"Even if nobody lost their land, the Zionist program was unjust in principle because it denied majority political rights... Zionism, in principle, could not allow the natives to exercise their political rights because it would mean the end of the Zionist enterprise."  Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi  "Original Sins"

"The abstention from formulating a constitution was no accident. The massive expropriation of lands and other properties from those Arabs who fled the country as a result of the War of Independence and of those who remained but were declared absent, as well as the confiscation of large tracts of land from Arab villages who did not flee, and the laws passed to legalize those acts - all this would have necessarily been declared unconstitutional, null and void, by the Supreme Court, being expressly discriminatory against one part of the citizenry, whereas a democratic constitution obliges the state to treat all of its citizens equally."  Israeli author, Boas Evron  "Jewish State or Israeli Nation?"

The U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Israel from 1988 to 1991

"1988: Many avoidable deaths and injuries' were caused because Israeli soldiers frequently used gunfire in situations that did not present mortal danger to troops. IDF troops used clubs to break limbs and beat Palestinians who were not directly involved in disturbances or resisting arrest. At least thirteen Palestinians have been reported to have died from beatings.

1989: Human rights groups charged that the plainclothes security personnel acted as death squads who killed Palestinian activists without warning, after they had surrendered, or after they had been subdued.

1991: The report added that the human rights groups had published 'detailed credible reports of torture, abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in prisons and detention centers'."  Former Congressman Paul Findley  "Deliberate Deceptions"

"Arab states regularly complained of the reprisals to the UN Security Council, which routinely rejected Israel's claims of self-defense...

...In June 1982 Israel again invaded Lebanon, and it used aerial bombardment to destroy entire camps of Palestinian Arab refugees, By these means Israel killed 20,000 persons, mostly civilians...Israel claimed self-defense for its invasion, but the lack of PLO attacks into Israel during the previous year made that claim dubious...The UN Security Council demanded `that Israel withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally to the internationally recognized boundaries of Lebanon'...

...The UN Human Rights Commission, using the Geneva Convention's provision that certain violations of humanitarian law are 'grave breaches' meriting criminal punishment for perpetrators, found a number of Israel's practices during the uprising the Intifada to constitute war crimes. It included physical and psychological torture of Palestinian detainees and their subjection to improper and inhuman treatment; the imposition of collective punishment on towns, villages and camps; the administrative detention of thousands of Palestinians; the expulsion of Palestinian citizens; the confiscation of Palestinian property; and the raiding and demolition of Palestinian houses."  John Quigley  "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice"

Demolition of Houses

Demolition and sealing of houses has been a common measure used by Israel against Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories. This punishment was generally exacted against homes of Palestinians suspected of attempting or committing violent offenses against security forces, Israeli civilians, or Palestinians suspected of collaboration.

Demolition or sealing of a house is an extra-judicial administrative procedure, without requirement of proof by any judicial body that the individual committed a penal offense. In many cases, the house is demolished or sealed while the relevant individual is under arrest, and often when he is serving a lengthy prison sentence. This punishment is often used against families of persons "wanted" by the security forces or who have been killed. In other cases, houses rented by persons whom the security forces want to punish, or which are rented by their families, are demolished or sealed.

Thus, in most cases, the persons who actually suffer from the demolition or sealing are those residing in the house who are not suspected of having committed any offense. These actions therefore constitute gross violation of the proscription on collective punishment, a draconian measure against relatives who bore no responsibility for the suspects' acts and were not charged with any offense.

When a new Israeli government took power in June 1992, Israel ceased almost entirely its practice of totally demolishing houses of Palestinians as a punitive measure. However, sealing of houses and partial demolition of houses continued. In 1996, Israel demolished a number of houses. Israel currently rarely uses this measure as punishment, in part because most Palestinians live under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and Israel cannot demolish or seal their homes, even if it wanted to.

Planning and Building in the Occupied Territories

Over the past three decades of occupation, Israel has employed in the West Bank a policy of planning, development, and building that severely restricts construction by Palestinians, while allocating broad expanses of land to establish and expand Jewish settlements. In this way, Israel has created a situation in which thousands of Palestinians are unable to obtain permits to build on their land, and are compelled to build without a permit because they have no other way to provide shelter for their families.

Israel froze planning in Palestinian towns and villages. The existing planning schemes, which date back fifty years and more, serve as the basis for approval - more often rejection - of applications for building permits. Land registration has been frozen for thirty years, making it easy to deny applications for permits on the grounds of failure to prove ownership of the land. Israel administers the building authorities, which have no Palestinian representation. A Palestinian wanting to obtain a building permit to build on his land in Area C [that part of the West Bank which remains under complete Israeli control] must undergo a prolonged, complicated, and expensive procedure, which generally results in denial of the application.

Facing such a situation, and without any option, many Palestinians are compelled to build without a permit. Their act is not intended as a political statement or as opposition to Israeli control, but to meet a need for housing for themselves and their families that Israel's policy does not allow them to realize. Rather than change this situation, Israel has adopted a policy of mass demolition of Palestinian houses. In the past ten years, the authorities have demolished more than 2,200 residences, leaving more than 13,000 Palestinians homeless. This policy continues today in Area C.

At the same time, at least 155 Israeli settlements, containing more than 170,000 Jewish Israeli citizens, have been established. These settlements benefit from an efficient system of planning and supervision of construction, and establishment of comprehensive planning schemes for all the settlements. Despite this, thousands of houses were built in these settlements without permits. Israel refrained from demolishing these houses, and instead issued retroactive building permits for thousand of houses constructed without permits. This building-permit policy blatantly discriminates between settlers and Palestinians.

Planning and building is a purely civilian matter. The military authorities have the right to intervene in planning and building only where patently military matters are involved. Conversely, individuals have a basic right to be involved in determining the future of their surroundings, including the right to elect and direct the planning and building authorities, and occupation cannot justify denial of this right.

"The only democracy in the Middle East ?"

"The 1989 Israel High Court decision that any political party advocating full equality between Arab and Jew can be barred from fielding candidates in an election...(means) that the Israeli state is the state of the Jews...not their (the Arabs) state."  Professor Norman Finkelstein  "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict"

"Every house demolishment, every expropriated dunum, every arrest and torture, every barricade, every closure, every gesture of arrogance and intended humiliation simply revives the past and reenacts Israel's offenses against the Palestinian spirit, land, body politic. To speak about peace in such a context is to try to reconcile the irreconcilable...

...The first challenge, then, is to extract acknowledgement from Israel for what it did to us...But then, I believe, we must also hold out the possibility of some form of coexistence in which a new and better life, free of ethnocentrism and religious intolerance, could be available...If we present our claims about the past as ushering in a form of mutuality and coexistence in the future, a long-term positive echo on the Israeli and Western side will reverberate."  Edward Said in "The Progressive, March 1998"

"It was our nationalism...which drew the country into an occupation and settlement of the West Bank...None of the leaders of the Labour movement believed that the Palestinians deserved the same right as Jews because none of them believed in universal rights. Pretending, like Arthur Hertzberg and others do, that the Occupation and the colonial situation created in the last thirty years was merely the product of the Arab refusal to recognize Israel, is no more than looking for an alibi and falsifying history...

...The time has come to say that if the settlements in Judea and Samaria or in the very heart of Hebron are the natural, logical and legitimate continuation of the original intention of Zionism, then we need another Zionism. If a 'Jewish State' that does not recognize the absolute equality of all human beings is considered to be closer to the spirit of the founding fathers than a new liberal Zionism, then it is time to say good-bye to the ghosts of the founders, and to start forging for ourselves an identity detached from the mystical ramifications of our religion and the irrational side of our history."  Israeli professor of political science, Ze'ev Sternhell, in "Tikkun May/June 1998"