Monday, July 27, 2015

1945 British Mandate Emergency Regulations, enacted by the High Commissioner of the Palestine Mandate, as justification for demolitions. Article 119 states:


Israel’s policy of demolishing homes and its roots in the British Mandate

Posted on June 4, 2013by 
Picture 15
From the Palestine Post, 2nd November, 1938, 2.
Over the past few weeks, Israel reportedly demolished a number of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, as well as Bedouin homes in the Negev.
On 23rd May, the Jerusalem Post reported that government bulldozers had razed two residential buildings, home to five East Jerusalem families. On 29th May, a number of websites reported that the Beit Hanina home of the al-Salaymeh family was demolished, rendering – according to varying reports – between 10 and 13 people homeless. On 30thMay, there were reports of demolition in three Arab Bedouin villages in southern Israel’s Negev desert. The reasons given in all of the above cases were permit and planning related.
Israel has implemented the deplorable policy of housing demolition for decades. The Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions estimates that, since 1967, Israel has razed some 27,000 “Palestinian homes and other structures (livestock pens and fencing for example) crucial for a family’s livelihood” in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.” Aside from permits and planning – a complex and contentious issue which I will not attempt to expand on here – a smaller percentage of demolitions were carried out for security reasons, and as a punitive measure to deter Palestinian attacks against Israelis, a policy that was discontinued in 2005.
For those not familiar with Israeli law, it may be interesting to discover that the basis for this latter policy has been British Mandate law. More specifically, Israel cited Article 119 of the 1945 British Mandate Emergency Regulations, enacted by the High Commissioner of the Palestine Mandate, as justification for demolitions. Article 119 states:
“(1) A Military Commander may by order direct the forfeiture to the Government of Palestine of any house, structure, or land from which he has reason to suspect that any firearm has been illegally discharged, or any bomb, grenade or explosive or incendiary article illegally thrown, or of any house, structure or land situated in any area, town, village, quarter or street the inhabitants or some of the inhabitants of which he is satisfied have committed, or attempted to commit, or abetted the commission of, or been accessories after the fact to the commission of, any offense against these Regulations involving violence or intimidation or any Military Court offense; and when any house, structure or land is forfeited as aforesaid, the Military Commander may destroy the house or the structure or anything growing on the land. (2) Members of His Majesty’s forces or of the Police Force, acting under the authority of the Military Commander may seize and occupy, without compensation, any property in any such area, town, village, quarter or street as is referred to in subregulation (1), after eviction without compensation, of the previous occupiers, if any.”*
Even earlier than 1945, however, the British were implementing the policy. Demolition was widely used during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt, when it was carried out under thePalestine (Defence) Order in Council, 1937. This order authorised the High Commissionerto enact any regulations “as appear to him in his unfettered discretion to be necessary or expedient for securing public safety, the defence of Palestine, the maintenance of public order and the suppression of mutiny, rebellion, and riot and for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community.” With the 1937 order and the 1945 Emergency Regulation, the British could take action against Arab and Jewish militants in Palestine.
The Mandate Palestine press from that period is replete with reports of demolition by British troops. For example, during the month of November, 1938 the Palestine Postreported that 29 houses and two “Arab-owned groves” were razed. The demolitions took place between 23rd October and 13th November, and were located in villages in today’s West Bank, in Gaza and also in Jaffa.
Picture 13
The Palestine Post, 1st November, 1938, 2.
The reasons given for destroying the buildings included the laying of land mines, houses having served as bases for sniper attacks, and the use of homes as a meeting place for gangs. One case of demolitions was carried out “following the shooting of two soldiers in Gaza.” Another described a raid on a village in which 600 men were detained for interrogation, the village was fined 200 Palestine Pounds, and British troops demolished houses because of “the harbouring of terrorists by the village.” The information was taken from official British reports.
The local press also reported discussions of the policy back in London. According to a small item on the front page of the Jaffa-based daily Filastin on 16th November, for example, a British member of parliament asked a question in the House of Commons about home demolitions. The newspaper asked: “Is demolition taking place by decree and agreement of ministers?”
Picture 17
From Filastin, 16th November, 1938, 1.
*For a fascinating analysis of how the 1945 law was still cited as legal justification for punitive housing demolitions, see this 1991 article by Usama R. Halabi, particularly pages 261 to 264.
Images of Palestine Post are taken from the Historical Jewish Press Archive. Image of Filastin photographed by the author at the National Library of Israel.
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5 comments:

  1. YJ Draiman ArticlesJuly 27, 2015 at 4:20 PM

    Article 119 of the 1945 British Mandate Emergency Regulations, enacted by the High Commissioner of the Palestine Mandate, as justification for demolitions. Article 119 states:

    “(1) A Military Commander may by order direct the forfeiture to the Government of Palestine of any house, structure, or land from which he has reason to suspect that any firearm has been illegally discharged, or any bomb, grenade or explosive or incendiary article illegally thrown, or of any house, structure or land situated in any area, town, village, quarter or street the inhabitants or some of the inhabitants of which he is satisfied have committed, or attempted to commit, or abetted the commission of, or been accessories after the fact to the commission of, any offense against these Regulations involving violence or intimidation or any Military Court offense; and when any house, structure or land is forfeited as aforesaid, the Military Commander may destroy the house or the structure or anything growing on the land. (2) Members of His Majesty’s forces or of the Police Force, acting under the authority of the Military Commander may seize and occupy, without compensation, any property in any such area, town, village, quarter or street as is referred to in subregulation (1), after eviction without compensation, of the previous occupiers, if any.”*

    Even earlier than 1945, however, the British were implementing the policy. Demolition was widely used during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt, when it was carried out under thePalestine (Defence) Order in Council, 1937. This order authorised the High Commissionerto enact any regulations “as appear to him in his unfettered discretion to be necessary or expedient for securing public safety, the defence of Palestine, the maintenance of public order and the suppression of mutiny, rebellion, and riot and for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community.” With the 1937 order and the 1945 Emergency Regulation, the British could take action against Arab and Jewish militants in Palestine.

    The Mandate Palestine press from that period is replete with reports of demolition by British troops. For example, during the month of November, 1938 the Palestine Postreported that 29 houses and two “Arab-owned groves” were razed. The demolitions took place between 23rd October and 13th November, and were located in villages in today’s West Bank, in Gaza and also in Jaffa.

    Picture 13
    The Palestine Post, 1st November, 1938, 2.

    The reasons given for destroying the buildings included the laying of land mines, houses having served as bases for sniper attacks, and the use of homes as a meeting place for gangs. One case of demolitions was carried out “following the shooting of two soldiers in Gaza.” Another described a raid on a village in which 600 men were detained for interrogation, the village was fined 200 Palestine Pounds, and British troops demolished houses because of “the harbouring of terrorists by the village.” The information was taken from official British reports.

    The local press also reported discussions of the policy back in London. According to a small item on the front page of the Jaffa-based daily Filastin on 16th November, for example, a British member of parliament asked a question in the House of Commons about home demolitions. The newspaper asked: “Is demolition taking place by decree and agreement of ministers?”

    Picture 17
    From Filastin, 16th November, 1938

    ReplyDelete
  2. YJ Draiman ArticlesJuly 21, 2016 at 12:53 AM

    President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
    8 January, 1918:
    President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

    It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view.

    We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

    I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

    II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

    III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

    IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

    V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

    VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. YJ Draiman ArticlesJuly 21, 2016 at 12:54 AM

    VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

    VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

    IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

    X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

    XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

    XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

    XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

    XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

    In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

    For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this programme does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace- loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -- the new world in which we now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.

    ReplyDelete
  4. YJ Draiman ArticlesJuly 21, 2016 at 4:31 AM

    VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

    VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

    IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

    X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

    XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

    XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

    XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

    XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

    In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

    For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this programme does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace- loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -- the new world in which we now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.

    ReplyDelete
  5. YJ Draiman ArticlesJuly 21, 2016 at 4:31 AM

    President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
    8 January, 1918:
    President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

    It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view.

    We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

    I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

    II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

    III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

    IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

    V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

    VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

    ReplyDelete

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