Coming home

my time here is almost done. The weather took a turn for the worse or
better, whichever way you look at it - 3 days of rain! Not enough for
the farmers here, but better than nothing. Now the sun is out again
and it is pleasantly warm. Yesterday we had a day of treats, at least
the women of our team. We went to the hammam - Turkish Bath - in
Nablus, a beautiful old building in classic middle eastern style. We
sat among the beautiful red drapes and multi-coloured water pipes,
drinking mint tea and watching the women enjoying each other's
company. After our visit there we met out male colleagues and walked
up to the University to meet Ala Abu Dheer, head of Public Relations
there. He invited us for lunch to thank us for the work we have done
with students there in English. Many of these students have befriended
me on facebook and are very interesting young people. We ask Ala if he
is well. He tells us that as long as he can sleep in his bed without
soldiers in his room and there is no curfew, he counts his blessings.
Ala himself loves to talk. Today he entertains us with a wonderful
narrative about how he and one colleague stood up against a whole mob
who wanted to burn down the French cultural centre in Nablus,
following the publication of the notorious Danish cartoons in a French
newspaper. He has written a book of oral history, interviewing
refugees in the city who fled from Jaffa and other places of pre-1948
Palestine. It is very moving and reveals a range of different stances
towards what is now Israel.

We return to Yanoun carrying bagfulls of gifts for the 7 families of
Upper Yanoun, amongst whom we have lived so happily for almost three
months. All the men of the village are gathered round a lit brazier.
The only thing that is missing is the beer! Of course that is "haram"
- forbidden by Allah. Rashed, our mayor, has broken his foot, slipping
over on uneven ground. So he is sitting outside his house a lot with
various visitors. Otherwise things continue much the same. The sheep are taken out to graze on the lean pickings available. The chickens
peck happily in the newly damp ground. The children gather for the 7am
bus to school. An old team of internationals leave, a new one arrives
- new strange names to learn, stories to be told and retold.

There is so much I will miss. Adjusting to life back home might take
time, although one of my first pleasures will be a slice of cheese on
toast! Cooking cheese, sliced bread and grills are uncommon here. I
have learned so much from these people. They struggle day by day to
survive. The occupation provides a constant backdrop and its effects
are always visible in the people. Every morning they watch the skyline
for activities on the hill where the illegal Israeli settlements are.
We have had a couple of visits from Itamar security in the last week
or so - 20 year olds, not in uniform, carrying large guns, walking
past people's houses, frightening the children. There are some
children here that still cannot look us in the eye or smile, because
they remember negatively their encounters with "foreigners", seeing
their fathers beaten and guns being pointed at them. Movement is
restricted. It is rare for anyone here to go further than Nablus - 20
kilometres away. It's as if the whole place collectively holds in its
breath.

The rain has made the olive trees glossy and green. As the weather
brightens some of us take an envigorating walk towards the jordan
Valley. The hills of Jordan are visible in front of us. This place is
utterly beautiful, a landscape barely changed since biblical times -
apart from the incongruous red roofed boxes on the hill tops.

I am determined to do whatever I can when I return to Britain to end
the madness which is this occupation and work for a just peace for all
the people I have met.

They only come here to demolish our village

From Yanoun you used to be able to walk over the mountain for about 15
minutes to reach Khirbet Tana and from there an easy step to the
Jordan Valley. Khirbet is Arabic for a tiny hamlet, and indeed Tana is
tiny. It's where shepherds take their flocks for the winter. There are
three springs there. They can grow fodder for their sheep. And it is
idyllic. The people had built a little school for their 20 children to
attend whilst they live in this remote place for the winter. They
built structures to house the sheep during lambing, to protect the
small, vulnerable lambs from the cold and rain. They live in caves,
but also had erected tents for their growing families.
On Wednesday morning we received a message that Israeli soldiers had
ransacked the place, demolishing tents, animal shelters and the
school. Because there is an illegal Israeli settlement on the hill
between us and Tana it takes us over an hour, driving around to the
Nablus road, past Huwarra checkpoint, through Beit Furik and down 8
kilometres of unmade dirt road. The scene when we arrive is so
depressing. The headmaster stands beside the ruins of the school, next
to the 300 year old mosque, which, thank heavens, remains intact. An
old man sits with his head in his hands. People are in shock, even
though, we discover, this is the third time in two years this has
happened. Last January the school was demolished and it took them four
months to rebuild. The children were due to start school next month,
and now this. They will now have to do the 8k dirt road there and back
to Beit Furik every day.
The army inform the people that this is a military area, needed for
training. News to them, as they have used this land for over 100 years
and have the Turkish papers from Ottoman days to prove it. One man
says,"We never see the army here unless it is to demolish our houses!"
He is probably in his late 60s and he says his grandfather was killed
by a Turkish soldier during that occupation. Plus ca change.
During the winter 180 people live here with their 7000 sheep. There is
nowhere else they can live with so many animals.
The soldiers did their work between 6 and 7 in the morning. It is now
midday and already people have re-erected shelters and started
bringing in what supplies they can to rebuild. The grim determination
and stalwart nature of these people is inspiring. We sit and drink tea
with one family of three generations. Beside us is one destoryed tent,
together with the ruins of their corrugated iron toilet. We ask if
there will be help from the Palestinian Authority. One man says, "We
are waiting for the PA, just like we are waiting for the rain." They
laugh, it hasn't rained properly for almost 8 months.
I feel tired by now. We had a disturbed night. Security from nearby
Itamar settlement came by our house at midnight the night before and
we were treated to a rant by a 22 year old man with a large machine
gun about Arabs having 22 other countries and this land being Jewish
land and how Jews were being killed in Europe.
Usually the sight of these beautiful deserted hills, red-brown and
laced with limestone, would fill my heart with joy. But somehow I
can't find it in myself to feel this right now.

heaven and hell

“A country is not just what is does – it is also what it tolerates...” Kurt Tucholsky, German Jewish Essayist.
This quote is near the beginning of the exhibition in Yad Veshem, the
holocaust memorial museum. A day after I saw this I went on the
“Breaking the Silence” tour of Hebron. Breaking the Silence is a group
of ex-soldiers who served in the West Bank, and especially Hebron, who now speak out about what they witnessed and experienced there. Our guide Eyal said that he does not blame the settlers or the army for what is happening in Hebron. He blames his parents and thousands of ordinary Israelis like them who let this happen. One of the Israeli women who runs Machsom Watch, that monitors checkpoints in the West bank, once commented “if you think you are going to hell and want practice then go to Hebron”. Jews have lived in Hebron since ancient times, and in 1929, during general unrest throughout Palestine, many Jewish men, women and children in Hebron were massacred. All surviving Jews left Hebron. The families and descendants of these Jews have no wish to return. But a group of zealous religious Jews went to
celebrate Passover in Hebron several years ago, and against the will
of the government of Israel, stayed and began to settle there. The
actual 1929 group of Jews have since condemned what they are doing and
have fought against their occupation of property in the courts. Owing
to the settlements now right in the middle of the town, whole streets
are closed and shops shut. People living on those streets have to
climb to their roofs and across neighbours’ houses in order to come
and go. They have bars on the doors and windows to avoid the stones
thrown at them. Their children have to be accompanied to school to
avoid settler children and their mothers harassing and throwing stones
at them. A once thriving old city is a ghost town. The tomb of the
patriarchs is next to the old city, supposedly the burial place of
Abraham, who is holy to both Jews and Muslims. A mosque and synagogue
share one building, with separate entrances.
In contrast to this madness, I visited the most inspiring place in
Palestine. If you come here and only have one day to visit, then this
is the place to come. Near Bethlehem is The Tent of Nations. The
brothers Daoud and Daher run it on land bought by their grandfather in
1916. Here they run summer camps for children from refugee camps and
local villages. They plant trees. Internationals come to support and
work. It is part of the network for Working on Organic Farms. There
are 400 dunums of land tucked in between a block of Israeli
settlements known as Gush Etzion. When their grandfather came here he
dug caves for the family to live in. International visitors can still
stay in one of the caves. In 1991 the nightmare started. Israel
claimed the land was state land and wanted to evict them. Fortunately,
the brothers had all the papers going back through the various
occupations of Palestine, from the Ottoman period, the British Mandate
and the Jordanian period. They went to court to prove the land was
theirs. The court wanted maps, they made maps. The court wanted aerial
photos, they had them taken at great expense. The court wanted
testimonies from 40 people in the nearby village – they brought the
people to the court, who were subsequently made to wait hours in the
sun until hearing the session was postponed. They have spent nearly 20
years fighting this case. Whatever it costs, they keep fighting on.
They lost 250 of their trees to road building for the settlements.
Settlers have come to break into the land, trying to establish
caravans and new outposts there. More and more internationals started
to gather to protest and send the settlers away. Settlers came with
guns whilst one of the children’s summer schools was running. Daher
said, “Put down your guns and come in to drink tea”,but the setterls
broke in with their guns instead. The road to their property has been
blocked with large boulders to prevent them bringing produce in and
out. He took a bulldozer to clear the road and was arrested. There
have been demolition orders on their tents, fences, even their caves!
The court came to the land with settlers and the brothers showed all
their papers. The settlers showed a tiny piece of paper with a verse
from the Old Testament.
They have been offered money, but still they will not go. For the last
13 years The Tent of Nations has become a centre for peace,
understanding and bridging between people. Many Israelis have come and
helped. Even a woman from the settlement came, and was shocked at what
she heard and saw. She brought her husband and others who helped build
composting toilets there. These people since left the settlement for
Jerusalem. Jewish children came to play with Palestinian children.
Soldiers came in a jeep to check on what was happening, but left when
they saw all was peaceful. One time an army jeep got stuck on the road
block they had created, and Palestinian children came down to help
lift the jeep free.
Daher said “When you make a problem, I try to make good, because I
want to make change”.
We planted five trees whilst we were there and bought certificates of
solidarity. As we approach the Christmas season, and Bethlehem is in
people’s minds, what better way of expressing the Christmas message
than this inspiring project, outside a city wall, trying to build bridges and create peace.

This week in the Jordan Valley

We received a phone call from a contact in the Jordan Valley that the
Israeli army were demolishing a Bedouin village near Jiftlik called
Abu Alajaj.The soldiers from the Israeli Army came in 20 jeeps and 2
bulldozers around 6 in the morning and bulldozed three sheep sheds and
one living unit housing a family of 11 members. 3 people who were
trying to get the animals out of the shed before the demolition, were
arrested. Most of the sheep escaped; however, the villagers were
still pulling out wounded lambs from the remains of the sheds when the
team arrived. We were told that altogether 200 lambs were in the
sheds and that some may still be stuck under the residue. The
villagers were still looking for the sheep that managed to escape
before the shed fell over them.
The village's crime is that they are 25 metres from vineyards of
illegal Israeli settlement of Massu'a – and the settlers want to take
over all the land from the settlement to the road on the other side of
the village. Massu'a is on the site of a refugee camp that housed
Palestinians fleeing from Israel after 1948.
The team spoke with, Sadie Adnan, the mother of the family, that had
their house bulldozed. She has a husband and 9 children. She told us
that when the soldiers came they just said that they are coming to
demolish their house and commanded them to get outside. The soldiers
did not let their neighbours help them carry out their belongings so
the family just managed to save some of their personal belongings
before they bulldozed the house. The neighbours who tried to help were
beaten and arrested. The electricity was cut and several of their
water barrels were also run over.
“And now we do not have any water. We told the soldiers that this is
water for us and our animals, but they did not care”, she said. Around
50 sheep and 60 – 70 lambs were in their shelter when it was
demolished.
They got the demolition order a month ago. Her family has lived here
for many years; all her 9 children were born here. “I will stay here,
I will die here”, she said and added that they will immediately start
to rebuild their units and stay with neighbours in the meantime.
Around 150 people live in this village and altogether they own around
10,000 sheep. On the question why the houses of exactly these two
families were demolished, the mayor of Jiftlik said that these
families were just picked at random, next time some other families’
units will be demolished, and they do not give them any warning, they
are just turning up with their bulldozers. The soldiers had said this
is Israeli land and that the Palestinians must leave.
“The Palestinians who live here have no documentation of their
ownership of the land. The land belongs to Jiftlik. All the people in
this community belong to the same family, the Idaes family. The family
is originally from Hebron, but moved here in 1979 as it is not
possible to live in Hebron with 10,000 sheep.” The mayor said that
“before 1980 we were in good terms with the settlers living in Massu'a
settlement, we were good neighbours and were visiting each other.
However, with the new generation of settlers everything has changed –
now they are not friendly anymore, they want to take our land in order
to expand their settlement. They took this land only 7 years ago”, he
said as he pointed at the vineyard only a few meters away. He further
explained that not many settlers are actually living in the
settlement; “it is just that they want our land as if to prepare for
more Israelis to come and live here.” The Israelis claim that this is
their land and that the villagers have built their units without
permission. “In this village the imam is not calling out for prayers
for fear that the Israeli Army will destroy their mosque”, he said.
And the next day, this is exactly what happened in neighbouring
community of Khirbet Yarza. When we arrived men were praying in what was left of their small mosque, just a carpet and prayer mats spread out between the mangled piles of stone and iron work. Eleven families live there now, whereas 10 years ago there were 50 families. Many people moved to larger villages of Jiftlik and Berdala. We spoke to Khaled Mohamed Darawma. He told us that at 6.30 the mosque, 7 animal shelters and one house were demolished. People have been living here for generations. Shots were fired by the soldiers and some people were sheltering in nearby caves.

These are not isolated incidents. There has been a concerted week of
demolitions around the West Bank, raids by soldiers on Nablus during
the night and even soldiers entering Ramallah during the day.

Nobody is very sure why this is happening, but my friend Saleh, who teaches
political science at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah thinks that the
Israelis are trying to provoke a reaction from Palestinians so that
they can take moral highground whilst demanding more from the "Peace"
talks or perhaps walking away from them. The Jordan Valley is a
particularly vulnerable area for Palestinians, being close to the
border with Jordan and of strategic importance to Israel, being where
the main water resources for Israel are located, and housing many
illegal Israeli settlements with valuabe, productive agriculture. Our
team is sending three people to stay overnight tomorrow in Abu Alajaj
in case of further incursions after the sabbath.

So it goes.

At school in Tawayel

I visited the school in Tawayel, near Aqraba, today. There are 24 children
there from 6 -12. Most of the children live in the village of Tawayel, many
in tin shacks and even in caves. They come to school immaculately turned
out. The school is in Area B, mixed control by the PA and Israel. The
village is in Area C, complete control by Israel. You can see this very
clearly because the local people were allowed to build a road from Aqraba as
far as the school and after that, to the village, is only a stony dirt
track. When I was there this morning a tractor was making its way back up
the hill to Aqraba, having been turned back by Israeli soldiers on threat of
arrest. His "crime" was to go to help people do some work on their well when
there was no permission.

On a happier note, one class of children, 11 years olds, wrote letters and
did drawings to send to children in England. What I would like is somone who
teaches a class of 11 year olds somewhere in the UK to receive these and get
their children to write back. This won't be a simple matter as there is no
internet and no post office.

The text of the Palestinian children's letter goes:
Dear Friends
My name is...... I live in Tawayel in Palestine. Please write to me about
your life in England. Life here for me is difficult. Tawayel is very
beautiful in the spring. We don't have many things to play with.

The children's names are:
Ayman, Najed, Osama, Yamama, Ala, Mona, Dnuia, Othman, Salma and Jasser.

Don't know how Eid was in England but it's quite something
here. Vegetarians might want to avert their eyes! In Nablus today we had to
literally negotiate a river of blood and sheeps' carcasses were lying about.
Our butcher was really busy helping people slaughter their animals and piles
of remains were in the street outside. Still, for meat eaters it is more
honest than everything being sanitised and hidden away in anonymous
abatoires.

We enjoyed the hospitality of Myassar and her family in the suburb of
Rafidiya. Myassar has given her life to the struggle for the freedom of
Palestine and is unmarried. She serves us a delicious dish of goat meat. It
is the first time she has cooked for Eid because normally her 80 year old
mother does not trust her to cook. But today she seems to approve. As we
walk around the area everyone stops and talks. It is a suburb with a mixture
of muslims and christians and relations seem cordial. We are invited into a
household of a Christian family, Saeed is a catholic and his wife, from
Jordan, orthodox, but now worshipping in her husband's church.
Inter-marriage between the two communities is rare, but does happen. The
catholic family seem less concerned about marriage to muslims than they do
about protestants, whom they think little of. They don't like the fact that
protestants don't worship the virgin Mary and they seem to suggest that all
protestants are aligned with Zionist Christians in the United States. One of
them asks what denomination we are. Rosmarie is a lapsed catholic, Wenche
from a protestant background. I hesitate for a moment and then tell them I
am Jewish. You can hear a pin drop and there is a momentary panic. "Are you
Israeli?" someone asks. I explain my credentials and the tension eases.

Continuing our peregrinations we visit the catholic church in Rafidiya and
meet Carmela. She talks in a semi-whisper. She feels less amiable toward her muslim neighbours and is concerned that Christians are now a minority and face discrimination, in her view. She lived in Wales for five years and her brother lives in Canada and constantly tries to persuade her to leave. But she wants to stay in Nablus. The more people you talk to in this region, the more complex and multi-layered it all seems.

When we take our leave of Myassar I ask her if she ever works with Israeli peace activists. She gives a resounding no. She won't work with them, won't have them pick olives with her and does not trust them. Yet she says she wants one state in which Palestinians, muslims, christians and jews can all live. But I guess there would have to be an end to the idea of a Jewish state, and some of the Israelis I have met would not mourn its passing either.

I think particularly of my friend Dan who I have just spent the weekend with in Tel Aviv. His is on the surface the epitome of an Israeli family. His mother immigrated to Haifa in 1925 from Ukraine, studied piano in Vienna in the 1930s and at 94 still lvoes her country, although she is insensed at the treatment of the poor and the lack of concern for Israel's amnyh social problems. Dan's father came in 1935 having come via South Africa from Lithuania. He was a district judge. His oldest sister won the opportunity to represent Israel at a prestigious international youth
festival in 1957 and later married one of Israel's foremost basket ball
players of the 1960s. His oldest daughter served in the army and now studies
at university. His oldest son will soon have his turn. His wife hates her
children going into the army but does not interfere with their choices. Dan himself is an academic and environmental activist. His PHD thesis is on mixed Arab and Jewish towns in Israel. It was this work, mainly in Nazareth, that led him to change his view of his country, and now he counts amongst his friends and allies foremost critics of Israel such as Ilan Pappe and Raja Shahadeh. In his family you can find almost every shade of political opinion. I am invited to his sister's 70th birthday party, which is held in a town in Galilee very close to Nahalal, which is a collective farm established in the 1950s. Its shape is a perfect circle and there is a famous arial photo of it. Its cemetery boasts the resting places of some of the luminaries of Zionism, including Jabotinsky and Moshe Dayan.

As secular jews the family still keeps up some of the traditions, including the Shabbat meal on Friday night, which I am priveleged to join. So this week I have celebrated the Jewish sabbath and eid al adha. Is there still hope that people will be able to do this together in one land?

An audience with Father Ibrahim Nairouz

We found Father Ibrahim at St. Philips Church, right next to the
mosque. Beside the Church is the school run by the church for both
Christian and Moslem children. Whilst we settle into our conversation
with him, a child is brought in, who sits on his knee and whispers in
his ear. He explains that she has just come from America this week and
speaks only English. He has to be enlisted to find out what she needs.
Father Ibrahim is the minister for the Anglican churches in Nablus,
the old church, here at St. Philips and the new church in Rafidiya,
the Church of the Good Shepherd.
St. Philips, the Anglican Church, was established in 1876. The
Christian presence in Nablus goes back centuries. The school is older
than the church, having been established in 1848 .Originally the
school had twenty-one pupils, three Jewish children, five Samaritans,
five Moslems and eight Christians. The last Jewish family left Nablus
in 1939.
Father Ibrahim explains that Arab Jews were victims of Zionism as well as Palestinians. He tells us about the poet Sasson Somekh from
Baghdad, who at 75 years old now lives in Tel Aviv. He is a foremost
scholar, teacher and writer on Arabic literature. Somekh wrote
“Baghdad, Yesterday: The making of an Arab Jew”, originally published
in Hebrew in 2003. In it he describes the tragedy of Iraqi Jews,
uprooted from the culture they were familiar with, and to a large
extent thrived in, to become, in many cases, second class citizens
within Israel.
Father Ibrahim speaks of the wisdom of Solomon and the two mothers who
claim the one son. Solomon suggests that the child be cut in half and
the true mother, preferring to give up her child than to see him
cruelly butchered, bows to the false mother. “Palestine is small like
that baby,” says Father Ibrahim. But who, I wonder, is the true mother
who will give up the child in order to save its life. “Just read the
bible,” he says. “Take out the limits put on our thinking by Zionism
and find a comprehensive solution”.
Father Ibrahim quotes liberally from the bible. As he warms to his
theme, he lays out his compelling vision with eloquence and charisma.
In fact, at one point, he moves me so much that tears begin to form in
my eyes and he gently and quietly pushes a box of tissues towards me.
For him there can only be the so-called “one state” solution. “We have
five major problems” he says, “Settlements, Borders, Water, Refugees
and Jerusalem – with one state, all these problems disappear. Settlers
become neighbours, borders are settled, water is for everyone,
refugees can live where they like and Jerusalem will be for all the
people.” But it is easy to say, more difficult to achieve this.
“It is a big challenge,” he says. Fundamentalists on both sides will
not join him, he knows, but with education, he believes they can take
the first steps in the journey of a thousand miles.
He thinks a two state solution will not work in the long term. All
through his exposition, he stresses the word “harmony”, harmony with
each other, harmony with nature, harmony with the way of God. “You can
move the course of a river by force” he says, “but sooner or later
your force will weaken and the river will return.” There are no
natural borders within the whole land of Palestine and Israel – he
likens it to the river – “If you go against nature and against God,
you cannot sustain it”.
“What people have to learn here,” he says, “is the beauty of
diversity. When you use more colours, the picture is more beautiful.”
He wants people here to learn to respect, understand and even enjoy
each other. He wants to build bridges, not walls and checkpoints. He
is convinced that two states will mean two enemy states.
The Christian community in Nablus consists of about 700 people divided
between four denominations, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopal and
Malakite. Most of the Christians live in the suburb of Rafidiya. He
stresses that it is not just Palestine that Christians are leaving,
but many Arab countries. Father Ibrahim talks of the stupid invasion
of Iraq by Bush and his allies and how this worsened the plight of
Christians in Arab countries.
But he is at pains to stress that the idea that Islam is driving
Christians away is completely false. “Christians in Arab countries are
Arabs; they have an Arab mentality, a mentality they share with Moslem
neighbours. We live in harmony with Islam.” He himself has studied
Islam and Islamic culture. No, he stresses again, it is first and
foremost the occupation which is driving people away. The occupation
has resulted in massive unemployment, lack of opportunity, lack of
safety and security.
He also points out that although pilgrims from all religions are free
to go to their holy places, the only people who are prevented from
doing so are Arab Christians. They cannot go to the Jordan River, to
Nazareth, to Jerusalem and even Bethlehem is difficult because the
journey takes so much longer now, due to the wall. Last Easter he
obtained permission to go for one week to Jerusalem, but because it
coincided with the Jewish festival of Pesach, all borders were closed
and he was unable to use his permit. The Israeli media trumpeted
Israel’s generosity in allowing Christians to visit Jerusalem, but
failed to mention the impossibility of fulfilling the mission.
Two elderly women from his community wanted to make pilgrimage to
Nazareth. He worked hard to get permission for them. First off, he
could only get permission for one day, which was insufficient. He
argued for two days, and eventually the Israelis relented. They gave
him two days. But when it came to it, these were two consecutive days,
but without the night in between. It became impossible to go. The
headlines in Israeli newspapers said that permission had been granted
for Christians to go to Nazareth, but the priest refused to take them.
Another thing Father Ibrahim is sad about is the extent to which his
people believe that the west is a paradise for Christians. He wants to
convince them that if they work hard here they can also thrive. “This
is our holy place” he says, “we need to be here.” He believes the
occupation will not last forever. “We can make the future with our own
hands, but we need to stay together, and in harmony with our
neighbours.” People will not find paradise anywhere else, he believes;
they need to make it here.

Meeting Father Ibrahim was an enriching experience. He manages to
maintain a critical and harsh analysis of Israel’s behaviour and role
in the conflict. Yet he combines this with a deep love and trust that
people can live in peace and harmony, and learn to appreciate each
other and the diversity contained within this region. He will have his
detractors, but his determination to keep his community together and
to spread the message of love to everyone around him is
indefatigable.