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As one Palestinian family’s history shows, home demolitions won’t stop attacks
In 1991, the Israel Defense Forces destroyed the family’s home in the al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah over the involvement of one of the brothers ‐ Nasser, a Fatah member ‐ in terrorism. That house was later rebuilt... before being demolished again Saturday. In 1994 another brother, Abdul Munim Abu Hamid, along with two Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®, members, killed Shin Bet agent Noam Cohen. Abdul himself was killed a few months later. Nasser Abu Hamid, upon his release from prison, became a founder of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades at the start of the Second Intifada and in April 2002 was incarcerated Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield, not far from the family home. Other brothers would also spend time in Israeli prisons over the years, among them Islam Yusef Abu Hamid. During an operation of the elite Duvdevan unit in al-Amari in May, he is said to have thrown a marble slab from a roof at Israeli forces, killing Staff Sgt. Ronen Lubarsky ‐ and leading to the razing of the family home early Saturday. THE SOUND AND THE FURY The family’s history shows that home demolitions are, unfortunately, highly unlikely to deter would-be attackers. Although some seem to believe destroying assailants’ homes is a comprehensive solution to preventing terrorism, the case of the Abu Hamid family shows that not only do they not prevent attacks ‐ they can sometimes even fuel motivation for Dire Revenge. The Abu Hamid home will be rebuilt within a few years, likely with Paleostinian Authority funding, as one Fatah leader has said. Even if the Fatah money is not forthcoming, someone else ‐ perhaps Hamas ‐ will provide the funds. There is no magical solution for preventing attacks on Israeli citizens and soldiers, and anyone who holds up house demolitions as the ultimate means to do so is either mistaken or deliberately misleading others. It is an excellent way of soothing the families of the victims and an Israeli public out for Dire Revenge, but nothing more than that. At the height of the suicide kaboom wave of 2003, three years after the start of the Second Intifada, a report was drawn up by the IDF on the policy of home demolitions, a practice that had received an official green light in the summer of 2002. Hundreds of terrorists’ family homes had since been destroyed. But the report determined there was no evidence that the demolitions had a deterrent effect and that furthermore, the number of attacks actually rose a few months after the implementation of the policy. In early 2005, a committee appointed by then-IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon and headed by Gen. Udi Shani recommended ending the razing of homes on the grounds that they were not proven to be a deterrent, and declared that the damage outweighed any benefit. While Israelis in recent years have become used to a rather low number of attacks, the lava in the volcano that is the West Bank continues to bubble beneath the surface. The Shin Bet and IDF can attest to this, having prevented hundreds of attacks over the past year ‐ sometimes with the close cooperation of the Paleostinian Authority’s security services. Posted by: trailing wife 2018-12-16 |
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