Living Near a Settlement

A morning in Hebron: visiting a Family living near Harcina Settlement

At 9.30am, my team mate Michael and I met our translator in downtown Hebron.

We haggled with a taxi driver for a price and travelled out to the northern end of the Givat Harcina Settlement to visit Mazen. Mazen rings our local contact in the United Nations regularly and is very nervous about attack from the settlers. We felt it would be good to visit. Our translater rang ahead to see if it was ok to call.

Through our translator, we explained the EAPPI programme to Mazen, and our presence in Hebron. Michael mentioned that he had been at an action with Israeli activists at nearby Buria Hill, where teenage Israeli settlers set up an outpost. Mazen asked if we had any news about the outpost. He said he took part in his first activist action there with Ta’ayush(an Israeli/Palestinian activist group) and Youth Against Settlement(a Palestinian nonviolent resistance group). He had never dared before.

Mazen’s house, and 2 other neighbours, are somewhat isolated just near the back of Harsina settlement. There has been more consistent trouble from the settlements since, after the beginning of the 2nd Intifada, the settlement fence was extended outwards. Now a rear gate of the settlement faces almost directly onto Mazen’s front gate.

Mazen showed us pictures on his phone of graffiti (in Hebrew, which said: “Kill The Arabs.”), and the smashed intercom. Inside the high walls and barbed wire of the compound (in place since 1992), where 4 families live, there were traces of a Star of David spray-painted on the path. Mazen also pointed out panes of glass that had been replaced, having been broken by stones.

Mazen had reported all this to the police, who said that nothing could be done as the people involved were under age, however, Mazen has seen adults also involved.

Mazen has also been in touch with the Red Cross, who gave him their 24 hour number. TIPH had also once, and had a look around, but they said that they don’t usually operate in that area. (TIPH are the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, observers from a number of countries present in Hebron since the Baruch Goldstein massacre of 1994.)


The road leading to Hebron has been closed for 7 years, forcing Mazen and the neighbouring families to take a long roundabout on a dirt track. Mazen asked what people in our countries thought, and what we thought the future held.
We asked Mazen if he would like us to came back and visit. He said we could call on Fridays, as he worked as a truck driver. As we left to go, his teenage boys shook our hands tightly, and said in English “We thank you very very much for coming, please come back again.”

video i made of Palestinian farmers trying to access their lands

here's the first video I've put together here: it's an action we attended in Beit Ummar, a village 15 miles north of Hebron. The editing and camerawork are attrocious but you get the idea.
This situation you see here, is repeated all over the West Bank.

Síocháin.

Hebron City and Region Maps

The stories of our work here will follow, but I also wish to give a sense of where these stories are is taking place. Maps offer different perspectives on an area. Many Israeli maps don't show the West Bank or Gaza. If they do, they call it "the Territories" or "Judea and Samaria" the biblical names, ignoring the 2.5 million Palestinians who inhabit it. The first map shows more clearly the location of the West Bank in the region. There is also an excerpt of the Hebron region from a British map pre-1948. Interestingly, it is signed by Israeli General Moshe Dayan, and features the green pencil lines that marked out the territory of the West Bank, following the war of 1948 that created Israel. The full version is available on: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Maps/index.html

This map shows in more detail the nature of the occupation at the heart of the old city of Hebron.

This map from http://www.ochaopt.org/ shows the network of control by the occupying Israeli army around the Hebron area.

This last image gives an outline of Hebron city, and the areas controlled by the Israeli military, on behalf of a few thousand settlers. You can see the 3 main areas occupied by settlers:

1. the centre of Old Hebron (400 inhabitants approx.)

2. the Kiryat Arba settlement (7000 inhabitants approx.)

3. the Harsina settlement (500 inhabitants approx.)

Getting a hand on the geography

Here are some maps to give an overview of the situation in the West Bank. It's regional location, the location of the Israeli settlements, and the "matrix of control" which the army and police have imposed on Palestinian life, using security as justification. These maps are taken from the website of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, www.ochaopt.org

Images of Occupation

This picture was taken on a Saturday afternoon by my team mate Kathinka Minzinga. Every Saturday, a group of settlers leave their compound, and make a tour through the Souk in the Palestinian part of town, garded by a platoon of soldiers....In this photo, you can see the settlers returning to the compound after the tour.















In the second photograph, on the left here, are two Palestinian men passing a checkpoint on their way back from Prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Some Pictures From Hebron

Here are two pictures from Hebron Market. One is Shuhadda Street, inside the Israeli settler occupied area. the other is taken outside. This is the change brought about by the Occupation: what was once the commercial heart of the West Bank is now a Ghost Town.

A Clash of Histories

The country of Israel was created in 1948, out of what was previously the majority Arab land of Palestine. Spurred by the desire for their own homeland, and fleeing persecution in Europe, waves of Jewish settlers began to settle in Palestine from the early 19oos. In 1948, this movement succeed in taking over most of Palestine, leaving only 2 areas under Arab control: Gaza and the West Bank(of the river Jordan).

What for Israelis is celebrated as a homeland for the Jewish People, came to be know by the Palestinians as Al Nakba (The Catastrophe). In 1948 0ver 700,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their towns and villages (many of which were destroyed by the new Israeli state). These Palestinian refugees settled in camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt as well as in Gaza and the West Bank.

Then in 1967, Israel took over the rest of the West Bank and Gaza. The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza finally sparked an organized resistance (intifada) in 1987 and again in 2002. While violence and atrocities were committed by both parties, the Israeli government, since 1967, has overseen the planting of over 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This is one of the major sources of the continuing conflict. The Israeli government, today, are continuing to disposs farmers in Palestine, (like the one pictured above from Beit Ummar, north of Hebron), all in the name of "SECURITY". In this case, the security of the residents of illegal settlements.

And so here am I in 2009. And I will tell you some stories from Hebron and from my travels in the West Bank and Israel. (see disclaimer)

A Walking Tour of Jerusalem

i had a dream today. i dreamt that i walked around an ancient city.
i dreamt that this city was the centre point for 3 of the great spiritual traditions of planet earth.
these traditions all came down from a man called Abraham. "Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars" God said to him.
these traditions were called Jewish, Christian and Muslim.

we walked through this city. everything looked calm. we passed shops and street sellers, people on their way to work or school or study.

we visited the church where Christ was buried, before his ressurection; then passed on through the Western Wall.

i saw a city of great faiths, all praying together in their separate ways. and the God of all was so pleased, to see this human city, where these 3 traditions and all their offshoots, had found such complicated, ingenious, devout ways of following him and living holy lives.

the powerful example of such unity in diversity spread and inspired the entire world. people flocked to the Holy City, to breathe in this special air, so they too could learn. the people were peaceful and happy.


TODAY, IN THE GLORIOUS SUNSHINE, IF I ONLY LOOKED AT WHAT I SAW, I COULD HAVE BELIEVED IN THIS DREAM I HAVE JUST DESCRIBED. TOMMORROW I TRAVEL TO HEBRON. MAYBE TOMORROW I WILL SEE WHAT IS BEHIND THE DREAM

First Impressions

10 o’clock in the evening. I’m sitting in the dining room of an East Jerusalem hotel. The guests are gone to sleep. the waiter Khaled, the hotel owner and a friend are playing cards in the corner. Wireless internet works.

Arrived late this afternoon. Tel Aviv from the air....a modern city of apartment blocks and industrial facilities. Modern, well designed. It felt good to be there. It felt strangely homely. Israel the state, a huge achievement. A secure home for the Jews. Their ancient language revived. Their people comfortable whether in religious or everyday clothes.

Got through the airport without a problem.
Our taxi driver stood with his sign in Arrivals. We got in his taxi and he brought us to Jerusalem.
He pointed out Lifta village on the way into Jerusalem where his grandmother was from. Emptied of it’s people in 1948, it now lies a relic of old Palestine, in modern Israel.
“I own a house there, with some land, but i can’t do anything with it.”

Met with A, a former human rights observer with EAPPI, called up after another person had to pull out due to family illness. She’d spent a year in Colombia with Peace Brigades, the organisation which pioneered the practice of human rights accompaniment/civilian protective presence in the 1980s in Central and South America.

Later after a meal of hummus, fish and rice at the Hotel A, she brought us on walk through part of East Jerusalem. We stopped into the Jerusalem Hotel, where a large crowd was gathered. There we ran into the entire EAPPI Jerusalem office.

Jerusalem seems calm. At the moment we are like tourists, and this could be one of many ancient walled Mediterranean cities.

Our journey here has just begun. I hope to record here as honestly as I can my impressions from my experiences here, without biais, without rancour or falsehood.


Disclaimer

I work for the World Council of Churches (WCC) as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained (in this mail) are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the EAPPI or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further under consideration of the official position of the organizations, please first contact the EAPPI Communication Officer and Managing Editor (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.