Volume [6]
No. [2]
December 2009
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Volume [6]
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No. [2]
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December 2009
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Farming In the West Bank
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In the Northern California area where I live are many farmers, so I was excited to learn about the lives of farmers in the West Bank. While working with ISM in the Nablus area, I met with a group of farmers from nearby villages. Farming probably isn't easy anywhere, but in the West Bank, the occupation makes farming even more difficult. Roadblocks make it difficult for farmers to get to their farms and grazing areas. Many farmers there are losing the land where their families live and have ranched and farmed for many generations. It is being confiscated by Israel to build settlements and roads off limits to Palestinians. The bedouin villages
remain, but people in them are not sure how long they can survive.
One farmer asked me to visit his village, take pictures, and tell people about their plight. I took him up on the offer. This farmer was bedouin and his village is called Wadi Rasha. Unfortunately for the bedouin villages, the Israeli government and military are successfully isolating them and moving them off their land. They do this by building huge walls around their villages. These are different walls from the Annexation Wall. They make it so the village has no access to water or electricity, and people cannot get to their farmland without a permit. The government mostly ignores their permit applications, or only issues a permit that can be used once a year. Before the “security walls” were built, the bedouin villages used to have water and electricity. But because of the walls, they now need a permit for water. Permits are not issued. They live in squalor, sometimes ranching in their own shacks with very little land and electricity from a generator. Huge pipes, the infrastructure for water that was the lifeblood of the community, sit empty. The small villages still remain, but the people are not sure how long they can survive. The military has ordered them to leave many times, but they have no place to go. And who would want to leave land that has been in their family for generations? Demolition orders have been given to every house in the village. Checkpoints are a part of life in the West Bank. On my way to the village I spoke to a woman soldier from Brooklyn who was working at the checkpoint that separates these villages from all the other parts of the West Bank. She had been in Israel for five months. She was friendly and tried to be helpful by telling us, “It’s not safe in the Arab villages, they will shoot you and kidnap you.” I asked why they would do that and she said, “because they are Arabs.” At the same time, there are many Israelis who go to the West Bank to help build schools and defend the rights of the Palestinians. And there are many Israeli soldiers who refuse to fight in the occupied areas. However, dehumanization of the Palestinians is prevalent and makes it easier for Israeli society to justify the ongoing theft of land and collective punishment. |
Wadi Rasha and a nearby
Israeli colony Credit: Chet Collins I now understand better how Americans and others can be complicit in the destruction of a people. Our own country was founded by the taking land and resources from Native Americans. As Israel occupies Palestine, we occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. I witnessed Israeli settlers, like early colonists in America, destroying the lives of Palestinians who had no way of defending themselves. While I was there, hundreds of acres of wheat were burned, ancient olive trees were destroyed, and armed settlers shot at houses filled with families who had no weapons.
The military invaded a village near a town I was in, which is
nothing
unusual. Palestinians are not treated like citizens and are rarely
granted even the most basic rights. I heard accounts of young men that
were kidnapped by Israeli soldiers during night time raids. A friend of
mine from Sebastopol, California was arrested while trying to block the
door to a home that was being invaded without cause or warrants during
a night raid. |
