How do they put up with this?

As I begin to write I am disturbed by children knocking at the door shouting “mustautanin” –
settlers. Two young men with small guns and a dog are coming down
through the village. On the Sabbath the religious do not drive and the
shortest route between their outposts is down through our valley. We
watch them as they progress past Um Hani’s house. They do no harm.
Earlier today I hosted a delegation of 19 people from Norway. I told
them Yanoun’s story and guided them around the village, to the school, the taboun and down to the well. As if by design, a settler comes to
the well as we stand there. He sports an enormous gun and a pistol. He
makes no eye contact, he says nothing – simply washes his face in the
sheep trough and walks onl We follow his route some way behind, up to
the boundary stone. The Norwegians ask me what would happen if we
hiked further up the hill. Probably nothing to us, but there is
something called a price tag policy. If we annoy the settlers the
locals suffer for it. “How do the people here put up with this?” asks
one of the Norwegians. What choice do they have.

On ~Wednesday I met two fascinating people in Nablus. One is Abdul
Latif from the Palestinian Hydrology Group. He confirmed what I had
already heard about the lack of a ccess to water for Palestinians in
the West Bank. Israel confiscated their right to access to water after
1967. Every project to collect water requires a permit and mostly
these are denied. The group specialises in providing small water
collection projects for agriculture, including the Jordan Valley. All
the water Israel uses comes from Palestine. They use 83 % of all the
water there and they sell water back to Palestinians. What a great
racket! The water costs 60 sheqels a cubic metre. Palestinians are 70%
dependent on Israel for their water and sanitation needs. When it
comes to telecommunications the figure is 100%. There is no real
independent economy here. Abdul Latif contrasts the situation with
water here and in Gaza. “Here we have plentiful good water, but little
access – in Gaza they have access but the water is salinated and
polluted. In Gaza it is as if you called a doctor to a dead man,” he
says. The aquifer is gone, the damage is irreparable.
Our second visit in Nablus involves trying to hunt down a class of
students to do public speaking in English. Finally this comes to no
good end, but we do meet with the head of the Public Relations
department, who treats us to a performance of Shakespearean
proportions. His main theme, which he warms to extensively, is his
family’s expulsion from Jaffa. He shows us photographs he has of old
men with piles of deeds to houses and property. He paces the room,
flings his arms wildly and flashes his eyes as he speaks of his visit
with his father to Jaffa. They saw a green undulating park which
covers the ruins of old Jaffa razed by Israelis after 1948. His father
pointed out the old exit to the mosque, which the local guide knew
nothing about. In the graveyard, old grave stones were toppled and
broken.

After my day in Nablus learning about water, it was strange to have a
day off, which I spent visiting the Dead Sea. At Ein Gedi kibbutz they
have planted a wonderful botanical garden with baobab trees,
succulents and cacti, something called the Sodom Apple tree, specially
adapted for desert conditions and many other splendid species. Now I
love a botanical garden. But you can’t fail to notice the sprinklers
everywhere, the greenness contrasted to the desert all around, and
remember what Abdul Latif had said about water.
The floating in the Dead Sea is an experience worth having once, but
in my opinion only once. Any open sores or bites sting like mad, and
for women, certain nether regions suffer somewhat. The experience of
trying to get your feet back on the ground is unnerving. The highlight
of this trip is the visit to Masada. This is the ruins of the palace of Herod. It is also famous because
Jewish martyrs held out here against the Romans in 66CE. When it was
clear all was lost for them, they committed mass suicide, dividing
into groups, with one person killing all in his group and then
himself. The Romans were overcome when they found them and could not
rejoice in their victory. A sign at the beginning of the tour
describes the site as a symbol of the fight against oppression, and
asks us “What will be our Masada?” I -could answer that – here of all
places.
When I get back to Jerusalem I get off the bus in an unfamiliar Jewish
suburb and get out my map. Now in the West Bank if only so much as
show a corner of a map I will be besieged by people wanting to guide
me to my destination. Here people scurry past, eyes straight ahead or
down. I think they are frightened of a stranger in their midst who
clearly does not belong here. How terrible to live in such fear of the
other.

In contrast, on my journey back from Ramallah to Yanoun I get talking
to a man from the refugee camp near Nablus, returning from praying at
the Al Aqsa Mosque. In my broken Arabic and his slightly better
English we find out much about each other. He presses his name and
phone number on me and says “Sometimes you meet people and feel you
have known them all your life”. I love these people and these
encounters with them.