והגדת לבנך ביום ההוא לאמר

I woke up on Sunday morning full of excited and nervous energy. After herding my three houseguests out the door, we just missed the #13 bus (which was three minutes early) and stuffed our bags into the back of a cab to the Inbal Hotel, where we met up with the rest of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence delegation. During check-in, I learned that a stranger from the trip has been reading my blog (!!!), and she recommended it to her daughter.

Surprising thing about the Center for Jewish NonViolence delegation—out of 130 participants, at least 30-40 are over the age of 40. Yay for an intergenerational movement!

We were supposed to go through the Kalandiyah checkpoint, as an experience of solidarity with Palestinians. However, a week and a half ago, the Israeli government announced that they would start enforcing a rule prohibiting international visitors from entering the West Bank without prior written permission, so we used a settler road instead. This, combined with the closed military zone on Friday is starting to convince me that Israel is working hard to keep the Palestinian territories hidden from international observers.

Our tour guide in Bethlehem said that he hasn’t had tap water in 45 days. Before Oslo, Israel allotted 120 million cubic meters of water for Palestinians per year. Though the population has increased, water allocation for Palestinians has gone down to 90 million cubic meters. This includes water allocation for East Jerusalem. While, supposedly, our tour guide lives in Area A and the PA controls his water supply, when he goes to the water supply office, or when Palestinian refugees go to UNRWA, the response is “we can’t help you, Israel controls the water”. I know lots of Jews who are obsessed with Area A/B/C, but, in reality, Israel is calling the shots. Later, I learned that residents of Susya have to buy their water for 30 shekels per cubic meter. It costs Israelis (including settlers) five shekels per cubic meter.

Today (Monday) was both our first day in the field, and Nakba Day. We started off by hearing from Sami Awad, the founder of Holy Land Trust, a non-violence organization in Bethlehem. Surprisingly, he is way more Zionist than I am. He, like most Palestinians, deeply identifies with land-as-identity, and thinks that just like Palestinians want access to the whole land for the sake of their identity, so, too, Jews want access to the whole land for the sake of their identity. I asked him what Palestinian identity looks like when it isn’t defined by the trauma of 1948. Aside from generalities (culture, language, habits, food and family unit) he also mentioned two specific things: hospitality, and the memory of coexistence among Jews, Muslims and Christians.  Coming from an Ashkenazi Jewish culture that oftentimes defines itself by otherness, victimization and xenophobia, I was surprised at how central the coexistence narrative is to Palestinians (or at least to Sami Awad).

After, around 40 of us drove to the South Hebron hills, and got a tour from someone from Ta’ayush. The South Hebron hills are entirely in Area C. When the British, and later the Jordanians, started mapping the West Bank, and granting ownership papers to Palestinian residents, try started in the north, and worked their way to the south. By 1967, they had gotten to about Ramallah. Israel, of course, claimed that they were only there “temporarily” so they stopped registering land. That’s why it’s easier for Israel to claim land in the south.

The Israeli military uses multiple tactics to try and make life difficult enough in the South Hebron hills so that Palestinians pick and move to cities (Area A).

They establish “firing zones” near Palestinian villages (i.e., the base is near the village, but the firing zone is in the village). Villagers who live in firing zones can go in and out of their villages, but no one else (including doctors or repairmen) can visit.

In 2016, armored military vehicles did a training exercise on a Palestinian field. All crops for that season were lost.

The government builds highways through agricultural land so that Palestinians have to go out of their way to access their land.

Infrastructure needs are denied (there is running water in Bethlehem, but not Susya). However, even supposedly “illegal” outposts (all Israeli settlements, including Gush Etzyon, are illegal under international law), immediately get access to municipal services.

If Palestinians build water systems they get demolition orders.

Police harassment and military searches.

The Israeli military confiscates cars and tractors.

Israeli settlers join in by poisoning water supplies with dead chickens which can destroy all of the water that has been collected over the course of a year, damaging olive trees, which take five years to grow enough for production, and, in one particularly gruesome incident in 2006, spreading rat poison all over the land, which killed sheep, gazelles, mice, snakes, dogs and birds of prey.

Beit Avigayil is an illegal outpost which was built in October of 2001. According to the “Roadmap” it was a post-March 2001 settlement on the slate for demolition. It is currently in the process of legalization, which means that they are building constantly—once they get legalized, they’ll need building permits, so better to build first.

For “security reasons” all hilltops are declared state land, even when Palestinians can prove their ownership. Then, settlements are built on those hilltops, and Palestinians are denied access to that land. There is one guy who has to coordinate with the army when he can actually tend his land.

Stories from specific villages: In 2000, the settlers from Chavat Maon started attacking students from Tuba on their way to school in Tawiyyeh. In 2005, the courts ordered the military to escort the students to school. The military kept shortening the route that they would escort the students. Sometimes the military is late. Sometimes they just don’t show up. While the straight walk to school, past Chavat Maon is a half-hour walk, the indirect path to avoid the settlement takes 2.5 hours.

After our tour, my working group of about 20 women headed to Susya. We heard from Abu Jihad, who was born in 1946—as he says “I’ve been here two years longer than Israel, and Israel’s telling *me* that I can’t be here.” Abu Jihad was born in Tel Arad, and his family owned all of the land between Tel Arad and Susya. Pre-48, the Haganah killed 12 people in Tel Arad, and his family had to move to the city of Arad. In 1948, they had to move to Susya, on the other side of their land. Then in the 1980’s, Israel decided that it wanted to excavate an old synagogue in Susya, and build a settlement nearby, so Abu Jihad and his family had to move to New Susya, where they are now. In 1991, New Susya made a Master Plan so that it could build on its land. The Master Plan was rejected. Now, while he cannot be kicked off of his land, every building there is illegal, and under a demolition order. The room that we were in has been destroyed 4 times. Abu Jihad described this as “Nakbat,” multiples Nakbas that have taken place over 70 years. Within the American Jewish community, we tend to only talk about 1948 and 1967 as being moments of trauma for Palestinians. That’s just not true—Abu Jihad said that every day is a Nakba. Displacement, land grabs, and demolition happen frequently—much more frequently than just 1948 and 1967.

Something really challenging that Abu Jihad said: Jews learned tactics around rounding up Palestinians and exiling them in 1947/48 from Hitler. I don’t think that’s true, but I deeply understand why he said it (hurt people hurt people).

We asked one of his daughters (in-law?) about how they teach their children about Nakba. She doesn’t—at least not yet, because the stories are hard to hear. “The stories are from our ancestors, the suffering is our’s”.

The stay for Susya’s next demolition order for is May 23, 2017.

Today ended with an incredibly powerful mincha/ma’ariv minyan—the first time in a long time that I have prayed with people who share my values.

*Tile means “On that day, you shall tell your child.”