Briton suffers with Arabs under Israeli demolition law

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2007

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Six months pregnant and exhausted, British mother Jessica Barhum is still shocked that Israeli authorities ordered her, her husband and their baby out of bed at daybreak and pulverised their home.

"I can't believe that it's lawful, that this law exists. I'm from England. Do you know what I mean?" said Jessica, 32, who grew up in the southern city of Salisbury but moved to Israel after marrying Musa, her Arab Israeli husband.

"You can't believe a country like this would make a law against its own citizens," she said.

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