the indignity of occupation

Clockwise from top left: Badr Abu Alia, whose home was raided by Israeli soldiers; Majeda al-Rajaby, a West Bank teacher divided from her children; Nael al-Azza, who dreads hisdaily drive to work because he must pass through an Israeli checkpoint; Sondos Mleitat, who operates a website connecting Palestinians with psychotherapists.

Muhammad Sandouka built his home inthe shadow of the Temple Mount beforehis second son, now 15, was born.

They demolished it together, after theIsraeli authorities decided that razing itwould improve views of the Old City fortourists.

Mr. Sandouka, 42, a countertop in-staller, had been at work when an in-spector confronted his wife with two op-tions: Tear the house down, or the gov-ernment would not only level it but alsobill the Sandoukas $10,000 for its ex-penses.

Such is life for Palestinians living un-der Israel’s occupation: always dread-ing the knock at the front door.

The looming removal of six Palestin-

ian families from their homes in East Je-rusalem set off a round of protests thathelped ignite the latest war between Is-rael and Gaza. But to the roughly threemillion Palestinians living in the WestBank and East Jerusalem, which Israelcaptured in the 1967 war and has con-trolled through decades of failed peacetalks, the story was exceptional only be-cause it attracted an international spot-light.

For the most part, they endure thefrights and indignities of the Israeli oc-cupation in obscurity.

Even in supposedly quiet periods,when the world is not paying attention,Palestinians from all walks of life rou-tinely experience exasperating impossi-bilities and petty humiliations, bureau-cratic controls that force agonizingchoices, and the fragility and cruelty oflife under military rule, now in its sec-ond half-century.

Underneath that quiet, pressurebuilds.

If the eviction dispute in East Jerusa-lem struck a match, the occupation’sprovocations ceaselessly pile up drykindling. They are a constant and keydriver of the conflict, giving Hamas an

excuse to fire rockets or lone-wolf at-tackers grievances to channel intokillings by knives or automobiles. Andthe provocations do not stop when thefighting ends.

No homeowner welcomes a visit fromthe code-enforcement officer. But it’s en-tirely different in East Jerusalem, wherePalestinians find it nearly impossible toobtain building permits and most homeswere built without them: The penalty isoften demolition.

Mr. Sandouka grew up just downhillfrom the Old City’s eastern ramparts, inthe valley dividing the Temple Mountfrom the Mount of Olives.

At 19, he married and moved into anold addition onto his father’s house, thenbegan expanding it. New stone walls tri-pled the floor area. He laid tile, hungdrywall and furnished a cozy kitchen.He spent around $150,000.

Children came, six in all. Ramadanbrought picnickers to the green valley.The kids played host, delivering coldwater or hot soup. His wife preparedfeasts of maqluba (chicken and rice)and mansaf (lamb in yogurt sauce). Hewalked with his sons up to Al Aqsa, oneof Islam’s holiest sites.

In 2016, city workers posted an ad-dress marker over Mr. Sandouka’s gate.It felt like legitimization.

But Israel was drifting steadily right-ward. The state parks authority fell un-der the influence of settlers, who seek toexpand Jewish control over the WestBank and East Jerusalem. Citing an oldplan for a park encircling the Old City,the authority set about clearing one un-permitted house after another.

Now it was Mr. Sandouka’s turn.Plans showed a corner of the house

encroaching on a future tour-bus park-ing lot.

Zeev Hacohen, an authority official,said erasing Mr. Sandouka’s neighbor-hood was necessary to restore views ofthe Old City “as they were in the days ofthe Bible.”

“The personal stories are always ISRAEL, PAGE 4

The indignity of occupation

Violence is often sudden and brief. But the nagging dread it instills can be just as debilitating.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAMAR HAZBOUN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

JERUSALEM

An eviction that sparked Israel’s war typifies thedaily fears of Palestinians

BY DAVID M. HALBFINGERAND ADAM RASGON

..

INTERNATIONAL EDITION | MONDAY, MAY 24, 2021

SUPER LEAGUETEAMS SAW FIFAAS A SILENT ALLYPAGE 11 | SPORTS

‘SHREK’ TURNS 20BELOVED HIT HADA CHAOTIC STARTPAGE 13 | CULTURE

‘I WANT TO BE EDUCATED’FLEEING TALIBAN AREASFOR A CHANCE TO LEARNPAGE 3 | WORLD

For years after the attack on the CharlieHebdo office, the most unbearablewords for Corinne Rey, known as Coco,were, “In your place.” Other peoplecouldn’t put themselves in her place atthe satirical magazine. Others couldn’tknow what they would have done.

On Jan. 7, 2015, Ms. Rey, a cartoonist,was leaving the magazine’s Paris officesto pick up her 1-year-old daughter fromday care when she was confronted bytwo masked men brandishing assault ri-fles. They pointed the guns at her head.“Take us to Charlie Hebdo!” they

shouted. “You have insulted the Proph-et.”

In her recently published graphicnovel, “To Draw Again,” Ms. Rey, 38,portrays herself as a small, tremblingfigure being tracked up the stairs by twoimmense featureless shapes whoseweapons bear down on her. “That is howI saw them,” she said in a recent inter-view in Paris. “Monsters, dressed inblack, huge, with no human trait.”

Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, the terror-ists, had a clear objective: to avengeCharlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoonsof the Prophet Muhammad by killing itseditor, Stéphane Charbonnier, known asCharb, and the staff. They prodded Ms.Rey at gunpoint toward the Charlie of-fice.

“It’s you or Charb,” the brothers saidas they ordered her to enter the codethat would open the locked door. “IT’SYOU OR CHARB!” Coco’s choice.

“The guns were a few centimeters COCO, PAGE 2

Surviving a massacre,and keeping dissent alive

The cartoonist Corinne Rey, known as Coco, in Paris in March. Six years ago, two armedterrorists forced her to unlock the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

JAMES HILL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

PROFILEPARIS

BY ROGER COHEN

A cartoonist illustratesher road back from hell after a deadly terror attack

The New York Times publishes opinionfrom a wide range of perspectives inhopes of promoting constructive debateabout consequential questions.

All over the world, countries are con-fronting population stagnation and afertility bust, a dizzying reversal un-matched in recorded history that willmake first-birthday parties a rarer sightthan funerals, and empty homes a com-mon eyesore.

Maternity wards are already shuttingdown in Italy. Ghost cities are appearingin northeastern China. Universities inSouth Korea can’t find enough students,and in Germany, hundreds of thousandsof properties have been razed, with theland turned into parks.

Like an avalanche, the demographicforces — pushing toward more deathsthan births — seem to be expanding andaccelerating. Though some countriescontinue to see their populations grow,especially in Africa, fertility rates arefalling nearly everywhere else. Demog-raphers now predict that by the latterhalf of the century or possibly earlier,the global population will enter a sus-tained decline for the first time.

A planet with fewer people could easepressure on resources, slow the destruc-tive impact of climate change and re-duce household burdens for women. Butthe census announcements this monthfrom China and the United States, whichshowed the slowest rates of populationgrowth in decades for both countries,also point to hard-to-fathom adjust-ments.

The strain of longer lives and low fer-tility, leading to fewer workers and moreretirees, threatens to upend how socie-ties are organized — around the notionthat a surplus of young people will driveeconomies and help pay for the old. Itmay also require a reconceptualizationof family and nation. Imagine entire re-gions where everyone is 70 or older.Imagine governments laying out hugebonuses for immigrants and motherswith lots of children. Imagine a gig econ-omy filled with grandparents and SuperBowl ads promoting procreation.

“A paradigm shift is necessary,” saidFrank Swiaczny, a German demogra-pher who was the chief of populationtrends and analysis for the United Na-tions until last year. “Countries need tolearn to live with and adapt to decline.”

The ramifications and responses havealready begun to appear, especially inEast Asia and Europe. In nations as di-verse as China, Hungary, Japan andSweden, governments struggle to bal-ance demands of a swelling older cohortwith the needs of young people whosemost intimate decisions about child-bearing are being shaped by factorsboth positive (more work opportunitiesfor women) and negative (persistentgender inequality and high living costs).POPULATION, PAGE 2

World faces startlingshift in populationAs fertility rates plunge, rapid declines loom, aswell as economic issues

BY DAMIEN CAVE, EMMA BUBOLA AND CHOE SANG-HUN

When Joe Biden assumed the presi-dency in January, he embarked on amission to reverse a slew of policiesput in place by former President Don-ald Trump while leaving untouched theelite foreign policy consensus. Mr.Biden issued 42 executive orders in hisfirst 100 days — more than than anyother president since Franklin D.Roosevelt — and has waged a method-ical campaign against Mr. Trump’sagenda. With one major exception:Afghanistan.

Beginning with his campaign for thepresidency, Mr. Trump railed againstAmerica’s forever wars and pledged tobring American troops home and to getout of Afghanistan. Despite his rheto-

ric, Mr. Trumpvacillated betweenwinding down someObama-era lethalU.S. campaigns (inPakistan and Lib-ya) and expandingothers (in Syria,Somalia and Yem-en). He loosenedthe dubious Obama-era restrictions onkilling civilians in

airstrikes after suggesting, when hewas a candidate, that the United Statesshould kill the families of suspectedterrorists. He also reauthorized theC.I.A. to conduct drone operationsafter Barack Obama’s administrationshifted those powers to the Pentagon.

Mr. Trump basked in his self-per-ceived glory when in April 2017 theUnited States dropped the 21,600-pound “mother of all bombs,” the mostpowerful nonnuclear weapon, on avillage in Afghanistan. In 2019 alone,the United States carried out morethan 2,400 airstrikes in Afghanistan.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump made aserious, if clumsy and contradictory,attempt in the latter half of his term tomake good on his promise to end theAfghanistan war. His administrationstruck a deal with the Taliban, offeringan American commitment to withdrawtroops from Afghanistan by May 2021for a Taliban promise not to allow thecountry to be used by transnationalterrorists.

Congressional Democrats and agroup of hawkish Republicans led byRepresentative Liz Cheney were intenton slow-walking the execution of theplan and sought to deny funding forU.S. troop reductions in Afghanistan.There are also indications that somePentagon and intelligence officialstried to stymie the plan, perhaps hop-ing that Mr. Biden would scrap the deal

Yes, Bidenshould leaveAfghanistanJeremy Scahill

OPINION

The presidentis right toignore thepowerfulvoices inWashingtonpushing him toreverse course.

SCAHILL, PAGE 10

On campus. Out in the world.

Provide your school with digital access to The Times. Learn more at nytimes.com/oncampus.

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