Blog: It's time to speak out

On the day we visited Al Walaja on May 27th, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made the following statement in light of President Obama's demand of Israel the previous week that "He wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions... We think it is in the best interests [of the peace process] that settlement expansion cease. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly. ... And we intend to press that point."*

Al Walaja is beside the illegal settlement of Har Gilo, which is part of the ring of settlements around Jerusalem. It is "southwest of Jerusalem city, was established in 1972 on land that belongs to the Palestinian town of Beit Jala. Har Gilo sets on 414 Dunums of lands and accommodates more than 397 Israeli settlers."**

The photo shows Bassel Araj (25) who lives with his parents and siblings in a house 100 meters from the houses that were actively being built behind him in Har Gilo. What the photo does not show is that directly in front of Bassel is a building site for a Palestinian home on the Al Walaja side of the wall that has received a demolition order from the IDF and behind that house again lies the rubble of a home demolished last year by the IDF.

After the eruption of the second Intifada in the year 2000, the Israeli governorate worked to confiscate more Palestinian lands in an attempt to expand the borders of the settlement. Vast areas of lands were razed and several numbers of new housing units were added to the settlement [of Har Gilo]. The Israeli expansion this time has affected Al Walajeh village as it is taking place on the main entrance to the village."***

* www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088799.html

** www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=917

*** Ibid.

Image caption: Bassel Araj (25) lives with his parents and siblings in a house 100 meters from the houses that are actively being built behind him in Har Gilo settlement. Photo by EA Joe O'Brien.

Settler violence in the West Bank is on the rise. In the first eight months of 2008, UNOCHA recorded "290 settler-related incidents targeting Palestinians and their property." When compared to the figures of the previous two years (182 in 2006 and 243 in 2007) it is clearly evident of a worrying trend. According to the Israeli human rights organisation, B'Tselem, "Israelis, individually or in organized groups, carry out the attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian property to frighten, deter, or punish them, using weapons and ammunition they received from the IDF [Israel Defence Force]." In cataloguing accounts of settler violence, UNOCHA has concluded that, "settler violence is not random criminal activity; in most cases, it is ideology-driven, organized violence, the goal of which is to assert settler dominance over an area."

40 percent of all settler violence in the West Bank takes place in Hebron. Around 400 settlers live in four settlements established in the heart of the city (Tel Rumeida, Beit Hadassah, Beit Romano and Avraham Avinu) and they are extremely aggressive. They are called ideological settlers as they believe in establishing an exclusively Jewish State over Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which would become the Great Israel.

Tel Rumeida settlement was established in 1986. It is implemented in a Palestinian residential area in the centre of Hebron. The families who live there have faced many attacks and all kinds of harassment over the years; Hani, who lives in this area with his wife and four children, had his car burnt more than once. His older son was attacked by a young settler, who broke his foot with a stone. Hashem, whose direct neighbours are also very violent settlers, cannot harvest his olives anymore. All the trees have been cut. The settlers also throw stones at him and at his family regularly. They even entered his house and destroyed everything inside. A star of David is roughly painted on his back door. The Israeli soldiers did not permit him to remove it as it is a symbol of Israel. Finally, another family who lives in the area has to deal with a permanent army base on the roof of their house.

In spite of all this violence and the constant threats directed at their families, the Palestinian people haven't given up. Hani, for example, is very active in different peace organisations such as B'Tselem. Hashem receives many tourists and delegations in his house in order to tell them his story and to show them the damages caused by settler violence. Both of them also think that it is very important to remember that "we don't have any problems with religion here, only with the occupation." Unfortunately, settlements are not about to disappear from Hebron. For now, we can only hope that settler violence will come to an end.

Image caption: Tel Rumeida settlement photographed from Hashem's backyard. Photo by EA Joelle Saugy, 26.04.09.

Trenches, razor wire and electronic fencing are some of the regime which make up the West Bank Barrier in the village of Jayyous. The Barrier winds among olive, avocado and citrus orchards and among these are rocks marked with blue paint, signs proclaiming 'danger explosives' and a landscape scarred by quarrying.

Two kilometres west of Jayyous are 200 houses, which make up the Israeli Zufin settlement. Constructed in 1989, the settlement lies east of the Green Line in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. This is contrary to Article 49 in the Fourth Geneva Convention which states, "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." In 2003 the Barrier was erected in Jayyous deviating as much as six kilometres from the Green Line, whereby some 75 per cent (8600 dunums, 860 hectares, 2125 acres) of Jayyous' land became isolated. The Barrier and its regime prioritises the settlement of Zufin and its strategy for an additional 1500 homes built on confiscated land.

Jayyous villagers don't accept the situation silently; in 2003 and 2005 they filed petitions in the Israeli High Court. In response, the High Court ordered a revision of the Barrier around Jayyous. However, the community is unwilling to agree to any route that does not follow the Green Line. About the current route and revised path in the West Bank, a member of the Land Defence Committee says, "We fear these will be new political borders."

Image caption: The new South Gate that Jayyous farmers need to pass in order to access their land. Note how much land the Barrier's footprint confiscates (for patrol roads, smoothed strips of sand showing footprints of intruders, trenches and coiled razor wire) on both sides. Photo: EAs in Jayyous.  

A short drive east of Jerusalem is the Israeli settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim. It is a classic example of the special status afforded by the Israeli government to settlers in the West Bank. Ma'aleh Adumim has about 35,000 residents and is massively subsidised by the Israeli government in terms of tax relief, transport subsidies and the provision of services. This, despite the fact that 1 in 3 Israeli children live below the poverty limit, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).[1] The settlement uses four to five times more water than that allocated to Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and twice the amount used by Israelis.[2] The beautifully landscaped gardens, the fountains and swimming pools have a high environmental cost and contribute to high consumption of water. 

The settlement has all necessary infrastructures, such as waste collection, electricity, water, shops and wide tarmac roads. But, look to the valley below and you will see the snaking side roads, a series of small sub-standard roads and tunnels aimed at providing some access for Palestinians to Jerusalem. Or, turn right at the landscaped roundabout towards the Palestinian community of Al Eizariya and you encounter a different world, light years away from Ma'aleh Adumim. No municipal services clean these streets or fill the potholed roads and water is frequently rationed, thus the black storage tanks on every roof. And if you have not seen enough, visit the Jahalin Bedouin community perched on the hill surrounded by the municipal rubbish dumps. The Bedouins were moved here in 1948 and have continued to be squeezed into a smaller and smaller space, to make way for the building of Ma'aleh Adumim; polar opposites within a few square kilometres.

Image caption: Children side by side - in different worlds (Al Eizariya and Ma'ale Adumim settlement). Photos: EA Lars-Gunnar Frisk.

[1] Godfrey, Angela. Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Alternative Tour of Israel and Palestine. 

[2] B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. www.btselem.org/english/water/consumption_gap.asp

I am looking south: the road winds
Through low-lying hills, stroking
Green fields of young wheat flecked
with scarlet poppies, bordered
by flowers of the brightest blue
whose names I do not know.

Bright brown and black and speckled hens
Guarded by their limping cock, scratch
and chuckle at my feet. Pink doves
dive elegantly from flat roofs,
their calls chime with voices:
Adla and Tmam talking, laughing
with a village lad whose jaunty stride
in tattered boots  leads the donkey
loudly to declare his presence.

Such a stable scene. It is hard
To remember why we are here.
Yet  if I look up to the ridge
Enclosing the houses from East
To North to West, I see the signs: 
squat buildings puncture the clear blue
skyline. We are for ever watched
by hostile eyes, unseen by day
at night they torch the darkness.

Sometimes these eyes become people,
Stride down the hill, asserting their
Eternal presence, their right
to this land. Always their watching
constrains the freedom of our friends
to plough their fields, harvest their olives.

Children still wake at night, haunted
by their flight. How can it be
that their return, their holding  
of this small and lovely place, is
ensured because we sit here in
the sun, our jackets winged  by hopeful doves? 

Image: Yanoun village with settlement barracks in the background. Photo by EA Elaine Andersson.

Roadblocks, regular presence of the army and uprooted olive trees: the nearby settlement makes life hard for the people in Shufa.

The peaceful hillside of Shufa village is surrounded by olive groves full of wild flowers. In the valley below is the settlement of Avne Hefez. Next to this, in a fenced area, are the buildings and Hummer jeeps of the Israeli army that provide its residents with 'security.'

In the name of this security, the road from Shufa to the nearest city of Tulkarem is now closed with three road blocks. An 'Israelis only' road has been constructed for the settlers. If the villagers want to buy food, they have to use another road through a checkpoint. This means that instead of the original nine kilometres, an expensive and time-consuming drive of 25 kilometres. The checkpoint may be closed without warning or have long queues of cars waiting.

"We are not allowed to go close to the settlement," says Susan, a resident of the village. "This makes it difficult for us to harvest olives. On several occasions when the settlers think children have been playing too close to the settlement, they hold them and question them for hours."

In the recent past, there have been reports of settlers uprooting the olive trees planted by villagers. Not such friendly neighbours, then, for the peaceful village of Shufa.

Image caption: When the children of Shufa play too close to the settlement, the settlers feel their security is threatened. Children who have been playing too close to the settlement have been held and questioned for hours. Photo by EA Camilla Mellemstrand.