Proclaim Jubilee

“Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan…In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.” (Leviticus 25: 10,13)

Imagine that you are a father of five teenage boys living in the small, overcrowded village of Beit Hanina, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Your family hadn’t always lived here. Your true home, as your father tells the story, is the Negev. He and your mother (who has long since passed) were internally displaced in 1948 in what Israelis call the “War of Independence”.

The ruins of your home

Your family calls the war “al-Nakbah” or “the Catastrophe”. They remember it as a time in which 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes as some five hundred villages (including your family’s) were destroyed. Since that moment in time, your people have been living in an occupied territory. Even though it began ten years before you were born, your standard of living, access to religious sites and education, the jobs that are available to you, where you may live, even the identity of the person you are able to marry – all will be dictated by a political system in which you are not allowed to participate. Unlike other democratic countries, you may not vote for the representatives that make decisions on your behalf, because you are living under an occupation, you are not considered a full citizen.

One morning at 5 am you hear loud banging and shouts at your door. About 20 soldiers are there with automatic weapons and a large bulldozer. It breaks your heart to see your sons and wife so full of fear as you all get pushed outside so the movers can do their work. The men quickly move through your house, taking out some items and leaving others. You wish your sons had their backpacks for school, but you don’t see them on the pile – they must be under the rubble. You gather your family together in safety just as the wreaking ball begins to swing, demolishing the cement block home that you built with your own two hands just nine years ago.

An empty space where
your home once was

 You thought that the 40,000 shekels (10,000 USD) that you paid in fines for not having the proper building permit would help delay this dark day, but your lawyer was unable to have the case thrown out of court. And now, you will not only have to pay his costs but also the costs for demolition. You and your family are suddenly homeless. Sure, you could just leave and go somewhere else, but the only places available are the nearby refugee camps at Shu’fat or Qalandia – both rife with violence. That’s no environment to raise your teenage sons.

During our second week of placement as international human rights observers, we encountered the man I describe above and his family. Seeing the rubble of what had been their lives, their home base, their shelter and safety… well, there is simply nothing that can be said to ease that kind of helplessness.

More rubble and destruction

It’s a situation that happens quite frequently in Jerusalem. According to the Society of St. Ives Catholic Center for Human Rights, only 7% of building applications are approved for Palestinians while the remaining 93% are granted to Israeli Jew’s. In the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, there is a housing shortage of 43,000 units. Since permits cost over $30,000 and 75.4% of Palestinians live under the poverty line and are unable to afford it, many have no choice but to build illegally and hope for the best. At this moment, 60,000 families are under demolition orders and are at risk of waking up to find a bulldozer at their door. And it seems, given the current political state, that it is only going to get worse. Unless we decide to do something about it.

Prayers are good, but advocacy is too. It’s been 50 years of unjust occupation, so let’s proclaim Jubilee today. Write your senators and congress people, ask them what they know about this situation which our tax dollars are supporting. Talk to your friends about it. Read up on the human rights abuses taking place here in this “Holy Land Full of Holes”. Better yet, come and see for yourself.