The Message of the Bulldozers

What bulldozers destroy, 200 settlements restored for 500,000 Jews in 150,000 housing units. It's on Palestinian agricultural land where zoning restrictions deny them building permits. Since 1967, Israel demolished over 18,000 Palestinian homes, a process now routine, and nearly always for no security reason. Halper calls it a "national obsession," collective punishment, in defiance of international law that Israel disdains. For Palestinians, it's traumatic and devastating. It renders men powerless and emasculating for being unable to provide a family home.

For women, it's worse - dispossession and loss of one's life that's like losing loved ones. Children as well are affected, traumatized, and rendered scared and insecure. It causes bed-wetting, nightmares, fear of abandonment, a drop in grades, leaving school, and exposure to domestic violence that results from parents' emotional upheaval.

Palestinians have no recourse. They get demolition notices. No formal legal, administrative process or orders accompany them. No warning or time to remove belongings. Barely time enough to escape alive, and at times not that when army policy destroys homes on top of residents suspected of being "wanted." Demolitions may be carried out immediately, months later or even years, and nearly always in early morning when inhabitants may be sleeping or at other times when they're most vulnerable.

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Read further The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Other reading An Israeli in Palestine.