This is a letter from a dear, dear friend of mine in occupied Palestine. Dear friends, Warm greetings from the West Bank! Please circulate this to anyone you think would find it of interest. * * * Iâm here with the International Womenâs Peace Service, a small NGO whose mandate is to monitor and document human rights abuses and peacefully intervene to prevent them here in the Salfit region of the West Bank. (The West Bank was invaded by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, and has been illegally occupied by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) since then.) Being a rural area, Salfit is under the radar both for media and for other NGOs who tend to be focused on Hebron and Ramallah and, of course, Jerusalem. Living and working here allows IWPS team members to witness the effects of the Occupation firsthand, and to be able to document the daily realities of life under the Occupation for the people of Salfit. We live in an apartment in the village of Hares, which is in between Ramallah and Nablus and a little to the east. On the road that runs by the entrance to the village stands a concrete watchtower, set up by the IDF. It looks like a lighthouse, and it dominates the hillside. On a hilltop two kilometres away is the settlement of Ariâel, the second-largest colony in the West Bank. Like all Israeli settlements in the West Bank it is illegal under international law, under the Geneva Conventions, under resolution after resolution at the UN. Ariâel is growing rapidly. It was founded by 40 settlers in 1978, and now has a population of over 24,000. It is an important part of the Israeli Governmentâs âfacts on the groundâ strategy â settle enough Israelis in the Occupied Territories that it will be impossible to remove them all if, when, the land is partitioned into two states. In the 2003 Roadmap, it was again mandated that such illegal settlement would stop. But it continues. Settlements often spread by creating outpost settlements a kilometre or so away, little clusters of trailers surrounded by barbed wire. Revava, part of the Ariâel settlement âbloc,â began that way, right on the edge of Hares. Now, with over 700 settlers, itâs a lot more permanent. Sometimes the Revava settlers come onto Hares land, into the fields where the villagers are working, and shout and threaten them. Sometimes they bring weapons. This is a story that we hear over and over again from farmers across the region -- settlers harassing farmers, often preventing them from tending their land. My first day here, we went out to the olive groves of the village of Awarta with a small group of Israeli activists from Rabbis for Human Rights, one of the many Jewish Israeli groups working for justice for Palestinians. Awartaâs land, like the fields of many Palestinian villages, is in a valley. The settlement of Itamar, like most settlements, is on a hilltop overlooking the valley. The routine in the ongoing skirmishes between settlers and villagers is that the villagers go to tend their trees; the settlers come and threaten them; the villagers call the army or the police; the army or police come and tell them thereâs nothing they can do (sometimes they add that their job is to protect the settlers). They tell the villagers to go home and try again tomorrow, when the whole drama is repeated. The impact this has on the farmers runs deeper than the daily anguish of watching your ancestral land slowly being taken away from you, and the economic repercussions of losing your livelihood. The Israelis have dusted off an old Ottoman law that says if land lies fallow for three years, ownership is lost. Yesterday we traveled north to Wadi Qana with Rezeq Abu Nasser, who used to farm there. Wadi Qana means âValley of the Canals,â and itâs one of the most fertile places in the West Bank â a long valley watered by 17 separate springs. It is part of the extensive land of Deir Istya, a village close to Hares, and was abundant with fields of wheat and barley, and of tomatoes, squash, lentils, figs, and watermelon. I say âwasâ because, since 1978, Deir Istya villagers have lost between one third and one half of their farmland in and around the valley. Itâs not just the land lost to the eight settlements that have sprung up on the hilltops overlooking the valley, or to the road that joins them. Much of the land has been polluted by the open sewage pipes that ended on the hillsides just below the settlements, spewing their contents down into Wadi Qana. You can smell the sewage as you enter the valley, see the algae covering the pools. Years of documenting and reporting on the pollution by Rezaq and other Deir Istya residents, environmental groups, and supportive international groups such as IWPS, finally bore some fruit when a couple of months ago most of the open pipes were closed. But itâs a hollow victory, with the valleyâs land spoiled, and sewage water still flowing down from Ginat Sharom into pools banked by dark sludge. A major highway, the Trans-Samaria Highway, crosses the West Bank, giving settlers speedy access to Tel Aviv. In the Palestinian Territories, only vehicles with yellow Israeli number-plates can use roads like this. Palestinians use the smaller local roads. They always bring their ID cards with them, to show to the soldiers at the checkpoints, and allow many hours over the driving time. People can pass through a checkpoint in half an hour, or in four hours, or in eight â there is no way of telling in advance. Iâve heard stories of Palestinians being late for meetings in nearby cities even though they began their journey the day before. There are major permanent checkpoints, such as Zatara on the road south to Ramallah, where drivers queue for hours and the soldiers take their time, and there are flying checkpoints â you round a corner and cars are slowing, two or three soldiers in the roadway flagging them down. Road blocks are another factor to consider â roads blocked by slabs of concrete, or because the tarmac road surface has been smashed. A roadblock in a rural area like Salfit can mean that a 5-minute trip to the next village can suddenly take 45 minutes. There are no checkpoints or roadblocks on the Trans-Samaria Highway, and it is never subject to arbitrary closures. Time to close, and to cook supper. I will write again before long. Blessings,
WHAT A FRAUD!! She can't even get to first base with her required and brain washed sething hatred of Israel and Jew bashing. SHE CAN"T EVEN GET THE FIRST SENTENCE CORRECT!! Should be: >>> Warm greetings from the OCCUPIED West Bank! <<< Oh, the humanity of it all for this irreversible mistake and blunder! All the killings for the Intifada, schooling of PA children to "kill the Jews," suicide bombings, our own Hamas killing of an entire family on a beach, the billions in Swiss Bank accounts. All taken away by an unshaved NGO rag. Will you demand an immediate U.N. investigation Wael of this unprovoked massacre against the lies of the PA because of this blunder? Please keep us updated. P.S. Please send us photos of your trip to the beach to see where Hamas killed the family on the beach.
I also heard the Pizza shop bombing was carried by your mossad to implicate us naziboy!! I mean, you a history of doing so...You know, the bombing of the Jewish refugee ships, the Kastner affair and others. Come to think of it, I now see why you naziboys will think that everyone will me as malicious and vindictive as you are. despite of your half assed fraudulent websites, despite your vigorous campaign to spread fraudulent claims that ranged from us planting the bomb to possibly being one of yours to possibly being one old shell, to one of your shells is unaccounted for and there for the possibilities are open to them damn fighters launching these rockets from the beach and that is why you had to shell even though you missed the target by one whole town....The whole world is waking up to your criminal presence on our land. Take care Naziboy! OUT!!
You take care of yourself being an NGO in the blessed land of Israel spreading nothing but lies and killing. Be careful during the upcoming PA civil war. Must be scary to think that you could possibly be killed by your own clan - either walking down the street or having a famiily picnic at the beach. XOXO, Infi Dell Dhimmi P.S. Wael, are you burning with the peace of Islam in your heart as a good NGO? Quote from WAEL012000 "We only stood our grounds and covered your faces with spit mixed with our blood. LONG LIVE THE PROUD AND HONORABLE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE YOU INBRED ZIONISTS."