Haaretz
Adar1 12, 5765
At the end of last week, the defense minister and
the army realized they had made a small mistake: It turns out that
demolishing homes in the territories is not a deterrent, and might even do
harm.
Acting on recommendations from a military committee headed by
Major General Udi Shani that reached those astounding conclusions, Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered an end to the punitive practice of house
demolitions. The outgoing chief of staff should be praised for appointing
the committee and the minister who adopted its recommendations, but they
should also be told: Shame on you, you and all the chiefs of staff and
generals who for decades were behind that mass destruction. Shame on the
prime ministers and defense ministers who backed it up and shame on the
heads of the Shin Bet who gave the precise orders, and shame on the High
Court that rejected dozens of petitions against the demolitions, with
disgustingly blind support for the defense establishment's position, and
shame on the media that rarely reported on the demolitions and hardly ever
criticized them.
They were all partners to one of the worst deeds
ever committed by Israel, especially because of its enormous scope.
According to B'Tselem, since the start of the current intifada, the IDF
demolished 675 houses for punitive purposes; more than 4,000 people were
left homeless. For each person who took part in a terror action, 12
innocent people were harmed.
Despite these numbers, the High Court,
the watchtower of justice, stubbornly refused to define the demolitions as
collective punishment. Over time, the criteria for the punishment were
eased. From demolishing only the homes of suicide bombers, the criteria
were loosened to the demolition of practically anyone suspected of
terror.
To those, add the victims of "exposure," meaning razing
away the houses and buildings by the sides of roads and near settlements
and outposts to prevent sneak attacks. The committee did not deal with the
results of those actions, but the dimensions should be known. According to
UNRWA, as of last September, the IDF had demolished 2,370 houses in Gaza,
leaving some 23,000 people homeless. According to B'Tselem, in 2004 alone,
the IDF demolished 1,356 homes for "exposure" purposes, leaving 10,418
people homeless.
With such data it is difficult to make do with a
recommendation to cease the criminal behavior and move on to the next item
on the agenda. Will nobody pay for the army's years-long "mistake"?
Shouldn't the victims be compensated?
Behind every demolished home
there is a family whose life was destroyed. It is difficult to understand
for those who have never seen a bulldozer pull down a house, nearly always
with everything inside, including the memories and the mementos between
its walls, in most cases in front of the children who are always innocent
and will carry the trauma in their hearts for the rest of their lives. The
army imposed this terrible and arbitrary punishment without giving those
punished a reasonable chance for self-defense. According to B'Tselem, in
97 percent of the cases, the people being punished were not given enough
time to petition the court.
Actually, it is not clear why the chief
of staff asked Shani to examine the efficacy of the demolitions. All he
had to do was read a B'Tselem report from September 1989, to reach the
conclusions he did after 15 more years of destruction. It is also not
clear why Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon made do with examining only the
demolitions for the sake of punishment, and ignored the main reason for
the house destruction of recent years, which the IDF conducts with
intolerable ease in Rafah, Khan Yunis, Beit Hanun and Jenin. Morally,
there is no difference: the main harm is to the innocent.
Morally,
did we say? How typical that the Shani report only deals with the efficacy
of the demolitions. Would it be an exaggeration to expect an IDF
committee, headed by a general, to say something about morality? Is the
only measure of any action its efficacy? But if that is the only measure
to be examined, then note should be taken of the fact that the terror
flourished in the rubble of the demolitions we left behind.
Much of
the responsibility is the High Court of Justice's. In the first intifada,
the court rejected 30 petitions against house demolitions. What will
Justice Aharon Barak say now, after ruling more than once that the
demolitions were meant "to deter people who upset the public order," (as
in HCJ 126/38), after the army itself admits that it made a mistake? Will
he continue giving automatic backing to the defense establishment? Will he
find the courage to apologize?
How long does it take to demolish a
house? asked S. Yizhar in Davar in 1988, when authors still asked piercing
questions here. "Less than the amount of time it took to think about
whether to demolish it. How long does it take to think about demolishing
it? Less than the ringing of the telephone that ordered the demolition.
One push and it is gone. A hole gapes open in the familiar surroundings,
and the family that has substance and a name and an address and people of
all ages and relationships suddenly turns into a fable: The punished - at
night, nobody sees where the family that was demolished goes. Nobody knows
what they are doing now. And where they now sit in some corner where
uprooted people go with their belongings under empty, heavy skies. Is
anything being written about them now in one little corner?"
The
light suddenly revealed to the army about the demolitions does raise hope.
Maybe, years from now, an IDF committee will come to the conclusion that
the assassinations were not efficient and that practice will stop, another
committee will decide that the checkpoints were ineffective, and they will
be taken down.
But until then we will continue in our blindness,
establishing committees that reach the correct conclusions, but always
terribly late.