A fight for
harvests and housing

>> Israel-based Rabbi for Human Rights Arik Ascherman speaks up for Palestinian rights

REPLANTING IN THE WEST BANK: Ascherman

by CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

“I’ve been beaten up by the Israeli army and security forces, attacked by settlers and had my car stoned by Palestinians,” says Rabbi Arik Ascherman from the relative safety of New York City, the latest stop on his North American speaking tour.

As executive director of Israel’s Rabbis for Human Rights, the American-born Ascherman has been standing in front of bulldozers and between angry Jewish settlers and Palestinians for the better part of a decade, motivated by the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or “repairing the world.”

“As a rabbinic human rights organization, we are committed both to the Torah and Jewish traditions, and to international human rights law,” he explains. “As an Israeli, as a Jew, as a rabbi and as a Zionist, I’m committed to creating the kind of country that I can be proud of. We are a country fighting for its soul.”

Build, demolish, repeat

Founded by Rabbi David Forman in 1988 during the first intifada, RHR is probably best known for working to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes and olive groves by the Israeli army and settlers.

Since it conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, Israeli authorities have demolished some 18,000 Palestinian homes. Officially, demolitions are carried out for three reasons: to deter or punish militants, for military operations and for “administrative” purposes.

“When most people think about home demolitions, they think about homes that have been demolished as a deterrent to potential terrorists,” Ascherman says. “That was actually stopped a few years ago, because the army realized they were creating more hatred and more terror than they were stopping.”

By far the most common, “administrative” demolitions are carried out against structures built without an Israeli permit, part of a plan to alter the ethnic composition of cities like Jerusalem, according to Ascherman and other human rights workers.

“If you are a Palestinian living in the Occupied Territories or Jerusalem, it’s almost impossible to get a legal building permit because of an intentional manipulation of building and zoning laws,” he says. “And then when you build without a permit—because you have no choice—your home is subject to demolition.”

One of Ascherman’s earliest actions after joining RHR in the mid-1990s involved repeatedly rebuilding the home of a Palestinian named Saleem Shawarmah. Those efforts eventually attracted international media attention, as well as the eye of the American secretary of state, prompting a temporary decline in the practice.

“Madeleine Albright took it up as a personal issue and, we were told, would actually make a phone call to Israeli government officials every time she heard about a demolition,” says Ascherman. “Demolitions miraculously went way down for a number of years, from late 1998 to mid-2001, but under the cover of the second intifada we’ve seen a major resurgence.”

Almost 10 years later, though, the future of the Shawarmah home remains in doubt. “The fifth home is now standing,” Ascherman says, “but [the case] is still in court.”

Grove robbing

RHR’s other major focus is the protection of Palestinian olive groves and the farmers who tend them. Olives are a vital source of income and food for Palestinians, as well as a deep-rooted national and cultural symbol.

Since 2000, more than a half-million olive trees have been destroyed to make way for the construction of the Israeli security wall or by Israeli settlers who covet the land on which they sit.

“We act as human shields to protect Palestinians from settler violence when they’re going to harvest their olive trees,” says Ascherman. “We’ve also re-planted tens of thousands of trees that have been uprooted and cut down by settlers and the army.”

In addition to their more tangible efforts, Ascherman says that RHR’s secondary mission is to open the minds of their fellows Jews, and to connect with ordinary Palestinians, empowering them to choose alternatives to extremism.

“Maybe the most important thing we do is break down the stereotypes that many Palestinians have about Israelis,” he says. “We want them to know that not every Israeli comes with guns to demolish their homes, and that there are Israelis that will come and stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

“Only I, as an Israeli, can break these stereotypes,” he says, adding pragmatically, “It’s not just the right and Jewish thing to do, it’s also the self-interested thing to do.”

Rabbi Ascherman will speak on Monday, Nov. 19,
at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human
Rights Studies, Concordia University (1400 de
Maisonneuve W., Room LB-1014), 11 a.m., and at
Dorshei Emet Synagogue (18 Cleve Rd.) in Hampstead,
8 p.m. Both events are free. For more info, see
rhr.israel.net or call (514) 282-7479