Demolition double-standard in Gaza

The following is from Sojourners' weekly email newsletter:

AMY GOODMAN: On the issue of demolishing homes, I have noted over the last few days with the mainstream press in the United States, there's been a great effort to get the voices of Jewish settlers out, and you can hear the pain in their voices as they talk about their homes for many years, being forced out of them.... [W]e rarely hear that kind of extended interview with a Palestinian whose home has just been destroyed.

AMIRA HASS: Well, that's, of course, the fault of, as you say, the mainstream media, and which pains much more the loss of a huge house built at the expense of the Palestinians than the loss of thousands of Palestinian houses...which were very often demolished in order to safeguard the security of those very settlements.

From the transcript of an August 15 interview between Amy Goodman of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! and Amira Hass, an Israeli Jewish journalist for Haaretz newspaper who has lived and worked in Gaza and the West Bank for many years.


Contrary to widely held assumptions, only 5-15% of Palestinian homes that are destroyed are those of suspected terrorists. That policy was so counterproductive that the Israeli army abandoned the practice earlier this year. The majority are destroyed in "military operations" or because the homes were built without permits from the Israeli government which are nearly impossible to obtain.