Promised Land

If you are interested in terror,

you should look at its causes…

(but) you’re not allowed to look

at the causes because that’s considered

 rationalization or justification…

And there’s a good reason for that.

As soon as you look at the causes,

you start looking in the mirror.

Noam Chomsky

As I prepare to leave Palestine and Israel, I would like to share two more blog posts. This one is about Bedouin villages under attack by both settlers and soldiers in two different areas of the occupied territories in what is known as Area C.

The second blog post is about the upcoming Nabka commemoration on May 15. I am scheduled to leave the next day so will not have a chance most likely to report on what actually happened.  As many of you know, I will stay in Washington DC for a debriefing meeting with the EAPPI-US Coordinator and other US EAs and then attend the Churches for Middle East Peace Conference. I hope to send at least one blog from the conference. 

Bedouin Villages in Area C

The Bedouin villages that I visited in the past two weeks were both in Area C where construction by Palestinians of any kind after 1967 is prohibited. While Palestinians are restricted from building any structures including shelters for their animals, Israeli settlements and settlement outposts are permitted. These outposts have no pre-approved plans or building permits and unlike the Palestinians rarely face demolitions of their structures if they build without permits.

Most of the residents in Area C are shepherds who live in basic shelters (tents, tin structures, or ancient caves). They rely on herding and agriculture for their livelihood. As a result of this prohibition to build anything including animal shelters or cisterns, there are many demolitions in Area C.  This constant threat of demolition creates pressure on the Palestinian residents to evacuate. It also makes it very difficult for the residents to live in stability or raise their herds to sustain their livelihoods.

In February of this year, OCHA recorded more demolitions in Area C than in any year since it began its protection of civilians database in 2005; up 85% since 2009. Forced Displacement has a high impact on families especially the children who live with the constant fear that their homes may be destroyed at any time.

Each village is bordered by an illegal settlement and has many attacks by settlers coming down and destroying their wells or cisterns or letting their livestock feed on planted Palestinian fields.

It was very painful to listen to the stories of how the soldiers came and destroyed these humble dwellings with their bulldozers. It is hard to understand the necessity of destroying water systems and allowing animals to die-- so much destruction in the attempt to take more and more land.

*After the Oslo Agreements of 1994, the Occupied Territories were divided into different areas. Some call this division of land, the second occupation. Area A is under the Palestinian Authority, Area is B is shared by Palestinian Civil Control and joint  Israel/Palestinian military and security control. The Israeli Civil and Security Forces control area C. Area C includes closed military zones and land designated “green spaces”. More than18% of the West Bank is a closed military zone for firing practice. 65% of the demolitions have occurred in these firing zones.

Khirbet Tana

“We will stay on our land and depend on our Lord.”

Village Elder

Just southeast of Nabulus near Beit Furik, in an area closed by the Israeli military sits a small community of around 250 people. I traveled with the EAs from the Yanoun Team to make a visit with some of the families. They have been checking in on the villagers to see how they are coping since the last demolition, which occurred in March. This small hamlet has had at least five demolitions since 2005. In December of 2010 Israeli forces demolished 29 structures including the school.

           

The house demolitions displaced over 61 Palestinians and affected over 100 others including 22 children who lost their school. And this doesn’t take into account the water tanks that were taken or the small tractor that was used to carry them from the well.

 In March we learned that the animal shelters were destroyed which led to the death of o 42 lambs. Bags of barley for the animals were also destroyed.

In 2008 the community with the help of Rabbis for Human Rights lodged a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice requesting building permits. Court rejected the appeal in Jan. 2009 and shortly afterwards the community again started receiving demolition orders (pieces of paper left under a rock) that say the military is coming to demolish your property.  Our last visit was with one of the village elders who holds all the documents and deeds related to the village.   

                      

 He recounted for us in vivid detail the extent of the damage done and the village’s resolve not to leave. “Even if they come every morning to demolish our homes, we will not leave. This is our land and God is bigger than all these things.”

As we sat there in his Red Cross Tent drinking tea cooked over a gas burner, I noticed some bags of US AID wheat. He saw me looking at them and said, “Maybe next time we should make our tents out of those bags so the Israeli soldiers won’t destroy them.”

           

 The horrible possible truth of his statement made us all laugh and I thought again how misguided our US policy is. One the one hand we are arming the soldiers with their M16s and then providing them food aid when those armed soldiers destroy people’s homes.

“Thousands of years ago we had these caves from God,

 not Palestine or Israel.”

When asked about the future, he said their new lawyer was going to try a different approach. With the help of UNESCO they were going to try and get the village declared an historic site because of the ancient Roman caves. If this plan works, an Italian NGO would help the villagers rebuild the caves into more inhabitable dwellings for themselves and their animals. They would also seek support for solar panels since electricity is prohibited too.

We left the village holding a small candle of hope that maybe this time, they would be spared, that their children would be able to continue their schooling in the bright yellow tent school and that the lambs and sheep would have enough to eat, and the people water to drink. We dared to hope.

Umm al-Kheir

 

Close to Susya in the south Hebron Hills lies a tiny Bedouin village made of ramshackle tents and huts because their buildings keep getting demolished. The villagers came as refugees after being forced to flee their homes. The village has no electricity because it is not allowed to connect to the electric grid. The settlement runs an electrified poultry barn where the chickens get more electricity and water than the residents of the village.

The village is on “state land” next to the Karmel settlement, which began in 1981. The homes in the Karmel settlement look like an American suburb.

We went to Umm Al-Kheir with Ta’yush, a direct action Arab-Jewish group that focuses on the Hebron Hills. We went to shovel stones from one side of the street to the other so that the community center would have a play area for the children. While shoveling stones we met some of the residents of the village. Eid is one of the people we met.  I had the opportunity to talk with Eid about the village and his art. You see Eid is an artist. He makes model bulldozers and helicopters out of scrap plastic that he finds in the village.

Eid explained to me that he makes models of the bulldozers and helicopters because he wants people to know that they are not bad in and of themselves. He wants people to know that they are not responsible for causing all this destruction. They are tools that can be used for good or evil. He explained with great emotion what it was like to watch the bulldozers destroy his home. And with similar emotion he talked about how they were used to kill Rachel Corrie. The helicopters that bombed Gaza were also helicopters that could rescue people.

He said that the villagers really don’t like his art. They didn’t like the fact that he was making models of instruments of destruction. I told him it wasn’t the fact that he was an artist probably but more that he was asking them to let go of their rage against the bulldozers.

Meeting Eid reminds me how the Spirit needs to create or express itself in order to heal from trauma. As Eid posed for me with one of his bulldozers, he told me about this video. I invite you to watch it and join with me in celebrating the steadfastness of the human spirit to create even in the midst of great tragedies and struggle.

http://youtube.be/QL3yv4dEM/