I live in Israel now, sometimes crossing into Palestinian areas. Just last month, I walked the two-way, single-lane roads of East Jerusalem, populated mainly by Palestinians. The roads are left over from the Ottoman Era. Guided by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, I headed just outside the city, to the village of Anata. We spoke with a man named Salim Shawamreh, whose home, built on his own property, has been demolished four times for lacking a building permit. Why didn't he just get a permit? He tried, four times.
The Israel Housing Administration told him the land was zoned for agricultural use (though it was far too rocky even to jog around). They told him that his land ownership documents were missing two signatures (but they didn't tell him which ones).
In the four years of the intifada, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, over 4,000 Palestinian homes were demolished, approximately 15 percent in punitive actions against the families of suicide bombers (a policy recently abrogated) and 60 percent in military operations, which I hope will cease as the peace process recommences. The other 25 percent - amounting to over 1,000 homes - were demolished by court order. The owners and their families, having no connection to violence or terrorism, were guilty of lacking building permits, documents nearly impossible to obtain. The Israel Housing Administration determines whether these landowners, who are neither citizens of Israel nor desire to be, may build on their own rightfully purchased land. The goal of the policy: If the families can't build, they will move.
But the families keep building. And the Israel Defense Forces keep returning with their weaponized Caterpillar bulldozers. In their April 13 column (" Stop the Bugs" ), Rachel Brown and Mary Elston suggest that we - as an international civil society - hold Caterpillar Inc. accountable for the use of its products. Others, such as a poster commenter on The Herald Web site, disagree: "Holding Caterpiller responsible for the use of their machines ... is like holding United Paper responsible because its products are used to print terrorist manuals." In an April 14 letter to The Herald ("Stop sales to criminals"), one writer sarcastically encourages us to protest "legitimate corporations because their products can be used to do what they are designed for." Tell that to Salim Shawamreh, whose children were awakened and traumatized by the sounds of these apparently legitimate products - four times.
Even if Caterpillar bulldozers were designed to demolish the homes of unwilling families, why should we target our protest at Caterpillar Inc. and not solely at the Israel Housing Administration? After all, are bike companies really guilty if purse-grabbers use their bikes to get away? Then again, would I be guilty of selling a gun to someone about to commit a murder? I think yes. If I know how the buyer will (mis)use my product, I am undeniably complicit in the act. And Caterpillar Inc. is complicit.
Yet, if we hold every company accountable for the use or misuse of its products, our campaign of sanctions would never end. It would be ineffective and pointless. One demands sanctions against morally complicit companies only when sanctions have the power to end the human rights violations that their products enable. If we do not act, the injustice and the suffering continue. On Wednesday, just hours before Caterpillar Inc. officials met in Chicago to discuss continued sales to Israel, two more homes were destroyed in Anata. It took half an hour to turn the 12-person home of the Yamani family into a pile of rubble, and one hour for the 22-person home of the Dahalia family. The Yamani family lived in their house for three years; the Dahalia family for two decades. Each had half an hour to evacuate.
Enough. The power of sanctions draws not only from economic impact but from moral outrage. If we hope to see just peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, we must act responsibly against companies which profit from the occupation, which perpetuate suffering and dehumanization. Such action can force change. I do not intend to "delegitimize" Israel, nor do I sympathize with unproductive and radical calls for its "dissolution." I write for the betterment of both Israeli and the Palestinian people.
Sanctions are not leveled indiscriminately, driven by inapplicable ideological agendas; they are pursued to harness our outrage, to effectively bring positive policy change. As protest against Caterpillar expands, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions will be working to rebuild the demolished homes this summer. To learn how you can help, visit their Web site.
Eli Braun '06, studying abroad in Be'er Sheva, is slowly overcoming his American accent.
