Rabbis For Human Rights: The Annual Report 2012-2013

RHR 2013
THE GRANDPARENT TEST
Quamar Misirqi-Asad, who directs RHR’s OT Legal Department, says that she needs to go the extra
mile on behalf of Abu-Jabar Sleibi because she looks in his eyes and sees her own grandfather. We in
RHR often speak of the need to see God’s image in every human being, and the truth is that Quamar
and the rest of our staff go the extra mile for everybody whom we seek to defend. However, it
would be a great start if we could all look in the eyes of human rights victims, or potential victims,
and see our own grandparents, parents, siblings, partners and children.
Pending Cases
Defending Palestinian village of Susya against Demolition
In October 2011, the army commander in the South Hebron Hills declared sections of land in the area
of Susya “closed to Israelis” in response to an appeal submitted by Palestinian families requesting that
they be able to reach their lands where Israeli settlers have been taking over land. This was just one of a
string of successes returning lands to their rightful owners. We know that the settlers in the region held
emergency meetings regarding our successes. The lands closed in 2011 represented approximately 20
percent of the lands covered in a petition we submitted on army procrastination on many additional
cases of settler land takeovers, denial of access, and lack of protection for Palestinians. Altogether, the
petition deals with some 2,500 dunams of land. We believe that this is the reason the extreme right-wing
Israeli NGO Regavim and the adjacent settlement, also called Susya, submitted a High Court Appeal in
February 2012 challenging the “slow“ pace of demolitions in the area and requesting that Palestinian
Susya be demolished. In June 2012, probably due to pressure from Regavim, demolition notices were
distributed, with 70 structures or 80 percent of the homes in the village targeted for demolition. The
remaining 20 percent of structures already had demolition orders on them. The entire village therefore is
under threat of demolition, and the future of the residents, comprising 120 people (including 25 women
and 70 children), is unclear. In February 2013, the Court heard together both the Regavim petition and
RHR’s petition. The Court accepted the State’s position that it could not demolish the homes before
processing an alternative building plan submitted by RHR, and gave us an additional 90 days to submit
an additional plan for some homes in the adjacent village of Wadi Khesheish, not included in the original
plan because a second organization is representing them. The Court did not accept the State’s excuses for
its procrastination on the cases listed in our petition and requested a progress report within 90 days.
This appeal has finally given us the opportunity to go head-to-head with Regavim, who have submitted
many similar appeals in the past, using misleading statistics to claim reverse discrimination against settlers.
While they lose almost every time, they actually win. The Court has always accepted the State’s position
that its actions are proper since it is executing demolition orders at its own pace. RHR’s goal is not only
to prevent the demolition of Susya and restore Palestinian access, but also to challenge the legitimacy of
demolitions when discriminatory planning makes it almost impossible for Palestinians to build legally.
The case of Susya is particularly poignant because the residents were reduced to living in caves in their
fields after being expelled from their nearby village. The village was declared an archeological site after
the discovery of an ancient synagogue. In 2001, the army expelled the Palestinians from their caves and
destroyed most of them. Israel’s High Court returned them, but the inability to get building permits meant
that anything they built to replace the demolished caves was illegal.
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Firing Zone 918
For over a decade, the 1,800 residents of 12 Palestinian villages in the area of Masafer-Yatta in the
South Hebron Hills have lived under the threat of demolition, evacuation and dispossession. In 1999,
the Israel security forces declared the area a firing zone and expelled 700 men, women and children.
An interim injunction issued by the Israeli High Court enabled them to return to their homes in March
2000. The State postponed the case time after time, until the new president of the High Court, Justice
Asher Grunis, urged the State to either drop the case or pursue it. The Ministry of Defense intensified
military exercises in the area and declared that it still wanted to expel the residents of eight villages.
They also demanded stringent limitations on development for the remaining four villages. RHR is
not legally representing the threatened villages against the expulsions themselves, but is part of
a broad coalition seeking to organize Israeli public and international opposition to the planned
expulsions. Our legal department is demanding planning for two of the threatened cave communities,
Sfai’i and Majaz, as part of our opposition to planned demolitions of British development projects in
these villages. The victory of March 2000 has become an albatross around the necks of the residents
because of the aforementioned draconian interpretation of the status quo mandated in the interim
injunction that makes development even more impossible than in the rest of the Occupied Territories.
It is therefore not sufficient to merely prevent expulsion.
Zoning in Area C
Susya and Firing Zone 918 are but two of the many examples of how discriminatory planning by
army committees without Palestinian representation lead to home demolitions and the inability of
Palestinian communities in Area C to develop. RHR’s High Court petition demanding that planning
in Area C be returned to Palestinian hands was twice postponed in 2012, and is now scheduled to
be heard on October 3rd, 2013. When requesting the latest postponement in November, the State
claimed that the army’s Civil Administration was working hard to make changes to the planning system
and needed more time.
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