 |
|
|
Testing the Waters— Palestine & Israel, 2006 |
|
|
Journal, March 15, 2006—Southern Hebron HillsShepherds live in the southern Hebron hills, the same hills Abraham and Sarah might have traveled thru on their way to Hebron some 4000 yrs ago. In fact, wasn’t Abraham a shepherd? Water is scarce throughout this general region but especially in the hills. Only a few trees, no shrubs, maybe some wheat, some wildflowers, and luckily an aquifer that is tappable by wells. One particular family has the misfortune of owning land and living near an expanding Israeli settlement or colony. As part of the pattern of forcing the native people from their land, the settlers find many ways, some ingenious, to disturb lives and thrust people from their land: what can gently be called transfer. Or relocation. A more inflammatory term might be removal. It is not genocide, some might call it proto-genocide, a step just before the real thing. Shepherds live in the southern Hebron hills, the same hills Abraham and Sarah might have traveled thru on their way to Hebron some 4000 yrs ago. In fact, wasn’t Abraham a shepherd? Water is scarce throughout this general region but especially in the hills. Only a few trees, no shrubs, maybe some wheat, some wildflowers, and luckily an aquifer that is tappable by wells. One particular family has the misfortune of owning land and living near an expanding Israeli settlement or colony, Ma’on, and different outposts. As part of the pattern of forcing the native people from their land, the settlers find many ways, some ingenious, to disturb lives and thrust people from their land: what can gently be called transfer. Or relocation. A more inflammatory term might be removal. It is not genocide, some might call it proto-genocide, a step just before the real thing. One of the more insidious and notorious methods is to kill sheep, beat them or shoot them, in cold blood. Should there be any media in this region, which is not likely, this makes bad press. So in some cases, settlers drop poison pellets into wells or onto lands. The head of this Bedouin household, I’ll call him Mahmoud, uses a well near one of the settlements. A few weeks ago, settlers pissed into the well, somehow making this known to the family. In defiance, M drank from the well, The settlers escalated. They dropped poison pellets, perhaps rat poison, onto the ground. Of M’s 60 goats, 40 died. Luckily, his sheep were elsewhere and all survived. But losing 40 goats in one short time span is devastating. If not for M’s brother, who lives nearby, the family would be at more severe risk. M and family then wisely decided to move further from the settlers. They packed up their tent (light weight poles and attachments, and several huge pieces of black plastic), household equipment, 2 water tankers, clothing, and other items of survival, and their animals, the surviving 20 goats and some 100 sheep, and migrated a kilometer or so. Not yet into the town of Yatta, as many have done, but further from settler wrath—these are among the most fanatical, violent, self righteous, and dangerous Israelis, sometimes from the US, sometimes from Russia. I wouldn’t care to have them as neighbors, despite sharing American backgrounds, unless perhaps I wished to build my practice of compassion and wisdom, core elements of my Buddhist perspective. Or answer to that of god in all, as I walk cheerfully over this earth, as we Quakers like to say. How did I get into this story? Thru the Christian Peacemakers Teams, CPT, the same organization that sent Tom Fox and the others into Iraq to witness to the US-wrought destruction and cruelty. The Iraqi kidnappers murdered Tom just days before I arrived in Hebron to join CPT for their investigation of the hills’ debacle. With other groups, including Hamas, CPT staged a vigil in Hebron to memorialize Tom and call for the release of the other 3 CPT captives. Tom and Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have all served in Hebron, are known and loved by many Palestinians who understand very well—unlike the Iraqi kidnappers—that CPT is non violent, shares the risks of the local peoples, intervenes in incidents of injustice, and reports thru their website and email list what most people in the world can’t see and hear because of distance and distraction. I accompanied Bill and Sonia of CPT. Sonia is a medical doctor from the UK, Bill a Canadian in his late 60s or early 70s, slightly stooped over but with an ever-present smile. Two Palestinians, Jamal, a local English teacher, and Abdelhadi, who works for the Land Defense General Committee of Palestine were with us to translate and provide us a broader perspective. Since I am attempting to concentrate on water issues during my 3month sojourn here, this journey seemed opportune. So, in photographing, I fixed my eyes and lens on anything related to water. We gathered testimony. Unfortunately that’s about all CPT and the other 2 or 3 organizations that have talked with M can do. It must be frustrating: someone poisons your sheep, your main livelihood. On your own land, where your people have lived for centuries. The poisoners are new comers, claiming their god gave them this land. Says so in the bible. Here, look a covenant. Thus, proved, get off this land or you die, slowly or quickly. On occasion, CPT uses direct action to try to effect change: helping a file lawsuit, vigiling at a police office, stopping a soldier from detaining a young Palestinian man, standing between ravaging young settler girls spitting and cursing at young Palestinian school children. On one of these occasions, not far from the poisoning site, settlers wearing black face masks and talking in American accented English attacked 2 CPTers, Kim Laherty and Chris Brown who were accompanying children past one of the hills’ settlements near a-Tuwani. They stole mobile phones and wallets, punctured a lung, and broke a leg, but the children were safe. Partly as a result of this incident and CPT’s continuing presence in a-Tuwani, Kim believes, the Israeli civil authority finally gave the villagers a permit to build a medical clinic, an unprecedented act, and only possible, Kim believes, because of the international presence and consequent international attention One word for me sums up the situation in the territories: impunity. Israel does what it wishes, argues as it likes, and tightens the matrix of control. While the US, in the form most obviously of the administration and Congress, but also the general population, not only agrees but funds this criminal policy. International law, affirmed by many UN resolutions forbids confiscation of land during an occupation. The law is clear, the morality is clear, but without vigilant implementation, people suffer unjustly. M and family live a nightmare. And who cares? M had his son bring out slightly fermented yogurt, a tangy enlivening drink. we sat in the hot spring sun, looking out as far as the line of sight would carry our vision, chatting amiably, laughing. M’s daughter and son cuddled up with father, or fought together. Grandma and grandma—she especially was inspiring to see, a lively brightly lit face, radiating love—sat with us. Mother and eldest daughter worked near or in the tent, cooking, making yogurt, and caring for the 3 smaller girls. Then they brought out water, drunk from a shiny silver cup. Makes a gripping photo, maybe. What is the source of this water? Is it safe to drink?. I learned that for roughly $10 monthly, they have water piped up from a village well, stored in 2 tankers. $10 might seem cheap, but only by affluent standards. For a shepherd and family, earning a few shekels a day (4.7 shekels to the dollar), that might be one week’s earnings. Palestinians use on average 1/5 the water of Israelis. And the ratio is even greater between settler and shepherd. The invited us into the tent for more relaxed conversation. Mostly, for us foreigners, they explained how they make yogurt by sloshing around goat’s milk in a goatskin, repeating the rocking action hundreds of times. They asked Sonia about one of the daughters, whose eyes had not formed with proper balance in her cranium. I felt for this child, remembered the congenital defect of my second daughter, Katy, a hernia that needed immediate attention. Lynn and I had little money but found a compassionate surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital who agreed to discount his rate and allow us time payments. For M’s daughter, no such arrangement is possible. She will probably live with this unsightly anomaly all her life, yet in a more affluent region—in Israel—the problem might be easily rectified. For Teeksa photos about the Water in the Southern Hebron Hills Other Teeksa photos and writing Water shortage in a-Sfai al-Fuqa in the Southern Hebron Hills, December 2004, a B'Tselem report "Land and Israeli Policy in Hebron district" |
