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Israel’s home demolitions after terrorist attacks, explained
(JTA) – Less than a hour after a terror attack in eastern Jerusalem on Friday killed three people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a succinct message: Destroy the Palestinian attacker’s home.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to take immediate action to seal and demolish the home of the terrorist,” said the statement from Netanyahu’s office.
Home demolition orders have almost become a matter of course following Palestinian attacks. They don’t usually make headlines, nor do they tend to spark public outcry. For decades, Israel has used the tactic as a routine instrument of punishment, claiming that the effect of tearing down the homes of terrorists deters future attacks.
But critics question that claim, and say that home demolitions constitute collective punishment that violates international law. At a moment of deep political strife in Israel, the home demolition practice, like many others related to security, generates little political opposition. And while the Israeli Supreme Court, whose power Israel’s right-wing government hopes to limit, can delay home demolitions, it almost always ultimately permits them to go forward.
Here’s how the practice of Israeli home demolition began, how it’s viewed in Israel and abroad, and how it may be changing under Israel’s new government.
Why does Israel destroy the homes of terrorists?
Israel began demolishing homes of Palestinian attackers after it captured the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, along with other territories, in the 1967 Six Day War. Since then, according to a 2019 assessment by the Israel Democracy Institute, Israel has demolished some 2,000 homes due to terrorism. The demolitions have taken place in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, not within Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
Israel claims that demolishing the homes of terrorists acts as a deterrent, a rationale cited last month in a bill introduced by lawmaker Eliahu Revivo, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party who also wants to deter attacks by deporting the families of terrorists.
“The national security establishment and the Israeli army have conducted research over the years into dozens of suicide attackers, and it emerged that the one deterrent for suicide attackers is what the consequences for their families will be after the attack,” the text of the bill said.
Home demolitions were largely suspended in 2005 after the Israel Defense Forces found that the practice had no discernible deterrent effect. The demolitions were sporadically reinstituted a few years later and fully brought back by Netanyahu in November 2014 during a wave of Palestinian attacks.
A 2010 research paper by political scientists at Northwestern University and Hebrew University suggested that home demolition works as a deterrent. The authors of the study based their findings on an examination of home demolitions in the five years prior to the army’s 2005 suspension, a period that coincided with the second intifada.
“We show that punitive house demolitions (those targeting Palestinian suicide terrorists and terror operatives) cause an immediate, significant decrease in the number of suicide attacks,” the paper said. “The effect dissipates over time and by geographic distance.”
This year, Netanyahu’s new government, the most right-wing in Israeli history, has indicated it will accelerate and expand the demolition of the homes of terrorists. It recently ordered the closing-off of an apartment belonging to the family of a 13-year-old who shot and wounded two Israelis near Jerusalem’s Old City. The move was unusual because Israel had previously reserved home demolition for attackers who killed people.
Does Israel demolish the homes of Jewish terrorists?
No. The Palestinian family of a boy murdered by a Jewish terrorist sued to have his killer’s home destroyed. The High Court in 2017 rejected the lawsuit, saying too much time had passed since the 2014 murder. The government argued that deterrence was not necessary in the case of Jewish terrorism, because, in the words of Judge Neal Hendel, Jewish terrorists are “a minority of a minority of a minority.” The Israeli government counted a total of 16 Jewish attacks of terrorism in 2015, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israeli Arab politicians, including Knesset member Ahmed Tibi, had called on the government to demolish the Jewish terrorist’s house as a matter of fair treatment.
Is demolishing terrorists’ homes legal?
Yes, according to Israel. No, according to experts in international law.
Israel bases its argument on a regulation from 1945, when Britain controlled what is now Israel, that was carried over into Israeli law when the state was established in 1948. It is known as “Defense regulation (emergency) 1945, regulation 119.”
The regulation is broadly written, allowing a “A Military Commander” to destroy the home of “anyone who offended, or attempted an offense, or assisted offenders or abetted offenders after the fact,” as determined by a military court.
Multiple international law experts say that home demolition is illegal under international law because it is a form of collective punishment, which is banned by the Geneva Conventions. Israel has long argued that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to its presence in territories it has captured, because the land in question was not the internationally recognized territory of any state prior to 1967.
The Biden administration also considers home demolitions to be collective punishment. “We attach a good deal of priority to this, knowing that the home of an entire family shouldn’t be demolished for the action of one individual,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in 2021.
Israeli human rights groups, including B’tselem and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, agree with international scholars that the practice violates international law. B’tselem cites both the Fourth Geneva Convention and a verse in Deuteronomy that reads, “Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: they shall each be put to death only for their own crime.”
Who owns the land once a home is demolished?
Under the 1945 regulation, military authorities maintain control of the land, and it reverts to the original owners — if they are present — once military authorities leave.
How long does it take for a home demolition to take place? What happens to the family?
Generally, the military consults with Israel’s intelligence services before ordering a home demolition.In the case of high-profile attacks, however, the order may come down immediately, as it did on Friday. Families have 48 hours to appeal a demolition to the military commander or another relevant authority.
However, Israel’s Supreme Court has reserved the right to review demolition orders. This may delay demolition for months or years, but B’Tselem reports that in the majority of cases, the court ultimately upholds the demolition. In one notable case in 2018, the court stopped the demolition after the family presented evidence showing that the assailant suffered from a mental illness.
Homes may be demolished by bulldozers. Apartments or rooms are generally filled with cement, rendering them unlivable. Families sometimes split up among relatives, at least in the near term, according to a United Nations report.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the army commission that recommended ending the practice in 2005 reported that families of the terrorists often rebuild their homes with compensation funds from the Palestinian Authority and other sources. The Palestinian Authority pays monthly stipends to the families of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel or killed while committing violent attacks. Israel and its advocates decry the payments as an incentive for terrorism.
How many home demolitions have taken place? Are homes demolished for reasons other than deterrence?
According to the Israel Democracy Institute, more than 50 homes “have been either fully or partially demolished” between 2014 and 2019 as a deterrent to terrorism. Hamoked, an Israeli human rights group, placed the total since 2014 at 75, according to Haaretz.
Israel has demolished a far greater number of Palestinian buildings due to lack of a building permit. Palestinian groups and Israeli human rights organizations argue that Palestinians face discrimination in obtaining such permits. Israel also has a policy of demolishing Palestinian dwellings for being built in a closed military zone.
The same academic paper that concluded demolishing the homes of suicide attackers was an effective deterrent also found that home demolitions for other reasons — including as a preventative measure — spurred an increase in terror attacks.
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The post Israel’s home demolitions after terrorist attacks, explained appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Abdul El-Sayed and Jamie Raskin sidestep Hasan Piker, and Israel, in Michigan campaign stops
(JTA) — ANN ARBOR – As Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed made campaign stops with a prominent Jewish congressional leader on Wednesday, there was one subject neither he, nor his Democratic allies onstage, were interested in discussing.
“Don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker,” Michigan U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell told the crowd at an Ann Arbor, Mich., town hall, to cheers. “It’s not what November is about.”
Dingell’s crack was the only time the prominent left-wing streamer’s name was mentioned at all during the pair of El-Sayed rallies that day. Piker’s recent comments that American Jews who “tie” themselves to Israel would “suffer the consequences of the actions of that state” prompted uproar from several corners of Democratic leadership. Despite this, El-Sayed’s new Jewish campaign surrogate, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, avoided the topic altogether.
That reluctance to talk about Piker on the campaign trail Wednesday extended to the candidate himself. El-Sayed didn’t mention Piker, nor Israel, once in either of his campaign stops with Raskin, except when asked directly by reporters.
The former county health official campaigned with Piker during the primary — including at one stop at the University of Michigan a stone’s throw away from Wednesday’s event — as the two made opposition to Israel a central issue of his candidacy. But at a press conference following his Ann Arbor event, El-Sayed described Piker as “a streamer in California,” adding that the media was putting too much focus on his most prominent supporter.
“I’m less interested in going to the tabloid version of our politics where we cover this as who’s in, who’s out, who’s up, who’s down, who’s talking to who,” El-Sayed said. “I’m a lot more interested in talking to the people in the state who had a bum deal because of Donald Trump and the politics that [El-Sayed’s GOP opponent] Mike Rogers has been the epitome of for a very long time.”
Raskin, one of the most prominent Jewish Democrats in the House, also showed a reluctance to talk about Jewish voters in general. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency asked the congressman in Ann Arbor how he would sell El-Sayed to Jewish Democrats uncomfortable with his rhetoric. In response, he did not mention Jewish concerns.
“Those of us who have been fighting Donald Trump and his authoritarianism and corruption and violence against American citizens and immigrants for 10 years now understand that this is an essential referendum about the future,” Raskin said in response. “Will we have democracy or will we have autocracy?”
He added that he has been “campaigning for Democrats all over the country,” and praised the party for being “a very big tent.”
“Just like any big family Thanksgiving dinner, there can be arguments and people jostling, and there’s unruliness,” Raskin said. “But fundamentally, we all believe in democracy and freedom and the progress and prosperity of our people.”
Yet questions about Piker, and how close the movement he represents may come to remaking the Democratic Party’s values, hang over both Michigan’s Senate race and the future of Jewish inclusion in the party. As the party fights to retake Congress this fall, some liberal Jewish voters believe the growing backlash against Israel among the “big tent”’s progressive wing is damaging their historic coalition. A growing number of Jewish voters in Michigan who previously backed Democrats are now supporting Rogers instead, and El-Sayed’s association with Piker is often cited as a key reason why.
In playing the role of uniter, Raskin is slaloming carefully between the party’s different factions. Before campaigning with El-Sayed, the congressman stumped for Michigan Rep. Hillary Scholten, a moderate Democrat who has withheld her endorsement of El-Sayed while specifying his association with Piker as a sticking point.
Also being silent on the rallies is a key target of Piker’s: Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, whose likeness the streamer had made his latest comments in front of. The Jewish and pro-Israel Democratic congressional candidate is running in a heavily Jewish district that encompasses Oakland County, where El-Sayed’s second rally of the day took place. In recent days, Moss said that El-Sayed was “going to have to demonstrate some serious outreach to Oakland County’s Jewish community.” He declined to comment to JTA about the day’s rallies.
As they largely avoided the elephant in the room among Democrats, El-Sayed and his allies also preached the importance of party unity in taking on their Republican opponents.
“There’s a big effort to divide us,” Raskin told the second rally’s audience in Farmington Hills. “They’re trying to pick on disagreements in our party, trying to exacerbate conflict, because we have freedom of thought in our party and freedom of speech in our party and freedom of dialogue.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Abdul El-Sayed and Jamie Raskin sidestep Hasan Piker, and Israel, in Michigan campaign stops appeared first on The Forward.
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Dolly Parton’s legacy includes the Jewish children’s book program she inspired
(JTA) — Dolly Parton, the singer who died Tuesday at age 80 after a brief bout with cancer, was mourned around the world as a stellar songwriter, consummate country hitmaker, savvy entrepreneur and generous philanthropist.
In Jewish circles, she was also remembered as the inspiration for PJ Library, a program that sends free children’s books to Jewish families in order to foster Jewish values and traditions.
In 2015, when Harold Grinspoon launched PJ Library, he took a page from Parton, who a decade earlier had started Imagination Library, a literacy program that mails free children’s books to families across the U.S.
After hearing Parton interviewed about the program, Grinspoon, a philanthropist in and out of the Jewish community, signed on as a sponsor of the Imagination Library in Western Massachusetts, where he lives.
“We should create a Jewish version of Imagination Library,” said Grinspoon, according to a 2023 recollection by his daughter-in-law and president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, Winnie Sandler Grinspoon.
“Harold was looking for ways to build Jewish literacy,” she wrote. “He was witnessing a lack of connection to the values, stories, and traditions that have been at the center of the Jewish experience for millennia.”
Two decades later, PJ Library has more than 670,000 subscribers in 40 countries.
On Tuesday, in a tribute to Parton, PJ Library and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation recalled a meeting between the two in 2023. According to an Instagram post, “she shared the following with him: ‘I am honored to get to help inspire a love of reading in children. They truly are our future.’”
“Harold remembers Dolly as ‘a truly amazing person — not only a great artist, but a great entrepreneur and philanthropist,” according to the post. “We honor Dolly for educating millions, for her remarkable career, her kindness, her art, and especially her generosity.”
“Dolly’s generosity of spirit extended far beyond inspiring the creation of PJ Library,” Alex Zablotsky, PJ Library’s executive director, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Parton drew inspiration for her art and philanthropy from her hardscrabble roots in rural Tennessee. She was one of 12 kids growing up in a one-room log cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Parton’s father never learned how to read or write.
“This actually started because my father could not read and write, and I saw how crippling that could be,” Parton said of the Imagination Library at a ceremony where she was awarded a Carnegie Medal for her partnership with a pediatric hospital in East Tennessee, now named for Parton.
“My dad was a very smart man. And I often wondered what he could have done had he been able to read and write. So that is the inspiration,” she said.
Parton had a close bond with other Jews, notably Sandy Gallin, the manager who guided her from Nashville to mainstream pop stardom, according to the Forward.
When Gallin died in 2017, Parton said, “Nobody could quite get how the Christian Southern girl and the New York Jewish boy could have so much in common. But it was real.”
One trouble spot, however, came in a 1994 interview with Vogue Magazine, when Parton mused about starting a television series about a country singer who turns to gospel music. She gave up the idea, she said, because “most of the people out here [Hollywood] are Jewish and it’s frightening for them to promote Christianity.”
She later apologized in a letter to Abe Foxman, then head of the Anti-Defamation League, JTA reported at the time.
“I know how stereotypes can be hurtful,” she wrote. “Like all Americans of good will, I recognize the importance of rejecting prejudice.”
Foxman accepted her apology. “Whatever she said was unfortunate, and she recognizes that,’” Foxman told The New York Times. “I know it’s not easy for celebrities to publicly say they made a mistake. As far as we are concerned, the matter is behind us.”
On Tuesday, Laura Liebman, director of development for The Bronfman Fellowship for young Jewish leaders, paid tribute to the singer, who was a feminist and an ally of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Dolly somehow managed to transcend race, class, religion, politics and gender,” Liebman wrote in an essay for eJewishPhilanthropy. “As the Jewish community becomes increasingly siloed, we could all learn from Dolly’s radical acceptance and show more love and compassion for our fellow Jews.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Dolly Parton’s legacy includes the Jewish children’s book program she inspired appeared first on The Forward.
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Second Reform synagogue in Israel has windows broken
(JTA) — TEL AVIV – A window was broken at a Reform synagogue on Sunday in the central Israeli city of Ramat Hasharon less than two weeks after a similar incident occurred in Jerusalem in an incident the mayor called an act of vandalism.
Congregation Darchei Noam called the incident a hate crime, and Ramat Hasharon Mayor Itzik Rochberger condemned the incident and called for police investigation.
Police said the damage was most likely caused by rocks thrown at the building during the night but said the motive remained under investigation.
Rabbi Eli Levin, who leads Darchei Noam, said a heavy paving stone had been used to smash the window.
“This wasn’t children playing and a stone accidentally being thrown,” Levin told JTA.
The incident came just over a week after vandals broke into Kol HaNeshama, a prominent Reform synagogue in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood. In that occurrence, a group of youths smashed a window, entered the prayer hall, damaged artwork and tore down Pride flags displayed by the congregation. No worshippers were present at the time. Police opened an investigation but have not publicly announced any arrests.
“The smashing of the windows tonight at the Reform synagogue in the city is a serious act of vandalism and we will not let it pass without response,” Rochberger said, calling on police to thoroughly investigate the attack and bring those responsible to justice.
He added that Ramat Hasharon was committed to “freedom, tolerance, pluralism and coexistence” between religious and secular residents and said the city would not allow extremists to intimidate residents or damage the fabric of communal life.
“We will stand together against any attempt to harm the character of Ramat Hasharon and the values on which it is founded,” Rochberger said.
Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi who previously headed Israel’s Reform movement, linked the attack to recent violence against Reform congregations, businesses operating on Shabbat and anti-government protesters.
“They will smash and break – we will repair and build,” he wrote on X.
Darchei Noam was founded in Ramat Hasharon in 1981 and serves residents of that city, Herzliya and northern Tel Aviv. The congregation holds egalitarian services in which women and men participate equally and also runs educational programs, bar and bat mitzvah preparation and community volunteer activities, according to its website.
The congregation spent years fighting for the right to build a permanent synagogue. After the municipality declined to allocate land to a non-Orthodox congregation, the dispute ultimately reached Israel’s High Court of Justice, which ruled that the community could receive a plot.
Darchei Noam said it would hold its regular Friday night service as planned and called on supporters to attend in a show of solidarity following the attack.
“We will continue and we will not be deterred,” Levin said. “We will continue to hold egalitarian ceremonies and celebrate the holidays in our Jewish-Israeli way.”
The incident came as Ramat Hasharon and nearby Herzliya have been locked in disputes over businesses operating on Shabbat. In June, a Tel Aviv court dismissed a petition seeking to force the Ramat Hasharon municipality to enforce its existing Shabbat closure bylaw at the BIG Fashion Glilot shopping complex after the city pledged to apply the law under a new enforcement policy.
The municipality has simultaneously sought Interior Ministry approval to amend the decades-old bylaw to permit businesses to open on Saturdays in designated areas. Rochberger has repeatedly defended that effort, saying Ramat Hasharon should remain pluralistic and protect both freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
Just a few hundred meters away from the synagogue, businesses in the Neve Israel neighborhood of Herzliya have repeatedly been vandalized after opening on Shabbat. The local Othello ice cream shop was attacked three times before its owners stopped opening on Saturdays, citing safety concerns, while the windows of the nearby Pasta Basta restaurant were smashed in late July. Pasta Basta continued operating on Shabbat.
Herzliya Mayor Yariv Fisher has urged residents to support businesses that remained open on Saturdays.
“This will only spur me to keep working day and night to ensure that Herzliya remains a beacon of liberalism,” Fisher wrote on Facebook. “I invite the public to support all the city’s restaurants, entertainment businesses and cafes.”
Jerusalem has seen a parallel fight over Shabbat commerce in recent weeks. Cafe Basimta, near the Mahane Yehuda market, has faced weekly demonstrations by haredi Orthodox protesters since early July over its decision to remain open on Saturdays. Police have been deployed repeatedly at the site as protesters and counterprotesters faced off. A 75-year-old woman was arrested this month on suspicion of repeatedly vandalizing the cafe by damaging its lock and throwing garbage at the premises.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Second Reform synagogue in Israel has windows broken appeared first on The Forward.
