Ethnic Cleansing Continues in Israel Against Arab Israelis

Building permits anywhere else are designed to protect the naive home owner from shoddy building practices. But in Israel, it serves another purpose. Concerned about the growing proportion of Arab Israelis in Israel, the government uses building permits and razing of housing without them as a form of ethnic cleansing.
Since 1948, the official government policy of Israel has been to ensure a Jewish state. With the birth rate higher among Arabs, they will fail in this endeavor unless they more aggressively drive Arab Israelis out of their country.
Clearly, Israel runs a virtual apartheid, keeping Arab citizens as second class class citizens in their own country and driving out as many as they can.
The Daily Star

Six months pregnant and exhausted, British mother Jessica Barhoum is still shocked that Israeli authorities ordered her, her husband and their baby out of bed at daybreak and pulverized their home. "I can't believe that it's lawful, that this law exists. I'm from England. Do you know what I mean?" asked Jessica, 32, who grew up in the southern city of Salisbury but moved to Israel after marrying Moussa, her Arab Israeli husband. "You can't believe a country like this would make a law against its own citizens," she added.


For the last four decades, Israeli legislation has permitted the demolition of homes built without a construction permit, the case for the Barhoums' home in the village of Ein Rafa, west of Occupied Jerusalem, although a permit was pending.


Critics say the law is disproportionately used against Arab Israelis rather than Jewish Israelis. Permits can take years to acquire, particularly for Palestinians wanting to build in Israeli-occupied and annexed East Jerusalem.


Jessica, a landscape gardener who also holds Swiss nationality, converted to Islam before marrying and moving to her husband's village, giving birth to their daughter Sara and learning to speak nearly fluent Arabic and Hebrew.


Last week she watched in disbelief as two bulldozers with pneumatic drills implemented an 18-month-old demolition order against their home, which Moussa spent eight years building on land owned by his family.


Armed Israeli security forces woke them up at 5:00 a.m. Jessica said she was given five minutes to get out. Her daughter screamed and her husband was arrested as clearers stuffed some of their possessions into plastic bags before the bulldozers pulverized the two-bedroom house and vegetable patch into rubble.