As fifty children lose their homes under the auspices of the Supreme Court the question should be asked: Does the Supreme Court act in the service of a racist ideology in the spirit of Rabbi Eliyahu and his cohorts?
One morning, when the storm started shaking the treetops and the dogs howled in terror because of the thunders and the flashes of lightning, fifty children of different ages went out to school in the city of Lod, Israel. During the day most of them worked diligently on their studies, hoping the storm would abate so they could go back safely to the home where they were born and raised. To the sound of the bell announcing the end of the day they all set off running back home. The tempest intensified, and with it the will to find oneself in the warmth of one’s home; in the warmth of the seven homes of their extended family – the Abu Eid family.
A student returns to a destroyed home in Lod. (Photo: alarab.net)
But when they got home, the home was utterly destroyed. Fifty children stood shocked in front of their seven demolished homes, the uprooted palm tree and the water bursting out of the broken pipe; they stood frozen in front of the offhandedly thrown out furniture and the cries of their mothers facing the destructive power all by themselves. And who is it that had destroyed their home? It was not the tempest that wrecked the homes of the fifty children, nor was it the conflagration of forest fires; the culprits were demolition contractors of the Judeo-democratic State of Israel, backed by the Judeo-democratic Supreme Court, who utterly destroyed the children’s homes, accompanied by the gloating looks on the faces of their Jewish neighbors.
Could it be that the Court did not consider the welfare of the children, citizens of the state, only because of their Palestinian ethnicity? Now that the slogan for the Judaization of Lod is back, may we suspect the Supreme Court of once again taking an active part in the crimes of racism and in the renewing of the Nakba?
When hip hop band DAM’s Suhell Nafar and I arrived, everything was already in ruins: heaps of rubble in the heart of the neighborhood for all to see and beware. Suhell photographed the ruins. I wiped a tear. But rage is in order here, not pity. We must be strong and think of ways to struggle. Meanwhile, a protest tent and a shelter for the families have been set up nearby. The demolishers did not leave a house or two for the families to take refuge in, nor did they wait for the spring in order to alleviate the suffering. It seems they wanted the destruction to be as painful and humiliating as possible.
Thinking about Transfer
There are many forces in the Israeli politics which hope the Palestinians in Israel will rebel, and so in due course it should be possible to expel them from the country. They say they do not seek a final solution, as they oppose genocide; they are not barbarians. They only want to make sure the Arabs don’t multiply like rabbits on Israel’s holy land. That’s why there are loyalty laws; that’s why there is constant encroachment upon their living space; that’s why more and more actions that distance the Arab citizens of Israel from the state are taking place.
Destroying a home is a cruel action in any context, but it’s even crueler when it serves to emphasize who is allowed to stay in their home even without permission and who isn’t. The Supreme Court is aware of the neighboring Jewish neighborhood, Ganei Aviv, which was approved retrospectively. The Supreme Court is aware of the fact that for the Jewish neighborhood a bridge was built over the railroad tracks so that Jewish children would not be run over, while for the Arabs the railroad was laid inside the neighborhood without a single bridge. The Supreme Court is aware of the neighborhoods which are being built for the religious settlers in Lod instead of a luxurious neighborhood for these Arabs whose land the state covets.
The Supreme Court knows that in the mixed cities of Jaffa, Acre and Lod cruel creeping deprivation of Israeli citizens of Palestinian ethnicity of what is theirs is taking place.
The Court knows and collaborates. With my own eyes I saw Her Honor Dorit Beinisch de facto and retrospectively approving a blatantly illegal new settler neighborhood situated on the robbed land of Bil’in. One cannot but wonder why she won’t retroactively approve a neighborhood of Palestinians in Lod, where they’ve been living for decades.
I accuse the Supreme Court of the State of Israel of being a loyal servant of a racist ideology which does not differ much from the racism of the rabbis who have signed the manifesto of the Israeli Nuremberg Laws. Like the court in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, which bends the civil law in favor of the Christian ruler in order to harm Shylock the Jew, the Supreme Court in our reality has become a verbal whitewashing machine for occupation and plundering on a nationalist basis.
Does Judge Beinisch really believe that there is a fundamental difference between expulsion under the guise of democracy and expulsion under the guise of theocracy? Is there a difference between the Jewish National Fund, which forbids leasing lands to Arabs on nationalist grounds, and the fascist rabbi Eliyahu of Safed, who forbids it on religious grounds? For the Palestinian, they are both parts of the same well-oiled machine, which advances his banishment from the public space and preserves him as a stranger in his homeland.
Memories from Shakespeare
A month ago I saw Al Pacino playing the role of his life as Shylock on Broadway. Having deprived him of all his possessions, the enlightened people of Venice forced him to be baptized Christian. The director had added a shocking scene, which does not appear in Shakespeare’s play. In the scene we see the people of Venice baptizing the defeated Shylock. Al Pacino comes out of his baptism wet and humiliated, bent and helpless before the “mighty and merciful” ruler who had spared his life having taken his home, his faith and his dignity.
Despondently, Shylock picks up his fallen skullcap from the floor, puts it back on his head, and stares at the complacent people of Venice. The stare begins despondent and defeated, but it strengthens and sharpens and says: I, Shylock, adherent of the Mosaic faith, believe in a jealous and vengeful God; I shall return to take what’s lawfully mine.
On that cursed day of destruction, Mahmoud – one of the fifty children who left home in the morning and got back to heaps of rubble – lost his dog; it was shot. The look on his father’s face, seeing his son kneeling on the doorstep of his destroyed home, holding the body of his slain dog in his arms, was like Shylock’s despondent look, staring at the people of Venice, pleased with their ability to exploit the weak under their advanced constitution. And the look defies us and says: I am here for all eternity; I am a Palestinian.
This article is from Udi Aloni's Brooklyn-Jenin column he is writing for the Israeli website Ynet about his experience living between New York City and the Jenin refugee camp, where he is teaching a film production class. You can read the entire Brooklyn-Jenin series here.
You shall know the racist bigots by their sunglasses.
Israel is a total nightmare.
All the immoral actions and policies clearly confirm Israel is an apartheid state.
What a continuous and brutal message for these Palestinian children, You are less than, you are disposable, and few will do anything about it. Israel is a brutal murderous state.
You can sure as hell bet that Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann etc will not be covering the bulldozing/destruction of these homes. They have to stay focused on gay rights, protesters in Iran (Rachel is part of the warmongering team) and the latest thing Sarah Palin said. No time for human rights issues in Israel or the Palestinian territories
This is what the Cossacks used to do during their regular pogroms against the shtetls of the Pale of Commonwealth.
And now that it’s Jews doing it in the Promised Land we are supposed to accept it. It wasn’t right then and it ain’t right now.
Thank you for this report, which so eloquently and honestly portrays the “State of Disunion” in the Unholy Land in these dark, dark days.
No words can express the horror and agony I experience when reading this. My holiday wish is that every simpleton in the United States Congress would be forced to spend one hour at that destruction site, look in those children’s eyes, hear these stark, deeply disturbing facts from their mouths, and be held accountable. And be made to understand that this is truly not an exceptional situation in today’s Israel but rather the routine, collectively sanctioned, stuff of daily life for those who are unfortunate enough to be of the wrong religious/ethnic heritage in their own homeland.
I would like to see the members of the US Congress come home from a session of attacking peace and justice to find their own homes in rubble, their own children crying, their own pets shot.
It’s easy to maintain indifference from a position of impunity.
hello?? RachelGolem?? Are you out there??
AND IN PALESTINE!
* in a comment subsequent to RachelGolems expression of of concern for the mothers and children of Israel, US, England, etc., Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs statistics were displayed for Rachelgolem’s education, to inform her that in the past several years, approx. twice as many Israelis have been killed in auto crashes in FOUR MONTHS, as were killed by “terrorists” in the past two years.
PG, you should give those statistics to the family of Christine Logan.
PG,
she wasn’t talking about terror attacks in Israel, but world wide. Islamic terrorism is a global reality, that is the point she was trying to make.
Please Shingo spare me your talking points about Israeli terrorism, I know all about it, and deflection is a poor way to debate someone.
Speaking of deflection, do you have anything to say at all about the demolition of these children’s houses, done for purely racist reasons? Just fine and dandy with you, yonira? A fine example of the best of the Jewish State, you think? Unable to cry even crocodile tears?
I don’t think it’s a “State of Disunion”, the “right” ones are unified in their ultimate goals. It is a State of Contempt of those who are the wrong ethnicity or religion. Exemplified in the laws and the attitudes of the majority of those who have a vote in the real government from the river to the sea.
Can you imagine if Rep Weiner ever applied this righteous indignation to the I/P issue in support of justice for the Palestinians. Man this guy is passionate. Just applies this passion so selectively
link to youtube.com
And yet the non-Jewish population remains and remains, one way or another way, and slowly grows and grows. The plan isn’t working.
“There are many forces in the Israeli politics which hope the Palestinians in Israel will rebel, and so in due course it should be possible to expel them from the country. ”
Locking up non violent organizers and protesters for decades is one way to fuel potential violence
The Palestinians aren’t going to leave. Israelis think their state is eternal. It isn’t. Not with those demographics, habibi. 1967 was the greatest mistake. Especially conquering GAZA and bringing those numbers back on balance sheet.
i wish everyone the world over would read this post. thank you Udi Aloni. and for this:
amen
link to tau.ac.il
Just came across this on JSF, thanks to commenter “Andrew R.”
Udi Alon has every right to criticize the Israeli supreme court. In fact, his criticism was first published in the leading Israeli news site, ynet. However, it would be taken more seriously if someone like his mother, Sholamit Aloni, a known jurist and former leader of Meretz would analyze the legal precedents and explain how the court reached its decision and if it is really flawed. I do not have the expertise to read the court transcripts for the different cases Udi Alon describes and see if there is a real legal flaw here. Perhaps there is, but since I know Beinish is an utra-liberal this seems unlikely to me.
I do not have the expertise to read the court transcripts for the different cases Udi Alon describes and see if there is a real legal flaw here. Perhaps there is, but…. this seems unlikely to me.
At the risk of stating the glaringly obvious, the flaw is not with the “legal logic.” Any law that would sanction such a heinous action and give it legitimacy is by definition fatally flawed and should not be allowed to stand in a civilized society, most certainly not in one that struts and preens itself as a “democracy.”
Take a deep breath and two steps back.
In Sweden for example about 1000 children are evicted from their homes each year:
link to thelocal.se
About one million kids in the US are homeless, about 10000 in Australia:
link to homeless.org.au
So are these countries not democracies?
All countries allow evicting families with children. But of course, you single out Israel.
But of course, you single out Israel.
This is what you heard, not what I wrote. We happened to be discussing Israel (the topic of your original comment). What I said was meant to apply to the situation in Israel but also more broadly, to any such law in any country, any democracy. Inflicting state-sanctioned lifelong trauma upon a child is a crime against humanity in my view, whether it happens in the US, Sweden, China, or Outer Mongolia.
That the state of Israel, its government and its institutions discriminate against a specific ethnic group doesn’t bother you in the least. Perhaps if you considered the Palestinians to be human beings, you’d afford them the courtesy of understanding the injustice that you and yours perpetuate. In fact, it’s your very existence that stands in the way of justice for your views are no different than those of the Afrikaners of yesteryear or the slave owners of the colonies. As for all your diatribes and smug tirades, perhaps if you took a deep breath, you’d see what a barbarian you are.
Of course, in this case these children were not evicted. They had all their homes and belonging demolished, and one child had his dog shot. (And then, in one more obscenity, they will be charged for the cost of the demolition.) All because of the racism of Israel which denies its Palestinian citizen’s building permits and then demolishes the un-permitted buildings, while looking the other way when Jews build without authority or permit. If you can’t understand that is a serious and cruel step beyond an eviction from an apartment, which does not entail such massive destruction and violence, then you are too deeply enmeshed in your need to justify everything Israel does to recognize immorality when you see it.
‘take a deep breath’
done.
‘two steps back’
OK…now I can barely reach the keyboard.
“In Sweden for example about 1000 children are evicted from their homes each year:….”
So, it’s OK for Israel to do so against one ethnic group so it can continue annexing/changing demographics/etc. Swell.
I don’t get how bijou’s taking two steps back helped, unless you’re trying to help him overcome his unfortunate ability to read.
Wow. Great argument: but mama they do it so why can’t I?
WTF is this ? the latest hasbara ?
Does the Swedish state demolish the homes of Jewish kids because they are Jewish?
And these 1000 children freeze to death in harsh Nordic winters…
This is not a complete picture, to put it mildly. I presume that if you cannot afford mortgage or high rent you can get evicted in most countries, but in Scandinavia they will surely provide a family with children with a communal flat (commune = local administrative unit, like “council housing” in UK).
Clearly, Arabs/Palestinians are deprived of construction permits and the policy is clearly to “Judaize”. No minority in Europe is subjected to such a treatment, even if minorities in many countries have reasons to complain about nationalistic governments. The sheer amount of intellectual energy that goes to comprehensive mistreatment in Israel is astounding. Yes, welfare of Arab minority is very much a concern. The recent famous letter of “50 rabbis” was pronouncing loudly what Knesset passed in much more neutral sounding language just weeks earlier.
Avi,
Yes of course, Israelis are racist barbarians.
Perhaps if you looked at the world around you a little more you would notice a thing called reality.
…and not a word about the actual crime of demolishing homes and leaving people homeless.
That’s why discussion here just plain sucks, and I’m repulsed by the fact that the people who run this site can be bothered to stand up to clowns like eee. Or that Jewish Americans, generally, can’t stand up to them either.
This is my last word on the discussion for a long, long time. I see no chance for reform from within the Jewish American community. Not while people like eee, WJ, Witty and yonira pull the levers, handle the checkbooks and presume to speak for “the Jews.”
Chaos,
the whole POINT of this site is that they do not speak for ‘the Jews’.
I may have stopped replying to RW because he waffles and doesn’t get to the point fast enough, and I really don’t have the patience to read his tired comments and get all riled up.
The others, on the other hand, don’t do the same, and at the same time I see the benefit in the replies that they generate.
I see a chance, as I see it Phil and Adam are trying to breach the major resistance coming from the within the Jewish community on this issue.
It’s only beginning to get interesting, Chaos.
Don’t let a muppet like eee stop you. That is his whole point.
Silence the telepaths so Israel gets another generation of sheep to replace the current ones in Congress.
His last reply I will have printed on a tshirt I’ll wear to Hebron the day the Jewish settlers there are kicked out.
3e,
You have said absolutely nothing of substance in this comment. You offer no evidence that Aloni’s assertion regarding the unequal application of the law in Lod, Ganei Aviv and elsewhere is false, and in fact excuse yourself from doing so, because you “do not have the expertise”. But Aloni is probably wrong, because “Beinish is an ultra-liberal” (although Aloni cites a decidedly unliberal ruling by Beinish in the case of Bil’in).
You have to laugh at clowns like 3e. Ignoring the substance of this horrendous article, they scour the globe to find something they can point to and claim ‘look, they do it too’. Except, invariably, they don’t do it like the Israelis – the Swedish article refers to the consequences of rent arrears in the private sector; the homeless statistics in other countries may well be a matter of shame, but they are not the result of deliberate government policies to demolish houses. Really, the old tactic of finding some (invariable wrong) parallel to Israeli state racism as if it justifies it, must be either the last action of desperate men, or simply a blatant attempt at derailing the discussion. If you want to claim parallels, about the only available ones would be the old South African apartheid regime, the Chinese action in Tibet, or the Burmese treatment of monks and dissidents. Now, if that is your benchmark, and you think because they do it, we can do it too, I pity you.
Shmuel,
Has Aloni himself said anything of substance from the legal side? Does he explain the differences between the cases which I am sure there were? What is the problem, find a jurist to write an informative case study and then people will take it seriously. But why would I take what he wrote seriously as he is has no legal expertise? I am not an expert either and have no time to chase every claim made by somebody. Given Beinish’s record, what Udi Alon is saying is suspect to me.
Yes, eee, Israel is just enforcing building codes. How can anyone argue with that? Of course, let’s not mention that Israel doesn’t grant Palestinians building permits and also doesn’t bother to enforce building codes when it comes to illegal settler construction. It doesn’t take a lawyer to understand what is happening. The racism and hyprocracy are obvious to anyone who is not smoking Ziocaine.
“The director had added a shocking scene, which does not appear in Shakespeare’s play.”
I’m SO glad that someone has finally realised what a crap playwright Shakespeare was, and that his work needs serious revision in order to make it fit propaganda requirements.
(And if I seem to be a bit OT, that’s because the topic is too appalling for me to produce any comment. I just want to cover my eyes.)