Our trip to these two villages confirms again what we’ve known for a long time: there’s a significant difference in the lives and in the sense of personal security between Palestinians living in villages near settlements and those who live farther away. The villages near settlements suffer not only from the setters’ harassment. The army, which backs the settlers up, is more active and violent in the nearby villages: soldiers invade the villages more frequently, they harm the residents more, the number of arrests is greater. Moveover: recently we’ve seen an opposite trend – the more active the army, the less active are the settlers, the fewer are their violent raids on the nearby Palestinian villages. Why should they bother? The army does a very good job for them.
09:00 We left the Rosh Ha’ayin train station.
The entrance to Jama’in is blocked.
09:30 Tapuach junction
One police vehicle at the entrance.
‘Aqraba – the entrance is still blocked.
09:45 Majdal Bani Fadal
Here, as in other relatively small villages (3,000 residents), the head of the municipality, who doesn’t receive a salary from the Palestinian Authority, works for a living and isn’t always in the municipal offices.
We meet G., the secretary. Our impression was, as on prior visits, that the villagers live relatively quiet lives. Although the army invades the village at night, the soldiers don’t enter homes. They’re not exposed to harassment by settlers because they’re relatively far from the string of violent settlements in the area.
Large areas of land have been expropriated from the village. Between 15,000 and 20,000 dunums were taken for the settlement of Ma’aleh Efrayim. “Because we didn’t have documentation…” the secretary explains, choosing his words carefully. They have only 5,000 dunums left. One-third is categorized as Area B, the built-up area, and two-thirds as Area C. Until 2010, attempts to build there were met with threats of demolition, which haven’t yet been implemented.
Most villagers make a living from agriculture. About 100 work in settlements and some 50 in Israel. 40-50 villagers have been blacklisted, banned from working in Israel.
The secretary says there are no water shortages, even in the summer. Nor does he complain about cuts in electricity. And there is also good news: Over the years, 2,000 villagers have emigrated. Most live in the Gulf countries, some in the US. One of them, a woman who lives in the US, donated money to build a new high school (for boys). Construction will begin in about two months. God willing.
11:15 Al M’rayr
Traces of burned tires on the unpaved road to the village. The municipal building is closed, as on our previous visit. We meet with G., the former head of the municipality, and a group of residents, at the entrance to the grocery store. Colorful flags fly from the roof of a building at the entrance to the village, alongside Palestinian flags – for the Popular Front, Fatah, and the Communist Party (no, there are no Da’esh banners). They’re proof of the villagers’ intense political involvement.
We had the impression, as on our previous visit, that the difficult situation of the villagers is due to their proximity to the violent settlements of Adey Ad, Qida and Ekhyeh. Trees are cut down, crops are burned and sheep are stolen repeatedly. But, according to the former head of the municipality and a number of residents who clustered around us, the army has recently taken over from the settlers. Besides blocking the road to the village the soldiers enter, conduct searches, catch 14-15 year old boys who haven’t yet managed to obtain ID cards, beat and arrest them. The results of these frequent arrests – 40 to 50 youths, a record number – populate various Israeli prisons. A few weeks ago soldiers attacked villagers with tear gas (our elderly interlocutor: “I almost suffocated…”). Three people were wounded by rubber-coated bullets and one by live fire.
A., who looks young, joins the discussion. He married at 16 and is already a grandfather. His lovely, well-dressed, eight-year-old granddaughter, named Palestine, arrives later, together with classmates. A. takes us to a location from which we can see the Bedouin encampment, whose residents have already been issued expulsion orders, which are due to become effective this coming Sunday, the army base, established on ten dunums of village land where settlers from Kochav Hashachar are living in tents theyv’e erected, and also the stream which flows between Duma and Al M’rayr in Area C. He tells us about a settler from Qida who had taken over the area of the stream and is raising his flock of sheep there, with the army’s backing. Since then shepherds from the village haven’t been able to bring their flocks to their own stream.
Four armed soldiers stand at the exit from the village, inspecting a Palestinian vehicle. They weren’t there when we entered.
Two villages, only a fifteen minute drive from each other, but whose residents live very different lives.
12:30 The entrances to Qusra and Jurish are open but farther along the road we notice that the two shortcut roads to Jurish are blocked.
13:30 Back to Rosh Ha’ayin.