Day one in the West Bank

5/26/11 Hebron/Al-Kalil, West Bank

Today we went on a tour of the south Hebron hills with a group called Breaking the Silence. The south Hebron hills are the lower part of the West Bank. Breaking the Silence is a group made up of former Israeli soldiers who are speaking out about what they did and saw while they served in the Occupied Territory. Our guide for the day, Benjamin (I can't remember his real name!), is an observant Orthodox Jew who trained and served in the very area we toured today.

The area is rural hills – farm country – with some villages and cities. I need to explain a few things before telling some of the stories we heard today.

This area, as with all of the West Bank, was captured from Jordan in the 1967 war. It is now part of Palestine, but controlled by Israel (the level/type of control varies by area). By international law, this land is considered occupied territory, and according to international law, the occupying forces may not re-settle outsiders in the area and are responsible for the well-being of the people in the occupied area.

Now about settlers. Settlers are Jews who have moved from Israel into the Occupied Territory and have set up settlements. They do this for varying reasons. The majority do it for economic reasons – there are government incentives for doing so, and they can live more cheaply than in a place like Jerusalem. A minority move into settlements for ideological reasons – they believe that all this land belongs to the Jews and they want to get it back. Some of these ideological settlers carry out violence and abuse against the Palestinians in the area. Today we saw a couple of the settlements that are among the most violent in the West Bank.

Some settlements have been approved by the Israeli government, while others have not (the unapproved ones are called “outposts”). Here’s a common way an outpost starts: Israelis come in and set up an encampment on a hilltop on land owned/farmed by Palestinians. The Palestinians come to protest and to farm the land. The Israelis call in the security forces, who are charged by law with protecting the Israelis. And then the encampment expands and buildings are built and things become permanent. The government runs water and electricity to these settlements – even the illegal ones. The Palestinian farmers around the settlement do not have access to this water and electricity.

In the U.S., we would say, “This can’t be! We’ll get the courts and the authorities to set this straight!” Things work differently here. Palestinians have taken these situations to court many times, with very little success. Regardless of what the laws say, and there are laws about these things, the military takes the side of the settlers. In many cases, even when the courts have ruled against the settlers, the military has simply not responded to the court rulings, so the reality on the ground stays the same.

Our guide, Benjamin, told us stories about being a soldier in this area. The military has checkpoints on the highways, and Palestinians are not allowed to use the main highways. On the smaller roads, the military sets up rolling check points. When a Palestinian gets to a check point, he may get through quickly, or he may be held up for hours. Benjamin said that the policy of the military is to make its presence known so that the Palestinians will feel it at all times. Benjamin said he himself was part of holding up both wedding parties and funerals at checkpoints, not for real security reasons, but because he and his soldiers simply could.

The farmers in this region lived in caves until recently. Benjamin took us to a Palestinian family’s farm and we sat in a big tent and talked with two brothers about their lives and experiences. They live in tents now, but they used to live in a cave. We saw the ruins of it. A few years ago the military came in, ran them off the land, and destroyed the cave. (There is a Jewish settlement just up the hill, and they are always trying to expand the “security zone” around them.) The courts ruled that the demolition was illegal. The family put up permanent tents (sort of like the Bedouins live in). The military demolished them because the family had no building permit. The planner for the municipality is the one who issues permits. He lives nearby in an unpermitted house in an unpermitted Jewish outpost. There are 150,000 Palestinians who live in the area of the West Bank under Israeli military control; in the last 10 years, they have been issued 150 building permits. This family won’t get a permit.

                                   Some of the tents of this extended Palestinian farming family

This family’s tents have been demolished three times in the last four months. But they are determined to stay on the land that their family has farmed for generations.

                                        Talking with two of the brothers in the family

We heard that sometimes once people rebuild, the military might issue a demolition permit, but does not carry out the demolition at that point. They simply hold it over the heads of the Palestinians as a threat – “one wrong word from you and your house will be demolished.”

That is a disturbing thing to end on, but it’s fitting, since it was a disturbing day. As the week goes on, I’ll talk about how what we’re doing here relates to this.

This area needs our continues prayers.