Israeli regime demolition policy aims to depopulate Palestine: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Mick Napier, from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Edinburgh, to discuss a recent report saying that Israel is pressing ahead with its demolition policy in the occupied West Bank, issuing orders for the destruction of more Palestinian homes.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The Israeli regime is pressing ahead with its demolition orders in the occupied West Bank with no sign of slowing down. What is going on sir?

Napier: Thank you for having me. What is going on is a very long-term project by the Israeli military authorities to usurp every opportunity to demolish as many Palestinian homes as possible. Some Palestinian homes over the years have been simply expropriated, stolen, and given over to exclusively Jewish residents. But the demolition is a very useful tactic as well to reduce the number of Palestinians living in a particular area and therefore increase the percentage of Jewish citizens in that area. I have to say, as a British citizen, that the strategy of demolishing Palestinian homes for any hint of resistance or sometimes not is a British initiative. This was something developed by the British when they colonized and controlled Palestine and this colonial method of terrorizing natives has been taken over by the Israeli authorities. So there was barely a date was by without Palestinian homes being demolished sometimes because the Palestinians have resisted Israeli occupation, but sometimes simply because the Palestinians have been refused permission by the illegal occupation authorities to expand their homes.

So you have a rather paradoxical situation with a military enforcers of the illegal occupation of Palestine, demolish Palestinian homes causing suffering and homelessness because they deem the Palestinian homes to be illegal. So an illegal occupation tries to crush Palestinian or tries to remove Palestinian social life in an area by demolishing as many homes as possible. I mean it is very, very painful and sad. You mentioned sir Silwan. I actually went to Silwan quite a few years ago and I was very touched by the story of how the children there went to school every morning. And I asked why they were carrying their toys and their dolls and so on, and the adults told me that the children took their precious toys to school each day because they were afraid that their homes would be demolished during the day while they were at school. So the pain is very, very intense on the Palestinians and it is a deliberate Israeli policy of which house demolition is one method, one very cruel method…developed initially by the British and carried over by the Israeli authorities.

Press TV: The demolition of homes and the subsequent confiscation of Palestinian land almost always end up in these areas turning into outpost and settlements for Israeli settlers. Now not only are the settlements illegal under international law and the Judaization of the West Bank and al-Quds is being ignored by the international community, the issue of Palestinian rights in itself is also being ignored by the United Nations?

Napier: It is even worse. My own government, the British government and a very unpopular government one would have to say; but this government and is planning to celebrate next year the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration, a British policy which gave over Palestine before of it was concord by the British give it over to European Zionist colonization and the whole displacement of the Palestinian people. So the British government certainly is one of the worst, but they are planning to celebrate the whole tragedy of Palestine and the whole successful colonization of most of Palestine by European colonists and you are absolutely right. Even while they condemned verbally the crimes of the Israeli government because they have to make some concessions to their public opinion, these same European governments continue to arm and equip the Israeli authorities. So I think there is the beginning of an awareness on the part of some governments in Denmark and Sweden and so on but beginning to spread, that this situation is unsustainable and they are paying a cost in terms of domestic public opinion, but we have a long way to go to end this deep complicity of European governments in the colonization of Palestine. 

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