked a separate battle with a group of Israeli archeologists who charge that Elad's findings are inauthentic and politically motivated.) One of its excavations was halted by Israel's High Court of Justice after it found that it had damaged the foundations of homes above it.

Elad also continues to try to expropriate Palestinians lands. "After 2,000 years, the City of David is returning to Jewish hands," Beeri told the Jerusalem Post. For the last five years, Elad has also been pushing a proposal to demolish 88 Silwan houses and apartment buildings--the homes of some 1,500 people--to be developed into a national park exploring biblical history.

This can be done, according to Elad, because these homes were built without a permit and are, therefore, illegal. This position is also supported by Jerusalem's new Mayor Nir Barkat, who reinstated plans to demolish the homes after they were held up for five years by court orders and international pressure. "For 3,000 years, that area has been green," Barkat told Ethan Bronner of the New York Times, "now there are 100 buildings that are illegal there. We want to return it to being a park."

The issue is not so simple, however. Palestinians are forced to build illegally because they are not granted permits; and they are not granted permits out of a policy intended to maintain a Jewish majority in Jerusalem. According to Ir Amim (City of Nations), an Israeli non-profit that works to promote coexistence in Jerusalem, "Israeli planning in East Jerusalem has almost invariably been driven by the calculus of national struggle, the goal of which is to maintain a large Israeli majority in the city. One way Israel has tried to achieve this is by artificially putting a cap on Palestinian development. . . . East Jerusalem is unique in that it is the only place in Israel where overlapping authorities for home demolitions are vested in-and exercised by-both the Jerusalem municipality and in the Ministry of Interior." Ir Amim explains that when, "then Mayor Teddy Kollek announced that he would not demolish homes . . . the Interior Ministry--then under the sway of a right-wing government--set up a special enforcement unit in East Jerusalem, with the explicit goal of keeping up house demolitions."

Home demolitions could have an additional effect if an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal advances. A peace agreement will have to decide how Jerusalem, the chosen capital of both Palestinians and Israelis, will be divided. And Israel will have to relinquish unilateral control of some parts of Jerusalem that it conquered in 1967, likely including Silwan. If Jews settle there, especially if they refuse state orders to evacuate, this will complicate Israel's withdrawal from Palestinian territory--just as Jewish settlements in the West Bank will affect Israel's withdrawal from there.

Perhaps this is what Mayor Barkat meant when he told a crowd during his campaign (in remarks posted on his website's blog) that "when I talk about building in Jerusalem, I don't just mean inside the city itself, but also in Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Beitar illit . . . and Givat Ze'ev [West Bank settlements on Jerusalem's periphery]." In other words, his Jerusalem extends well beyond Jerusalem.

In any case, Barkat's policy of building Jewish Jerusalem by depopulating Arab areas is opposed by the United States. During her trip to the region earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed to the planned demolitions and said that, "This kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the 'road map.'"

Clinton's intervention has at least stalled the demolitions. The State Department has asked for a clarification of Israel's intentions and is currently examining the Israeli Foreign Ministry's response.

But, as in so many other cases, the past is also likely to be prelude. A right-wing municipal government in Jerusalem, coupled with a right-wing Israeli national government, is unlikely to lay aside ambitions for a Greater, more Jewish, Jerusalem. Unless Secretary Clinton's words are followed by more words, and even action, Silwan--and the homes you see from Mount Zion--may be lost by the Palestinians who have lived there for hundreds of years.

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Land and Housing Rights in al-Issawiya, Israeli Occupied East Jerusalem

Written by Amanda Schweitzer and Marjie Sackett for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)

Sunday, 02 November 2008

The East Jerusalem village of al-Issawiya from the campus of Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus.                                             The Jerusalem Municipality and Israeli government have recently stepped up efforts to further illegally evict Palestinians in Jerusalem from their land and homes and terminate their already severely limited social benefits. The recent spate of home demolitions, increase in demolition orders issued to Palestinian residents of the city, statements by Israeli political leaders of the need to punish Palestinian residents of Jerusalem for alleged attacks, and threats by Israel to cut Palestinian villages off from the city and put them on the other side of the Segregation Wall, has increased the sense of urgency in the fight for the rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem. The Alternative Information Center (AIC) is working to place the issue of the rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem, along with awareness of Jerusalem as a capital of the Arab world on local and international agendas. As part of this effort, the AIC has begun advocating to protect the national, political, social, economic and cultural rights of the people of the Palestinian village of Issawiya. This report starts with a summary of the situation and rights pertaining to residency, housing and land rights in East Jerusalem, including Issawiya. This is followed by a discussion of Issawiya’s history and current situation. Residency Status and Rights Since the 1967 illegal annexation, the Palestinian people living in East Jerusalem have been considered permanent residents of the city, subject to Israeli governance, law and jurisdiction. As permanent residents, not citizens, East Jerusalemites have the following rights as determined by the Israeli government: The right to live and work in Israel without the need for special permits. The right to vote in Jerusalem municipality elections, but not in the national elections. Under Israeli Law, East Jerusalem permanent residents are entitled to the same social rights according to the National Insurance Law; they are also entitled to health insurance. However, East Jerusalem’s permanent residents do not have the same rights as citizens, as summarized below: Permanent residency status, unlike citizenship, is passed on to the children of residents only under certain conditions; i.e. a permanent resident who marries someone who is neither a permanent resident nor a citizen of Israel must apply for family unification on behalf of his or her spouse. Permanent residents are considered to be foreigners by Israel and their status can be revoked as a matter of course. Once one’s permanent resident status is revoked, they cannot work or live in Israel and they and their families lose their social benefits. Permanent residency status is sometimes revoked arbitrarily, with no opportunity for appeal, and with no notification to the resident, who learns of the action only when applying for social services. Land and Housing in East Jerusalem With a population of 732,100 (2007) Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel, approximately 10% of the country’s population. Prior to the June 1967 war, the western part of the city (inside Israel) was 38,000 dunam (1 dunam equals 1,000 sq. meters). Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem’s 70,500 dunam nearly tripled the size of the city under Israeli control. The illegal annexation also gave the Jerusalem Municipality control over approximately 66,000 Palestinian Arabs residents, then 24% of the total city’s population. Although East Jerusalem initially had almost twice the land area of west Jerusalem, the Municipality has followed Israel’s ongoing practice of illegally expropriating more land from the Palestinians. Since 1967, over a third of Arab-owned land in East Jerusalem, a total of 24,500 dunam, has been stolen by Israel and is now available only for Israeli Jews. Of the remaining 46,000 dunam, only 9,000 are planned for construction. Municipal Services in East Jerusalem The approximately 256,820 Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem (34% of the total city population) do not receive the same benefits from either the city or Israeli government as citizens do. The Israeli government has never budgeted sufficient resources to meet basic infrastructure, education, or social service needs of the Palestinian permanent residents. Some of the discrepancies between people living in Jerusalem who are Jewish Israeli and those who are Palestinian are illustrated below. Families under poverty line: 67% of Palestinian families; 21% of Jewish families. Children under poverty line: 77% of Palestinian children 39% of Jewish children. Housing units built: As of the end of 2007 no housing units for Palestinians; 50,197 housing units for Jewish population. Sewage: 70 km of main sewage lines are needed to provide adequate service to East Jerusalem Water Connections: Approximately 160,000 Palestinian residents have no connection to the water network. School Classrooms: Shortage of 1,500 classrooms (number expected to reach 1,900 by 2010). School Dropout Rate: 50% of Palestinian children; 7.4% among Jewish students. Avg. Social Work Caseload: 190 households per social worker; 111 households per social worker for Jewish families in West Jerusalem. ** Source: Association for Civil Rights in Israel** Sidewalks in East Jerusalem are often broken or non-existent. Road are riddled with potholes. The postal service barely functions in East Jerusalem. There are just two post offices and five postal agencies for East Jerusalem’s 250,000 Palestinian residents, while more than 50 postal facilities serve the 500,000 residents of West Jerusalem. Issawiya Al-Issawiya is a divided Palestinian village, part of which is in East Jerusalem, located three kilometers northeast of Jerusalem’s center. The village’s dominant harmulas (clans)—Darwish, Abu Hummous, and Aliyyan—can trace their village history back to the 16th century. Prior to 1948, the village was spread over 10,000 dunam, from modern-day Hadassah Hospital down to the Red Khan on the Jericho Road. Today, Issawiya straddles the Jerusalem border, sitting between Mt. Scopus, French Hill, numerous Jewish settlements, the Ring Road and two Israeli military outposts. It is a graphic example of Israel’s discriminatory land policies towards Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Immediately after the 1967 war, Israel divided the village by illegally annexing 3,000 dunam to the Municipality of Jerusalem while designating the other 7,000 dunam as outside of the city, including it as part of the occupied West Bank. In 1968, the Israeli government confiscated four hundred of the 3,000 East Jerusalem dunam of Issawiya to build the settlement known as Givat Shapira (French Hill). This settlement connected Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital, located on Mt. Scopus, with the rest of West Jerusalem. Additionally, the government recently designated 2,000 of the remaining dunam as “green areas” which are not zoned for legal building. The reality today is such that the 12,500 Palestinians who live in Issawiya, can legally only inhabit 600 dunam of their land. The 7,000 dunam fared no better. Today, this land has been designated by the Israeli government as Area C, which means it is under complete control of the Israeli military. Its residents have been physically separated from Issawiya’s remaining 3,000 dunam by the Ring Road, which was built to link Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem to each other and to West Jerusalem. Recently, a portion of the 7,000 dunam was illegally slated by the Municipality to be used for construction of the E1 settlement bloc. The development of this illegal settlement has been placed on hold due to international pressure. East Jerusalem Urban Planning Due to the continuing uncertainty of the future of East Jerusalem as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, municipal planning has been limited and restrictive growth limits have been imposed. City planning in Jerusalem has very little in common with normal urban planning considerations; it is much more political. The Israeli government considers all undeveloped Palestinian land as ripe for Jewish expansion. The policy consists of (a) making it almost impossible to build new housing units outside existing Palestinian neighborhoods; and (b) restricting building for Palestinians, even within Palestinian areas. Israeli planning is guided by one main objective: maintaining a Jewish majority in the city. The Israeli government uses four planning policies to implement its goal: Announcing non-built Palestinian land as “green area”—to be preserved as an open space—where construction is forbidden. Limiting Palestinian building opportunities, such as reducing the permitted housing density and systematically demolishing unlicensed homes. Expropriating Palestinian lands for the sake of ‘public interest’: Palestinian property is taken as a green area in order to build Jewish settlements; while Palestinian neighborhoods suffer from a severe lack of public space to build any public institutions. Excluding Palestinians from the process of municipal planning. Prior to 1977 there was no master plan in East Jerusalem, meaning that there was almost no legal possibility for any Palestinian to receive a building permit there. Even with an approved master plan in place, which many villages are still in the process of obtaining while others have not even started the procedure, building possibilities for the Palestinian community is even more restricted. Almost all the lands outside the built-up areas are pronounced as green areas where building is forbidden. Contrary to the known purpose of green areas that are parcels kept for public open spaces, these areas are “only green for the Palestinian population,” as Teddy Kollek, the former mayor of Jerusalem is quoted as having said. As long as the municipality does not decide to use the land in order to build new settlements or to expand the existing ones, these lands are maintained as green areas, forbidding Palestinians from expanding out side the built-up areas. Almost 35% of the land in the Palestinian areas in East Jerusalem is declared green areas (in Issawiya 80% of the village’s remaining 3,000 dunam of land, land which remained inside the Jerusalem Municipality borders, is considered as such). For example, the settlements of Neve Ya’acov, Pisgat Ze’ev, Ma’ale Adumim, Gilo, French Hill, and Har Homa were built on areas that were expropriated after having been declared green areas. This policy has led to terrible overcrowding in the Palestinian neighborhoods where more than 30 percent of families in East Jerusalem live with more than three people per room. In Issawiya the average number of people per housing unit is 6.8, compared to only 3.3 persons per unit in Israeli settlements. The process of obtaining a building or renovation permit is extremely difficult, long and complicated under normal circumstances. For East Jerusalem residents, the legal and administrative process makes it almost impossible for Palestinians to get a permit. In fact less than 5% of East Jerusalem building permits are even processed. Additionally, permits incur very high fees, making it even more improbable that Palestinians can obtain one, as they are a part of the lower socio-economical strata in Jerusalem. Even when Palestinians in Jerusalem are given permits to build, there are restrictions on their building rights according to the allowed building percentage. The Case of Issawiya In Issawiya, restrictive building permits have led to a reality where residents are forced to conduct 90% of new building without permission from Israeli authorities. Also, the loss of land and building space for the community has led to massive overcrowding and worsening housing conditions. Today, Issawiya is characterized by narrow dilapidated roads, an absence of adequate parking, and insufficient housing for the ever growing population. While there are many causes for overcrowding in Issawiya, two main causes are solely related to land and housing issues: Difficulty of obtaining permits to build “legally” · Permits are extremely expensive, requiring a lengthy and complicated application process. · Even if one has the 65,000 NIS to 80,000 NIS (in addition to the taxes and other additional fees which adds up to an extra 1,000 NIS) to purchase a building permit, this does not guarantee access to a permit. · Like in Issawiya, most East Jerusalemites are day workers and cannot afford to pay both for a building permit and for the cost of building a home. Availability of building permits · The Jerusalem Municipality has not given permits for new buildings in Issawiya for years. · The Municipality has refused to allow “Palestinian” municipal institutions to be erected in Issawiya upon the eight plots of village land zoned for public purposes (the infamous green areas) Growth in Issawiya has been “legally” stunted by the Municipality, but naturally the population continues to grow. While the current population of Issawiya sits at 12,000, it is increasing at a rate of 3.5% each year placing the expected population in the year 2020 at 20,800 residents. The current conditions have created a situation where “illegal” growth is necessary for Issawiya’s survival. According to a local human rights group, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAWE), major problems regarding urban planning for Issawiya are as follows: Disregard for Palestinian ownership of private lands. Lack of an official body to solve housing problems. Lack of real estate or other companies who would take the initiative to build homes to rent in the village. Issue of the division and sale of land. Although land might be available, Palestinian families traditionally keep lands within the family. Plans don’t take into consideration the realities of village roads and local agreements. Failure to acknowledge the vast differences in life-style and land use in Palestinian villages and Israeli neighborhoods and settlements. Issawiya’s Master Plan Initial designs for a master plan in Issawiya were drawn up in the early 1980s. Based on 666 dunam of land, this plan was never finalized, making any new construction or renovation rather precarious. Nearly 30 years later, Issawiya, like many other East Jerusalem villages, still lacks a coherent master plan. In 1991, the Jerusalem Municipality approved an outline for Issawiya, but did not allow for sufficient growth, particularly for necessary community buildings and commercial areas. The 1991 plan also excluded some land and designated other areas as open space, thereby making numerous pre-existing structures illegal and in danger of condemnation. Several years ago, efforts were undertaken to increase the size of the master plan, this time to 2,400 dunam. However, the Municipality cited a lack of funds in its refusal to allow the expansion. Ever determined, the village secured outside financial backing and succeeded in increasing the master plan to 1,500 dunums. Revealing perhaps the real reason for their refusal, the Municipality then began to appropriate sections of land for various purposes, eventually decreasing the size to 900 dunam. This essentially brought the plan back to where it began, with the few areas zoned for “legal” building too small to support the existing population. In 2004, BIMKOM, an Israeli organization focusing on planning rights, was brought in at the request of the community. BIMKOM planners began working with Issawiya residents, first meeting with local business leaders to get a sense of the issues, needs, and views of the village. Planners then conducted a community-wide seminar to discern what aspects of the neighborhood residents wanted to retain, as well as creating a general framework for the new plan. To foster a better understanding of the master plan and the bureaucratic planning process in Israel, BIMKOM held planning workshops, and individual and group meetings. Seeking to gain input and facilitate participation from all members of the community, planners met with groups of local women, a segment of the population too often left out of such discussions. Finally, after three years of work BIMKOM brought the plan, called the Kaminker Project, to the local planning committee. Submission to the local committee, comprised of city council members and thus a very political body, is the first step in the approval process. The local committee then either approves the plan or proposes recommendations before sending the plan on to the regional committee. In this case, the local committee asked for several changes, citing three major issues. Firstly, residents of the adjacent settlement community of French Hill raised objections to the plan. Community members didn’t want Issawiya buildings built too close to their land, so they opposed the plan. The municipality, supporting the wishes of French Hill, instructed BIMKOM to adjust the plan to leave more “green space” between the two villages. Israeli military officials raised similar arguments relating to their outpost on Mt. Scopus. The army declared that nothing could be built within 100 meters of the fence surrounding the military base. Once again, BIMKOM made the necessary changes, reducing the overall size of the master plan. Finally, the most difficult impediment came from the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority (INPA). The INPA had designs for a large park between Issawiya and At-Tur, a neighboring Palestinian village, which overlapped with areas zoned for homes and other buildings on Issawiya’s master plan. BIMKOM originally negotiated an agreement with the head of the INPA, but municipality politics undermined the arrangement. As a result, BIMKOM has had to limit the zoning of these areas for any building for the present time. As of August 2008, Issawiya’s master plan stands at some 1,300-1,500 dunam. BIMKOM has a meeting with the regional planning office in late September 2008, where more changes could be recommended. In addition, the consent of the Issawiya community is still needed for changes made in INPA area, which will be difficult. Those closest to the project estimate that it will likely take another two years before final government approval of the Kaminker Project is granted. Initial Master Plan put forth by the Jerusalem Municipality providing only 666 dunam. Bimkom’s Master Plan for Issawiya of 1,500 dunam. The plan is currently undergoing the Jerusalem Municipality’s approval process. “The Issawiya planning problem is an East Jerusalem problem. The Israeli government wishes to push out most, if not all of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and into the West Bank. They want to keep a Jewish majority in Jerusalem to remain in control of the city. In the past the ratio was 70:30, Israelis to Palestinians, but more recently the ratio has changed to 60:40. The Israeli’s are nervous about this shift and looking to do something about it. By confiscating land in East Jerusalem, making it expensive and difficult to expand villages, and demolishing houses, the government hopes to make life uncomfortable enough for the East Jerusalem Palestinians so that they will up and move the area.” -Hani Isawi, Head of the Issawiya Land Defense Committee Home Demolitions “The demolition of a home is carried out generally according to the Planning and Construction Law (1965). According to this law, all construction, including the expansion of a home, requires a permit. Building without a permit constitutes a criminal offense, and a structure so erected is designated for demolition. In order to get a construction permit, however, the land must appear in an approved city plan. City plans define the use to be made of the land, and there are national, district, and local plans. To obtain a construction permit, a detailed local city plan must exist” (ACRI – Real Estate or Rights, July 2008, Pg. 19). Due to the price of the building permits as well as the difficult process of obtaining renovation or building permission from the Israeli authorities, 90% of the homes in Issawiya are built “illegally” without a proper permit. The Jerusalem municipality and the Ministry of Interior can decide to demolish these homes at any moment. In Issawiya, house demolition has been a foremost problem for the community. This year alone, four homes have been demolished and 45 additional properties have received demolition orders. One such Issawiya family, who recently received a demolition order, is that of Fathi Khader Abu Humus. Prior to building, Fathi Khader applied to the Jerusalem Municipality for a legal building permit. While the Municipality initially told him that he could build on the land, when he arrived at the office to purchase a permit they would not sell it to him. Three separate times, the Municipality told him to make changes to his building plans, which he did, and yet they still would not grant him legal permission to build on his own land. Frustrated, and in dire need of a new home for his ever growing family, Fathi made the difficult decision to build without a permit. His building, which was constructed in 2002, consists of three apartments on the upper lever, his grocery store and the town’s only bakery on the main floor. Since the construction of the building, he has been paying monthly fines of 800 NIS to the Municipality because of the building’s “illegal” status. He will continue to pay these monthly fines until the year 2013, whether or not his home demolished. In addition, if his home is demolished he will be required to pay for the demolition on top of his monthly fines. “The Municipality claimed that they did not enough in their budget to allow for more than 666 dunams of expansion in the master plan for Issawiya, and yet they seem have plenty in their budget to continue to demolish houses.” - Darweesh Musa Darweesh, Head of the Committee of Issawiya Village In East Jerusalem, Fathi Khader’s story is not an uncommon one. While it is impossible to cite an accurate figure regarding the number of demolitions that have taken place in East Jerusalem, the human rights organization, B’Tselem, has placed the number of demolitions since 2004 at 344, which has left approximately 1,135 Palestinians homeless. Despite the fact that house demolitions are a devastatingly costly blow to Palestinian residents, many have no choice but to rebuild again and hope for the best. Some residents in Issawiya have rebuilt their homes four or five times, and maintain that they will continue to do so as long as it is necessary. As Hani Isawi, head of the Issawiya Land Defense Committee explains it: “If the Municipality does not allow us to construct a master development plan, the construction of illegal housing in Issawiya will only increase. No matter what the Municipality tries to do they cannot stop the inevitable expansion of the Issawiya community. Palestinians are staying in their villages and refuse to move or be pushed out. They will fight for their land and continue to fight for their homes despite what the Israeli government will do.” List of Sources The Alternative Information Center (AIC), “Cleansing and Apartheid in Jerusalem” 2004 The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), “East Jerusalem – Facts and Figures” June 2008, http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=435 ---, “Real Estate or Rights: Housing Rights and Government Policy in Israel” July 2008, http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=435 BIMKOM – Planners for Planning Rights, “The Kaminker Project in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya. Report of the First Two Years of Activity” April 2006, http://eng.bimkom.org/Index.asp?ArticleID=88&CategoryID=131 B’tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories http://www.btselem.org Ir Amin, “Winning the Battle, Losing the War: 40 Years of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem” November 2007, Written by Daniela Yanai & Edited by Hagai El-Ad, http://www.ir-amim.org.il/eng/?CategoryID=243 Jerusalem Center for Economic and Social Rights, http://www.jcser.org/english/index.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peace centre with a panic room

Can architecture end a war? Steve Rose travels to Israel to see Peace House, a new building with big ambitions - and a bomb shelter on every floor

• 
• • Steve Rose
  • The Guardian, Tuesday 17 February 2009

Magical and mystical ... The Peres Peace House on the Jaffa seafront in Israel. Photograph: Moreno Maggi/Fuksas

With all the ironies crushing down on it, it's amazing this building is still standing. Opening shortly after a devastating conflict, the Peres Peace House is a venue for propagating peace and improving ties between Israel and its neighbours. Furthermore, this smart new piece of architecture is named after Shimon Peres, elder statesman of Israeli politics, Nobel peace prize laureate and founder of the Peres Centre for Peace, a successful non-governmental organisation. He is also the country's president, which complicates matters. While the Peres Centre arranges for the treatment of injured Gaza children in Israeli hospitals, Peres publicly defends the military attacks that put them there.

But the Peace House could yet live up to its name. When it opens next month, the building will serve as the Peres Centre's new HQ. Its ethos is that peace in the region will be made between people, not governments, and its activities range from organising football matches between mixed Israeli and Palestinian youth teams to establishing a cross-border chamber of commerce. The new building enables the Peres Centre to host conferences, talks and arts events. It will also house Shimon Peres's personal library and archives, for the benefit of researchers and students. A one-stop peace shop, if you like. But as well as helping to achieve peace, this building had to somehow represent it - to make solid an abstract quality.

Landed with this tall but prestigious order was Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas. Though little known in Britain, Fuksas is one of Europe's most renowned architects - an expressive innovator who would rather design with a paintbrush than a computer. His work varies wildly in style but is marked by a sculptural flair that gives rise to grand gestures and memorable forms. His recent Zenith music hall in Strasbourg, for example, is a wonky drum covered in an orange membrane that lights up at night like a lantern; his huge Milan Exhibition Centre, meanwhile, is draped in a swirling roof of steel and glass.

The Peace House is another of Fuksas's poetic one-offs, although it shows an appropriate degree of restraint. It is situated on the seafront in the ancient port town of Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv, an area populated, peacefully, by both Israeli Arabs and Jews. In essence, it is simply a long box emerging out of the hillside. The short end, facing the sea, is a wall of clear glass; the other three sides are made up of thin horizontal bands of copper-green concrete and glass of various thicknesses, layered apparently randomly, like sedimentary rock. These strata, says Fuksas, allude to "time and patience, the stratification of the history of two peoples". The building materials, too, represent "places that have suffered heavily": solid concrete for times of stability, fragile glass for conflict and turmoil. The only clear view is out to the sea - to the future. "It is the representation of an emergency," says Fuksas of the building.

It all sounds rather literal but in reality it works marvellously. On the outside, the Peace House immediately stands out as something different - monumental yet light. To enter, you walk down from the road at the top, through a landscaped park alongside the building and round to the glass front doors facing the sea. While the walls are smooth and flat on the outside, on the inside the concrete strata project out, giving the sides an undulating, almost natural texture. Light entering between these concrete slabs illuminates the space magically, even mystically. At certain times, the low sun shines into the building, casting curious shadows, but generally it is filled with a soft, diffused glow that changes with the time of day. It feels, well, peaceful.

"I always try to do something I have never done before - that is my way," says Fuksas. "When you do a project, the first thing it has to be is useful for its tenants, but much more importantly, it has to have alchemy - like this magical light where you cannot see its origin. Because with this alchemy you have emotion. A building without emotion is not architecture."

The most dramatic space is Peres's library, at the back of the building, on the ground floor. You're basically standing underground here, since the building is half-submerged in the hillside, but an atrium rises up the back wall to skylights in the ceiling. There's a clear metaphor here - reaching upwards from the depths - but the space is powerful enough on its own terms. The other show-stopping area, and the climax of the public route through the building, is a wood-panelled auditorium on the first floor. Rather than the usual black box, its back wall is a giant window facing the Mediterranean. "If you don't want to listen to the people speaking, you can just watch the sea," says Fuksas.

The Peace House feels a bit like an inhabited monument - a beautiful art installation that unfortunately had to be divided into rooms. The interior tries its best not to disrupt the overall effect, though. In places, the upper floors don't quite touch the walls, with glass filling in the gaps. The internal divisions are also glass, where possible, although there is a concrete core running through the building containing stairs and services, plus a uniquely Israeli architectural feature: a reinforced "panic room" on each floor, a shelter in case of bomb or gas attack. Every new building in Israel is required to have them.

Building the Peace House hasn't been easy, Fuksas says. The project began more than 10 years ago - at a time when peace in the region did not seem such a distant prospect. Then, it was a joint initiative between Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, to be situated in Tulkarem, close to the West Bank-Israeli border. After Arafat's death, it proceeded in its current form, but there were myriad problems with acquiring the site and the funding (from private donors - Peres is nothing if not well-connected). Fuksas's grand vision was not easy to translate into reality either. It was imagined that the horizontal concrete elements would be made offsite then simply stacked on to columns, like a giant child's game. But this proved to be logistically impossible. So a local architect had to work out an alternative, whereby the walls were patiently built up one layer at a time. On the metaphorical level, that's somehow appropriate.

There's still an uneasy split running through this project, though. As well as that crushing irony (Peres strives to be the big peacemaker while defending Israeli military action), the Peace House wants to be both a US-style presidential memorial library and a grassroots NGO headquarters, part gift to humanity, part vanity project. "Sometimes, this fact is awkward," acknowledges Ron Pundak, the Peres Centre's director. "But basically we are putting a very clear distance between his activity as president and our activities as the Peres Centre for Peace."

Pundak also admits to some discomfort about the prospect of receiving, say, a Palestinian partner from a refugee camp in his shiny new HQ. At present, the Peres Centre operates out of a nondescript office block in Tel Aviv, which is probably better suited to its activities. "I won't find myself very comfortable there," says Pundak of the Peace House. "But it does not reflect the Peres Centre for Peace - it reflects the vision and life and future of Mr Peres. This is the innovative approach of Mr Peres. He's not a normal politician."

Nor, it bears remembering, is Israel a normal place in which to build. Architecture has almost become an instrument of warfare in this region. There is the notorious West Bank barrier, for example, which Israel has unilaterally built (and continues to build) around Palestinian areas. Israel says the barrier has improved security against cross-border terrorist attacks; Palestinians say it severs and imprisons communities, and amounts to a land grab. Architecture has also been used as a weapon in territorial disputes. Best known are the Israeli settlements that have been built across the West Bank over the last 40 years. Israelis counter that Arabs have also built up areas, particularly around Jerusalem, in order to reinforce future territorial claims, even though many of the buildings stand empty.

Above all, of course, there is the destruction of buildings and infrastructure in Gaza, and the sisyphean task of rebuilding them. In this context, the Peace House is a much-needed contrast. Whether or not it cultivates peace, it at least sends an alternative message. Fuksas is the first to acknowledge that such expressions can easily be dismissed as hopelessly idealistic - but, he adds, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be making them. "We must never stop thinking peace is possible," he says.

..................................................................................................................................................Webmaster's Note: As a background to this article, here is the situation in Jaffa for the remnants of its original inhabitants, belying the peaceful intentions proclaimed by the Peres Peace Centre.

Unfinished Business of Ethnic Cleansing - The Expulsion of Palestinians from Jaffa

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09152008.html

By JONATHAN COOK

September 15 2008

Jaffa.

The ground floor of Zaki Khimayl’s home is a cafe where patrons can drink mint tea or fresh juice as they smoke on a water pipe. Located by Jaffa’s beach, a stone’s throw from Tel Aviv, the business should be thriving.

Mr Khimayl, however, like hundreds of other families in the Arab neighbourhoods of Ajami and Jabaliya, is up to his eyes in debt and trapped in a world of bureaucratic regulations apparently designed with only one end in mind: his eviction from Jaffa.

Sitting on the cafe’s balcony, Mr Khimayl, 59, said he feels besieged. Bulldozers are tearing up the land by the beach for redevelopment and luxury apartments are springing up all around his dilapidated two-storey home.

He opened a briefcase, one of five he has stuffed with demands and fines from official bodies, as well as bills from four lawyers dealing with the flood of paperwork.

“I owe 1.8 million shekels [$500,000] in water and business rates alone,” he said in exasperation. “The crazy thing is the municipality recently valued the property and told me it’s worth much less than the sum I owe.”

Jaffa is one of half a dozen “mixed cities” in Israel, where Jewish and Palestinian citizens supposedly live together. The rest of Israel’s Palestinian minority, relatives of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, live in their own separate and deprived communities.

Despite the image of coexistence cultivated by the Israeli authorities, Jaffa is far from offering a shared space for Jews and Palestinians, according to Sami Shehadeh of the Popular Committee for the Defence of Jaffa’s Homes. Instead, Palestinian residents live in their own largely segregated neighbourhoods, especially Ajami, the city’s poorest district.

Only last month, Mr Shehadeh said, the Jewish residents’ committees proposed creating days when the municipal pool could be used only by Jews.

Although Jaffa’s 18,000 Palestinian residents constitute one-third of the city’s population, they have been left powerless politically since a municipal fusion with Jaffa’s much larger neighbour, Tel Aviv, in 1950. Of the cities’ joint population, Palestinians are just three per cent.

After years of neglect, Mr Shehadeh said, the residents are finally attracting attention from the authorities – but the interest is far from benign. A “renewal plan” for Jaffa, ostensibly designed to improve the inhabitants’ quality of life, is in fact seeking the Palestinian residents’ removal on the harshest terms possible, he said.

“The municipality talks a lot about ‘developing’ and ‘rehabilitating’ the area, but what it means by development is attracting wealthy Jews looking to live close by Tel Aviv but within view of the sea,” he said.

“The Palestinian residents here are simply seen as an obstacle to the plan, so they are being evicted from their homes under any pretext that can be devised.

“Some of the families have lived in these homes since well before the state of Israel was established, and yet they are being left with nothing.”

The current pressure on the residents to leave Ajami has painful echoes of the 1948 war that followed Israel’s declaration of its existence. Once, Jaffa was the most powerful city in Palestine, its wealth derived from the area’s huge orange exports.

As Israeli historians have noted, however, one of the Jewish leadership’s main aims in the 1948 war was the expulsion of the Palestinian population from Jaffa, especially given its proximity to Tel Aviv, the new Jewish state’s largest city.

Ilan Pappe, an historian, writes that the people of Jaffa were “literally pushed into the sea” to board fishing boats destined for Gaza as “Jewish troops shot over their heads to hasten their expulsion”.

By the end of the war, no more than 4,000 of Jaffa’s 70,000 Palestinians remained. The Israeli government nationalised all their property and corralled the residents into the Ajami neighbourhood, south of Jaffa port. For two years they were sealed off from the rest of Jaffa behind barbed wire.

In the meantime, Jaffa’s properties were either demolished or redistributed to new Jewish immigrants. The heart of old Jaffa, next to the port, was developed as a touristic playground, with palatial Palestinian homes turned into exclusive restaurants and art galleries run by Jewish entrepreneurs.

The Ajami district, on the other hand, was quickly transformed from a distinguished neighbourhood of Jaffa into its most deprived area, which became a magnet for crime and drugs. “The municipality showed its disdain for us by dumping all the city’s waste, even dangerous chemicals, on our beach,” Mr Shehadeh said.

The residents – even those who continued to live in their families’ original homes – lost their status as owners and overnight became tenants in confiscated property, forced to pay rent to a state-controlled company, Amidar.

Today, Amidar wants the families out to make way for wealthy Jewish investors and real estate developers.

Over the past 18 months, it has issued 497 eviction orders against Ajami families, threatening to make 3,000 people homeless.

“The problem for the families is that for six decades they have been ignored,” said Mr Shehadeh, who is standing in the local elections to the council next month.

“Four-fifths of Ajami’s population is Palestinian and no investments were made by the municipality. Amidar refused to renovate the homes, and the planning authorities refused to issue permits to the families to build new properties or alter existing ones.”

Faced with crumbling old homes and growing families, the residents had little choice but to fix and extend their properties themselves. Now years, sometimes decades, later Amidar is using these alterations as grounds for eviction, arguing that the residents have broken the terms of their rental agreements.

Mental Lahavi, vice-chairman of the local building and planning committee, recently admitted to the local media: “The municipality froze all [building] permits in the area for a long period and would not even let people replace an asbestos roof. They turned all the residents of the neighbourhood into offenders.”

Mr Khimayl has amassed large debts because he used parts of his home that, according to Amidar, were not covered by his contract – even though the house has been owned by his family since 1902.

Amidar has also been waging a legal battle over a minor alteration he made to the property.

Many years ago, Mr Khimayl rebuilt the dangerous external stone steps that provided the only access to the house’s second floor. In 2005, Amidar inspectors told him he had broken the terms of his contract and should remove the new steps.

Unable to reach his home in any other way, he replaced the stone steps with a metal staircase. Another inspector declared the staircase a violation of the agreement, too.

Mr Khimayl is currently using a metal staircase on wheels, arguing that the moveable steps are not a permanent alteration. Nonetheless, Amidar is pursuing him through the courts. Other families face similar problems.

A recent report by the Human Rights Association in Nazareth concluded the government was seeking to use a “quiet” form of ethnic cleansing, using administrative and legal pressure, to make Jaffa entirely Jewish.

Amidar has said it is simply upholding the law. “In cases in which the law has been broken, the company acts to protect the state’s rights, regardless of the value of the property or the religion or nationality of the tenants.”

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

This article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

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Blueprint for Gaza attack was long planned

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 12 January 2009

Palestinians run for cover from Israeli air strikes that are part of a larger pre-meditated Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. (Mohamed Al-Zanon/MaanImages)

As Israel rejected the terms of the proposed United Nations ceasefire at the weekend, Israeli military analysts were speculating on the nature of the next stage of the attack on Gaza, or the "third phase" of the fighting as it is being referred to.

Having struck thousands of targets from the air in the first phase, followed by a ground invasion that saw troops push into much of Gaza, a third phase would involve a significant expansion of these operations.

It would require the deployment of thousands of reserve soldiers, who are completing their training on bases in the Negev, and the destruction and seizure of built-up areas closer to the heart of Gaza City, Hamas's key stronghold. The number of civilian casualties could be expected to rise rapidly.

A fourth phase, the overthrow of Hamas and direct reoccupation of Gaza, is apparently desired neither by the army nor Israel's political leadership, which fears the economic and military costs.

An expansion of "Operation Cast Lead" is expected in the next few days should Israel decide that negotiations at the UN and elsewhere are not to its liking. Israeli warplanes have dropped leaflets warning Gaza residents of an imminent escalation: "Stay safe by following our orders."

Last week Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, warned that the army had still not exhausted its military options.

Those options have long been in preparation, as the defense minister, Ehud Barak, admitted early on in the offensive. He said he and the army had been planning the attack for at least six months. In fact, indications are that the invasion's blueprint was drawn up much earlier, probably 18 months ago.

It was then that Hamas foiled a coup plot by its chief rival, Fatah, backed by the United States. The flight of many Gazan members of Fatah to the West Bank convinced Barak that Israel's lengthy blockade of the tiny enclave alone would not bring Hamas to heel.

Barak began expanding the blockade to include shortages of electricity and fuel. It was widely assumed that this was designed to pressure the civilian population of Gaza to rebel against Hamas. However, it may also have been a central plank of Barak's military strategy: any general knows that it is easier to fight an army -- or in this case a militia -- that is tired, cold and hungry. More so if the fighters' family and friends are starving too.

A few months later, Barak's loyal deputy, Matan Vilnai, made his now infamous comment that, should the rocket fire continue, Gazans would face a "shoah" -- the Hebrew word for holocaust.

The shoah remark was quickly disowned, but at the same time Barak and his team began proposing to the cabinet tactics that could be used in a military assault.

These aggressive measures were designed to "send Gaza decades into the past," as the head of the army command in Gaza, Yoav Galant, described Israel's attack on its opening day.

The plan, as the local media noted in March, required directing artillery fire and air strikes at civilian neighborhoods from which rockets were fired, despite being a violation of international law. Legal advisers, Barak noted, were seeking ways to avoid such prohibitions, presumably in the hope the international community would turn a blind eye.

One early success on this front were the air strikes against police stations that opened the offensive and killed dozens. In international law, policemen are regarded as non-combatants -- a fact that was almost universally overlooked.

But Israel has also struck a range of patently civilian targets, including government buildings, universities, mosques and medical clinics, as well as schools. It has tried to argue, with less success, that the connection between these public institutions and Hamas, the enclave's ruler, make them legitimate targets.

A second aspect of the military strategy was to declare areas of Gaza "combat zones" in which the army would have free rein and from which residents would be expected to flee. If they did not, they would lose their civilian status and become legitimate targets.

That policy already appears to have been implemented in the form of aerial leafleting campaigns warning residents to leave such areas as Rafah and northern Gaza. In the past few days Israeli commanders have been boasting about the extreme violence they are using in these locations.

The goal in both Rafah and northern Gaza may be to ensure that they remain largely unpopulated: in the case of Rafah, to make tunneling to Egypt harder; and in the northern Strip, from which rockets have been fired at longer ranges, to ensure they do not reach Tel Aviv.

In a third phase such tactics would probably be significantly extended as the army pushed onwards. Swathes of Gaza might be declared closed military zones, with their residents effectively herded into the main population centers.

As Barak was unveiling his strategy a year ago, the interior minister, Meir Sheetrit, suggested that the army "decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it." If a third phase begins, it remains to be seen whether Israel will pursue such measures.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

This article originally appeared in The National published in Abu Dhabi and is republished with permission.

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Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood

View From a Palestinian Leader: Mustafa Barghouti

This is a guest post written by Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative. These comments and views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Washington Note or Huffington Post. Barghouti is a former secular candidate for President of Palestine and has been a strong advocate of non-violent responses to Israeli occupation. Barghouti is thought by many to be a leading contender in the next Palestinian presidential election. The Washington Note has also solicited perspectives from various national leaders and incumbent Knesset leaders in Israel.

Here is a link to an interview that Steve Clemons did with Barghouti in July 2008 regarding Barack Obama's trip to Israel and Palestine.

Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood

The Israeli campaign of 'death from above' began around 11 am, on Saturday morning, the 27th of December, and stretched straight through the night into this morning. The massacre continues Sunday as I write these words.

The bloodiest single day in Palestine since the War of 1967 is far from over following on Israel's promised that this is 'only the beginning' of their campaign of state terror. At least 290 people have been murdered thus far, but the body count continues to rise at a dramatic pace as more mutilated bodies are pulled from the rubble, previous victims succumb to their wounds and new casualties are created by the minute.

What has and is occurring is nothing short of a war crime, yet the Israeli public relations machine is in full-swing, churning out lies by the minute.

Once and for all it is time to expose the myths that they have created.

1. Israelis have claimed to have ended the occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

While Israel has indeed removed the settlements from the tiny coastal Strip, they have in no way ended the occupation. They remained in control of the borders, the airspace and the waterways of Gaza, and have carried out frequent raids and targeted assassinations since the disengagement.

Furthermore, since 2006 Israel has imposed a comprehensive siege on the Strip. For over two years, Gazans have lived on the edge of starvation and without the most basic necessities of human life, such as cooking or heating oil and basic medications. This siege has already caused a humanitarian catastrophe which has only been exacerbated by the dramatic increase in Israeli military aggression.

2. Israel claims that Hamas violated the cease-fire and pulled out of it unilaterally.

Hamas indeed respected their side of the ceasefire, except on those occasions early on when Israel carried out major offensives in the West Bank. In the last two months, the ceasefire broke down with Israelis killing several Palestinians and resulting in the response of Hamas. In other words, Hamas has not carried out an unprovoked attack throughout the period of the cease-fire.

Israel, however, did not live up to any of its obligations of ending the siege and allowing vital humanitarian aid to resume in Gaza. Rather than the average of 450 trucks per day being allowed across the border, on the best days, only eighty have been allowed in - with the border remaining hermetically sealed 70% of the time. Throughout the supposed 'cease-fire' Gazans have been forced to live like animals, with a total of 262 dying due to the inaccessibility of proper medical care.

Now after hundreds dead and counting, it is Israel who refuses to re-enter talks over a cease-fire. They are not intent on securing peace as they claim; it is more and more clear that they are seeking regime change - whatever the cost.

3. Israel claims to be pursuing peace with 'peaceful Palestinians'.

Before the on-going massacre in the Gaza Strip, and throughout the entirety of the Annapolis Peace Process, Israel has continued and even intensified its occupation of the West Bank. In 2008, settlement expansion increased by a factor of 38, a further 4,950 Palestinians were arrested - mostly from the West Bank, and checkpoints rose from 521 to 699.

Furthermore, since the onset of the peace talks, Israel has killed 546 Palestinians, among them 76 children. These gruesome statistics are set to rise dramatically now, but previous Israeli transgressions should not be forgotten amidst this most recent horror.

Only this morning, Israel shot and killed a young peaceful protester in the West Bank village of Nihlin, and has injured dozens more over the last few hours. It is certain that they will continue to employ deadly force at non-violent demonstrations and we expect a sizable body count in the West Bank as a result. If Israel is in fact pursuing peace with 'good Palestinians', who are they talking about?

4. Israel is acting in self-defense.

It is difficult to claim self defense in a confrontation which they themselves have sparked, but they are doing it anyway. Self-defense is reactionary, while the actions of Israel over the last two days have been clearly premeditated. Not only did the Israeli press widely report the ongoing public relations campaign being undertaken by Israel to prepare Israeli and international public opinion for the attack, but Israel has also reportedly tried to convince the Palestinians that an attack was not coming by briefly opening crossings and reporting future meetings on the topic. They did so to insure that casualties would be maximized and that the citizens of Gaza would be unprepared for their impending slaughter.

It is also misleading to claim self-defense in a conflict with such an overwhelming asymmetry of power. Israel is the largest military force in the region, and the fifth largest in the world. Furthermore, they are the fourth largest exporter of arms and have a military industrial complex rivaling that of the United States. In other words, Israel has always had a comprehensive monopoly over the use of force, and much like its super power ally, Israel uses war as an advertising showcase of its many instruments of death.

5. Israel claims to have struck military targets only.

Even while image after image of dead and mutilated women and children flash across our televisions, Israel brazenly claims that their munitions expertly struck only military installations. We know this to be false as many other civilian sites have been hit by airstrikes including a hospital and mosque.

In the most densely populated area on the planet, tons upon tons of explosives have been dropped. The first estimates of injured are in the thousands. Israel will claim that these are merely 'collateral damage' or accidental deaths. The sheer ridiculousness and inhumanity of such a claim should sicken the world community.

6. Israel claims that it is attacking Hamas and not the Palestinian people.

First and foremost, missiles do not differentiate people by their political affiliation; they simply kill everyone in their path. Israel knows this, and so do Palestinians. What Israel also knows, but is not saying publicly, is how much their recent actions will actually strengthen Hamas - whose message of resistance and revenge is being echoed by the angry and grieving.

The targets of the strike, police and not Hamas militants, give us some clue as to Israel's mistaken intention. They are hoping to create anarchy in the Strip by removing the pillar of law and order.

7. Israel claims that Palestinians are the source of violence.

Let us be clear and unequivocal. The occupation of Palestine since the War of 1967 has been and remains the root of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Violence can be ended with the occupation and the granting of Palestine's national and human rights. Hamas does not control the West Bank and yet we remain occupied, our rights violated and our children killed.

With these myths understood, let us ponder the real reasons behind these airstrikes; what we find may be even more disgusting than the act itself.

The leaders Israel are holding press conferences, dressed in black, with sleeves rolled up.

'It's time to fight', they say, 'but it won't be easy.'

To prove just how hard it is, Livni, Olmert and Barack did not even wear make-up to the press conference, and Barak has ended his presidential campaign to focus on the Gaza campaign. What heroes...what leaders...

We all know the truth: the suspension of the electioneering is exactly that - electioneering.

Like John McCain's suspension of his presidential campaign to return to Washington to 'deal with' the financial crisis, this act is little more than a publicity stunt.

The candidates have to appear 'tough enough to lead', and there is seemingly no better way of doing that than bathing in Palestinian blood.

'Look at me,' Livni says in her black suit and unkempt hair, 'I am a warrior. I am strong enough to pull the trigger. Don't you feel more confident about voting for me, now that you know I am as ruthless as Bibi Netanyahu?'

I do not know which is more disturbing, her and Barack, or the constituency they are trying to please.

In the end, this will in no way improve the security of the average Israeli; in fact it can be expected to get much worse in the coming days as the massacre could presumably provoke a new generation of suicide bombers.

It will not undermine Hamas either, and it will not result in the three fools, Barack, Livni and Olmert, looking 'tough'. Their misguided political venture will likely blow up in their faces as did the brutally similar 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

In closing, there is another reason - beyond the internal politics of Israel - why this attack has been allowed to occur: the complicity and silence of the international community.

Israel cannot and would not act against the will of its economic allies in Europe or its military allies in the US. Israel may be pulling the trigger ending hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives this week, but it is the apathy of the world and the inhumane tolerance of Palestinian suffering which allows this to occur.

'The evil only exists because the good remain silent'

From Occupied Palestine. . .

-- Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi

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