[antiwar-van] FW: [ISM-Van-General] Reports from the West Bank

[hanna kawas]

-----Original Message-----
From: ism-van-general-admin at ender.indymedia.org
[mailto:ism-van-general-admin at ender.indymedia.org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 1:44 AM
To: general at ism-vancouver.org
Subject: [ISM-Van-General] Reports from the West Bank


Hi all --

We're sending you two recent report by Lynne of ISM Vancouver in case you 
missed them on the website.

-----------------------------

HOW PEACEFUL WAS MY VALLEY*

Lynne

Yanoun, 12 October 2003

I can see why the people who live here wouldn't want to leave. Located 
between remote Arqaba and Nablus, the Yanoun Valley, which consists of 
Lower and Upper Yanoun, is one of the most heart-stoppingly beautiful 
places on earth. Like all remaining beautiful places, everybody wants it. 
Only, in most civilized societies, people stop short of stealing what 
they want at the point of a gun.

You would think, to visit here, that nothing out of the usual would ever 
happen in such a tranquil, pastoral setting as Yanoun. Generation after 
generation of Arab families have lived here in peace, asking for nothing 
but the right to work their land. But, cast your eyes up to the 
encircling hilltops above Upper Yanoun to take in the situation. Erupting 
from an otherwise pristine landscape, you'll see an intrusive network of 
search-lights, land-lights, watch-towers, water tanks and 
strategically-located caravans. All surround tiny Yanoun like eagles 
poised to drop on their prey.

These are the firmly established, grim reminders of the outposts of the 
Itamar settlement eight miles away. Their purpose? Terrorism of people, 
and confiscation of land. In that order.

Since the arrival of the settlers in 1996, the tiny population of Upper 
and Lower Yanoun has plummeted from 300 to 90 people -- just 8 or 9 
families. In fear of proven settler violence, whole families have fled to 
Arqaba and Nablus. Followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, of banned, racist Kach 
Party infamy, the settlers believe the only way of achieving their 
Zionist goals is through the transfer of Arabs out of lands they believe 
to be their own. This is made easy for them: The Israeli government in no 
way restricts the settlers from building on Palestinian lands -- they 
simply confiscate what they want. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are not 
permitted to build any new structures on their vulnerable Area C lands.

The death knell tolls: See the hulk of the incinerated first generator, 
outside the enclosure for the newly-donated second generator. The old 
water tank, rendered useless by settler violence on at least one 
occasion, has been replaced. But mere replacement does not stop the 
settlers from bathing themselves, and their dogs, in the villagers' 
drinking water.

Especially on Jewish holy days, settlers enter Palestinian lands armed 
with M16 rifles. Only days before my arrival, IWPS and other 
internationals watched, stunned, as a group of boys, aged approximately 
13-15 years old, armed with rifles and accompanied by two adults and two 
dogs, strode through Upper Yanoun as if they already owned the place. If 
this isn't teaching children to hate, then what is?

At least on Palestinian has been killed, and several others injured, 
including one man who was shot in the leg, and arrived, in a dazed state, 
at the village of Arqaba, for treatment. One old man, now in his 80s, was 
beaten so severely that he lost an eye.

Lower East Yanoun is a unique trouble spot with more settlements and an 
army encampment. One of the Jewish holy places, Nabi Noun, where the 
father of Joshua is buried, is located near the village spring. Situated 
just off the Lower Yanoun roadway lie a vast number of ancient olive 
trees. The settlers claim that these trees are theirs, presumably because 
of their proximity to the tomb.
The land actually belongs to a farmer named Adnan.

When I arrive on 3 October to help with the olive harvest, the settlers 
have already issued a verbal "first and final" warning to the farmers of 
Yanoun to stop harvesting their olives. By Saturday afternoon, IOF 
soldiers arrive at each farm to instruct farmers to immediately desist 
from harvesting their crops, or their will be trouble with the settlers. 
When we ask them why they support settler violence in this way, they 
tense, and grow very defensive. They claim they can offer farmers more 
"enhanced" protection on mandated days for harvesting; therefore, 
harvesting will not recommence until 25 October! Designed to conflict 
with Ramadan? The dates chosen by the settlers and their faithful 
side-kicks, the Israeli government, win out. Is there really another 
choice? There are 4 internationals, at this time, for both Upper and 
Lower Yanoun. Clearly, the veiled threat is, if you don't do what we want 
you to do, you could die disobeying us.

We help the Palestinians we are picking with to gather up their things. 
There are all the ground-sheets to neatly fold and pack into the car. The 
food and drink brought for the day. The olives we painstakingly picked 
over must be hurriedly bagged and stictched shut. I am angry and sad and 
want to at least stay on and properly finish with the olives we've just 
picked. But it is not a good idea: It could be viewed as a disobedient 
act on the part of the family I seek to help.

Im-Hani is crying, as she packs. Abu Hani prays on the rocks under his 
beloved olive trees. I have no words of comfort for them, so I cry and 
pray in solidarity.

* I am indebted to long-term IWPS volunteer, Nijmie, for her excellent 
December 2002 report on the situation in Yanoun. I have borrowed some 
historical facts from that report. The rest I gleaned from talking to 
people in Yanoun, and from my own brief experience there. I hope the 
information herein is accurate. L.


------------------------------------------

JAYYOUS, JAYYOUS

Lynne

9 October 2003

On 7 October, I left the beautiful Old City of Nablus enroute to Jayyous 
to join in a planned day of action protesting olive harvest stoppages 
(see my later report on Yanoun) and to protest the strangulation of the 
Palestinian economy by outrageous and unlawful Apartheid Wall closures.

Getting to Jayyous was in itself an adventure. There was a closure in all 
the Qalqilya district, and at least the first village inside the Beit Iba 
check-point was under curfew at the time I crossed. Those of us who chose 
to cross did so without transportation. We were told at Beit Iba 
check-point that we could not leave the area for a full week. Qalqilya 
was under siege, once again. I walked with a Palestinian family of five, 
enroute to Tulkarum, who carried their children for several kilometres in 
the late morning heat of a hot, hot October day. This was our collective 
punishment for the suicide bombing in far-away Haifa two days previously.

I remember the man from Tulkarum stopping at a machine shop to fill a 
large water bottle, offering it to his small son, and then offering it to 
me, with characteristic Arab graciousness, before taking any for himself 
and the rest of his family. They seemed unsurprsied by their 
circumstances: After all, they were Tulkarum residents, prepared for any 
eventuality.

Then, as if from nowhere, a Palestinian man with a cellular phone was 
amongst us, smiling and cheerful, and we all walked past a cluster of IOF 
soldiers maintaining a slack look-out from what appeared to be someone's 
private patio, while he sauntered over to talk and joke with them. After 
we passed out of their sights, a man in a very small white car came 
gliding silently down a hill and packed all of us -- including the man 
with the cell-phone, who had caught us up again -- into the tiny car.

I was dropped, apparently in the middle of nowhere, with a number of 
empty service vehicles. After waiting for about forty-five minutes, my 
taxi was magically filled with people just like me -- desperate for a 
ride -- and then we were away to the pretty, bougainvillea-filled village 
of Azun. Bedouin of the region eke out a mean little existence beside the 
smouldering area garbage dump on the outskirts of the village, where men 
and boys gallop about their business on thin, wiry little donkies.

That evening, I went to a well-attended three hour strategy meeting at 
the Jayyous Municipal Hall in preparation for the next day's planned 
action. We were an interesting mixture of Jayyous famers, councilpersons, 
internationals from CPT, IWPS and ISM, and a most welcome group of 
doctors-in-training from Denmark.

The ideals of the internationals, completely out of alignment with the 
harsh realities faced daily by the farmers, looked somewhat foolish and 
child-like. As one Jayyous speaker put it, kindly enough, internationals 
are welcome to help out during olive harvest time, but the olive harvest 
is only a small part of the picture: Nine thousand dunums of Jayyous 
land, containing green houses, citrus orchards and olive trees are 
imprisoned behind the despised Apartheid Wall. As in Yanoun, the farmers 
of Jayyous require a full-time international presence in order to carry 
out the most basic agricultural needs of their crops. The gates are 
arbitrarily open or locked: The farmers never know when they can tend to 
their vegetables and trees.

According to ISM-Jayyous co-ordinator, Tracy, until 24 August, the gates 
were open on a fairly regular basis. After that time, crossing became 
increasingly difficult, with periods of opening becoming shorter, and 
"schedules", a mockery. Finally, she said, the gates were not open for 
more than about five minutes in the morning, and again in the evening. 
The game to be played was to accurately guess which five minutes of the 
day the soldiers would choose to open up the gates. Clearly, the strategy 
of such a game is to frustrate, confuse and traumatize the farmers, whose 
work is then further hampered through being unable to establish any 
semblance of routine. Back to Baltic Avenue. At the time of this writing, 
the gates had been closed for four days straight, and farmers' 
crops-for-sale and food-for-the-home-table were left, curling away to 
nothing, in the hot October sun.

xxxxxxxxxx

At about 7:00 a.m., on 8 October, we arrive at the north gates of the 
Apartheid Wall to find them locked, just as they have been for the 
previous four days. Being repeatedly ignored can be as insulting as being 
continuously harassed, and the farmers easily break open the gates with a 
heavy instrument, and their own determination.

It is a beautiful moment. "We are joined by several members of Rabbis for 
Human Rights. We all stand there and cheer as a few of the farmers drive 
across to their own land. Some of the internationals head off to the 
settlement to negotiate with settlers to "allow" the Palestinians to work 
their own land. Some go off to work with the few farmers who dare to 
cross to their own land. Others of us stay to deal with the inevitable 
arrival of the soldiers, who are not long in appearing. Approximately 
eight of us stage a sit-in, to prevent the closure of the gates. The 
soldiers are thoroughly bewildered by this activity, and not especially 
punitive on this occasion. To our amazement, no one gets arrested. But, 
for the most part, the farmers, fearing the consequences of such an 
insurrection, are afraid to cross to their land. After a few hours, the 
gates are once again locked.

Too few Palestinians passed through the gates to make our action 
successful, or so I think at first. As I sit reflecting glumly on a 
boulder, Alam, a powerful young Jayyous man who's been with the ISM for 
only two weeks, shows me the outcome from a different perspective. He 
says the farmers *do* think the action was a worthwhile one; that 
something very positive has been established here on this day; that they 
feel emboldened by their successes, and positive that the situation can 
be fought and won, although they know it will not be easy. Inshallah, 
they will have their deserved success.

xxxxxxxxx

I do not know all the details, but the day ended on a less than happy 
note. On the bus-ride back to Jerusalem with Rabbis for Human Rights, we 
heard that tear-gas and bullets had been used against those who gathered 
at the gates to see the farmers back into Jayyous in the evening, and 
that two young Palestinian males had been arrested. The good news was 
that no one was seriously injured, and the two Palestinians were released 
without any damaging record being attached to their names.

By a horrible coincidence, on that same afternoon, three soldiers were 
injured in Nablus by gunmen, so of course the tentacles of collective 
punishment reached out to the scene of our little action, as well. Now 
the soldiers were in no mood for any more of our brand of nonsense, and 
the familiar cycle of fear, hatred and violence was repeated, ad nauseum. 
The beautiful district of Qalqilya closed down tight as a fist.


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