Israel’s policy of demolishing Palestinian homes is part and parcel of an overall policy of displacement in which 80% of the Palestinians have been pushed from what has become Israel. Almost half of the entire Palestinian people (those living in the Occupied Territories) are being confned to a truncated Bantustan. Millions of refugees continue to languish in camps and ‘Israeli Arabs’, Palestinian citizens of Israel, fnd their own status increasingly threatened. “In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don’t agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force.” Professor BenZion Dinur, Israel’s First Minister of Education, from History of the Haganah (1954) House demolitions have stood at the centre of Israel’s approach to ‘the Arab problem’ since the state’s conception. Between 1948 and 1954, Israel systematically demolished 418 Palestinian villages – 85% of all Palestine’s villages. Demolitions have been at the heart of the broad process of displacement (euphemistically dubbed ‘transfer’ by Israelis). The policy of house demolitions serves to confne Palestinians to small islands or is used to enhance Israeli ‘security’. It is also used as a form of collective punishment, either for ‘deterrence’ (demolishing homes of people accused of security ofences) or for purposes of intimidation. Throughout Israel proper, in the ‘unrecognised’ Palestinian and Bedouin villages, and in the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Ramle, Lod and other Arab Israeli towns and cities, houses continue to be demolished. Afer 1967, the process – and message – of displacement was carried across the Green Line into the occupied territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Israeli bulldozers have demolished more than 11,000 Palestinian homes since 1967. At least 2,000 houses were demolished in the afermath of the 1967 war – including four entire villages in the Latrun area (now known as ‘Canada Park’) and the Mughrabi Quarter in front of the Western Wall. In 1971 Ariel Sharon ordered 2,000 houses in the Gazan refugee camps to be razed to the ground. At least 2,000 houses were destroyed in the course of puting down the frst intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In April 2002 massive D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers laboured for three days to demolish over 300 homes at the heart of the densely- packed Jenin refugee camp. Data concerning house demolitions in the West Bank is problematic because there are no international agencies working systematically in the feld, because accessibility for Israeli organisations n n n n has become more difcult and because data published by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) lacks credibility. By expropriating land, blocking preparation of town planning schemes for Palestinian neighbourhoods and restricting building permits, the Jerusalem Municipality has caused a severe housing shortage. Many Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are forced to build without permits, only to fnd their houses are demolished by the Ministry of Interior and the Municipality. Forced to relocate to homes outside the city, they then lose their Jerusalem residency and are banished from the city forever. Nour Eldin Domiry spent 28 years working for the Israeli Civil Administration as a police offcer in Jerusalem. He has a large plaque and a shelf full of commendations for his faithful service. In April 2003, two months after retiring, his home – which he had fnanced from his life savings and a loan – was demolished. He had not obtained a permit for the house he had built as he could not afford the $20,000 fee demanded. The demolition team was led by his old boss. Amidst the wreckage of his old house he built a rickety, tin-roofed two-room house so he and his family would have a place to stay. He still owes the balance of the loan from his frst house and also owes a fne of $50 per square metre of his old house – the municipality’s standard demolition fee. His new dwelling now has a demolition order against it. He is unable to afford a lawyer as his new job as a security guard is so badly paid. His entire professional career was spent with an overwhelmingly Jewish organisation, the Jerusalem Police Department. If this is how Israel treats those who collaborate, what is it like for people who resist? Many of the thousands of Palestinians in the OPT facing demolition of their ‘illegal’ dwellings began building during the early years of the Oslo process in the mid 1990s. Encouraged by the prospects of peace, many returned to their home towns and House demolitions refect the refusal of Israel to acknowledge that there is another people living in the country with legitimate claims and rights of their own 28 PALESTINIAN DISPLACEMENT FMR 26 The message of the bulldozers by Jeff Halper A Palestinian girl searches through the rubble of her house in Nablus. Paul Jeffrey/ACT International