Left I on the News

...Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes continued unabated. You won't see this on CNN, but one of the benefits of Americans travelling to Palestine as part of various solidarity groups is that stories like this one do sometimes at least appear in local papers (this one coming from the NewsTimes of Danbury, CT):

"Fifteen members of a Palestinian family stood near what used to be their home in the town of Al-Khader.

"The day before, bulldozers driven by Israelis flattened their house. Now it was a pile of rubble, with food and other household items lining the ground around it.

"It was July 28, a hot Thursday, recalled Chris Towne, 23, of Danbury, who was in Al-Khader with some 20 members of a group that supports everyday Palestinians called Holy Land Trust of Bethlehem.

"Al-Khader is a little town surrounded by vineyards, fig and olive trees, south of Bethlehem City on the West Bank of Palestine.

"Towne and others learned the family were farmers who lived near a settlement [Ed. note: the article doesn't say but one presumes this was the 'crime' for which their home was being demolished]. They had two donkeys to harvest crops like grape leaves and apples.

"'Though they knew we were Americans, and that the Israeli weapons and the Caterpillar bulldozers came from America, they showed us their best hospitality by the rubble of their former home [Towne said]."

The entire article makes for interesting reading, as does the blog that Towne kept during his trip. Here's something from the blog which didn't make the newspaper article, illustrating the comparison between recent events in Gaza (where Jewish residents were given months' notice of the evacuation, and even allowed to wait until a religious holiday was over) and the daily demolition of Palestinian homes:

"Three families, a total of 24 people, were made homeless.

"The Israelis came, pointed guns at the people, and didn't even give them time to collect their possessions."

As they used to say on The X Files, "The truth is out there." But you do have to search for it.