Demolishing your home with your own hands

If you ask anyone about the basics and components of happiness that they seek to achieve and gain, their answers will certainly be different according to the differences in people’s opinions and visions. However, I do not think that anyone would deny that owning a house is an important factor for achieving happiness.

A home is one of the most important basics of a happy life, as it shelters people from the dark and protects them from the cold of winter and the heat of summer. One can do anything they please within the confines of their home, away from the noise of life. They can live with themselves and their family and host guests. The hadith of the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), “Whosoever begins the day feeling family security and good health; and possessing provision for his day is as though he possessed the whole world” is strong evidence that home is an important element of happiness. This is why we see people saving their money to build a house and form a family. They may take a lot of time and money in order to obtain a beautiful home to complete their vision of a beautiful life.

However, imagine, as you are getting ready to live in your new home or have almost achieved it, you are served an order from an unjust judicial authority ordering you to demolish your home for baseless reasons and arguments, the least petty of which is “building without a permit”. Imagine you are given two bitter options, “either we demolish your home with our own tools and you pay the demolition cost, or you demolish the house yourself and save yourself the demolition cost.” What would you do?

Now we ask: Would this happen? Where? How? Why? By who?

Those wanting the answers to these questions should look to Palestine, especially the West Bank and Jerusalem, where the occupation is always seeking to create a state of anxiety amongst the Palestinians. The occupation prevents them from exercising their rights on their own land and deprives them from enjoying the benefits and joys of their country through the use of force and military weaponry and based on the fact that the world is sleeping in the bed of the oppressive forces supporting the occupation.

According to reports issued by the relevant authorities, from 2006 until 31 January 2019, the occupation demolished at least 1,405 Palestinian residential units in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, where at least 6,213 Palestinians, including 3,138 minors, have been made homeless as  result.

In the communities unrecognised by the occupation, most of which are threatened with deportation, the occupation continues to demolish the houses of the residents time and time again. From 2006 until 31 January 2019, the occupation demolished homes inhabited by 1,020 Palestinians, including 489 minors, several times.

READ: Number of Palestinians Israel forced to demolish homes triples

Moreover, from the beginning of 2016 until 31 January 2019, the Israeli occupation’s Civil Administration demolished 636 buildings, including walls, water wells, streets, warehouses, agricultural buildings, commercial ships, public buildings, etc. in the West Bank alone, not including Jerusalem.

Those monitoring the demolitions carried out by the occupation against the indigenous people would realise that these demolitions are not arbitrary or random and not due to the fact that the home owners did not have a building permit. Rather, it is a systematic government policy. Demolition is greater than the removal of stones from the land, it is an operation that aims to change geographic landmarks and create new facts on the ground that complicate the lives of Palestinians.

Demolition will continue as long as the official Arab regimes see the child-killer as a peace dove and all that is left for us to say is that destroying your own home with your own hands means that you will die before your actual death.

This article first appeared in Arabic in the Palestinian Information Centre on 2 March 2019

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.