The Palestinian Jordan Valley: Jews destroy and lay waste

Enough!!!

“The Chosen People” has taken everything for itself – lands, rights, Jerusalem The Holy City – all in all, life itself. But no, that is not enough. The Chosen People must go on and expel and trample and beat the life out of every last Palestinian. It will know no rest until it possesses the very last dunam that remains in Palestinian hands. We want it a l l, for this land is ours, ours!

Just ours! No one else’s. Not the Arabs’, not the asylum seekers’, not even the migrant workers who clean our old parents’ bottoms!

For 30 years old Mar’i worked for Mekorot (Israel’s water company) and served his Jewish masters. Even when that very water company placed a huge water pump right in his home yard and gracefully granted him 8 hours of water once every 3 days.

Mar’I lives in Thabat Mar’I (named after him) in the south of Jiftlik village, since the State of Israel placed him there. When the settler colony Masu’ah was founded he and his family were thrown out of their dwelling near Road 90, and were allowed to settle in a destitute little village whose residents had escaped in the 1967 war – mud hovels ruined by winter rains, that would break down even after they were covered in cement because of the water that entered.

A year and a half ago, with money they saved for years by the sweat of their brows, Mar’i  and his son built a lovely two-story house for 83 year-old Mar’i and his wife, his son, daughter-in-law and 8 children. Around the house they planted a fruit tree grove and herbs. They turned to a Jewish lawyer for arranging construction permits, thinking that a Palestinian attorney might not be able to do the job. And the lawyer told them everything was in order. They had a permit. So they told me. (Hah! What permit? A Palestinian getting a construction permit in Area C?? No way. Palestinian are not allowed to build. To live. Out with them!)
Mar’i and his family slept soundly. Felt safe. Until today, at 6 a.m., when the bulldozers woke them. These yellow machines of destructions surrounded by dozens of army jeeps and white Toyota pickup trucks of the Civil Administration. It took them five hours to demolish to houses, the life work of two families, one stone after another, ceramic tiles, ornaments on the walls. The authorities graciously granted them minutes to get out their furniture, their stove, blankets and mattresses, and even the potatoes!... Lovely. Those demolishers must have slept soundly too.

Mar’I and his wife are crushed, their eyes reddened, their children and grandchildren and neighbors standing outside in the sun, next to the white rubble, asking: “Where will we sleep tonight? Where??”

Take a look around you for a moment. If you are told right now that a fire is raging and within 20 minutes it will reach your home, what will you take with you? (Can you even imagine a bulldozer crushing a Jewish home?) Perhaps your refrigerator? TV set? Bed? Washing machine and vacuum cleaner? And the wedding picture album, and the children’s snapshots? What about your souvenirs from the trip to Greece? What about your favorite sweater and shirt, and your daughter’s doll? And shoes? School diplomas? And all the little things more important than your refrigerator, that cannot be replaced.

Home is all we have. It surrounds us and shelters us, gives us privacy and inner calm, lovingly storing us and our lives. How do we dare devastate people’s homes so indifferently and destroy their entire lives? Where did such meanness thrive? How the hell can our children not see this?

Mar’i tells us that one soldier, of the dozens facing the families with drawn guns ready to push away any attempt to disturb the demolition, approached Mar’i and whispered with lowered eyes: “I’m sorry!”

Old Mar’i approached me and caught my hand. I don’t know why my heart made me hug the old man – this is not done here – and he put his head on my shoulder and broke out crying bitterly. And I – a Jewish woman – wept with him. And 4-year old Hudeife asks: “Why are the Jews killing us?”

Just as we got to Thabat Mar’i (at 11:20 a.m.) the bulldozers were leaving, and only two jeeps were still in the center of the village. Suddenly the jeeps took off and sped through the crowded village gardens, leaving behind a cloud of dust, hurrying on to the next cruel demolition. From house entrances peeped frightened women and children, catching my hand, saying: “We’re next. They’ll be here in a few days…”

• Not quite one hour later we heard over the phone that the army was demolishing in nearby Furush Beit Dajan: a farm storehouse built in stone over a water pool, and all the rubble collapsed into the water.
• Immediately following, the destruction forces proceeded elsewhere and demolished sheep pens. We didn’t make it there before dark.

As if all of this were not enough, at 5:30 p.m., as night had already descended and people were hurrying home from work and shopping, Hamra Checkpoint was manned, five soldiers inspecting cars, delaying them on their way to maintain their appearance of life.