israel/palestine
19 Jun 2008
The Rural Frontline
Jamal, a farmer from the village of At-Tuwani
Daily harassment by Israeli settlers is forcing Palestinians to abandon their traditional villages. Mustafa Qadri speaks to villagers in At-Tuwani in the south Hebron Hills
Village life is one of the cornerstones of Palestinian society, but harassment by Israeli settlers is increasingly forcing people to leave."There are attacks all the time but especially around the Sabbath [on Friday and Saturday]," explains Jamal, a farmer from the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills.
"They poisoned [our] cistern in 2004 and 2005. About 100 sheep died because they poisoned the wheat and barley. It took 20 days to clean up. The police did nothing and never do."
The children of At-Tuwani were being attacked so routinely by settlers that in 2006 the Israeli Knesset ordered the Army to escort them to their school. The decision followed settler attacks on international human rights observers who were accompanying the children. But even now the Army does not always escort the children.
"On 2 May [this year], we were escorting the children to school alone," Jamal tells me. "The settlers threw rocks at us and broke some of our cameras [used to film such attacks]. They hit some of the villagers with their rifle butts. When the Army and police came they just stood there and watched."
Remarkably, Jamal and other men from the village were arrested and spent the next two nights in an Israeli jail. "The settlers come to our homes, destroy everything. When we try to protect our homes we are taken away."
"We are here to protect both people[s]," says Yossi, a young Israeli soldier from north Tel Aviv. He was in the final two weeks of his three year compulsory military service and was keen to avoid any "trouble".
I spoke to Yossi outside his military base in the South Hebron Hills following a small clash between children from At-Tuwani and the neighbouring Ma'on settlement. Attached to almost every settlement is an Israeli military outpost identifiable by its signature red and white communications tower. After the clash began, Israeli soldiers arrived within five minutes and confronted the Palestinians while the settlers continued to hurl abuse.
Most of the families here farm wheat or barley or herd sheep. But farming no longer provides enough money because so much land has been expropriated or is too close to settlements to be cultivated. According to the soldiers, the settlers "have a right to be there". The Palestinian villagers need not be reminded of this astonishing sense of entitlement. Settlers routinely invade Palestinian communities, particularly the more remote ones and especially at night during the Sabbath.
In At-Tuwani three years ago, some settlers decided to pick all the olives during the harvest period. "We couldn't do anything because we would be punished just for complaining," recalls Jamal with a surprising degree of nonchalance. "They have stolen tractors and even my sheep. I know this because relatives in Jenin [120kms north of At-Tuwani] found a tractor of mine abandoned in the field." I heard stories similar to Jamal's in villages I visited near Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah and Hebron, seven different communities in total.
Israeli law allows settlers to carry weapons, and it is not uncommon to see teenage boys carrying M-16s. But Palestinians are forbidden from carrying anything that might be construed as a weapon, even knives or clubs. Most Palestinian men in the region have been detained at some point, often merely for not possessing a valid ID card or on the suspicion that they were involved in clashes with settlers.
Only last week, the BBC uncovered video footage of a settler attack on Palestinians from Susia, a village just to the west of At-Tuwani. The video depicts three people - an old couple and their nephew - being lynched by four youths. The cameras may have helped reduce the scale of the attack.
"The settlers and army are afraid of cameras," a villager from At-Tuwani told me. "When there are no internationals - no cameras - we are not safe.."
Despite the footage, Israeli authorities appear unwilling to investigate settler violence. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that police have already conceded that it is unlikely those filmed at Susia will be prosecuted. B'tselem's media spokesperson told me that no one from the neighbouring settlements has ever been charged or convicted for attacks on Palestinian villagers.
At Assira Qibliya, a village to the south of Nablus, settlers routinely set fire to crops. According to villagers I interviewed, Israeli soldiers have on occasion assisted or stood idle while settlers torched the crops.
"They set fire to our crops and [the soldiers] just stand there next to the settlers, they do nothing," a local resident named Abdullah told me. "Sometimes they shoot at our sheep and water tanks." Such claims have been back up by an investigation recently released by B'tselem.
The Israeli Army itself is also on occasion involved in attacks on Palestinian villages. Sean, a peace activist from the United States with Christian Peacemaker Teams, who lives in At-Tuwani, told me about an incident last month. "The Army came in around 1am and were here until 3am setting off flares, sound bombs and tear gas and pulling people out of their houses and IDing the men.
"It could have just been a training exercise because they're known to do training exercises in live villages like that. But the families they targeted for specific harassment are organisers for this area. It seemed to be thought out, it wasn't just random. The village and villages around it have been organised for a few years to resist the Occupation non-violently. For example, the road was blocked to Yatta [the nearest major Palestinian town] so they got all the people together and the media [to try to force the Israeli Army to reopen the road]."
In all the villages I visited the one common feature was the constant sense of insecurity, something Jamal constantly pointed out during our conversation. "Life is very difficult and I am always worried that one of my children will wander near the settlement and I will never seem them again."
For the past two months Mustafa Qadri has reported for newmatilda.com from
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The sad fact Mustafi is that every accusation Jamal and co level at the Israelis is applicable to the Palestinian villages.
Qiryat Arba, the Israeli name for the biblical sites around hebron, and Shechem (Nablus) go back for the religious Jews to the ancient times BC (before christianity). Rachaels tomb, the tomb of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. When the Jews were unable to enter the area, the Palestinians used the Jewish holy area of the monument for their toilets.
The settlers are zealots and many have a "wild west" mentality, a lot are Ameican born again Jews and have a cowboy and Indian attitude to the West Bank.They are full of religious zeal and have a claim to the territory,
Unfortunately the Arab population is renowned for stealing, attempting kidnappings, and sniping.
The settlers are jumpy and do bear arms, however so do most Israelis who are in and out of the army and doing reserve duty regularly.
I suspect that poor Jamal lost his tractor to the indigent of Jenin, who are renowned for holding the record for stripping a motor vehicle, and having the parts across the Jordan river into Amman by the time the owner has done their shopping in the local bazaar.
As far as poisoning wells this is against all the religious teachings.
In the Middle East this would be considered an act of suicide. Not an Israeli trait.
Mustafa, why don’t you take your candid camera around Jericho or the terrorist training camps near Qalqilkya or better still, the rocket launching sites in Gaza. Then if you really want to waste your time, take the videos to the U.N. and watch them run, in the opposite direction.
Salam
Revilo, why can’t you recognise and idenify bigotry for what it is, instead of making excuses for it? Terrorist training camps and rocket launcher attacks do not cause decent, rational people to attack innocent children on their way to school. Or would you immediately blame the actions of the IRA for the behaviour of Protestants in Northern Ireland, 2001, who blockaded a Catholic School simply because the schoolchildren were walking past their houses? Terrorism doesn’t cause bigotry, ignorance does (though I think it is obvious that bigotry can create terrorist opposition).
Furthermore, with the recorded proof of Israeli settler abuses such as the lynching of three Palestinians, why do you find it so hard to believe Jamal’s story that settlers stole his tractor or poisoned his well? Are you saying that poisoning wells is against religious teaching but lynching innocent people and attacking schoolchildren isn’t?
I have no doubt that Israeli settlers have been subjected to rocket launcher attacks or that Palestinian terrorist training camps exist. I freely acknowledge this because I am not blinded by bigotry, one way or the other. I think Mustafa Qadri would acknowledge this as well. If he chooses not to write about these things I assume it is because he believes they already get enough publicity in the mainstream media, unlike the abuses he is writing about.
Is it a result of the Holocaust, I wonder, that bigoted Jews are so loathe to admit they are bigoted?
My name, by the way, is a coincidence.
Revilo
"Fourteen Israeli citizens have been killed by Palestinians this year, two by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip and two by snipers from inside Gaza. In the same period 333 people in Gaza have been killed by the Israeli military, including 127 adult civilians and 56 children. More Gazan children were killed in the first four months of this year than in the whole of last year." Louisa Waugh, London Review of Books, 20th May 2008.
" David Shulman, a distinguished academic, peace activist and member of Ta’ayush….wote about the hilltop youth in his recent book, "Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine". "Like any society", he writes, Israel has violent sociopathic elements. What is unusual about the last four decades in Israel is that many destructive individuals have found a haven, complete with ideological legitimation, within the settlement enterprise. Here, in places like Chavat Maon, Itamar, Tapuach and Hebron, they have, in effect, unfettered freedom to terrorise the local Palestinian population; to attack, shoot, injure, sometimes kill - all in the name of the alleged sanctity of the land and of the Jews’ exclusive right to it."
Henry Siegman, LRB, 10 April 2008.