NORWAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS: A JOURNALIST’S VIEWPOINT, Fritz NILSEN

Abstract

Ata Jaber should have been bitter, but he wasn't. For the third time his house, outside Hebron on the occupied West Bank, had been wrecked by Israeli soldiers. Whilst he was working in a restaurant in Tel Aviv, the Army had returned. The bulldozer had hit the four pillars of his house, which collapsed. The house was built illegally, the Israeli officer said. He was right. Ata Jaber owns the land, as has his family for generations. He even has Israeli papers confirming this. But he did not have an Israeli building permit for his house. Three times he had built it, without proper papers. Three times it was destroyed.