Right to a Home and a Homeland – Redwood City, California

Project Title: Rebuilding Demolished Homes

The Right to a Home and a Homeland is an American not-for-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It attempts to counter illegal Israeli actions through constructive and peaceful opposition.

As Israel has a peculiar habit of demolishing the homes of Palestinians, Right to a Home and a Homeland attempts to ameliorate the disastrous consequences of this inhumane activity. It is difficult to quantify the affect of seeing one’s house destroyed, but surely it is a horrific experience.

With the grant award that Right to Home and Homeland received from The Jerusalem Fund, they were able to rebuild the home of the Rajab Ramzee Alyemani family in Anata, a small village located to the northeast of Mt. Scopus-Jerusalem.

In order to expropriate more land from the Palestinians, the Israeli government decided to confiscate land in the village of Yatta (south of Hebron) in order to build a ‘bypass road’ to the illegal Jewish-only settlement of Qiryat Arba. In executing these illegal plans, the Israelis managed to demolish the home of the Alyemani’s.

By successfully marshalling “the resources of thousands of people around the world to promote a just peace,” the Right to Home and a Homeland helps to ensure that Palestinians will have recourse to the illegal and immoral practices of the Israeli state in creating ‘facts on the ground’.