FARMING WITH ONE’S BACK TO THE WALL

Tulkarem thrived on its rich agricultural land mostly given over to market gardening. Fatally close to the Green Line, it has been devoured by the separation barrier and its infrastructures My peasant roots twist, my farmer’s blood runs cold when I talk to people who, one fine day found that what has been their family’s for generations is no longer theirs.

In Palestine, that is the common lot as the occupier has moved in as it pleased without any regard for international humanitarian law..

For Fayez, it took the shape of the infamous Gishuri Chemical factory who produces mainly agricultural chemicals and moved to Tulkarem in 1984 after it failed to get a license in Telmond settlement, in Israel, due to its dangerous effects on the environment and health. (Wafa Apr 27, 2005). The neighbouring farmer on whose land it first spilled out got no compensation.

The wall that surrounds this unusual settlement hardly inspires confidence, any more than the black effluents Fayez repeatedly reported; but the crunch came with the four hundred almond trees he lost to a white dust which also blighted his Israeli neighbours’ cultivations. Redress was sought jointly by Israeli and Palestinian farmers, not without drawing some press attention. Legal loopholes afforded by the Israeli nature but Palestinian situation of the factory sheltered it from compensations. However, having noted that the wind normally blew West to East, that is away from Israel (and thus Fayez), it offered the Israeli farmers guarantees that on the rare days when this was not the case the factory would close. And this is how Fayez’s land is spared this hazard – though Tulkarem’s 60 000 inhabitants, on the Eastern side get the full benefit for the best part of the year.

Such favourable provisions did not fail to register with other chemical enterprises so that Fayez warily watched the industrial settlement developing on his doorstep.

The second Intifada places Fayez land in the crossfire: he keeps going, only to find himself at the business end of a bulldozer heading for his plantations that smartly scoops him up when he refuses to budge. Only the stone Muna, his wife threw at the driver, drawing blood would stop him. A short lived victory: the factory owners had the farm flattened. Fayez replanted, rebuilt, replaced the irrigation system. But he was to suffer two similar attacks in 2001-02 and 2007 – the latter not before losing 60% of his farm to the wall.

Fayez says he does not believe in violence and fights through demonstrations and press attention but neither these nor the case he brought to court would prevent the resulting loss of  14 jobs. In 2007, as  Fayez continues, unbowed, to rebuild his greenhouses and work his remaining 13 dunums (some 1.3 ha), the army opens the wall to allow a bulldozer to ravage once again this inconvenient obstacle between Israel and its industrial settlement. In vain: Fayez and Muna put everything they have into reinstating once more their unprepossessing patch now trapped between the invader’s walls. And the invader will do its utmost to deter them: their farm will become a “closed military zone” for 14 months, during which they will put up an impressive display of civil disobedience, finding ways to enter daily their blockaded farm and to restore its assiduously sabotaged irrigation system.

Their experience is an extreme version of the fate suffered by many farmers in Tulkarem’s outlying villages. Deir al Gushun and Attil,  for instance are cut away from a quarter of their land, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNOCHA’s estimations and in order to farm, they must run the gauntlet of “agricultural gates”, manned by soldiers, and open at specified times that vary with the season, the place etc.... All of them? Certainly not: they must obtain a permit from the military administration. The permit is only valid for a certain time and for one person, it can be revoked at any time, or not extended  upon expiration. Still according to OCHA, the people that can go and work in what is known as the “seam zone”  “is only a fraction of what it was before the Barrier was built”. No wonder: the arcane and varying rules presiding over the permit and access system combined with the humiliations at the gates (turning up at a stated time, complete with documents, being subjected to a metal detector and your ID ran through the military administration’s computers to access your own land) takes its toll. Farming is driven by the sun, the sky and the earth, not by geopolitics, not by 18-20 years old kids who, kitted out with a gun and surveillance equipment, can make your life a misery.

And still the farmers go, because farming is driven by the love of the land, by the tie to the soil, because they know that if they do not work their farm it will be taken over by the occupier, on the basis of such British Mandate laws as the Abandoned Areas Ordinance, 1949 to quote but one of an armory of dubious legal dispositions.

It is hard to measure the kind of courage Fayez and Muna and all the farmers need to resist to the grind of that type of oppression.

A COUNTRY OF CONTRAST

Halfway through our placement, we return to Jerusalem and get opportunities to meet members of Israeli civil society, sadly nobody from Ta’yaoush mentioned earlier and who, I must specify, are an Israelo-Palestinian peace initiative.

We did however get the chance to check out a settlement outside Jerusalem, Efrat and to meet one of its members, Bob Lange who had been PR to Netanyahou and proceeded to persuade us that the lovely “community” he lived in (and very nice it was too) had every right to settle wherever they please in the land God gave his people. His settlement admittedly lives in good intelligence with its Arab neighbours who have had the good taste not to hold it against the incomers that they are in breach of international humanitarian law – so much so that they now want to expand so that families may live close together, … on whose land? You may well ask.

This laudable need to keep communities together somehow does not translate into Palestinian. There, the “natural growth” to which foreign powers are expected to bow cuts no ice as families wait for years for planning permissions that never come (but are never rejected either as this could lead to lawsuits the planers might loose). Before going to Jerusalem, we visited the village of Fa’roun where their vicinity to the wall has condemned several houses; some already lay in ruins and other have destruction orders imposed on them and may receive the visit of the bulldozers at any time. (a court ruling has just today ordered the State to dismantle and reroute sections of the Separation Barrier affecting this village but nobody is holding their breath: such decisions will take some time to be acted upon – if ever). And by the way,  the owners of houses destroyed by the Israeli authorities are charged costs, however, they can be spared this infamy by carrying out the destruction themselves.

Israel’s constant insistence on rights it denies others makes empathy with its people difficult. Fortunately, when we went to Sderot we met one of its inspiring citizens, where you could be forgiven, perhaps, for finding little sympathy for Palestine. With remarkable equanimity, Eric Yellin presented us with the frightening aspects of living in  place targeted by missiles, the sense of insecurity, the fear for your children, the trauma they suffer, without ever seeking to detract from the  much worse plight of the Palestinians. On the contrary, he acknowledged the desperate situation in Gaza and had created an association called “Other Voices” set up to communicate with is entrapped population, to exchange and to offer support. During the war, he stated his opposition to it in a television interview, which earned him few friends. The street he lives on in Sderot is a co-housing project.

He took us on a little tour to places from where you could see Gaza, and whence we saw last winter the international press, organised by the IDF, report on the mayhem beyond. However, as the coach pulled in by a place flying British flags, the military informed us that some VIP was present and that we were not welcome.

It turns out that this could have been the British Chief of Staff (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/171569). It would appear that Israel would be keen to return his visit – provided the risk of lawsuits against military personnel could be waved .Indeed, “report by the United Nations Human Rights Council alleging Israeli abuses during Operation Cast Lead could hamper British anti-terror efforts.” I shall leave this to your interpretation.

The UN has, to date rarely kerbed Israel’s style so Netanyahou, with his sights on European backers (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1104513.html), is busy with “legislation that would ban foreign government funding for groups such as Breaking the Silence*”, that is Israeli groups who do all they can to palliate to the abuses their country indulges in (from Eric’s Alternative Voices to Rabbis for Human Rights).

And why not? Haven’t the powers that be always shown willing to dance to Israel’s tune? When the “only democracy in the Middle East” is closing in on its admirable but depressingly thin on the ground opposition, freedom of expression has obviously gone out the window.

Or is it permitted to hope that, at long last, those powers will wake up to reality?

*Breaking the Silence (http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp) is an organisation formed by a remarkable 25 years old. At the age of 21-22, Jehuda Saul, preparing to re-enter civil life at the end of his military service (3 years) came to realise that, as a soldier he had done things the man he wanted to be would be ashamed of and proceeded to analyse his feelings with his friends. From the shock of their realisation came their organisation which invites soldiers to speak about their experience, anonymously if they choose. What they eventually publish is carefully verified and corroborated. Needless to say, the establishment did not much like what BtS published about Gaza… 

RAMADAN KARIM

Ramadan Karim

We have just completed the forth and ultimate week of Ramadan, lived with particular fervour and excitement.
Ramadan is a strange mixture of Lent and Christmas: An austere Lent since between sunrise and sunset he faithful partake of neither food nor water and by the temperatures we have known, this was no mean achievement – and no smoking either!. Tulkarem, in its basin gets swelteringly hot. Prayers start between 3 and 4 a.m. (According to the sun). One hour earlier the drums have been played all over the city to let people know that they had an hour left to eat and drink This comes as a shock at first but we got used to it.

Now, when the muezzin calls around 6 p.m., fireworks salute the end of the fast, silence descends on the place as everyone sits to a celebratory meal. We were invited to such a feast by our butcher. We were treated to diverse cuts of lamb slow-cooked in the oven with a selection of aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, chilli, all fresh from the land some farmers have to fight so hard to tend. The fruit and vegetables here are to die for – and indeed we were treated to a wonderful fruit salad before Ramadan sweetmeats were finally set before us. When the meal is over, the town is a-buzz into the small hours.

This is a time of intense and visible piety. Men in particular are seen everywhere prayer beads in hand or reading the Qu’ran and we see quite a few drift to the mosque for prayer as we set off on our duties at 4 a.m. Ramadan fasting is an exercise in restraint and must be engaged in in the right spirit. It is undertaken for the forgiveness of one’s sins and the betterment of one’s soul and a greater awareness of God’s inner presence. The prophet is quoted as saying “If one does not abandon falsehood in words and deeds, Allah has no need for his abandoning of his food and drink”.

We EAs are expected to show respect. This entails not eating or drinking in public. This took some doing on the day that, on duty at a checkpoint, a gentleman stopped the taxi that was taking him home to offer us, “Ramadan Karim”, some scrumptious confection fresh from Nablus, the capital of sweetmeats. Ramadan is also a time of generosity (karim) of giving to the poor. A great necessity since so many are unemployed (nearly 30% in Tulkarem) and, like at Christmas in our country, NGOs and relief organisations are busy distributing food parcels to those in the direst circumstances. Eid, the end of Ramadan is a major festival marked by the consumption of special foods as well as the heaping of gifts on the children. The market stalls with their abundance of fruit of every kind, their dates, their garishly coloured pickles and varied goodies, the flashing stars and crescents adorning some doors or window frames and streets have a rather disconcerting Christmas flavour.

Another aspect of Ramadan is the Hadj, the pilgrimage. The Faithful must go and pray in Jerusalem, at the Al Aqsa Mosque for the men and at the dome of the Rock for the women. Which would be fine if East-Jerusalem had not been unilaterally annexed by Israel who then proceeded to deny entry to the Palestinians. It would argue that “for security reasons” it has to screen those entering the Holy City. To this end, it has devised Kafkaesque rules regarding the ages of males and females to whom permits may be issued to go and pray on the Temple Mount, permits, which have to be individually checked with the result that what should be a time of devotion is turned into pandemonium. I walked through the checkpoint with the women last Friday, it took me over an hour to cover 10 meters in a press that was quite frightening at times. At Qalandya the checkpoint to the North of Jerusalem, the brutality was such that children had to be lifted away from the fences and passed overhead to (relative) safety. My colleague, Ann who was present wrote to me that: "It was surreal, I can still not believe I saw soldiers on horseback going into crowds of women, or soldiers hitting women old enough to be their grandmothers! It's like a vision of hell that if you didn't have it on film you wouldn't have believed you saw."
The young women we meat at the refugee camp could not even go at all; as they pointedly observed: “you can go to Jerusalem and yet we, who live here can’t.”

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Tulkarem, is the Westernmost city in the West Bank. It suffered badly during the second Intifada and has the scars to prove it. It has a population of 60000, plus two refugee camps which house 26000 Palestinians. Mostly, they lost their homes in what is now Israel some 60 years ago and are waiting for a peace settlement in order to shape their life. Refugee camps here are like housing estates with some social services attached (youth centre, adult classes, a centre for the deaf). Sixty years is a long time to be a refugee, to eek out a living whilst relying on the United Nations for support; but how is one to begin again when there is no knowing what tomorrow is made of?

Consider this: Just outside Tulkarem hundreds of dunums (a dunum is one tenth of a hectare) of agricultural land are now beyond the reach of their owners, fenced off by the separation barrier erected by Israel and which in places is a broad tract of land, also taken from the farmers, with miles and miles of razor wire in the middle. In places, this “fence” entraps communities or  single families. Those have no freedom of movement as access to their communities is controlled by gates manned by soldiers, opened for a few hours a day to a tightly controlled number of permit holders.

Also consider the images broadcasted the world over showing “the only democracy in the Middle East” expelling Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem on 1 August,  leaving them on the pavement while Jewish families were moved in under their very eyes. Many households have demolition orders on their homes, in Jerusalem and anywhere in the Palestinian Territory that takes Israel’s fancy: rich agricultural land, aquifer, strategic position towards the extension of settlements. (Settlement freeze? Not that we noticed on our tour of Jerusalem on the 13^th of August.)

Not even your identity is your own if you were born Palestinian as documents issued by the Palestinian Authority have, in last resort, to comply with Israel’s requirements – and be recorded there. Unsurprisingly most people also have e.g. Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian documents of equally limited usefulness. So: your identity is open to debate, your chances to get work rate at 35% in Tulkarem camp; but say you are one of the lucky few who have landed a job . It does not follow that you will make it to your place of work for you can be held up at any point of a journey by a flying checkpoint, that's supposing you were spared the humiliations of the major ones. Everywhere around you are the ruins of beautiful houses and thriving businesses destroyed for Israeli convenience. These are hardly incentives to forego the shreds of security UNWRA offers you and start afresh, are they?

Refugees cannot cease to be refugees if there is no land that they can claim as their own in safety: a just peace must be concluded, offering both peoples the guaranties they need to thrive. That means that what Israel considers necessary to its own security also goes for Palestine. To date, there is little evidence that Israel has any intention of relinquishing territory that it has no legal right over, let alone conceding any of its own for the sake of Palestinian security.

Being British

It is not easy to be British here in Palestine. Where are you from, we are asked: "Sweden" "you are welcome", "Norway" "you are welcome", "South-Africa, Switzerland, Holland -You are welcome". The UK?.... I have come to dread the name of Balfour.. "What do you think of the situation in our country?" What I think of the situation in Palestine is as I wrote to David Miliband in anticipation of Mr. Netanyahu's visit:

"I am writing to you from Palestine where I see every day a people's basic rights dismissed in the name of Israeli security on a land which Israel has no right to settle. I see people being despoiled of their land, when it is not their home. I see people humiliated and I see an economy in tatters because the country is not allowed to function properly, in the name of Israeli security on a land to which the International Community does not recognize them any claim.

The World Bank itself reports thus:

'1.4 Indeed, the post-conflict economic booms in other countries were mostly not hampered by the extreme restrictions facing the Palestinian private sector today. Very few economies have faced such a comprehensive array of obstacles to investment -- not just of physical impediments to movement, but also comprehensive institutional and administrative barriers to economies of scale and natural resources, along with an unclear political horizon and the inability to predictably plan movement of people and goods. This report shows that progress in the relaxation of these restrictions during 2008 has been marginal at best. As a result of the Israeli security regime, the Palestinian economy has hollowed out, with the productive sectors declining and the public sector growing, as more of the population looks to the public sector for employment and assistance in coping with the impact of unemployment. The PA's wage bill alone is equivalent to 22 percent of GDP1. The result is a growing dependency on donor aid for the prevention of fiscal collapse. In 2008, external aid to the PA amounted to nearly 30 percent of GDP.'

I am writing to ask you to make sure that our Prime Minister represents to Mr. Netanyahu that the settlements, which are used as an excuse to many of the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians must be dismantled. The siege of Gaza and the humanitarian disaster that ensues must end as does the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem. There will not be peace without justice. (...) I hope that the indignation felt by the people who are aware of Israel's conduct in Palestine can be made clear to its Prime Minister."

Most people are touched by and grateful for our presence at their side but some find it hard to believe that any sympathy for their plight can be found in Britain - and when I read reports of the outcomes of Netanyahu's visit, I can't say I blame them: I find precious little in his "concessions" that could remotely alter the findings of the World Bank and I would find it hard to count a government satisfied with such half-hearted commitments as my friend.