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.