How Palestinian women successfully defended their village from demolition

By Dilip -
By Sarah Flatto Manasrah  Waging Nonviolence 

One year after Israel gave the green light to demolish Khan al-Amar, the small Bedouin village survives thanks to a bold and creative women-led campaign. Just over one year ago, photos and videos of Israeli border police violently arresting a young Palestinian woman went viral. She appeared to be screaming as they ripped her hijab off and wrestled her to the ground.

It captured a moment of crisis on July 4, 2018 when Israeli forces arrived with bulldozers in Khan al-Amar, poised to expel and demolish the tiny Palestinian village at gunpoint. It was an indelible scene in a theater of cruelty that has defined the beleaguered village. Army and police were met by hundreds of Palestinian, Israeli and international activists who mobilized to put their bodies on the line. Together with clergy, journalists, diplomats, educators and politicians, they ate, slept, strategized and sustained nonviolent resistance against the impending demolition.

Immediately after police arrested the young woman in the photo and other activists, residents filed a Supreme Court petition to stop the demolition. An emergency injunction was issued to halt it temporarily. The Supreme Court asked the parties to come up with an “agreement” to resolve the situation. Then, the court declared that Khan al-Amar residents must agree to forcible relocation to a site adjacent a garbage dump in East Jerusalem. They refused to accept these conditions and re-asserted their right to stay in their homes. Finally, on September 5, 2018, judges dismissed the previous petitions and ruled that the demolition could move forward.

Communities in occupied Palestinian territory are used to forced displacement, especially in Area C, which is under full Israeli military and administrative control. Frequent demolitions are a defining tactic of the Israeli government’s declared plans to annex all of Palestinian territory. Khan al-Amar straddles a uniquely pivotal location termed the “E1” area by Israel, lying between two massive Israeli settlements which are illegal under international law. If Khan al-Amar is destroyed, the government will succeed in engineering contiguous Israeli territory in the West Bank and cutting Palestinian society off from Jerusalem.

International condemnation of the Israeli government’s plan to demolish the village was unprecedented. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court issued a statement that “extensive destruction of property without military necessity and population transfers in an occupied territory constitute war crimes.” The European Union warned that the consequences of the demolition would be “very serious.” Round-the-clock mass nonviolent protests kept vigil over Khan al-Amar until late October 2018, when the Israeli government declared the “evacuation” would be delayed, blaming election-year uncertainty. When the protests finally waned, hundreds of Israelis, Palestinians and internationals had protected the village for four months. Over a year after the demolition was given the green light, Khan al-Amar lives and breathes a sigh of relief. Its people remain in their homes. They are resolute, determined to stay there until physically removed. The young woman in the photo, Sarah, has become another icon of women-led resistance.

What went right?
In June 2019, I sat in Khan al-Amar drinking tea with sage and snacking on pretzels with Sarah Abu Dahouk, the woman in the viral photo, and her mother, Um Ismael (her full name cannot be used due to privacy concerns). At the entrance to the village, men reclined in plastic chairs and smoked shisha, while children played with a ball. There was a sense of welcome but hesitant calm in this isolated community buttressed by vast swaths of bare desert. We chatted about last summer’s existential crisis, euphemistically calling it mushkileh, or problems in Arabic....
https://www.juancole.com/2019/10/palestinian-successfully-demolition.html

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