The city of Lod has recently issued warrants of demolition against 7 houses,
all in the same block, at the outskirts of Shkhunat Samekh-Khet. Two houses
are already inhabited, and the rest are at the final stage of construction.
The prospective inhabitants have no alternative lodging, not being eligible
for municipal housing projects, as these projects exclude Arabs. They demand
that the million shekels allocated for the demolition be used to alleviate
the housing problem in the city, rather than to aggravate it. The houses
stand on privately owned land, registered since the British Mandate's time.
When the warrants were issued, a few weeks ago, the families learned that
their land had been appropriated in 1995. The owners were neither informed,
nor compensated at the time of the appropriation.
The policy of house demolitions is no mere beurocratic issue. Through rules
and regulations, Israel wages a persistent battle against its Arab citizens.
Accordingly, the municipality of Lod seems to aspire to cleanse the city of
its Arab residents. This aspiration, whether a fully articulated plan or a
mere pipe dream, recently acquired a powerful ally in the person of
demographic strategist Ariel Sharon, who since his July 2002 visit to the
city adopted several measures aimed at boosting the ratio of Jews in the
city's population, at the expense of Arab residents.
Thus, on July 21st,
the day before the demonstration, a news story about the prime minister's
plans for Lod that appeared in one of the inner pages of Haaretz' economy
supplement ended with: " ...as well as allocating land for the construction
of 600 housing units for armed forces veterans", that last designation being
Israeli code for "none-Arabs", as anyone familiar with local phraseology
can readily explain. Since then, the Central District's Planning and
Construction Committee has approved the construction of 489 additional
housing units in Ganei Aviv, a project currently comprising some 10,000
units, all off-limits for Arabs per the managing company's admission
guidelines. And so, the racist policy of land allocation that incurred the
outrage of many when brought to the limelight in the form of MK Druckman's
bill before the Knesset, is in actuality being implemented, day in and day
out, and attracting no more than cursory public attention.
The temporary burial of MK Druckman's bill did not free the Arab residents
of Lod of the daily struggle for the right to live in their city. During his
previous term in office, Mayor Maxim Levi offered Arab citizens monetary
incentive on the condition that they relocate to Taybeh, Kufr Qassem or
other Arab localities. This time around he opts for the opposite strategy,
that of driving them away by means of harassment and deliberate,
institutionalized housing shortage. Far from having the desired effect of
turning Lod into a thriving, middle class "Jewish Only" suburb, this policy
makes the city a bastion of oppression and persecution in the heart of
Israel.
On July 22nd, at 17:30, some 250 activists, both local and from out-of-town,
gathered in front of the mayor's office in Lod to protest house demolitions
in the city's Arab neighbourhoods. Soon thereafter the City's police
diverted the traffic away from the site of the demonstration, for no
apparent reason other than to minimize the effect of the protest.
The speakers at the demonstration were:
- Architect Haim Yaakobi (author of PhD dissertation treating Urban
planning in Lod)
- Jeff Halper (Israeli Committee against House Demolitions)
- Aref Muareb (Lod City Council)
- Prof. Oren Yifthachel (BGU Dept. of Geography)
- Dr. Mahmoud Muhareb (politburo of 'Tjammu, the National
Democratic Alliance party)
- Awde Bishara (secretary general of Hadash, The Democratic Front for
Peace and Equality party)
- Vera Reider (Ta'ayush Ramle-Lod team)
- Abu Swis (Ramle City Council)
- Dr. Itzhak Nevo (BGU Dept. of Philosophy)
The speakers expressed their satisfaction at the Arab-Jewish cooperation
and the participation of locals and others in planning and attending the
protest. This cooperation shows that members of the two communities can live
together in Lod, on terms of mutual respect and equality. Some of the
speakers analysed the factors that force Lod residents into breaking
construction laws, through denying them their basic right to a roof over
their heads. The speakers outlined the systematic discrimination in the
areas of housing and urban planning rights exercised in the city.
Haim Yaakobi referred to this as "Apartheid 20 minutes drive from Tel Aviv"
and Oren Yiftachel pointed out that there are currently 20,000 illegal
constructions in Jewish ownership in Israel, and yet the vast majority of
demolitions is that of Arab owned buildings. The speakers also outlined the
possibility of real development of the city , that will equitably meet the
needs of all residents. Such development, they say, can cure one of the most
problematic cities in Israel of its ailments, and put it on a par with other
cities in the region. Finally, the speakers called upon the Lod police
department to stop its brutal treatment of Arab residents and deal with the
city's real problems -- the high crime rate and prevalent drug dealing --
rather than harass citizens whose only crime is their wish to live in their
own homes.
The Lod police contributed to the effort of persecution by stifling any
attempt at protesting the demolitions. In an event of blatant breach of
their freedom of speech, 9 Ta'ayush activists and one resident of Shkhunat
Samekh-Khet were taken into custody on Thursday, July 4th, while preparing
signs for a peaceful protest vigil which they intended to hold outside the
mayor's office. Half a day later they were released on bail at the Ramle
court, by Justice of Peace Nava Kaplinski. The terms stated forbade them to
enter the city of Lod for a period of 15 days. At the appeal heard 12 days
later at the District Court in Tel Aviv, Judge Shelly Timmen overruled the
court's previous decision, reinstating their freedom of movement and thus
permitting them to return to Lod, where they again met with local activists
and took active part in planning the joint protest against house demolitions
-- just what the police aimed to prevent them from doing by means of the
requested terms of bail.
On the day of the demonstration we experienced another instance of police
harassment when one of our activists, who had filed the request for the
police permit for the event, was detained for interrogation at the police
station on the pretext of "breach of terms of permit" -- an utterly
unfounded claim. This, as well as the fact that the police took pictures of
local residents who attended the protest, thereby -- as Lod residents
suspect -- deterring some from attending, is a source of worry to anyone who
cares about freedom of speech.
Click here for an article in "Liberazione"
Click here to view the pictures from the demonstration
