The Meaning of Israel’s Massive Housing Demolitions in East Jerusalem

• The Meaning of Israel’s Massive Housing Demolitions in East Jerusalem
  by JEFF HALPER, http://www.thenation.com/
  The act itself wasn’t unusual. Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes is a routine, almost daily occurrence. What set it apart was the scale, the impunity, and the political implications.
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  On July 22, the Israeli Civil Administration—that’s the Orwellian term Israel uses for its military government in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)—deployed 900 IDF soldiers and Border Police to demolish 13 apartment blocks, evicting 17 people in 70 apartments that were slated to house hundreds more in the Palestinian neighborhood of Wadi al-Hummus, to the southeast of Jerusalem.
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  The action in July had all the elements of the slow-moving but relentless process of demolition that has plagued Palestinian life in both the OPT and within Israeli itself these past seven decades: Israel’s use of zoning, planning, law, and a Kafkaesque bureaucracy as mechanisms for taking all the Palestinian land available for the natural expansion of their towns, cities, and villages, while freezing Palestinian building in 1948, in the case of Israel, and 1967, in the OPT; Palestinians expending great financial resources they do not have in lengthy but ultimately futile appeals to the courts; the inevitable demolition of homes in violent military and police operations that leave whole families (whose only crime is wanting decent housing on land they own) physically bruised, often arrested and fined heavily, psychologically traumatized, and financially ruined—then watching helplessly as homes for Jews served by modern roads and infrastructures arise on those very lands they once owned and cultivated, lands that represented a decent future life for them and their children.
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  And as in 99 percent of the approximately 140,000 Palestinian homes systematically demolished since 1948—52,000 in the Nakba and in its wake, 55,000 in the OPT since 1967, tens of thousands more within Israel from after the Nakba until today (for which we cannot get reliable figures)—the demolitions in Wadi al-Hummus had nothing to do with security, or legality. The story, much of it related by Amir Cheshin and Avi Melamed, both advisers on Arab affairs to former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, and Bill Hutman in their book Separate and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem is, briefly, this:
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  In 1967, Israel created a greatly expanded “east” Jerusalem out of lands taken from 28 Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank that were conquered from Jordan. Although the new “east” Jerusalem was 10 times larger than it had previously been, the idea was that the vast lands now incorporated into Jerusalem would be for exclusive Jewish use in order to “Judaize” the city, not to serve the needs of their Palestinian owners, or even remain for long in their hands. The Israeli planning authorities drew tight lines around the already built-up Palestinian neighborhoods and villages, declaring all the unbuilt-upon land, which had been used for agriculture or grazing and represented the only space into which the future Palestinian population could expand, “open green space.” This meant that Palestinians could own the land but not build upon it, since it was reserved for future urban development—i.e., future Jewish development. And the land, thus left unused, could easily be expropriated for Jewish settlement.
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  Today, when Palestinians make up almost 40 percent of the Jerusalem population, they still have access to only 8 percent of the urban land—and even there, they are routinely denied building permits. Lacking land, Palestinian “villages” in Jerusalem have become apartment blocks of five-to-10-story buildings jammed tightly together, with no green space, no infrastructure, no parking, no planning, and with whole families crammed into suffocating conditions. According to the draconian “Potential Housing Construction” policy adopted by the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Municipality, intended to maintain a 72-28 percent majority of Jews over Arabs in the city and to limit Palestinian construction to the already built-upon 8 percent, Arabs would be permitted to construct only tiny apartments in high-rise blocks on existing housing.
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• “In 2001, Dr. Ariella Oppenheim, of Hebrew University, a biologist, published the first extensive study of DNA and the origin of the Jews. Her research found that virtually all the Jews came from Khazar blood. Not only that but Oppenheim discovered that the Palestinians—the very people whom the Jews had been persecuting and ejecting from Israel’s land since 1948—had more Israelite blood than did the Jews. In sum, the vast majority of the Jews were not Jews; some of the Palestinians were. Some of the Palestinians even had a DNA chromosome which established that they were “Cohens”—workers at the ancient Temple and synagogues of the Jews.” – Quote

• Mr. Benjamin Freedman, a Jewish industrialist born in New York, wrote in the Economic Council Letter published there of October 15 1947: “These Eastern European Jews have neither a racial nor a historic connection with Palestine. Their ancestors were not inhabitants of the Promised Land. They are the direct descendants of the people of the Khazar Kingdom. The Khazars were a non-Semitic, Turko-Mongolian tribe.” Mr. Freedman was challenged, unwisely, by a Zionist objector; he invited his challenger to go with him to the Jewish room of the New York Public Library. There they could together examine the Jewish Encyclopedia volume I pp. 1-12, and the published works of Graetz, Dubnow, Friedlander, Raisin and many other noted Jewish historians, which, as well as other non-Jewish authorities, “establish the fact beyond all possible doubt”.’
  ~ Somewhere South of Suez (1950) pp349-350.”
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• See also:
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  The “Jews” Are Not The Seed of Abraham! How The Racial Hoax of The “Jews” Was Finally Exposed !
  Zionist Claim to Israel Unfounded ! Ashkenazi Jews are NOT Descendents of Israel !
  New DNA Research Confirms That Modern Khazarian “Jews” Are Not the Descendants of Ancient Isrealites or The Seed of Abraham!
  The End of The LIE ! 90+% of Modern Jewry are Non Semitic Ashkenazi Khazars! Not Real Jews! Not Descendents of 12 Tribes of Israel !
  New Genome Study Destroys Zionist Claims to Palestine! Koestler’s Khazar History Vindicated ! Zionists Design Myth of Jewish Genome to Usurp Palestine!
  Debate on European Jews’ Origin Settled? Koestler’s Khazarian Theory Vindicated !
  Ashkenazis ‘Self Styled’ Jews Are NOT the Descendants of the Ancient Israelites!
  Benjamin Freedman: Ashkenazi Khazars Self Style “Jews” Are Not Semitic And Not The Biological Descendents of The 12 Tribes of Israel !
  The 13th Tribe of Khazaria! Ashkenazi Khazars Are Not The Jews of The Bible!
  Modern Ashkenazi Jews are not the Jews of the Bible!
  New Genetic Research Confirms Koestler’s “Khazar” Theory! Ashkenazi Jews Are Not The Jews of The Bible !
  Ashkenazi Jews are Turkic Khazars! They Are Not The Israelites of The Bible! Not The Biological Descendants of The 12 Tribes of Israel !

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