What about Jews who lost homes?

Letters

Editor: Once again, the Jewish Western Bulletin has decided to become the mouthpiece for people attacking Israel and its democratic institutions for alleged "misdeeds," which, in reality, are common practice all over the civilized world. ("House demolitions are wrong," Bulletin, Letters, Jan. 23)

House demolitions are sometimes wrong, and so are speeding tickets, court convictions or any other government punitive actions, if they are illegal or obtained through fraudulent means. In this particular instance, however, those out-of-town rabbis [Rabbis for Human Rights] on the fringe of the Jewish community are either blinded by their zealousness or badly misinformed.

For several years, it has been known that the Palestinian Authority has encouraged and subsidized the construction of illegal Arab dwellings, particularly on public property or even, occasionally, on lands owned by Jews, to create "facts on the ground," to further their goals. Most of these house have been build without any permits, deeds, proper applications, surveys or even the most elementary safety or building requirements, evidently as a political challenge to Israel. Moreover, it is a fact that the great majority of those involved with these illegal buildings, often huge, multi-family houses, did not have the means to do it, but were the front for the masters in Ramallah or Damascus.

The fact is that, over the years, Arabs in East Jerusalem have had a larger percentage of approvals for new constructions, per capita, than the people of Jewish West Jerusalem. Such data, however, does not seem to matter to Rabbi Ascherman, Jeff Halper and their left-wing followers, who, by their own admission, are generously funded by the European Union and have a long history of gross exaggerations, demonstrated during their visit to Vancouver, a couple of years ago. The visit was sponsored, supported and organized by our own alleged "Jews for a Just Peace" and the Palestinian organizations in our city.

Should I say more?

As repeatedly reported by Israeli papers, when questioned about the numbers of houses demolished, the esteemed Rabbi Ascherman, admitted that the number 2,000 was more likely a "couple of hundred," not even actually demolished, but under scrutiny and, when pressed further, he could only document less than a dozen a year, the same as, or even fewer than, for Jewish illegal constructions. Even in the published letter, there is word about only two houses, which, in the seven years since Ascherman and company started their foreign-subsidized enterprise, doesn't amount to much, but they again mention about 2,500 demolitions. Where was Rabbi Ascherman on the other 2,498 alleged cases?

What the rabbis also failed to say was that many houses built by Israelis who have failed to obtain similar proper approvals have been also demolished; the only difference being that Ascherman did not go there to protest the demolitions. Also, the Arab builders were allowed to appeal the decisions to the courts and only when it was clearly demonstrated that they had broken the laws and regulations, the decision was made to allow a limited number of demolitions.
To put a local perspective to this propaganda letter, even here on the Lower Mainland, we all have to obtain permits for even the most minuscule renovation project, go through an untold number of papers, drawings, inspections and aggravations, and we have all heard that, if built without permits, such constructions will be demolished.

But there is another disturbing dimension to the one-sidedness of those rabbis signing the letter. For almost 90 years, since the Bolshevik revolution, the Nazi genocide and Islamic persecutions, Jews around the world, from Algeria to Iran and from Russia to Germany, have been robbed of their properties, chased away from their homes and lands. Jewish institutions, with buildings, synagogues, hospitals, cultural centres or libraries, which were confiscated and demolished or turned into warehouses, factories and worse, have also fought an unending battle to recover their lost properties, without much success.

I opened the Web page of the Rabbis for Human Rights, the initiators of the letter, and, besides anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian propaganda coated with a sugary, "humanistic" veneer, there is nothing about Jewish rights and concerns. No letter of protest to the presidents or prime ministers of Syria, Russia, Algeria, Poland, Iran, Romania or Yemen, to name but a few, demanding that the properties robbed from the Jews for several decades should be returned to their rightful owners. No appeals, no outrage, no sympathy or compassion for the plight of millions of Jewish victims of persecutions, confiscations and terror. I agree with the rabbis that "a sense of home is an essential part of our humanity" and that "to be deprived of one's home is to be naked in the world." Shouldn't these wonderful words also apply to our, and their, Jewish brethren?

Every reader of the Bulletin should peruse the same Web site and, afterwards, we should all wonder about the real agenda of the signers of the letter.

Jack Chivo
West Vancouver

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