NO PEACE WITH SETTLEMENTS
Israel’s stubborn extension of its settlements in the West Bank again threatens to undermine any permanent peace. This is no novelty. From the beginning of the dream of a homeland the Zionist policy was to acquire the ‘Holy Land’ if not by war then by gradual settlement. Settlement continued undaunted during all peace efforts ovcer the last decades. Religion served the policy well. Even non-believers made use of it. Just how blatant this ‘land-grabbing’ has become was illustrated again with the so-called Security Fence, a wall built on a route that annexed large parts of Palestinian territory. For those Palestinians along the route the dilemma was often heart-breaking. This is a case I reported in 2003:
Hani Mohamed Amer is a crusty Palestinian farmer with a nervous tick in one eye. Seated on the stone stairs of a house his family owned for generations he was gazing across the orchard and the vegetable gardens on the gentle slope, part of the valley of Ariel, where he and his forefathers had grown their livelihood. The rhythmic thump of his walking cane on stone betrayed his inner emotions. Many of the villagers of Mashah on the West Bank had gathered around him, some in commiseration others to seek advice.
Amer’s eyes were fixed on the Caterpillar bulldozer with the bullet-proof driver’s cabin. The huge army ‘dozer’ was carving up a swath of land destined to carry Israel’s anti-terrorist fence, a barricade the Palestinians have nicknamed “the Apartheid Wall.” The vehicle approached to within a few yards of Amer’s own fence, then, chains clanking, swivelled and went back downhill, pushing dirt. Two Border Police jeeps were parked below Amer’s fence. Four blue-uniformed police, casually cradling their assault rifles, kept an eye on the fifty-two international activists who had formed a human chain to save Amer’s house from being demolished. Each time the bulldozer approached the activists rushed from their tents and linked arms to form their chain. Once the ‘dozer clattered downhill the human chain disintegrated.
The old farmer had thanked the activists for trying to save his home. Privately he admitted he had no faith their action would be successful. In recent days twelve activists had been shot by rubber bullets and scores were arrested in similar anti-wall protests along the West Bank. Not a single house had been saved.
Still the activists had courage. Down in Raffa at the Gaza border with Egypt an American activist, Rachel Corrie, 23 years old, had been bulldozed to death a few months earlier as she tried to save from demolition the home of a Palestinian family who hosted her. The driver of the Caterpillar claimed he did not see her standing in front of his scoop, though eye witnesses and photos showed her standing on a mount of dirt so she could eyeball the driver as he approached. In a blatant white-wash the army said the young American girl was killed by dirt falling on her. A young British activist, carrying children to safety from another Raffa home about to be demolished, was shot in the head and remains comatose. An initial army inquiry said a Palestinian ‘terrorist’ shot him, a report later withdrawn after British indignation made a case of the incident. Washington barely raised an inquiry in the Corrie case.
Undaunted by the past the activists at Mashah had camped out for three days and nights, determined to stop the bulldozer ploughing down Amer’s home. Most of them were young pacifists whose social conscience had been outraged by the Israeli methods to combat the Intifada. They had come from all over the world, from America, Europe and Asia, to stage their protests. They sneaked into the West Bank with the help of Palestinians. Some had dismantled road barricades that had virtually caged villages for more than a year. The activists were aware foreigners were only deported while Palestinians who dismantled barricades could be jailed indefinitely. Three activists had ripped off the locks on the chains around Hebron University campus, a campus shut down for two years. The chain-breaking prompted Israel to announce within hours it had decided to allow the University to “reopen.”
The scene at Mashah was not unusual, nor was the dull resignation of the two thousands villagers. Their homes were miles inside the Green Line, the de facto border both sides had considered the line dividing the State of Israel from the West Bank. These days Israeli officials argued the Green Line had never been intended as a permanent border and Israel was justified in building the security fence inside the Green Line as a protection against attacks by suicide bombers.
The excuse of 'national security' is used for all occasions in Israel, just as it is today in the U.S. to justify 'permanent war' on terror. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip Israeli army bulldozers automatically demolish homes and flatten olive and fruit tree groves because someone allegedly fired from the house or the land on one of the one hundred and thirty Jewish settlements that ring Palestinian cities, towns and villages.
The settlement of El Kana is Amer's next door neighbour. El Kana is part of the cluster of settlements around the huge Ariel complex and the Ariel Industrial Park inside the West Bank. The intended security fence was to make a huge loop into the Green Line to include the complex. In the process it was annexing a large swath of Palestinian land, fencing it out to the Israeli side.
Amer and his family of eight share a garden fence with three of El Kana's villas. He can see into their rooms, they can see into his rooms. He sells the settlers the apples and apricots he grows on his land. In the winter he sells them vegetables from his greenhouses. There were never any incidents, even after an ominous beginning.
"One day, three years ago, workers came and laid down foundations on the land next door,” Amer took up his story again. “The land belonged to people in the village. So we protested. We were told the land had been confiscated because it was not being used. We were told to take the matter to court if we objected.
"So we got a lawyer and filed a petition in Tel Aviv. But the case dragged on and on and all the time the settlers were building homes, swimming pools, gardens - until it was all done.
"When it was finished the Israeli High Court handed down its judgment: We had won. The settlement of El Kana was illegal. But the court ruled if we wanted the land back we had to compensate the settlers for the installations they had already built: The homes, the pools, the gardens, the water works, the electricity, the Internet and telephone facilities, everything.
“My friend, if the whole village put their money together we wouldn't have had enough to pay the cost of one day's construction at El Kana."
So El Kana remained.
To safeguard the ‘illegal’ residents of the settlement the Israelis barricaded Masha with mounts of earth and rocks on both ends. This left the village blockaded. On the other hand the ‘illegal’ settlers were provided with easy access to the Ariel complex highway just half a mile down the slopes. (The four-lane highway, built exclusively for settlers, connects to the main highways heading for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. An army checkpoint makes the road off limits to Palestinians.) The Israeli authorities built an artery road that connected El Kana to the highway.
Amer spoke slowly as he recounted, step by step, what had led to the present situation.
He said officials from the Ministry of Defense came a month ago and offered to buy his house and his land because the new security fence to keep "terrorists" out of Israel was being routed between Amer's house and the Jewish settlement next door. Unfortunately, they said, he would be fenced out and left on the Israeli side.
"So sell and buy yourself another house,” the officials told him.
Amer is a stubborn Arab attached to the land by history and an unshakeable belief no one has the right to make him move. He tapped the cane hard on the stone steps: "I refused. I told them my family had been on this land for generations. Don't even give me a figure, I said. Selling is out of the question.”
The officials were accustomed to similar resistance. "Don't make it difficult for yourself,” they told Amer. “Maybe one day someone will fire a gun from your house at the Jewish settlement next door and then we will have to demolish your house and take away your land. Think about that. If this should happen you’ll end up with nothing. Isn’t it better now to have some money and start somewhere else?”
The villagers standing around Amer nodded. No one was surprised at such veiled threats. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip Israeli army bulldozers automatically demolish homes and flatten olive and fruit tree groves because someone allegedly fired from the house or the land on one of the one hundred and thirty Jewish settlements that ring Palestinian cities, towns and villages.
Amer said once the Defense Ministry officials realized he would not budge they told him he had five days to lodge an objection at an office near Ramallah.
The villagers sniggered.
"How could I lodge an objection?" Amer asked: "It is illegal for me to leave Mashah unless I obtain a special travel permit from the Israelis. And the permit can take a month.
"So tell me, what can I do? Wait here until they have fenced me out of my hometown where my mother and father and my brothers and sisters live? Once fenced out I won't be able to see them again?
The bulldozer was once again moving threateningly close to the doomed house. The activists rushed form their tents and linked arms.
The bulldozer turned lazily and began to flatten the land on both sides of the intended fence as Amer shook his head. He knew he was doomed. Unless he left his home he would be forced to live on the Israeli side of the fence. If he intended to visit his parents or relatives he would need permission from the Israeli military authorities to pass through a gate to which the military had the key. The farmer knew from experience the IDF does not hand out permits easily and tends to use them as a whip and carrot.
Three days later a contingent of tough Border Police dragged the activists into police buses and drove them to Ariel prison where they spent the night before being told if they ever entered the West Bank again they would be jailed for two years. Only a young Italian girl from the Tirol was deported. Despite coaching by her organization not to resist arrest she had kicked a policeman when he dragged her away by her hair. The kick was classified as an “assault” against authority.
The same day the bulldozer flattened Amer’s Outhouse and left his main home on the Israeli side of the fence.
