The big story dominating the news this week in Britain is the proposal for a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport. This is a controversial plan which will lead to one village being completely flattened and others facing partial demolition. The residents face a traumatic wait as politicians decide their fate.
The wrecking ball has been hanging over the villages of Longford and Harmondsworth for 20 years now and, as the controversy rages, it is likely to cast its shadow for at least another decade while villagers make legal challenges and a public inquiry goes through its motions. The people of Longford and Harmondsworth may yet emerge victorious in what will be a last ditch effort to save their homes but, in what Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell called “the worst example of evictions” in British history, up to 4,000 houses remain at risk.
All of that is happening on our doorstep, in our country, and the victims of the Heathrow expansion will no doubt get a lot of sympathy as the legal process goes ahead. In stark contrast, Palestinians aren’t given any voice with regards to the future of their homes. Earlier this week, 44 Palestinians were left with nowhere to live in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Beit Hanina and Silwan when three homes in Al-Ashqariya were demolished by Israel without so much as a letter of intent. An extended family of 30 Palestinians — most of them children — were displaced. They have been trying, without success, for nine years to get building permits from the Israel-controlled Jerusalem municipality. Such permits are rarely given.
I wonder how the villagers of Harmondsworth would react if, without warning, their doors were kicked in and furniture was removed forcibly before their homes were demolished? How would you react if you went home after a visit to the shops only to find that it had vanished? Ask Palestinian Ahmad Abd Al-Razaq Siyam how it feels, for that is exactly what happened to him.
His wife Nivin told journalists that she attempted to reach her husband at the store after Israeli forces raided their home, but they prevented her from doing so and carried on with the demolition. She added that the Israelis demolished the house while most of the furniture was still inside. There has been at least one allegation over the years that Israel destroyed a house with its wheelchair-bound resident still inside.
While British planning officers supporting the Heathrow bid may want to wipe Harmondsworth off the map overnight, in a democracy such actions should be impossible. However, Israel’s “democratic” government has no qualms about dealing with Palestinian homes in such a brutish manner. Spurious claims from Tel Aviv and its pals in the West that it runs “the only democracy in the Middle East” become even more laughable when you consider how it deals with the demolition of Palestinian homes.
In terms of human misery, more than 1,293 Palestinians have been displaced since the beginning of 2016 because their homes in the occupied territories have been demolished by Israel, compared to 688 Palestinians made homeless in 2015, according to UN figures. Demolitions in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are clearly accelerating; the number of homes flattened this year already exceeds the total in the whole of 2015.
While demolitions can and do go ahead without any warning, the application procedure for Israeli-issued building permits can be drawn out for several years. The fees and other related costs can amount to $80,000, according to testimonies gathered by the Applied Research Institute — Jerusalem (ARIJ). Since most Palestinians live on or below the poverty line, it is little wonder that less than 10 per cent of building permit applications in Jerusalem are granted to Palestinians.
There’s a great deal of sympathy in Britain for the villagers of Harmondsworth whose homes are under threat because of the proposed Heathrow expansion. Unlike the Palestinians living in the West Bank, though, at least they can sleep soundly tonight knowing that they won’t be dragged from their beds and made to watch their homes being demolished without warning. Such security and the democratic processes we tend to take for granted in the West are denied to the people of occupied Palestine. We need to remember this as the legal challenges play out, and Israel continues to ride roughshod over Palestinian rights.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.