Last week alone, the Israeli Civil Administration demolished 28 houses on the West Bank. House demolitions represent a cynical use of law and planning for purely political purposes. Immediately after the 1967 war, a third of the land in East Jerusalem was expropriated for Jewish building. Thus, the 200,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are squeezed into small enclaves, unable to build modest houses on their own land, while the government builds tens of thousands of housing units for Jews-only in the eastern part of the city. And while entire houses are demolished in the Arab sector, this never happens among the Jewish population.
Every person has the basic human right to provide a decent shelter for one's family.
We, Palestinians and Israelis together, demand that the Jerusalem Municipality desist from its house demolitions policy. Do not make dozens of Jerusalem residents homeless this week. We all aspire to live together in a shared city in which no group dominates the other. This is the time to stand up for peace and justice, to declare that the injustice and violence of house demolitions must end, to extend a hand of peace with our neighbors in our city. Bat Shalom is a feminist peace organization working toward a just peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.