Monthly Archives: February 2010

Bakair Zaben drove us to Naslat Isa, his sleepy little village. He hasn’t always been a taxi driver; he used to own a successful furniture business. Naslat Isa hasn’t always been a sleepy little village; it used to be bustling market town. What has happened?

The Wall.

One day in September 2003, at four o’clock in the morning, Bakair Zaben was asleep on the roof of his house, when he was awakened by the sound of an engine. He went out to find a bulldozer about to demolish his furniture shop. An Israeli army officer told him he had one hour to remove all his stock from the shop.

“One hour! You must be crazy,” said Bakair. “I have more than 3000 pieces.”

“Not my problem,” replied the officer.

Bakair rounded up his friends and family and they began frantically removing what they could from the shop. After an hour, they were not finished and several items had been damaged. But in came the bulldozer. Finish. Within five hours, 170 shops and businesses had been demolished in Naslat Isa. This was to clear a space near to the Separation Barrier, the Wall which the Israelis were about to build.

When the Wall was finished, it cut through houses and streets, dividing the twin villages of Nazlat Isa and Baqa Al-Ghabiya from each other. Neighbours could no longer pop next door. Grandchildren could no longer visit their grandparents. Israelis could no longer cross the border to shop. Businesses, like Bakair Zaben’s, were destroyed. 600 family incomes disappeared.

Since occupying the West Bank in 1967, the Israeli government had encouraged people on the West Bank to seek work in Israel, thus making the Palestinian economy increasingly dependent on Israel. In 2003, 99% of the men in Naslat Isa worked in Israel. Now overnight they were denied access to their employment. Today, only about 4% of men from Naslat Isa brave the infamous Ephraim Terminal to work in Israel and this is a two hour commute instead of two minutes.

Before 2003, merchants from all over the West Bank used to come to Naslat Isa to sell their wares to both Palestinians and Israelis. In 2003 many of their businesses were destroyed and the others lost many of their customers. Today Naslat Isa is full of rubble and closed shops.

And life is diminished. People in Naslat Isa need to obtain special permits to visit their relatives across the Wall, in Israel, and these permits are available only for special occasions. To obtain a permit to go to a wedding, the invitation needs to be produced. To go to a funeral, documentary proof of the death is necessary. Israeli Palestinians can come more freely to Naslat Isa but it takes two hours, and many are afraid of being followed by Israeli security. So they don’t come; they just speak on the ’phone.

Bakair Zaben has not seen his great-aunt since 2003. He was unable to attend his neice’s wedding. A neighbour’s aunt was dying. She was allowed to visit, but she had to take the long route, taking two hours. No humanitarian allowance was made.

The Separation Barrier has not only brought demolition and division, but also diminution. Life for Bakair Zaben has shrunk. The Wall has cut deep.

Bersim lives in the tiny Palestinian village of Tawayel, near to Aqraba on the West Bank. He has 10 children, but if you ask him how many grandchildren he has, he laughs because he has no idea at all! We met two of his grandchildren – beautiful, identical twin boys, aged about two, who obviously love their Grandpa very much.

But Bersim and his family live under a great black cloud. Last Sunday four Israeli army jeeps drew up outside his house and the soldiers demanded to speak to him. They presented him with a paper which stated that his house was going to be demolished. “This is Israeli land,” they said, “and we want to see no Palestinians here.” They explained that the army has designated the area around Tawayel as a military training area, so all local housing has to be demolished. They also stated that the house was built without a permit, although Bersim knows from experience that permits are impossible to obtain. “And you will have to pay for the hire of the bulldozer too,” the soldiers added, as they gave him similar papers to distribute to his neighbours. “You can live in the caves,” the soldiers went on. Some Palestinians in this area do in fact build houses around caves. Nevertheless, this is a deeply offensive suggestion and, as Bersim pointed out, it is also wholly unrealistic given the large size of his family.

Tawayel is in “Area C” which means that, even though it is not part of Israel, it is controlled entirely by the Israeli army. They can (and do) do whatever they like. This is the reality of Occupation. Nearby Israeli settlements are permitted, or rather encouraged, to build, but not Palestinians.

Bersim, and his father before him, have grown wheat and kept sheep on their land here for many years. But sadly, demolition is no new experience for Bersim. It has happened three times before, in 2007, 2008 and 2009 and each time he and his family have rebuilt their homes, living in tents in the meantime.

Bersim has engaged a Palestinian lawyer to fight his case in the Israeli High Court. This will cost 30 000 shekels (£5500). 10 000 shekels will be found by the local community in Aqraba. The remaining 20 000 shekels will be provided by the lawyer, who has access to funds for such cases. He also has links with an Israeli lawyer who may be able to help.

House demolitions are only one form of harrassment suffered by Bersim and his neighbours. Wheat has been burnt. Sheep have been taken and a “ransom” of 55 shekels per sheep demanded. A friend’s tractor was removed and 5000 shekels was demanded for its return. Last year Bersim’s wife single-handedly prevented soldiers from removing their tractor.

Bersim’s two little grandsons know nothing of politics, but even at their tender age they have already experienced the heavy hand of Israeli occupation. And there seems every prospect that they will experience it again and again in the future.

Beauty and the Beast

I have just returned from a wonderful walk in the hills around the tiny village of Yanoun where I am on a three day visit with the EAPPI team here. The scenery is spectacular, very reminiscent of the Yorkshire Dales. Rolling hills, limestone pavements, clints, scars, ancient dry-stone walls and a herd of deer. Plus the added bonus of a view of the Jordan valley and even the Jordan river itself. On good days, one can see the Dead Sea. Closer to hand there are gorgeous wild flowers, including bright red anemones and delicate pink orchids. With Joiakim, my Norwegian colleague, I visited the (supposed) grave of Nun, the father of Joshua. We visited a local farmer who was milking his sheep. His wife was baking and she gave us some utterly delicious bread, straight out of the oven. We sat on the floor and drank a glass of Palestinian tea, (fairly weak with plenty of sugar but no milk and flavoured with a mint leaf). Their son offered us some hashish to smoke(!) Regretfully, we refused. Soon we made our leisurely way back through the olive groves and up the hill to the simple, cosy team house where our colleagues welcomed us with a tasty supper.

An idyllic day. But . . .

On the surrounding hilltops various constructions mar the landscape. Watchtowers, animal sheds, gas containers, floodlights, caravans. These are “outposts” of the Israeli settlement, Itamar, about seven miles away. They are home to a number of Israeli settlers who, since 1996, have made life extremely difficult for the villagers of Yanoun. They even drove the villagers out completely in 2002 until Israeli peace activists, followed by the EAPPI presence, enabled them to return. They have appropriated many of the villagers’ fields and they have established “no-go areas”. Rashid, the village mayor, told me how a man from Yanoun wandered into one of these areas only three weeks ago. That night, at 3 o’clock in the morning, Israeli soldiers arrived in the village, with one of the settlers, and dragged all the men of the village out of their homes. They said that the settler had seen a man on his land who “had the intention of stealing his sheep” and they threatened them with dire consequences if this happened again.

For years, the settlers have gradually encroached on Yanouni fields, taking one field after another. The Yanounis are powerless to stop this process because the Israeli soldiers see their main duty as supporting the settlers, in spite of the Geneva Convention which states that the job of an occupying army is to protect civilians in the occupied territory. The Yanounis dare not venture near the settlers’ areas, but the settlers feel free to walk through Yanoun whenever they please, armed with machine guns. Sometimes they stop to climb down a 20 metre ladder in order to bathe in the village well. There is a long history of settler violence, and even murder, against the villagers. The full story can be read in “Living With Settlers” by Thomas Mandal .

These settlers are people who believe passionately that God has given them the whole of the land of Palestine. It is the “Promised Land” first won by Ancient Israel under Joshua’s leadership, but lost for 2000 years. Now, with a supposed mandate from God, it is gradually being regained by violence and intimidation against the Palestinian people who have lived there for hundreds of years.

Settlements and outposts are both both illegal under international law because they are not in Israel, but are in occupied Palestinian territory. Under Israeli law, settlements are legal, but outposts are not. Nevertheless, in disputes with local Palestinian people, the Israeli army always sides with the settlers from the outposts. The Israeli government appears to be fully behind this process of “land-grab” although its rhetoric is frequently about “curbing settlement expansion”.

So my idyllic stay in the limestone hills was strangely unreal. Surrounded by beauty, yet always conscious of the menacing presence around me. Ironically, the unchanging, rugged, biblical landscape is the context for acute insecurity. When will they come into our village again? Will they attack us? Which field will they take from us next?

I am able to walk away and return to my comfortable home. But the villagers of Yanoun live every day with uncertainty and fear. Most of us in the West are generally oblivious to the fact that one nation is insidiously and inexorably stealing the land of a neighbouring people. Who will stand up for these people?