Home Demolition in Al Funduq

Yesterday we went to document the story of a family in Al Funduq whose home was demolished last Thursday. The report is on the IWPS website (Human Rights Report No. 333 written by yours truly) if you want to read it.
http://www.iwps.info/

The first picture here is of their old home.

Then second is their new home.

The third is telling their story.

The last picture here is them making tea for us in their new home. (the tent)

Other assorted odds and ends:

Susiya Petition
Last week I talked about the village of Susiya in the South Hebron Hills where the villagers face the possible eviction from their lands for the 5th time. Ta’ayush has also created an online petition to protest this injustice. Please consider signing their petition.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Susya67/petition.html

Hamastan or Hamas’ Stand?
Polls indicate that only 1-3% of Palestinians want an Islamic state in Palestine. So why did Hamas win so big? And why do they still retain some popularity? This link takes you to the July 10, 2007 Los Angeles Times where an official of the movement describes Hamas’ goals for all of Palestine. He cleverly calls his excellent article “Hamas' stand”.http://exchange.ips-dc.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-marzook10jul10,0,1675308.story?coll=la-tot-opinion%26track=ntottext

Artas Demonstration - Video of Awad entreating soldiers
Here is a link to another video for you to enjoy. This one is entitled
“Awad Asking Soldiers Permission to Visit His Own Land”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-344645899062047376
Description: During a demonstration at Artas, a village in the West Bank of Palestine one of the organizers and land owner faces a line of Israeli soldiers in riot gear. After explaining that they are brothers who all just want peace, he asks permission to visit his own land that was confiscated just weeks earlier. The Settlement above the wadi that his land is in wants to use the wadi for drainage. (Presumably for sewage as other settlements have done.)

Tree Planting in Tel, a village near Nablus

I realize that I never told you what happened when I went to Tel, a village near Nablus to help a farmer plant trees on his own land that he’s been denied access to for the last 3 years. (The military may shoot or the even more dire threat is settlers with attack dogs and knives.) If he doesn’t plant soon, the land will be confiscated for laying fallow. I am happy to report that we were able to help him plant 20 trees. Further actions are being planned to plant 80 more.

Awad with his son

Artas Demonstration

Dear friends and family,
We went to a demonstration today in Artas, a village near Bethlehem. I have to confess that when we were trying to decide whether to go there or to the demonstration in Bi’lin, the factor that tipped us was a description in a Palestinian Tour Guide book that spoke of Artas’ beauty and its tourist attractions: A convent and a Palestinian Ethnological Museum.

The demonstration was probably the most beautiful one I have been to in Palestine. The breath-taking beauty of the land and the village was only part of the reason. A man named Awad organized the demonstration because he is losing his lands to the settlements on the hilltops above his village. Artas has a long and wide wadi (valley) that is very rich agriculturally. The village is famous for lettuce. (Unfortunately the Lettuce Festival is not scheduled during my time here.) The Settlers want to use the wadi for a drainage system for the settlement. Awad wasn’t sure what kind of drainage but he told us he was sure it wasn’t going to be nice. (Alluding to sewage.) He led a small group of Israelis and Internationals to his land. Of course we were stopped by a line of soldiers in riot gear. Awad and other Palestinians made beautiful speeches to the soldiers explaining their belief that they were all brothers and they all just wanted to live in peace. Awad told them that he just wanted to go to his land and pick some of his apricots. Of course they didn’t let him. After awhile we left.

After the demo Beth and I walked around the village with Awad. We told him we wanted to visit the convent. (The museum was closed.) While we were walking to the convent, Awad told us that the convent was allowing the Israeli’s to build a tunnel under their land for the settler’s drainage. He told us that the Israeli’s are being very careful not to adversely affect the convent’s land too much because they don’t want to piss off Rome. (I’m paraphrasing here.) He had tried to enlist the help of the convent with the village’s struggle. He went to talk to a nun who had been his teacher when he was in kindergarten. But she refused to help him. As long as the convent or the convent’s lands are not being threatened, the nuns there apparently don’t care about what happens to the lands of the village.

Love,
Wendy

Pictures:
Awad and his son
Artas Wadi
Artas Lettuce
Three Soldiers in Riot Gear
Soldier On Hill Overlooking Demo
Artas Convent
Artas Nun

Pictures Artas Wadi Lettuce Soldiers Convent and Mean Nun

Demolitions and Demonstrations

Dear friends and family,
Sorry that I haven’t written in over a week. It’s not that things haven’t been happening; I just haven’t had the words to communicate them. Or maybe the energy. I don’t know. So I thought I’d just give a short update and hope my pictures suffice.

First of all, I figured out the video thing (I hope). So you can see some of the Debke dancing by going to this link.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7613239399391472246

A lot of my time has been spent on a home demolition documentation project that IWPS is coordinating with the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions. We’ve been visiting with various mayors of villages in the Salfit region. The mayor of Deir Istiya was an especially charming man. We happened to be at his office when an engineer and some other people were meeting with him about a community center project that he is spearheading. He envisions a recreation area and even a swimming pool. He invited us to go with them all to look at the land it would be built on. While we were there and he was pointing out where various things would be built, it was impossible not to notice the encroaching settlements and settler roads. He said, “Yes, our cousins are talking that land.”

The pictures:
The womyn in pink is the engineer. The mayor also in that picture.
Another picture is of the mayor standing in front of the house in which he was born.
Another is of him in front of a sign proudly announcing another project that is restoring the old city of Deir Istiya. (That project is almost complete.) He joked about taking a picture of an old man in front of the old city.

Another village that is facing home demolitions is Yasuf. There are about 10 homes that will probably be demolished soon. Right now the families are fighting the orders in court. Most of the homes are not even finished yet and they are in Area B, which is a designation that came from the Oslo Accords which basically means they don’t need a permit from the Israelis to build there. But that doesn’t seem to matter to the Israelis.

The pictures:
One of the houses that is being threatened with demolition.
The kitchen of one of the houses that is being threatened with demolition.
Two womyn who live in one of the houses that is being threatened with demolition.
Construction workers working near one of the houses that is being threatened with demolition.

Yasuf Homes Being Threatened with Demolition