Israel Halts Decades-Old Practice of Demolishing Militants' Homes

NY Times ^ | February 18, 2005 | GREG MYRE

[neverdem]

JERUSALEM, Feb. 17 - Israel ordered a halt on Thursday to the policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinian militants, a step welcomed by Palestinian and human rights groups.

The decision by Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, suspends a practice that Israel has employed on and off for decades despite harsh international criticism of it as collective punishment.

A military statement did not say why the policy was being changed, but the newspaper Haaretz reported on its Web site that Maj. Gen. Udi Shani, who headed a committee reviewing the matter, had challenged the existing military position that demolitions were an effective deterrent. It said he had concluded that the policy had caused Israel more harm than good by generating hatred among the Palestinians.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, offered a slightly different explanation, saying the demolitions were not regarded as necessary during a period of relative calm.

"House demolitions are just one measure of deterrence, and at present, it doesn't play the same role that it did previously," the military official said. "It's not something we consider necessary at this time."

Palestinians and human rights groups hailed the change.

"Finally the Israelis will stop destroying homes; this is good," said Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a physician and human rights activist who finished second in last month's election for president of the Palestinian Authority. "This policy was counterproductive, and it was innocent people who were most often harmed."

Since the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting began in September 2000, Israel has destroyed 675 Palestinian homes as punishment for Palestinian attacks, leaving 4,239 people homeless, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Typically, Israel has responded to a major Palestinian terror attack, like a suicide bombing, by sending armored bulldozers to flatten the house in which the bomber lived. The relatives of the bomber were sometimes given only a few minutes notice and would leave the home with only the items they could carry.

As the house demolitions became increasingly common, some Palestinian families, upon learning that a relative had been involved in a bombing, would not wait for a warning from the Israelis or the roar of bulldozers. They would begin racing to remove furniture and other contents from their home in the expectation that the military would arrive at any moment.

The Israeli move comes in the wake of the truce announced last week by Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Thursday's decision is in keeping with a series of good-will gestures recently announced by the two sides. But the Israeli military said the army's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, had ordered a military committee to review the house demolition policy four months ago.

At the committee's recommendation, Israel will "stop exercising the legal right to demolish terrorists' houses as a means of deterrence," the military said in a statement.

It added that the decision could be re-examined "if an extreme change in circumstances takes place."

Israeli security officials said there had been cases in which Palestinian fathers turned in their sons to the Israeli or Palestinian authorities to prevent the youths from carrying out attacks, which in turn would have resulted in Israel's demolition of the family home.

By employing a range of tough tactics and by building a security barrier inside parts of the West Bank, Israel's security forces have greatly reduced the number of Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks since they peaked in 2002.

With Palestinians carrying out fewer attacks, Israel has been tearing down fewer homes in recent months.

Mr. Sharon pledged last week not to carry out military operations in the Palestinian areas as long as calm prevailed, a promise that might have been interpreted to include a halt to house demolitions.

Still, the Israeli announcement carries a great deal of symbolism.

Israel has destroyed nearly 2,500 Palestinian homes as punishment and deterrence since capturing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, according to B'Tselem, the human rights group.

"It's a bittersweet victory, a confirmation of what we've been saying all along," said Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the head of Rabbis for Human Rights, referring to the report that the army had decided demolitions were ineffective as deterrents.

"There was never any substantial evidence that house demolitions provided a deterrent effect," he said. "It also seemed that they actually created more hatred and perhaps even the next generation of suicide bombers."

Israel stopped tearing down Palestinian homes as punishment for attacks after the two sides held peace talks following an interim peace agreement in 1993. But after the Palestinians launched their uprising in 2000, producing an unprecedented wave of suicide bombings, Israel resumed the practice.

Thursday's decision did not touch on other types of house demolitions.

In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip along the border with Egypt, Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops have waged almost daily gun battles in recent years.

Israel has torn down homes close to the border that the gunmen were using for cover, as well as houses that had weapons-smuggling tunnels linked to Egypt. Some 1,500 homes have been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable in Rafah, according to a survey conducted last year by Human Rights Watch, a group based in New York.

Also, Israel often levels Palestinian homes built without permits, which Palestinians say are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain in places like East Jerusalem.

Rabbi Ascherman estimated that at least 80 Palestinian homes were torn down in Jerusalem last year because the builders did not have permits.

[MplsSteve]

Now only if the Wakf will stop their underground destruction of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem...

[sheik yerbouty]

In the end, it will be the Waqf that will be destroyed..

[American in Israel]

Too bad, the land surrencers under the "road map" with the doubling of the mad money fund in the terrorists hands combined with the immunity from the police and the upping of the payoffs from Syria to 100,000 bucks each, there will be a much hotter summer in Jerusalem this year.

All the better to make peace with my dear...

[Convert from ECUSA]

"Now only if the Wakf will stop their underground destruction of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem."

Sadly, I doubt that the Wakf will stop. They won't even begin to be satisfied until they've done to the Temple Mount what they've done to Bethlehem and to Joseph's Tomb.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[sheik yerbouty]

Maybe the Waqf should get whacked..

[Convert from ECUSA]

You mean something like this?

[sheik yerbouty]

Yup! "What is best in life?" To crush the jihadisyts, to drive their collaborators before you, and to hear the lamentations of their mullahs! Allahu Fubar!

[sheik yerbouty]

Kapo hardly covers it, in light of the fact that they should now know better.