Last night there was a screening of the acclaimed Documentry ‘Arna’s Children’ directed by Juliano Mer-Khamis at SOAS in London. The director Juliano was in attendance and there followed a disussion of the film afterwards.

The Film spans some 18 years and starts by following the lives of several children as they grew up in the Jenin refuge camp, the director returned many years later to see what had become of these children.

The Documentry starts during the previous Intifada, when the directors mother, Arna, moves to Jenin and established an alternative education system for Palestinian children, after the schools were closed by the Israeli occupation.

Through her dedication to the children, Arna Mer Khamis plays an important role in the Jenin community. The theatre group that she started engaged children from Jenin refugee camp, helping them to express their everyday frustrations, anger, bitterness and fear.

Arna’s son Juliano, director of this film, was also one of the directors of Jenin’s theatre. All those years, from 1989 to 1996, Juliano used his camera to film the rehearsals and performances of the plays. Juliano, who today is one of the leading actors in the region, looks back in time on Jenin, trying to understand the choices made by the children he loved and worked with.

After his mother died and years after the theatre has closed, Juliano looks up ‘Arna’s children’. This time it was a few days after the Israeli army invaded Jenin on April 3, 2002, killed more than 50 Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Arna Mer-Khamis (1930-1995) was a political activist, sculptor, winner of alternative peace prize and a revolutionary woman.

www.arna.info

I’m fifteen feet up, cradled by the branches of an ancient olive tree and with a fine view to the hills all around, dotted with villages.

The branches are heavy with purple olives and the villages are trying to get most of the harvest in before the month of Ramadan starts and they begin fasting from sunrise till sunset. Imagine working all day under the hot sun with no food or water! The olives are hard to the touch, but dig in a nail and the oil oozes out. The trees are beautiful, some are hundreds of years old and they are tended with love and care, as are the rocky terraces in which they are planted. The soil is red here and there’s not much greenery but if left untended the terraces soon become choked with thistles and prickly shrubs. The trees are a silvery colour – the bark is pale and the leaves silvery-green. Everything is dusty and we’re soon also covered in dust.

Reaching out to another branch I squeeze off the olives from the ends and they drop to the tarps laid out below with a sound like fat raindrops falling. The annual harvest from each tree is worth about 200 shekels – about thirty pounds sterling – a considerable contribution to the village’s economy which is so stunted by the restrictions imposed by the occupation. It’s slow, steady work, and whole families come out to do it, laughing and bantering in quick Arabic. I look over to the opposite branch to see a grandmother balanced gracefully amidst the topmost leaves – she must be in her 60s, dressed in a traditional Palestinian black robe adorned with embroidery, headscarf and beautiful gold earrings. She climbs trees like a teenager!
I’m amazed at eh way the family works – from 6.30 till 11.30 without a break. By the time we stop for lunch I’m really hungry. The family shares delicious food with us – potato, cauliflower, hummus and bread, and we manage a conversation in Arabic, English and much laughter.

By the time we get home in late afternoon I’m hot and dusty. Tired, too, but in a relaxed way, and sitting on the steps of our house in the late afternoon sunshine, looking out to the hills on the horizon, I feel very satisfied that we’ve been a part of this village’s life, even if only for a few days.

source

A team of 7 olive pickers from the UK joined others from Austria, Germany, France and Switzerland arrived in the village of Madar at the start of this week in order to support farmers who have olive groves close to the main road to or the fence around Ariel (large Israeli settlement in Salfit region of the West bank.)

MADAR
The village of Madar is located in the Salfit region, in the the middle of the West Bank. It is currently home to 2000 Palestinians, a further 2,000 now live outside of Madar. Before the first intifada many of the villagers worked inside Israel, they can no longer get the permits needed. Many others worked overseas in the gulf states and Venezula, but since the gulf war a large number of these workers have now returned. This has meant a large level of unemployment within Madar, with many families relient on the olive harvest as their only form of income.

MADAR UNDER OCCUPATION
The village has no been virtually closed off from other villages, with all but one exit now closed by roadblcs. An agricultural road was recently built to allow tractors to reach the olive groves. This was closed by the IDF about 1 month after completion.

In orsder to get to Nablus, the nearest large city and hospital people have to cross checkpoints. in recent weeks Nablus has been declared a closed military zone, now no vehicles, including ambulances are able to enter Nablus.

Many nights the army enters the village, setting off sound bombs and occasionally enter houses. There have been cases of 11 and 12 year old boys being detained by the Israeli army and held for a number of hours and/or beaten and questioned. 4 people from the village are currently detained by the Israelis.

source

Olive trees smashed

After another really enjoyable day out in the groves with our host families, we were cooking dinner in our house when a few of the village youths turned up to tell us there were soldiers on the main street and asked us to come out with them. Sam and Cathi went out to find out what was happening, and after a few minutes N, peasant union co-ordinator, turned up in his car. With the rest of the team back in the house ready to take messages and be present in the village if there was an army incursion there, Sam and Cathi drove down to the main street with N. Of the three or four exits from the town, only one now remains unblocked by the army. So we drove out and back up the main street. N seemed nervous – it was his grove that had been affected, and he kept telling us the situation was dangerous. We asked him what he would like us to do if there were army still there and he didn’t want us to get out of the car or talk to the soldiers, but just to observe what was happening.

By the time we got to the groves, the army had gone, but in the darkness we could make out the uprooted olive trees in the headlights. When we got back to Marda, we asked N to call us or knock on the door if there was any more trouble. He told us that often, after this kind of incident, the army entered the village late at night, setting of sound bombs and announcing a curfew through the loudspeaker.

source

Last night we had a fairly disrupted sleep so we are feeling pretty tired. After the destruction of the Olive trees last night people felt concerned that the army would enter the village as they had done following similar attacks. Two of us agreed to sleep near the door of the house so we could be easily woken if we were needed. It was quite difficult to get to sleep, partly because of worrying about the army and partly because of the continuous dive-bombing of particularly noisy mosquitoes, which seemed to be coming in droves through the broken window in the room. It turned out to be a quiet night – just as well, because the fast of Ramadan started the next day with the villagers awaking before dawn to eat breakfast (no eating, drinking or smoking from sunrise to sunset).

Today was to be our first rest day as almost none of the farmers are picking as they are celebrating the first day of Ramadan. However Jill, Maureen and Sam had agreed to accompany a family who were planning to pick and were concerned about the army challenging them, as they were one of the only families out. Noreen and Maggie were making a trip to the settlement, Ariel, as they were keen to get a better picture of what settlements were really like.

In the end the farmers never arrived, but instead we were invited over to our next-door neighbours house to see how the olives that weren’t to be taken to the press are prepared for eating. This was being done by one of the daughters of the family, who was about 11 years old and who spoke amazing English. Each olive had to be slightly squashed by a stone until it split partly open and then put into a bowl of water. The olives would then be transferred into jars filled with water lemon juice, salt, pepper; the lid would be screwed on tightly and left for one month. After this the olives would be ready for eating.

We stayed for about an hour with the girl and her sister, and managed to split about one half of the bucketful. After that we decided to go up to the road to see in daylight what damage the army had done the night before. we walked down to meet Nasfat by the trees – the Caterpillar bulldozer tracks were obvious, and the smashed remains of 8 olive trees (full of olives) and four fig trees were obvious. None of us, including Nasfat, could think of any reason why the army chose to do this, but it isn’t uncommon, ... click here to see the full post

“When the Palestinians come we put on our show,” says a youthful Israeli soldier manning a checkpoint at Nablus’ Jericho road. This “show,” as it is richly documented in the new Israeli film Checkpoint, serves a seemingly dual purpose. First and foremost, it is intended to remind Palestinians just who is in power; and secondly, it serves as a form of entertainment to the young Israelis whose compulsory military service finds them wasting their time and talents at these roadblocks in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Read the full review

Qalqilya is a large market town of 45,000 people on the western edge of the West Bank, and it serves as a center for another 50,000 in surrounding villages. WE visited it last week because it is completely surrounded by what the Israeli authorities tem the “security fence”. Actually – in many places this fence is an 8m high concrete wall which very effectively separates the Israelis and the Palestinians from even seeing each other, let alone talking or trading or socializing or any of the other things we in the West have the freedom to do.

It’s 12 miles to Tel Aviv from Qalqilya. But just 1km away is the first of the illegal Israeli settlements. The history of this town is one of co-operation with its Israeli neighbours – many people here speak Hebrew and the mayor tells us there existed a real trust between the two peoples. Families kept up good relationships with each other and the town was a thriving industrial center – textiles, painting, paper making, farming – where both Palestinians and Israelis worked together. There was also co-operation on environmental projects – solid waster treatment for example, and Palestinian and Israeli children would go on trips to Europe together.

Even national commemorative occasion were celebrated together – the anniversaries of the assassination of Rabin for example, and the Israelis would walk into town to do their shopping and sit in cafes.

Even after the first intifada this co-operation continued – but after the second intifada in 2001 all of this changed. A Palestinian terrorist from Jordan entered Israel as a tourist. Although his family had once lived in Qalqilya, he slept in Tel Aviv. After a month of being in Israel he carried out a suicide bombing. Despite the fact that Qalqilya had not hosted this man in any way, the Israeli army carried out collective punishment on the entire town. One night they entered and bulldozed an entire area at the entrance to the town – 55 shops and cafes were flattened and everything inside destroyed. There was no evacuation notice given. Seven electricity transformers were destroyed as well as the municipal buildings.

The residents of Qalqilya district ... click here to see the full post

Permaculture in Palestine

In 1993m with the help of Ophaida, an Australian organisation, and experimental permaculture centre was built in Marda. As N, the Marda spokesperson explained to us, permaculture was seeen as a way of reviving Palestinian traditional methods of land management. They were re-learning how to fertilise their lands without the use of chemicals, how to produce compost, as well as seed saving and water recycling

In Nov 2000, 100 soldiers from the Israeli Defence Force destroyed this centre. They smashed the doors and windows, broke computers, and set fire to the nursery and compost site. THey then declared it a “closed military zone” and said that they would shoot anyone who went there. To this day, no explanation nor justification has been given as to why they chose to destroy this centre.

It is impossible for me to understand any reason why the IDF chose to smash up a permaculutre centre. As N said to the soldiers, he was willing to give them a key if they needed to inspect the place.

The project was funded and supported also by Canada, Germany and Holland. It was supposed to be a gift for the whole of the West Bank, a way for the Palestinians to develop their traditional, sustainable methods of land management.

Marda is overshadowed by Ariel, the biggest Israeli settlement in the West Bank. There are 21 settlements in this area, which is rich with water and olive groves. Not only do the settlements steal land and trees from the Palestinian villages, they also pollute the natural springs with their sewage. Marda’s inhabitants can no longer drink from their spring, and uphill from the village you will find hte “sewage line”. Whether wilfully or through neglect, this is where ARiel’s raw sewage spills out onto MArda’s olive groves.

I have heard some Israelis boast that the establishement of their country “made the desert bloom”. Then I hear about the destruction of permaculture centres, see the burning and uprooting of olive trees, and the pollution of the water table that has remained clear and clean for centuries. I look at the settlements newly built all along the hilltops and the roads connecting them which carve through the valleys.

Never mind - I hear the ISraelis are growing carnations now in Gaza.

The last 2 days we’ve been picking with families from Jama’in, a small town of 11-12,000 people on the western side of the road between Ariel settlement and Zattara junction, opposite Marda. The reason for picking with these people is because their groves are situated right beneath the Tappuach outpost above Yasuf, and almost every day since the harvesting began these faremrs have been harrassed and intimidated by gun-toting settlers.

WE went back to Jama’in after 2 peaceful days’ harvesting, to talk to a family whose son, Mahmud Hajali, broke his leg in two places because whilst out picking on Tuesday with his family, 4 settlers with guns appeared over the ridge. Being high up the tree he saw them first, and in his haste to get down and move his family tosafety he fell from the tree, breaking his leg. He had to be transported off the hill on a donkey before an ambulance could pick him up on the road.

Mahmud’s family told us that they, and most of their fellow villagers, would no longer go out harvesting this year unless accompanied by internationals - they are too afraid of settler attacks. Last year one of Mahmud’s uncles was beaten up so badly in the groves that he spent a week bedridden. Last week the settlers stole a horse and the entire day’s harvest, as well as hurling rocks at the villagers. WE met another man, Mahfoud, from Jama’in whose hand was still bandaged as as result of the injury sustained that day.

The family have about 120 olive trees, all near the settlement of Tappuach, which would take 2 weeks to harvest. We can only accompany them for the few days that we are here. After that, perhaps the Rabbis for Human Rights can go out with them - but there is no certainty of this and the villagers need to know in advance in order to prepare for harvesting.

Mahmud’s leg will take 2-3 months to heal. Because the Palestinian economy is so stunted by restrictions on movements and work permits, he has to work in the settlement of Ariel on construction of new houses. It’s hard to imagine how difficult thios must be - working on the expansion of a settlement that is illegally on your land in the first place! Of course he will get no sick pay, so life for him and his family of 6 will be very hard until he recovers and can work again.

In fact, while we were ... click here to see the full post

I’m coming to the end of my two-week stay here. I’m trying to round the experience up, but it’s so difficult to do. Actually…as I sit in the courtyard writing this I hear shouts and bangs. My first reaction is to tense up - it could be gunfire, an army or settler incursion into the village. I’m ready to pull on my shoes, grab my camera and run into the street.

That’s one way of summing it up. There is a constant, everyday awareness of violence in PAlestine. It’s violence that can come at any time, any place, from the army or from the settlers. Sound bombs at 3am; sudden curfews; gun-toting settlers in the olive groves; wanton destruction of trees and buildings. I’m trying hard to imagine what it must be like to live here, what’s the effct on an entire society when its members live permanently with fear and humiliation?

But we’vewritten quite a bit about the facts of Palestinian life in this journal. There’s been another side to our stay here too.

Perhaps the most bizarre remark I’ve yet heard here was the one made by a Tappuach settler in the groves of YAsuf. He told us that the Palestinians would “cut out our intestines and dance on them in the street”. Had the situation not been so tense I would have burst out laughing. WE reached the conclusion that the only threat the Palestinians posed to our intestines would be from constant overfeeding on rice, chicken, hummus, cheese, bread…and then n we really can’t eat any more they bring out the pastries and fizzy pop!

The Palestinians have been unfailingly warm, kind and generous to us. There’s never been a daqy when most or all of our group hasn’t been invited to share food with the families we harvest with, or to stay in their houses.

Sometimes their hospitality reaches absurd heights. Like when a few of our group - Noirin, Maggie and Amy went for a post-harvest lunch with their family (despite the fact that it’s Ramadan and the Palestinians fast all day, they always preapre delicious lunches for us!) Having eaten and stayed a couple of hours, Noirin said to the family that they would leave so that the family could sleep before preparing the Ramadan supprt. To her amazement, the entire family got up and cleared the room immediately! Noirin, MAggie and Amy stayed ... click here to see the full post

PalestineToday.org is a project to share photographs and stories of the lives of Palestinians and Israelis struggling to achieve a just peace in the region.

The site currently exhibits photographs from the occupied Palestinian Territories. The images are meant to show the daily life of people living in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

A Palestinian Child detained at a checkpoint

International Women’s Peace Service

URGENT PRESS RELEASE

Angie Zelter (also known as Angela Julian), a prominent nonviolent peace and human rights activist from Norfolk, is tonight awaiting deportation in a cell at Ben Gurion airport, Israel.

Having arrived at Ben Gurion airport on Sunday, 24th October, Zelter was detained and interrogated by Israeli authorities for over 12 hours. She was detained as a ’security risk,’ placed in a holding cell at the airport police station, and told that she could be held for up to 7 days before being put on a flight back to Britain.

Zelter is a long-time British peace and justice activist. She is renowned as a founder of Trident Ploughshares, a prominent anti-nuclear organisation. Zelter is a founding member of the international human rights organisation, International Women’s Peace Service-Palestine, a nonviolent human rights monitoring and intervention organisation based in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Zelter’s long-time peace work is the subject of the documentary, The Loch Long Monster, about the work of the Trident Ploughshares. Like Uri Avnery and Felicia Langer, Zelter was a recipient in 2001 of the Right Livelihood award, often called the “Alternative Nobel Prize”.

Zelter’s impending deportation must be made public. If Zelter is forced against her will to return to Britain without legitimate reason, it will reveal that Israel does not adhere to the rule of law in its policies towards nonviolent internationals who support justice for Palestinians.

editors note: Angie Zelter was eventually deported, more info available here

For more background information:

iwps.info
tridentploughshares.org
rightlivelihood.se

Olive Harvest update from the International Solidarity Movement

The following excerpt appeared in Nottingham Alternative News

“For the Israeli state, any element of Palestinian self-sufficiency is a threat, since it represents reserves of energy and strength that can help maintain the resistance. For this reason, trees are bulldozed and farmers collecting the olive harvest are beaten, harassed and shot at.

If settler thugs manage to stop the olive harvest … then the Israeli state can seize the land, under a law originally brought in by the British that allows the government to take unused land. For this reason, the battle over olives and the olive harvest has taken on great significance.”

Read the full article >>

Zaytoun has been invited to the Palestinian Trade Fair held between 30 November and 5 December 2004 in London.

The beautiful interior decoration of the Trade Fair at the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce will be representing Bedouin tents in the 3 rooms of the ground floor at 6, Belgrave Square in central London.

The media and N.G.O’s are invited to a Press Conference on Monday November 29 at 11.00 am at 6, Belgrave Square. Afif Safieh, the Palestinian General Delegate and Sir Roger Tomkys chairman of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce, in addition to representatives of the Palestinian Commercial Delegation will be addressing the audience.

Zaytoun Olive Oil & Zatar will be available for purchase at the trade fair.

Facts on the ground is a new report released by Christian aid.

The report details the strangulation of the Palestinian economy, as more land is taken from the West Bank for settler roads and settlements. As a result, poverty levels are rising with cases of mounting malnutrition and anaemia, of unemployment and of farmers prevented from tilling their land.

Full report available from Christian Aid

Article by Michele Hanson in Yesterday’s Guardian Paper on the stresses of Christmas Shopping suggested giving Palestinian Olive Oil instead as a stress free solution !

“I spotted a simple (solution) … straightaway: no more shopping for me. No more searching for presents. Everyone can have Palestinian olive oil for Christmas, whether they like it or not. (If you fancy doing likewise, dear readers, you can order it from cathi@zaytoun.org.)”

guardian.co.uk

Take part in The New Statesman magazine’s competition (available in the shops & online) & win one years supply of Olive Oil, Zatar and Olive Soap from the West Bank !

Tomorrow (sunday 5th december) academics begin a campaign to break links with Israeli universities, the start of the campaign will be marked by a conference held at the London University School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

The campaign coordinator, Professor Hilary Rose, said that it marked a substantial escalation of the boycott movement.

The campaign committee has drawn up a manifesto calling on academics to break links with Israel by refusing to work with Israeli institutions, referee academic papers, grant applications or attend conferences.

Zaytoun had it’s first meeting today with the British based Palestinian Charity Interpal, the purpose of the meeting was mainly to get to know each other.

Also, discussed was the Interpal event bieng held at the British Libary this week where organisation’s such as Oxfam, War on Want amongst other’s have been invited im order to explore a common platform to work togather for peace in Palestine. The invitation to the event was kindly extended to Zaytoun.

Interpal also expressed an interest in a bulk purchase of Olive Oil from Zaytoun which would prove very helpful in marketing the Oil to the Arab and Muslim communities in the UK.

sal
http://zaytoun.org

Mayor of Bethlehem criticizes the “silence” of the Christian world
IMEMC-News Desk & Agencies, December 14, 2004, 08:02

Mr. Hanna Nasser, Mayor of Bethlehem criticized the “silence of the Christian world” amidst all sort of military aggressions and violations in Bethlehem and described their position as shameful”.

Nasser in a press conference held in relation to the upcoming Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem , said that Bethlehem had been subjected to continuous military invasion for more than four year,
while the Christian world stood helpless.

“For more than four years, army continuously invaded the city, destroyed confiscated lands, while the Christian world stood helpless in spite that Bethlehem has a unique importance for the Christians, and non Christians, all over the world”.

Nasser added that when the church of Nativity was surrounded on April 2002, the world stood short of saving the city and when the crisis was solved, the besieged residents were deported to the Gaza Strip and Europe.

Moreover, Nasser said that the army is continuously confiscating lands in the north of the city for the separation wall, while settlers and soldiers controlled Palestinian homes near Rachel Tomb, in order to transfer the tomb and Bilal Bin Rabah mosque area into settlements.

“What is happening in the holy city of Bethlehem is an shameful act to the Israeli government which conducts these violations while the Christian world is watching these violations without attempting to save the city”, Nasser said.

Nasser added hat the size of Bethlehem is reducing as the Israeli authorities continued their plans to expand the settlements surrounding the city and destroying its fields, in addition to
destroying the northern entrance which is the main “gate” for tourists and pilgrims to the holy city.

We’re in the xmas edition of The Big Issue magazine - many thanks to the Editor John Bird for the double page spread & the truly excellent article.

Palestinian farmer Sharif Omar, from the West Bank village of Jayyous, was among the Palestinian delegation to the Paris European Social Forum in 2003 and also during the recent Netherlands Social Forum.

In his function as chairman of the organization of farmers affected by the Wall, he has also been a frequent guest in many other European countries and has received broad media coverage on many occasions.

This emergency call is due to Israel’s sudden attempt to expropriate the land belonging to Palestinian farmer Sharif Omar and his colleagues for the purpose of building a complete new settlement.

No sooner did Sharif Omar return to Jayyous, we received the shocking information that the bulldozers have already begun their work. we have learned that by now more than a hundred olive trees have been uprooted.

The emergency call is to anyone who is travelling to the Occupied territories to travel to Jayyous. Any individual or delegation would be welcome, as there is no time to loose! There is already a peace camp on the land, including solidarity Israeli’s.

Further updates on the situation in Jayyous is available here including an excellent article by the Christian Science Monitor

Photo’s are available
here and here

News from Within is a monthly magazine published by the Alternative Information Center which reflects the center’s combination of political activism with research and analysis.

It challenges the Jewish and Zionist nature of the State of Israel and the authoritarian nature of the Palestinian Authority.

News from Within is at the forefront of the debate that surrounds the economic, social and cultural forces of globalisation and their impact on the conflict in Palestine-Israel.

More information available on News from Within’s website

Since Zaytoun started taking order’s in Easter of 2004 we have, thanks to the help of countless individuals and organisations, managed to purchase & import some 15 Tons of Palestinian Olive Oil equivalent to approximately 30,000 bottles.

We plan to continue the momentum which has built up around this initiative and our aim for 2005 is to import 45 tons of Palestinian Olive Oil, together we can make this happen.

Once again, thank you for your trust & support & we look forward to working with you all to further build & strengthen this project in 2005.

The Zaytoun team

We were expecting an Olive Oil delivery yesterday from Palestine, the shipment arrived and was cleared through customs just in time for Christmas delivery. However, on opening the container we found that it did not contain our Olive Oil order but contained a cargo of oil destined for Italy !

We’re still in the process of tracking our shipment down and have been in touch with the shipping agent in Haifa, Israel, who’ve taken responsibilty for the incident. The cause of the incident is believed to be the result of the shipping firm in Israel placing our cargo in the wrong container.

We’re also in touch with the people in Italy whose cargo we currently have, they’re clearing their container through customs at present and it’s quite likely that our Oil is with them.

As soon as we have more information we’ll post details here & they will be emailed out to all our customers.

Those customers who were waiting for a pre-xmas Olive Oil delivery - we can assure you that we’re doing our utmost to track the container and have it delivered to the UK, we’ve been contacting all our waiting customers by phone or email but please do accept our apologies if we haven’t been able to reach you.

The shipment was insured and we’ll be seeking compensation to recover all extra costs incurred as a result of this incident.

Thank you very much for your understanding and patience.

The Zaytoun Team

There are three cases where settlement expansion is suddenly exploding because of the wall, bringing into focus the real intentions of building the wall. They are:

Jayyous/Zufin with the expansion at Nofei Zufim, Nof HaSharon and Nirit/ Alfei Menashe, Har Gilo/Gilo West and Wallaje.

Without the wall, private contractors would not be interested in any of these places, whereas now, with the wall, no Israelis will be living next to “Arabs” where once those areas were not at all sought after.

Politically the link is now easy to see between the Wall and settlement expansion despite all past promises and statements as to Israel’s intentions. The facts on the ground now speak louder than words.

Israeli past obfuscation as to not wanting to expand settlements & promising to allow farmers access to their land can now be seen as yet another Israeli bluff. A smokescreen, behind which the building and its strategy were planned.

In Jayyous this is the most striking, because the Palestinians in this village are a farming community which is now being completely cut off from its land by the wall. No farmers are affected elsewhere as badly, and therefore threatened with “transfer” once they have lost their only means of providing for themselves.

The Israeli strategy (IDF, settlers and government) has been to target the Palestinian landowners who do not have water rights, either by declaring their lands “state land” or by weakening their hold on their land by cutting them off from their water supply or irrigation system.

Once the land is dried out, and the Palestinians are denied access in various ways (labourers’ access denied, or keeping the gates closed for weeks at a time during Israeli high holidays, or making hours the gates are open incompatible with basic farming needs, military courts not allowing the court file to be opened, etc.), that land then only has value as prime real estate for building. In Jayyous, it is no coincidence that the owner of the Lidar company which is going to be developing the Nofei Zufim expansion of Zufin is Israel’s reputedly wealthiest man, Lev Leviev.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the New Statesman competition to win a years supply of Zaytoun Olive Oil, we’ve been informed that the response was very good and The New Statesman has offered to run a similar competition later in they year !

Keep an eye out here for another oppurtunity to win a years supply of Palestinian Olive Oil & thank you all for your support.

The Palestinian village of Jayyous, near Qalqilya, sits on some of the best farmland in the West Bank. The monstrosity alternately referred to as; The Wall, The Fence, The Security Barrier, The Separation Fence passes right through Jayyous in the form of a fence with electronic sensors. Not the inhabited parts though. The Fence separates the people of Jayyous from their lands. The lands are now on the side of Zufin (see the link for a map).

http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Jayyus%2011-01-2005/Map%20of%20location.jpg

On 9 December bulldozers arrived and began to destroy and uproot olive trees. From then until 20 December over 600 olives trees were uprooted clearing some 24 dunums of land. On 29 December the New York Times reported that many of the trees were over 600 years old. The land is to be used to found the new settlement Nofei Zufin. The land was annexed by military order in 2000 but nobody bothered to inform the owners. It is, to understate a bit, more than a little curious that the military confiscated land two years before construction of The Separation Barrier began that would be used to found a settlement on the west side of The Fence. This is the most blatant example to date that The Separation Barrier is what many have said all along, nothing but a land grab.

On 31 December a group of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals marched to the site of the destruction to replant olive trees where they were uprooted. Members of Ta’ayush, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Rabbis for Human Rights, The International Solidarity Movement, Gush Shalom joined villagers from Jayyous on both sides of the fence. Followed by a few dozens Israeli Border Police, constantly reminding us that we were trespassing and videotaping us, we replanted some 50 trees and then marched to The Fence. The gate at Jayyous where Palestinians have to cross at certain times each day if they are to cross at all was closed. With the efforts of all on both sides of The Fence we were able to negotiate a crossing for the Palestinians. That is the scale of the victories we have here as mobilizing the Israeli public to defend Palestinians is exceedingly difficult. A larger effort is being made by the Rhode Island-Qalqilya Alliance ( Comments (0)

Suicide in Palestine -Narratives of Despair By Nadia Taysir Dabbaght

We’re all familiar with the term suicide bomber’s, however, little is known about those who, as a result of the trauma from living under the occupation, take their own lives.

Dr Dabbagh’s book is a rare study of suicide and self harm in Palestinian society, it looks at current and historical attitudes to deaths and self killing in islamic or arab thought.

The book is available from Amazon.

Dr. Nadia Taysir Dabbagh specialises in psychiatry at the royal free hospital, England