Ramya Faces the Bulldozers

In Challenge #58 we reported on demolition orders addressed to those people of Ramya who recently built houses without permits. On November 22, Justice A. Magen postponed these orders, pending a new hearing on April 25. "It is extremely hard for me," said the judge, "to order the destruction of a family's house when the house the authorities offer instead is merely a virtual one." He suggested that the authorities, including the Carmiel Municipality, use this extension to get to work and really solve the problem. The authorities, however, interpreted the judge's words into terms familiar to them: the language of the bulldozer.
On December 22, the Ramyans were surprised to find bulldozers at work on the land of Hamad Sawa'ed. There are two areas of legal conflict here, one concerning their houses, the other their lands. The Ramyans were taken by surprise, because the court is scheduled to discuss the issue of the lands on January 10.

The Sawa'ed family managed to stop the bulldozers and call in the Right-to-a-Roof Committee. The destruction halted for a day, but on the morrow the bulldozers were accompanied by about thirty police officers, who brutally attacked the family and the committee members. They arrested the brothers Saleh and Muhammad Sawa'ed, as well as Muhammad Zegayer of Right-to-a-Roof. Saleh, who has only one kidney, underwent a savage beating and fainted. In the evening, after a great deal of pressure from the Committee, the police transferred him to the hospital. The next morning they released all three on bail. That was by no means the end of the struggle. On December 29, about seventy Ramyans, as well as supporters from surrounding villages, held a protest vigil across from the bulldozer as it worked on the lands. The vigil received a good deal of press coverage, and Ramya remains very much on the agenda in Galilee.

The issue of Ramya has become a symbol of the Arab struggle against dispossession. In 1991, Israel informed the villagers (who have titles to their plots) that their lands had been confiscated fifteen years earlier and that now they must depart, because Carmiel needed the space for Soviet Jewish immigrants. After an intense public campaign by the Arab population against this racist policy, Carmiel agreed to provide the Ramyans with the infrastructure for an alternative neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. Five years have passed, and the cornerstone of the fabled neighborhood has not been laid, but the new, Jews-only, high-rise apartment houses of Carmiel come closer each day, slowly strangling Ramya. In 1992, protests from all over the world succeeded in saving Ramya. Now it is time to protest again. Please send faxes to:
 

Adi Eldar, Mayor of Carmiel - Fax: 972-4-908 5549 Please send a copy either by fax to Muhammad Zegayer, Galilee coordinator of the Right-to-a-Roof Committee - Fax: 972-4-958 2459, or by e-mail to [email protected]