Israel's policy of erasure : A path to peace between Israelis and Palestinians requires not simply dealing with settlements but with the whole complex of displacement, suffocation and erasure.

A Palestinian man sits by the remains of his house destroyed last month in Aqraba village near the West Bank city of Nablus. The Israeli military said it demolished four structures that had been built illegally in the village. (Nasser Ishtayeh / Associated Press)

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-makdisi-settlements-israel-palestinians-kerr-20131118,0,1866660.story#axzz2kzSHgw6U

By Saree Makdisi

November 18, 2013

.... Settlement expansion, we are constantly told, is the stumbling block to the fragile negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The settlements are eating up the territory that is supposed to provide the basis for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. If only there were a settlement freeze, some say, one last chance for peace might be salvaged.

All of that may be true enough as far as it goes. But in fact, Israeli settlement expansion is meaningless when it's considered in isolation. And that is how it is usually considered, given how much media attention the word "settlement" garners every time it comes up.

There are, however, other, individually quieter, smaller, less visible — but collectively far more significant — events taking place on a daily basis.

Indeed, the settlement program is only one component of a broad complex of Israeli policies that has come to define the rhythm and tempo of life for Palestinians, not only in the occupied territories but inside Israel itself. These policies express Israel's longstanding wish to erase the Palestinian presence on land it considers its own.

Consider, for example, this stunning statistic from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA: On average, every week so far this year, Israel has demolished about 13 Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied territories (up from a weekly average of about 12 last year). The structures include water cisterns, barns and family homes that Israel claims violate the draconian rules it imposes on Palestinian life.

Sometimes these demolitions effectively obliterate entire communities at once.

On Aug. 19, according to OCHA, Israel destroyed all the structures in the East Jerusalem Palestinian community of Tel al-Adassa. The same week, Israel re-demolished the Palestinian village of Araqib, in southern Israel, as it has done more than 50 times since 2010. On Sept. 11, Israel bulldozed almost all the structures in the West Bank herding community of Az Zayyim, rendering dozens of people homeless. Days later, Israel demolished all the homes of the village of Mak-hul in the Jordan Valley, and declared its ruins a closed military area, preventing the villagers' return.

And so it goes — a litany of catastrophes occurring on a small scale, in communities you have never heard of, all the year round....READ MORE