(Fwd) Letter writing / Sleepover - Hours remain to save Palestinian Homes

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

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From:           	"Rabbis for Human Rights" <info at rhr.israel.net>
To:             	<info at rhr.israel.net>
Subject:        	Urgent Action - Hours remain to save Palestinian Homes
Date sent:      	Tue, 29 Jul 2003 03:48:16 +0200

Dear friends 

WE NEED YOUR HELP IN THE NEXT FEW HOURS!

The Ministry of the Interior has scheduled at least 6 demolitions in the
village of Jabel Mukaber for this Wednesday, Rosh Khodesh Av.  I wonder
whether these  demolitions will help Palestinians identify with the
mourning of the Jewish people over the demolition of the two Temples which
once stood in Jerusalem, thereby contributing to the "Trust building
measures stipulated in the "Road Map."

RHR, ICAHD, BIMKOM and others are exploring every possible avenue to stop
these demolitions.  You can help by writing to the officials listed below.
SHOULD WE FAIL, WE ALSO NEED TO KNOW WHO IS WILLING TO SLEEP IN THESE
HOMES STARTING TUESDAY NIGHT OR  ARRIVE IN THE MORNINGS.

.  We have been receiving reports for two weeks now of large numbers of
home demolition orders being handed out in various East Jerusalem
neighborhoods - Sur Baher, Jabel Mukaber, Shuafat and Beit Hanina.  For
various reasons it has taken us a while to put the list together, but the
picture is becoming clearer.  At least 45 demolition orders have been
either handed out or delivered orally.  Some families have succeeded in
receiving stays, but not all have been so lucky.  In addition to the six
demolitions scheduled for Wednesday  (One family was also told that their
home would be demolished on Tuesday.), other homes have 30 day
administrative demolition orders going into effect on August 1. Enclosed
are the profiles of some of these families.  Pictures and additional
profiles can be sent upon request.

In Sur Baher and Jabel Mukaber, the orders seem to be concentrated in
neighborhoods which will be cut off from the rest of their respective
communities by one planned bypass road or another, and perhaps the
Separation Wall.   Nowhere is the cruel  irony more evident than in Jabel
Mukaber, where many of the homes were fines were handed out 10 or more
years ago, but demolition orders were suspended to give the families time
to obtain building permits.  This was impossible as the land was not zoned
for building, but three years later the families were fined for being in
contemp of court for having failed to obtain the permits.  After
successive fines, the homes are now slated for demolition.

The master plan for Jabel Mukaber - Arab A-Suakhreh 2683 a - was created
in the 80's and approved in 1996.  It never took into account the natural
demographic needs of the residents.  In the neighboring Jewish
neighborhood of Armon HaNatziv built on land expropriated from Jabel
Mukaber their plan allows them to build much higher and exploit a higher
percentage of each dunam for building than in Jabel Mukaber.  Sixty-Five
percent of the land remaining to Jabel Mukaber is zoned as "Open View
Land" and it is forbidden to build on this land.   Many residents must
choose between leaving Jerusalem or building "illegally."  "Bimkom," an
Israeli NGO of architects and city planners, is working on a new master
plan, but must raise the funds for almost all of the expenses.  I
participated on Sunday in a meeting of human rights organizations with
Mayor Lupolianski's senior advisor Aharon Agassi  who claimed that the
Municipality has no responsibility for funding master plans for Jews or
Palestinians and was not forthcoming in terms of willingness to help
Palestinian families survive the permit process usually taken care of by
contractors for large subsidized projects in Jewish neighborhoods.  We
need to check the sources of funding for master plans in Jewish
neighborhoods, but this seems disingenuous.

Please write polite but unequivocal letters, with copies to RHR, to the
Israeli officials listed below  (I have also listed the officials to write
about the single parents which I neglected to include last week.) 
Interior Minister Poraz has built his reputation on promoting clean and
honest government and proper procedure.  The Kafkaesque and catch - 22
situation in which Palestinians find themselves in is none o the above. 
We know that some of you may not wish to write to local officials, but it
could really make a difference if the White House would be flooded with
faxes, emails and phone calls in the coming hours leading up to Tuesdays
meeting between Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush.

The policy of home demolitions is neither fair nor based on the principles
of good planning.  Rather a Kafkaesque snarl of rules, regulations and
resident nor-friendly zoning insures that Palestinians must build
"illegally." In the Jewish tradition this is called "Eifa V'Eifa," double
standards.  With your help, the month of Av need not be a month of massive
destruction of Palestinian homes and of the trust necessary to cultivate
the fragile beginnings of a reborn peace process.

B'Vrakha,
Arik


President George W. Bush
COMMENTS: 202-456-1111
SWITCHBOARD: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461


: White House Web Mail or president at whitehouse.gov

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell:    (202) 647-7098


http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_secretary.html

Israeli Officials :  Regarding home demolitions please write to PM Sharon,
Interior Ministry Poraz and Mayor Lupolianski  Please write to all
government ministers regarding the striking single parents.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: Office of the Prime Minister, Kiryat
Ben-Gurion, Rehov Kaplan 3 Jerusalem 91919; Fax: 972-2-566-4838; Tel:
972-2-670-5511; webmaster at pmo.gov.il

Finance Minister Binyanmin Netanyahu:  1 Kaplan St. Jerusalem,
bnetanyahoo at knesset.gov.il; sar at mof.gov.il; Fax:972-2-563-5769; Tel:
972-2-531-7200

Minister in the Treasury Meir Shetreet  Tel 972 2 531-7727, Fax:
972-2-5317697,  mshitrit at knesset.gov.il

Mayor Uri Luplianski: Kikar Safra 1, Jerusalem, Israel; Phone:
972-2-629-7717; Fax: 972--629-6014; mayor at jerusalem.muni.il

Interior Minister Avrahm Poraz Ministry of the Interior; Kiryat Ben
Gurion, Kaplan 2, Jerusalem, Israel; aporaz at knesset.gov.il;
sar at moin.gov.il; Fax: 972-2-566-6376 Tel: 972-2-670-1402

Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Natan Sharansky Tel.  972-2-6799774, Fax
972-2-6799775

Justice Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid  Tel.  972-2-6466527, Fax.  972 2
6285438, sar at justice.gov.il

28 July 2003

Ahmad’s home: 02 6732 735 (Arabic only)
Ahmad’s neighbor’s mobile 052 324 693 (Arabic and some Hebrew)
Imad from Jabal Mukaber 052 501 238 (Arabic, Hebrew, English)
Office of lawyer, Najeeb Zaid 02 622 1515
Mobile of lawyer’s assistant, Abdella 066 277 756 and\or 066 377 756
Sawaherah neighborhood in Jabal Mukaber

Israeli Interior Ministry officials today told Afaf Sheqerat that tomorrow
her home in the Jabal Mukaber village of East Jerusalem would be
demolished because it was constructed without a permit.  Her husband,
Ahmad Hassen Sheqerat, the owner of the house, was at work when an
Interior Ministry inspector told Afaf in Arabic that she and her family
must evacuate their home before the demolition tomorrow.  Ministry
officials visited the home three times today.  Ahmad hopes the building
permit he obtained from the Jerusalem Municipality on 09-08-01 will help
prevent the demolition.

Eight people live in the house today: Ahmad, Afaf, their five children
(Nahed, 7.5; Fadi, 12; Wael, 14; Jamelah, 14; Waselah, 18), and Ahmad’s
brother Ibrahim, 39, who is mentally disabled and has just one hand.  As
we talk, the kids scurry in and out, bringing coffee, tea, and ashtrays,
and then clearing the emptied glasses.  The mood in the house is frantic,
and when Ahmad comes home from his lawyer’s office around 10pm, he looks
exhausted and stunned.

Ahmad built his house in 1987, on land he inherited from his father.  No
one knows for how many generations the land has been in his family.  Until
1996 Israeli officials gave the family’s home no trouble.  In that year,
the Jerusalem Municipality took Ahmad to court for illegal construction of
his home.  The court fined him NIS 15,000, and demanded that he either
obtain a building permit within three years or demolish his home.  Ahmad
paid the fine in NIS 400 monthly installments, and hired planner Isham Abu
Dheen and engineer Nadir Mashnee to help secure a permit.  These services
cost Ahmad $2,500.  After paying an additional NIS 70,000 in licensing
fees, the Jerusalem Municipality gave the house a permit on 09-08-01. 
>From that date until this month, Israeli officials left the house alone. 
Ten days ago, the Interior Ministry brought a demolition order to the
house, printed in Hebrew and Arabic.  Officials returned today and told
the family to evacuate.

Ahmad works in road construction in Jewish neighborhoods (Sharafat? Near
Bet Safafa).  “I feel so much confusion,” he said.  “In areas where I
build, they have the government behind them to give them licenses, and we
have no authorities to help us, no one to help us.  There is nothing we
can do.”

Waselah, his oldest daughter, just finished high school.  The family has
no money to send her to university, so she’ll stay at home.  The younger
children are still in school.  “When I told my sons that our house would
be demolished, they began to cry.  I told them that we would live in a
tent. They asked, ‘How will we play with toys, how will we read, how will
we watch television, how will we go to the bathroom?’  I have a permit, I
paid all the fees, I have five kids in school; if they demolish, where
should my kids live?  How should we plan our lives?  How will this affect
my children? What will they say about peace, about Israelis?”

28 July 2003
Abdul Hamid speaks Arabic, Hebrew, and English
Mobile phone: 057 723 642
Engineer: Saleh Attallah (works with Shmuel Dudsun)

Abdul Hamid Alleh Ajej learned that the Israeli Ministry of the Interior
will demolish his home on Wednesday, 30 July 2003, along with five other
homes in the Jabal Mukaber village of East Jerusalem.  Abdul Hamid lives
with his wife, Sameh, and seven children.  His oldest child, his daughter,
Fidah, is sixteen.

Abdul Hamid’s house was built in 1990-1991, when his first wife, Gauther,
learned that she had cancer.  The family was living with Abdul’s father at
the time.  “She wanted to leave something for the kids,” Abdul Hamid said.
“We didn’t seek a permit then.  No one bothered during the first intifada,
and anyway she had no time to deal with the papers; she was very sick.”
Gauther died not long after the family moved into the new house.

“In 1994 the Ministry of the Interior came to my home, wanting to bring me
to court.  The Orient House hired a lawyer for me, Hosni Abu Hassein.  The
procedure took from ’94 till ’97, when the court gave its decision: I had
to pay a 20,000 shekel fine, 1,000 shekels every month, and they said I
had 12 months to plan the area and get a permit.  But this was a joke;
impossible. When I finally finished paying the fine twenty months later, I
thought it was over after that, I thought everything was finished.  But
they told me, ‘No, you have to get a permit.’  We Palestinians living in
East Jerusalem, we don’t really know the law, the procedure.  And when we
go to lawyers and engineers, they often don’t care about any human case;
the important thing for them is the money, and they often don’t really do
a good job.”

“In 2000, people from the Interior Ministry who were working in my area
told me that I should really get a permit, or else they would demolish my
house. Abdul Hamid hired the engineer, Saleh Attalah, to help with the
bureaucracy involved in planning the area and seeking a building permit. 
Abdul Hamid estimates that he has paid Attalah approximately NIS
17,000-20,000.  “We rely on them,” Abdul says, “but really, to be honest,
I don’t understand what they’re doing.”  Abdul Hamid began submitting
documents to the Ministry of Interior in May of 2001.  He has thus far
been unable to get his area planned, a prerequisite for getting a building
permit from the Jerusalem Municipality.

Two weeks ago, Abdul Hamid received a verbal order to evacuate, and today
he learned that his home will be demolished this coming Wednesday.  “My
children ask lots of questions,” Abdul Hamid said, “but I have answers for
very few of them.  I know this will leave a stamp on their lives.  The
Ministry of Interior doesn’t understand that if they do this, it will ruin
my children’s lives.”


23 July 2003
Mohammad speaks Hebrew and Arabic 052 570 465 or 058 503 329
lawyer: Saleh, from the office of Jawad Boules

Mohammad Daoud Abu Kaff and his wife Aida live in Sur Baher with their six
children and eleven other relatives.  The family rents the house from
Mohammad’s uncle, who has been living in Jordan since 1967.  Because
Mohammad’s cousins plan to come from Jordan to live in the house, Mohammad
in 2001 sought a building permit for land he inherited elsewhere in Sur
Baher, to build a house for his family.  He and his lawyer approached the
Jerusalem municipality with papers documenting the residents’ efforts to
plan their neighborhood.  The municipality told them that their efforts
were futile, because the area is not zoned for building.  Though
Mohammad’s family holds little hope of securing a permit for their house,
they hope their bureaucratic hassle will help families with similar
struggles in the future.

Mohammad felt he had no choice but to build his own home illegally.  Even
before their cousins from Jordan laid their claim, Mohammad’s family never
felt quite at home in the crowded house.  They built a partition into the
children’s room to separate boys’ and girls’ sleeping areas; the house was
not built for nineteen.  “The children saw their new home as their
freedom,” Aida said.  “This is not their own home, they can’t play freely
here.”

“We put all our savings into the house.  For months we did not eat
vegetables, fruits, or meat to save money for the house.”  Aida said she
and her husband did much of the construction themselves to avoid paying
workers.

Soon after they finished building, in June 2002, the house received a
demolition order.  With their lawyer’s help, the family managed to delay
the demolition, temporarily.  On 1 April, 2003, they received a final
decision: their house will be demolished between the first and the
thirtieth of August, 2003.

“As the day approaches, we feel that we are waiting for everything to end.
Even the lawyers give us no hope.  The children know, and they are always
crying.  We used to take them to the new house to show them their dream.
The kids gave up their pocket money to contribute to the house and the
legal fees.  Now they want their money back.”  The family no longer takes
the kids to see the new house, hoping to lessen the apparently inevitable
trauma of its demolition.

Meanwhile, the parents are in no position to make promises about
reimbursing pocket money.  Mohammad earns NIS 3,000 per month, working at
a supermarket in Ramot.  He pays NIS 7,000 per month in building-related
debts and legal fees.

Hoping to avoid Mohammad’s hassle, his brother bought land in a planned
area properly zoned for building.  Nevertheless, the authorities have
managed to halt his construction for the past four years.  He has
apparently been using the wrong bricks, and has also improperly positioned
one of the walls. Mohammad’s brother has repeatedly paid to comply with
these requirements.


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25 NIS per liter, 350 NIS per jerrycan

Rabbis For Human Rights
Tel. 972 2 563-7731
Fax.  972 2 566-2815
Mobile  972 50607034
info at rhr.israel.net
Website:  rhr.israel.net



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