INVITATION TO REBUILT HOME DEDICATION

ICAHD is swimming against the stream of destruction, yet again, even as we watch the aerial bombardment of Lebanon and feel the weight of Sisyphus bear down. So we invite you to come see what we’ve been up to -- rebuilding a demolished home in Anata, near Jerusalem. By this weekend, a group of 30 citizens of the world, each contributing $1000 for the effort, coming from far and wide and all age groups, will have entirely rebuilt within two weeks, not only a home, but a family, a future, a shared reality, a concrete example of what bears fruit between two peoples. Our answer to the world, if it can hear. An alternative way that calls the bluffs.

On Saturday, 29th July at 4.00pm, the dedication ceremony takes place. There’ll be celebration. There’ll be Palestinian dabke. Speeches, wide smiles. Food. The key will be handed over to the family so they and their 17 children will have that basic human right the Geneva Convention should guarantee – a roof over their heads. Please be there. To give us all hope that not only war is newsworthy and important. That, just as in BILI’IN HABIBTI (the film), in some almost secret places, sacred work is being done, celebrating and safeguarding life.

In these days of destruction and despair, funerals and convoys of refugees or tanks, the peace camp is hardly heard. Why? Good question. It’s not we don’t have analysis. It’s not we’re so small in number! And it’s not we’re not busy. Or don’t have charismatic, seriously articulate people--Uri Avnery, Mikado Warschawsky, Jeff Halper--all with scores of years of getting behind the news to what’s really going on, insider-mentality, wealth of wisdom and proven track record as lie-detectors. Why are they less newsworthy than the gravitas of official spokes?

Seen women apart from Condi Rice interviewed recently? 50% disempowerment. Zahava Gal-On is one of the most articulate Knesset members, even in English, but – again – what Israeli opposition parliamentarians do we see? By focusing only on Arab MKs (Bishara, Barakeh) the impression is they’re traitors to the cause, not voicing criticism that’s expressed by other parties, too. Tamar Gozansky. Tanya Reinhart. Shulamit Aloni. Naomi Chazan. Only the army is wily enough to have women spokespersons…

This week, our group of volunteer builders was in the Negev, hosted by Bedouin. Full citizens of the State, they can’t understand why weekly demolition of homes --they call it racist in origin: although they’re land owners, Israel refuses to grant building permits or zone that land except for Jews-- goes unnoticed, while there’s so much fuss now when Jewish homes get hit. For Jews, assessors arrive, insurance is paid, the world sympathises, hotels are paid for by the State, even in holiday cities such as Eilat. For hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in Israel, Jerusalem or Gaza and the West Bank, demolished homes bury futures, hope or trust in Israeli peace, together with buried furniture and possessions.

Whilst Israel is busy bombing the hell out of Lebanon and Gaza (a war disproportionately waged in which war crimes are being committed), the world is led to believe it’s a just war: “they started it first”. But Israeli Occupation policies even inside Israel have long been busy bombing the hell out of our shared future, including thousands of internationally illegal home demolitions. Deliberately. And the press is silent. Why? Because it’s no longer News. It happens so regularly, it’s boring. Misery fatigue. Appeasement of Israel’s occupation in the upper echelons of international governments, too, perhaps. Or because people have fallen for the lies – “they’re criminals, they build without permits, we must enact the law”. Go tell it to Nuri El Okbi, who went to court and won, and STILL hasn’t seen the law upheld - six times his protest tent’s been demolished, and possessions stolen by the Israeli police. Go tell it to Palestinian landowners in East Jerusalem where Nof Zion’s new settlement building speeds ahead on their private land, even though the Municipality told us it was only building a road! Har Homa, Maale Adumim, Beitar Ilit, Modi’in, Matityahu East, the Wall -- expansionism endlessly mindless, generating only hate, and never – never – about security or peace, international law or basic morality, or Judaism’s ethical code.

No one’s asking: WHY DO THEY HATE US? For peace activists, crying in a wilderness, it’s obvious. Occupation. Colonialism... Militarism and its cursed sisters, Racism and Fascism, that so cruelly destroy. Not to mention the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees still unacknowledged. As Tom Segev said in yesterday’s Haaretz: “In the 60 years since the attack at the King David Hotel, Israel has hurt some two million civilians, including 750,000 who lost their homes in 1948, another quarter million Palestinians who were forced to leave the West Bank in the Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Egyptian civilians (…) And now tens of thousands of Lebanese…”

ICAHD rebuilding a demolished Palestinian home, an act of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance to occupation which says “We refuse to be enemies”, is a tiny drop in the ocean. In a region without summer rain, except the cynical Summer Rain of missiles and rockets, please join us to acknowledge that drop.

For further details, see www.icahd.org