Wallaje--the story

Wallaje, Tuesday 18.1.05Tami Goldschmidt and Aya KaniukWe knew houses had been demolished there. We asked people who pointed out where. We drove and from afar, detected a man speaking on his cell phone, looking at us. We stopped by him, he asked us in Hebrew if he could help. We said we came to see the demolished houses. He said, Ah… and volunteered to accompany us. Down the street another man stood with his cell phone. It seems these men stand along the village’s main street, all connected to each other on their cell phones, a contact web reporting to each other whether they may drive their cars inside the village. In other words, if the coast is clear of Border Patrol soldiers who have been confiscating cars, digging holes in the road, and watching over tractors for a month now, while they demolish houses.For the people of Wallaje, according to a plan that is difficult to be seen not as intentionally created (even if secretly), in explicit terms, are destined for an act (which in the modern world with its “borders” has condemned outright): silent transfer. Which is carried out explicitly. As the “legal” official means is declaring them – its residents – illegally present in their own homes.Apparently at some point, the State has decided that this Palestinian area is within the Jerusalem municipal jurisdiction. In other words, whoever drive their car to school, or the market, or ten meters, or even stand, or park or live, or sleep in their own beds, or study in school or are born and have lived there for generations (since before these evil legislators even conceived of their right to come to a far country and claim their historic rights to it) – are actually driving and living in the Jerusalem municipal area. Illegal aliens in their own homes.These are all holders of Palestinian IDs, who have never been Jerusalem residents, and have never been offered to become such, and have never received any services as such, on the contrary. They have always paid taxes to Bethlehem, which, as far as possible, offered them its services.So anyone living in Wallaje as such, is necessarily breaking the “law”. Lately, its executors (the Occupation authorities: army, police, municipality… and the legislature), have started to implement it: houses are being demolished whether for being in the Jerusalem municipal area, or for being illegally constructed - regardless of the fact that legally no construction permits are to be had, and the master-plan for extension does not exist. Beside house demolitions, they have now blocked the main and only road crossing the village, and dug several ditches along it. They have also started confiscating cars belonging to the residents.One of the first vehicles to be confiscated was the bread truck. So no bread deliveries to the village. And one of the two only buses serving the residents in and out of the village and the children who go to school outside the village.By the way, the residents have requested permission to build a school inside the village, but did not receive it, “by law”.Then 4 cars were confiscated, all inside the village. The claim was that their license was Palestinian, and this is Jerusalem municipal area, so they are illegal aliens and hence, their driving illegal. On the day we visited the village, the second bus was confiscated, and the children studying in Beit Jalla and Bethlehem had to walk at least half an hour out of the village to catch a bus.In order to understand how this could happen, or what is mobilized in order to perpetrate this crime “legally”, I suggest reading the entire article by Myron Rapoport in Haaretz Friday magazine:http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=529877&contra... am adding three sections of the article that touch upon Wallaje, not in their original order.Take Wallaje, for example. This village, southwest of Jerusalem, south of the railway tracks, is half inside the Jerusalem municipal area, half in the Westbank. For many years, says lawyer Etan Peleg, no one noticed that a part of the village belongs to Jerusalem. The residents received services from Bethlehem, and the Jerusalem municipality did not offer them any services whatsoever. Maps of 1967 do not show the village at all, so its residents have always been registered in Bethlehem.In the 80’s the authorities “discovered” that half of Wallaje, about 80 houses, is inside Jerusalem. But the residents remained holding Westbank IDs. lately they have been suffering the consequences of their Kafkaesque status – people whose houses are inside Israel but have no Israeli residency. The Border Patrol visits once in a while, and has occasionally arrested people in their own homes as illegal aliens. Even the school bus has been confiscated for having transported “illegal aliens”, in other words, Wallaje children, to their school in Beit Jalla.The Separation Wall is planned to pass by the village houses: the “Israeli” part will remain on the Palestinian side of the Wall, which does not keep the Ministry of the Interior from threatening to demolish houses there on grounds of having been constructed without an Israeli permit (on Monday last, 4 such houses were demolished). The land will remain on the Israeli side. Lawyer Peleg met with Colonel (res.) Dani Tirza, in charge of the Wall in the Ministry of Defense. “How will they reach their lands?” asked Peleg. “They won’t”, Peleg quotes Tirza. “These are not their lands, they are absentee property”. “This is the law of robbed property” answered Peleg, a former employee of the Security Service.At Wallaje people claim that 10,000 dunam will remain across the Wall, between the village and the Biblical Zoo and Cremisan. Someone spotted that land. The architects firm Reches-Eshkol plans to build a huge project of 13,000 apartments over about 3000 dunam, that will “wrap” Wallaje to the north and west. Claude Rosenkovitch, preparing the master-plan for Wallaje, says that the Ministry has informed him that the plan for this housing project is coordinated with the Ministry of Housing. Who owns the land? Jewish realtors claim they purchased the land. Lawyer Peleg and the people of Wallaje have no doubts about this: at least part of the land of this new neighborhood will be Wallaje’s “absentee land”.The Absentee Property Law was enacted in 1950 in an attempt to legalize Israel’s control over Palestinian land in what became Israel. The Law gives the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property the “right” to seize, administer and control land owned by persons defined as “absentee”. “Absentee” is defined as any Palestinian who, between 29 November 1947 and 18 May 1948, fled those parts of Palestine that became Israel (i.e. Palestinian refugees).[3] The Palestinian lands seized under the Law following 1948 were eventually transferred from the Custodian to the Israeli Development Authority or the Jewish National Fund and made available for exclusive Jewish-only settlement. In other words, the Law “legalized” the confiscation of Palestinian property in what is now Israel, and turned that land to Jewish-only use, with little or no compensation paid to the original Palestinian landowners. Israel’s enforcement of the Law to Occupied East Jerusalem will now allow Israel to declare “abandoned” any Palestinian property in East Jerusalem whose owners reside in the West Bank, Gaza Strip or in any Arab country, thereby paving the way for its confiscation and development for exclusive Israeli use with no compensation paid to its Palestinian owners. The enforcement of the Absentee Property Law is also in clear breach of the Road Map which states that the Government of Israel will not confiscate the property and houses of Palestinians. Occupied East Jerusalem and the Absentee Property Law: After its occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 Israel unilaterally expanded the municipal boundaries of East Jerusalem from six square kilometers to 70 square kilometers and extended the application of Israeli law into the newly expanded “municipal Jerusalem” area. The extension of Israeli law to East Jerusalem, along with the delineation of the expanded borders, were both declared illegal by UN Security Council Resolution 465. Although the application of Israeli law to East Jerusalem in 1967 meant that the provisions of the Absentee Property Law were now in effect, the Israeli government from 1967 to 2004 continued to allow Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to use and transfer ownership of their East Jerusalem property, as they had continued to do prior to 1967.[4] However, the Israeli government prohibited West Bank landowners from registering their land that fell within Israeli-defined municipal Jerusalem in the Israeli Land Registry (tabu). As a result, the land was left in a legal vacuum. Effects of the Application of Israel’s Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem: Confiscation of Thousands of Acres of Palestinian Land The decision to now enforce the application of the Absentee Property Law comes, according to many analysts, as a result of the Wall constructed in Occupied Palestinian Territory. With the enforcement of the Absentee Property Law, Israel is now able to confiscate land situated west of the Wall by Palestinian West Bank residents with no compensation paid to its Palestinian owners… Abu Daud tells us that yesterday 11 houses were demolished, including 6 chicken coops. Why the coops? Because with the present conditions of unemployment and the forbidden entry into Israel, livestock is a major source of income or at least helps sustain the family. Milk, cheese, meat… That is why they’re being demolished. Why, would they demolish anything not vitally essential for life? They demolish whatever is really needed. To make life impossible. Where will we go, asks Abu Daud. Nowhere. The Jews don’t understand this.We are at the tip of the village. The end of the main road, a narrow track, which the Army has taken trouble to destroy and fill with potholes, with a pile of boulders at its end. The blockade at the entrance to the village was raised a long time ago. Big boulders on the road and a ditch. To make sure. On both sides. Only pedestrians can pass there, of course. But yesterday the “authorities” arrived, and reinforced the boulders with more stones and pebbles, so that even passing between the boulders becomes difficult or even impossible. A very elderly man arrives, wearing a keffiye and bearing a stick. He stops. Obviously he feels he won’t be able to cross. He sits down on the pile. Stands back up. At first he doesn’t manage, eventually he does. He’s crossed. Walking slowly, he proceeds up the hill.The municipality has paved another road in the hillside, next to the blocked road, meant only for the municipality’s vehicles with the tractors when they come to confiscate and demolish, and for the Border Patrol with its various tasks of making life miserable for the residents, confiscating, threatening, abusing. A Jews-only route, next to the blocked Palestinian track.It all started in ’87, Abu Daud thinks out loud. Then officials came for the first time, from the Ministry of the Interior, and suddenly told us that our building licenses were invalid, that the houses retroactively belonged to Jerusalem since 1965. That this was Jerusalem. 100 houses.Prior to 1967 no building permits were required. Since ’75 everything had to be coordinated with the military government. I received my permit at Beit El. But in ’87 we were still told that whatever was already built is built. Approved. Since then until yesterday, perhaps 16 houses have been demolished. Now another 11.In Beit Sahour similar actions are being carried out. They were told their houses have no permits. They went and brought photos of their houses from the Jordanian jurisdiction period. They were told, okay. The house is originally from here, but not yourselves. You came later. So the houses is not your own property.Threats were made: this is Israeli territory, you are not allowed here for you are belong to the Territories. This is Israel? we asked. We’re here since before ’67. No, we were told. You came later.But in April we were told that even that which held before is no longer valid. They wanted us to sign that this is Israeli territory and that we are forbidden to be here, for we are from the Territories.Abu Daud says they didn’t want to sign. So 12 men were arrested and taken to Salem for a 21-day detention period. Again they were told, this is Jerusalem and you are from the Territories. Mustn’t be here.They say this is Jerusalem territory. The truth is they want territory without people.After the detention, the computer was reprogrammed, so everyone who had a magnetic card was automatically considered “forbidden entry”. So 5-6 months now, no magnetic card, no work.We appealed to a lawyer, Etan Peleg, and were taken in for detention again, to CP 300. Interrogations. We appealed to the High Court of Justice. The High Court required all the names of the house owners in the area, and are looking into this now. Also our magnetic cards were returned. But now we are waiting for the invitations from Jewish contractors. To be sent to the DCO. Which will consider… The familiar story. And then… maybe, and probably not…But now, they’ve started confiscating cars and buses.They took the vehicles for 25 days, they say. Then we should come to the CP to get them. We don’t know if that’ll cost money or not. They also warned us.You take care, he added, worried. He says there’s a guy in Wallaje who somehow got a Jerusalem ID. Apparently according to the valid illegal law it is supposed to be in order. A real Jerusalemite. But he isn’t. His car was confiscated because he gives rides to people from the Territories. His neighbor, the teacher down the street. His family. He looks with concern at Tami’s car. There’s a guy here who was caught with his car inside the village, and it was confiscated. He works in something that involves driving in the village from house to house. So instead he’s taken a donkey. With it he goes from house to house. He was caught and told that next time they’ll confiscated his donkey.We stick to our houses, he says. We don’t care about the Jerusalem ID, or the Territories. Just the house.They point to a house in the valley. This one, for example. He was taken to the CP. Sat in the cold for 6 hours, because this is Israeli territory, he was told. It’s his house. Where should he go?They want to clean this area of Arabs. The law should be serving the public, but here the law serves the mafias.The is a sign in Jerusalem saying “Keep Jerusalem clean”. He hesitates for a moment, will he reveal his thoughts to us? He decides to do it: “I think they mean clean of Arabs. Just for Jews.”On our way back from the blockade at the end of the village, we pass again by the pile of rubble at the side of the road, that was one of the houses demolished the previous day.An elderly man, a young woman and two babies are seen pacing back and forth, bent, strange, from nowhere to nowhere. They sit down on the rubble, get up again, climb the hill, come down. The baby cries, forgotten down the hill. Holding on to an iron rod sticking out among the fragments of concrete. His crying continues, endless. The mother comes down, mumbles, climbs up again. Their movement detached, lost. Again and again from nowhere to nowhere. it’s freezing outside. It’s their home. Demolished. A one-room house, which was home to 5 persons. Their former home was demolished exactly a year ago. They were told that perhaps UNWRA will give them a tent. The baby has no shoes. His chubby, healthy feet are wrapped in a pair of red socks and only illuminate the somber sin that shrieks out in this beautiful valley together with the Muezzin who has starting calling for prayer, almost like a film set…