Permanent Impermanence in Izbat At Tabib

The Mayor of Izbat At Tabib, a small village in the north of the West Bank, is pleased with what he has achieved since he took office in 1998. Bayan Tabib has overseen the building of a school and had the village connected to mains water and electrical services.

But despite his efforts, a sense of “permanent impermanence” hangs over Izbat At Tabib. Of the village’s 45 houses, 25 have received demolition orders from the Israeli military. The remaining buildings have been constructed without permits. The entire village – the fences, the gardens, the school, the playground, even the bus shelter – all are potentially up for destruction.

Mousa Tabib, a grandson of the village’s founder and a father of four, has lived in the village for his entire life.  He knows no other home.  He describes Izbat at Tabib as “a village with little education.” Most people here used to live as farmers, until Israel’s separation barrier cut them off from around 40 percent of their fields. Mousa says he last saw his land in 2003.

Izbat At Tabib is victim to two historic planning decisions. Jordan, which governed the West Bank from 1948-67, designated the land as an “agricultural area”. On that basis, the Israeli government, which took control of the are in 1967, has refused to issue building permits for any new construction.

Then in the early 1990s, the Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into Areas A, B and C. The first two areas fell under administrative control of the newly established Palestinian Authority, with B remaining under Israeli control in security matters.

Izbat at Tabib is in Area C, subject to full Israeli security and civilian administration. Here, it is virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits. According to the Israeli group Peace Now, in the seven years up to 2008 Israel turned down 94 percent of Palestinian requests for permits to build in Area C. But the need for new accommodation pressures people into building regardless. Thus, every one of approximately 45 dwellings in Izbat at Tabib has been built without a permit.

In 1985, says Bayan, the demolition orders began to arrive.  Over the years since, orders have been issued for the demolition of 25 houses.  Residents have been applying for building permits since 1991, but all the applications have been denied. Many decide to build anyway. “I don’t know the meaning of C, A, B,” says the mayor.  “But it’s our land, not theirs.” 

The town’s residents are virtually all descendents of refugees who fled the village of Tabassur when it was invaded by Zionist forces in the war of 1948-9.  Many are grandchildren of the village doctor at the time, Hamad Abdullah at-Tabib, who bought this land in the 1920s. But the village lives in a permanent state of tension. In 2007, Israeli authorities “advised” residents to relocate to the nearby town of Azzun.  The letter included a plan for a settler-only road to slice through the heart of the village.

Because of its close proximity to the Israeli settlement of Alfe Menashe and major settler-only roads, Izbat at Tabib is frequently subject to Israeli raids.  The mayor’s son was arrested for the first time at the age of 11. He is now 14. After his most recent arrest (his third), he was beaten and questioned about throwing stones or firebombs at Israeli army vehicles.  Finding no evidence against him, the army released him late at night, blindfolded and handcuffed, alongside the main road leading into Izbat at Tabib. His cousins found him there and brought him home.

In October 2009, a military roadblock between Izbat at Tabib and Azzun – long the object of international demonstrations – was removed.  The roadblock had made a quick two-kilometer trip into a tedious, difficult one over rough, rocky terrain. Its removal re-establishes a direct route.  But what the meaning of the action is unclear to residents of the town. One thing is clear: that life so close to a major settlement is precarious.

The mayor says: “This is our life – we live it.  Maybe the future is not clear, but this is our land, and we will not leave it.”