Yanoun
On Saturday we experienced what our presence in Yano
un is all about. Just after 1pm there was a loud banging on the door. Our neighbour had come to tell us that settlers, from the Itamar Settlement, above us, were coming into the village.
We watched as a growing number of young Israeli men (19 in all ) made their way to the village well. Rashed, the mayor, suggested we could go down and try to talk to them. This was not easy. There was a language barrier, but attitude was a much bigger barrier. They were intent on going down into the well to swim and nothing we could say about contaminating people’s drinking water would make any difference. As far as they were concerned, this is their country and they will do as they like in it. This was followed by some fairly insulting stuff about Arabs in general and ourselves as ‘foreign visitors’ As is normal here, two of them were armed, but there was never any threat of the arms being used, just a bit of pebble throwing at one point We stayed with them, hoping they would not do any damage while we were present and eventually they made their way up through the village and left.
About an hour later, a small number of them returned, but 3 Israeli army vehicles arrived at the same time, probably as a result of the phone calls made by Rashed and myself to the Palestinian DCO, the UN and Rabbis for Human Rights. They didn’t seem too interested in our version of events and when we showed them, where 6 of the young men had climbed down to swim in the well, the comment of the officer in charge was “Brave Kids”! However their presence deterred the young settlers from returning and the villagers were able to get on with the main business of the day – a wedding celebration!
Burin
Burin has suffered a lot over the last few years. Crops were burnt by settlers from the Bracha Settlement in the summers of 2008 and 2009. From September 09 to February 10 a total of 296 olive trees were cut down and destroyed by settlers.
There are two families who are completely cut off from the village by the roads serving the settlements. When we visited one of these families last week, we also met a physician and psychologist from Medecins sans Frontiers. They told us there is a big need for psychological support as people try to adjust to their reduced circumstances, lack of opportunity and severely restricted movement. This family now have so little land left to them by the settlers that they only have twenty sheep and they are unable to tend their olive trees safely. The Palestinian government are considering making a small payment to help families who have lost so much to the settlements, but the mother of the family tells us “ we would rather have more sheep.”
Meaning then we could make our own living. Normally the families would support themselves by selling sheep’s milk, cheese and yoghurt and making olive oil, as well as having small crops of wheat and vegetables. At the village centre we met the leader of the newly formed farmers association, who told us they are now planting, cultivating and harvesting their land in groups of 20-30, so that they will not be so vulnerable to the settlers “in shaa’allah” or “God willing” as they always add.
Asira
In 2008 Asira suffered a very serious attack by over 100 settlers from the Yizhar Settlement and it’s outposts which are very close to the village and there have been repeated incidents since then. We visited the last house in the village which was built by the owners before the settlement outposts appeared on the hill behind them. The house is now defaced by bullet holes and settlers’ graffiti. This is not a poor family and in other circumstances it would be the site of an exclusive hotel, with its breathtaking views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Instead a mother of 4 young children says she would be living in fear of the next attack, if it wasn’t for the strong support of the villagers who only a few days before had seen the settlers approaching her house before she was aware of them and they had come up the hill to protect herself and the children That same day she was awaiting a visit from a psychologist who was coming, through the school in the village, to offer support to her eldest son.
Madama
Madama is a large village which is flanked on one side by the Yizahar settlement and on the other side by the Bracha settlement. Madama had always depended on the natural Ben Shira spring for its water supply. But in June 2009 the water was no longer flowing from the spring to the holding tank under the mosque in the village which had supplied the village with water. The village was forced to make alternative arrangements, buying the water they needed from a tanker supplied by the municipality, who in turn were purch
asing the water from an Israeli company. Villagers were spending between 400- 600 shekels a month Eventually, investigations in the company of the Palestinian DCO and the Palestinian Water Company revealed that the well house built by the villagers to pipe the spring water to the village had been deliberately damaged and the strong suspicion was the deed had been done by settlers from Yizahar settlement which overlooks the spring.
The villagers hope to get permission and a military escort to enable them to repair the well house, but this will always be a vulnerable source of water, now the settlement and its outposts are so near The Palestinian Water Company backed by US Aid are investigating the possibility of connecting the village to the Palestinian Water Company’s supply. But, just to carry out the initial land survey on the opposite hill below the Bracha settlement has required 2 permits and a military escort.
So, our snapshots begin and end with stories of water – a free gift – essential for all life and growth, but so easily manipulated as a weapon in an unequal political conflict over land .
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