Friends --
Over the weekend, on the way to speak with Palestinian activists on the West Bank, I witnessed the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home for the first time.
I was born in Israel, have been deeply involved in pro-Israel, pro-peace advocacy in the US, and thought I knew what to expect. I didn’t. Nothing prepared me for the anguish.
Nothing prepared me for the intensity and confusion in the children’s cries. The pain and grief in the sobs of their parents and grandparents. The futility and desperation in their fathers’ pleas.
For the frantic but focused determination of parents given just minutes to salvage family keepsakes. For the devastation creeping across their faces as they watched their memories, hopes and life savings crushed before them.
For the detached look in the eyes of wrecking crews who’ve done this many times before. For the blank stares of the neighbors’ children watching alongside me -- thankful their home was spared, but knowing it could be their family next.
I’ll be honest: I also wasn’t prepared for how bitter and angry it would make me feel.
What kind of future are we building for the next generation? How can we allow such injustice to continue? How can we let far-right fanatics continue to demolish family homes and trample on basic values and freedoms in their blind pursuit of settlement expansion and permanent, undemocratic control of Palestinian land?
The answer is that we can’t. Together, we have to fight back.
Friends -- If you haven’t yet signed our White House petition for stronger action against settlement expansion, please read it now and add your name >>
The demolition I witnessed -- purely by chance -- was in the town of al Jwaya, whose residents have also been subjected to a wave of recent violent settler attacks. The weekend’s demolition was another form of oppression and harassment -- and painful scenes just like it play out every week across the West Bank.
Together, we need to make clear to folks in Washington -- and in our communities across America -- that these demolitions are not a ‘zoning issue’ or a ‘real estate dispute’, as some disingenuous right-wingers would have us believe. They have nothing to do with Israel’s security.
We need our elected officials to see through the smokescreen and wrestle honestly with the reality: Demolitions are part of an intentional, systematic effort to push Palestinians from their homes, to build more settlements, and to entrench permanent, undemocratic control over the entire West Bank.
And we need them to understand that this project spells disaster not only for Palestinian families -- but for the generations of Israelis sent to the frontlines to defend this, for all those on both sides trapped in a cycle of injustice and retaliation, and for all of us who care about Israel’s future as a just, democratic homeland for the Jewish people.
We cannot shrug this off. We cannot allow ourselves to enable or excuse it in any way.
There’s a reason settlements are a violation of international law, and our leaders in Washington must be unafraid to say so. To do otherwise only undermines our values, our credibility and our ability to act as a responsible broker for peace and progress.
Please add your name to our White House petition today if you agree >>
Thank you, sincerely, for your support.
Ben Linder
J Street Supporter and Activist
