The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues

The fate of Khan Al Ahmar is part of a larger Israeli context that deserves equal international attention, condemnation and action

The Israeli government has reportedly decided to delay the demolition of Khan Al Ahmar so that an alternative ‘relocation’ (read: eviction) plan is in place. The delay is, however, more likely related to the international reaction to Israel’s designs in Khan Al Ahmar. The United Nations made its voice heard repeatedly on the issue, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has said the eviction and demolition of Khan Al Ahmar could constitute a war crime.

International pressure seems to have, at least for now, compelled Israel to think of ways to avoid a PR disaster. Last month, when the demolition seemed imminent, German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened to cancel her visit to Israel.

But the central issue behind the outrage over the continued Israeli targeting of entire Palestinian communities was never merely the ‘relocation’ of residents. The forced removal of protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention cannot be remedied by simply arranging alternative housing for the victims.

The western outrage was, however, not entirely motivated by the nature of the Israeli crime, but by the fact that the demolition of Khan Al Ahmar, located in a strategically sensitive area, would be the end of any possibility of a two-state solution.

For most Palestinians, however, the fate of Khan Al Ahmar is part of a larger context that deserves equal international attention, condemnation and, indeed, action.

Throughout the years, Khan Al Ahmar, once part of an uninterrupted Palestinian physical landscape has grown increasingly isolated. Decades of Israeli colonisation of occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank left the small village trapped between massive and vastly-expanding Israeli colonial projects: Ma’ale Adumim, Kfar Adumim, and others.

Convoluted strategy

The unfortunate village, its adjacent school and 173 residents are the last obstacle facing the E1 Zone project, an Israeli plan that aims to link illegal Jewish colonies in occupied East Jerusalem with West Jerusalem, thus cutting off East Jerusalem entirely from its Palestinian environs in the West Bank.

Like the Neqab (Negev) village of Al Araqib which has been demolished by Israel and rebuilt by its residents 135 times, Khan Al Ahmar residents are facing armed soldiers and military bulldozers with their bare chests and whatever local and international solidarity they can obtain.

It is true that other colonial powers used the destruction of homes and properties, and the exile of entire communities as a tactic to subdue rebellious populations.

The Israeli strategy is far more convoluted. It is now carved in the Israeli psyche that Palestine must be destroyed for Israel to exist. This is precisely why Israel sees the natural demographic growth among Palestinians as an ‘existential threat’ to Israel’s ‘Jewish identity’. This can only be justified with an irrational degree of hatred and fear that has exacerbated over generations to the point that it now forms a collective Israeli psychosis for which Palestinians continue to pay a heavy price, as evidenced by the repeated destruction of Gaza.

Israel is a “country that when you fire on its citizens, it responds by going wild — and this is a good thing,” was the official explanation offered by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister in January 2009, to justify its country’s war on the blockaded Gaza Strip. The Israel ‘going wild’ strategy has led to the destruction of 22,000 homes, schools and other facilities during one of Israel’s deadliest wars on the Strip.

A few years later, in the summer of 2014, Israel went ‘wild’ again, leading to even greater destruction and loss of lives.

A quick scan of historical facts demonstrates that Israel demolished Palestinian homes and communities in diverse political and historical contexts, where Israel’s ‘security’ was not in the least a factor. Nearly 600 Palestinian towns, villages and localities were destroyed between 1947 and 1948, and approximately 800,000 Palestinians were exiled to make room for the establishment of Israel.

According to the Land Research Centre (LRC), Israel had destroyed 5,000 Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem alone since it occupied the city in 1967, leading to the permanent exile of nearly 70,000 people. Coupled with the fact that almost 200,000 Jerusalemites were driven out during the Nakba, the ‘Catastrophe’ of 1948, and the ongoing, slow ethnic cleansing, the Holy City has been in a state of destruction since the establishment of Israel.

In fact, between 2000 and 2017, over 1,700 Palestinian homes were demolished, displacing nearly 10,000 people. This is not a policy of ‘deterrence’ but of erasure.

Israel demolishes, destroys and pulverises because, in the racist mindset of Israeli rulers, there can be no room between the Sea and the River but for Jews; where the Palestinians — oppressed, colonised and dehumanised — don’t factor in the least in Israel’s ruthless calculations.

This is not just a question of Khan Al Ahmar, but of the very survival of the Palestinian people, threatened by a racist state that has been allowed to ‘go wild’ for 70 years, untamed and without repercussions.