By Neve
Gordon '97M.A., '99Ph.D.
"It was about 7 in the morning," Widad Al-Nuajah told us, unable
to hide her despair. "Fourteen military jeeps accompanied by two
bulldozers arrived. The soldiers instructed us to remove our belongings
from the cave, but even before we finished the bulldozers began
the demolition."
Together with a few other Israelis, I had left Jerusalem very
early that morning. For security reasons, we drove through Israel
around the occupied West Bank, entering the Palestinian territories
from the south; instead of a 45-minutes ride, it took us two-and-a-half
hours. After meeting our Palestinian friends at the Susya junction,
we continued together to their encampment on a dirt road, creating
a cloud of dust on the light brown, almost yellow, desert hills.
Widad was among several people waiting for us. They had come to
apprise us of the situation.
"First, they destroyed the six sheds," Widad continued to recount
the event, "and then the two caves, one in which we slept and
the other where we kept our livestock. Next, they wrecked the
two wells, and uprooted the vines and fig trees. Within an hour
and a half everything was in ruins."
"Look," she said, as she pointed toward two sealed holes in
the ground, "these were our wells."
Twenty-nine-year-old Widad is one of a few hundred destitute
Palestinians who live in manmade caves used to shelter them from
the harsh desert weather. Extremely hot in the summer and cold
in the winter, the South Hebron region is barren, and little vegetation
can survive without some form of human intervention.
The soldiers, as we were told, drove to Widad's neighbors and
there too wreaked havoc. Later, they returned and tried to convince
the now homeless families to leave their land and migrate to a
different region in the West Bank. The coercion, intimidation,
persuasion combo did not succeed, however, since no one from the
Al-Nuajah tribe was willing to budge.
A few weeks passed before the military showed up again, only
this time they were determined to transfer the families by force.
Armed to their teeth, they succeeded in carrying out their mission.
Luckily, though, the Israeli Supreme Court, following a last moment
appeal, issued an injunction allowing the Palestinian residents
to return to their land until the court resolves the case.
Widad's cousin, Muhammad, handed me a small glass of hot tea
as we stood talking under the scorching sun. "You want to know
who is responsible for this cruelty?" he asked. "All you have
to do is lift your head toward the horizon."
No more than 800 yards from the remains of the ruined caves,
across a narrow ridge, stands the small Jewish settlement Susya.
Assembled on a hillside are about 100 suburban houses with green
lawns; I even distinguished ornamental trees scattered on the
terrain, a playground, and a community center. The stark contrast
is mind-boggling, considering that the Al-Nuajah family doesn't
even have running water, electricity or a road leading to their
home.
Al-Nuajah's story is, in many respects, a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. After repeatedly visiting the region in the past months
with other Palestinian and Jewish Israeli activists who belong
to a grassroots group called Ta'ayush -- which means "living together"
in Arabic -- I realized that an alliance has been formed between
the settlers, orthodox Jews who are living on confiscated Palestinian
land, and the Israeli military. The major objective of this alliance,
which is supported by the Israeli government, is to expand the
settlement's territory while making its vicinity "Palestinian
free." The desire to annex the region to Israel proper accounts
for the military's attempt to transfer the Al-Nuajahs from the
area; demolishing their property, or, more precisely, their infrastructure
of existence, is merely a ruthless ploy to ensure that they won't
return.
Without recognizing the significance of these territorial conflicts,
one cannot understand the irruption of the second Palestinian
intifada (popular uprising) in September 2000; indeed,
one cannot understand the ongoing cycle of violence that has plagued
the Middle East.
Susya, built on Palestinian land that had been occupied by Jordan,
was captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Following
the war, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution
242, which stated that a just and lasting peace between Israel
and its neighbors should include two principles: 1) "withdrawal
of Israel's armed forces from territories occupied in the recent
conflict" and 2) respect for the right of every state in the area
"to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free
from threats or acts of war." Many years later these principles
became the framework for the peace agreements between Israel and
its two neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, as well as the framework
for the Oslo Accords that were signed by Israel's former Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat
on the White House lawn in 1993.
Considering that the basis of the Oslo agreement between Israel
and the Palestinians is land for peace, one would have expected
Israel to stop building houses and settling Jews in the occupied
territories -- territories that were to become, according to the
agreement, the nascent Palestinian state. Within this context,
the ongoing efforts to expand Susya's territory are, in fact,
antithetical to peace.
The crucial point, though, is that Susya is in no way exceptional.
Israel has built more than 20,000 house units in the occupied
territories since Rabin signed the Oslo Accords, not counting
the construction of new Jewish neighborhoods in occupied East
Jerusalem. The Jewish population living in the territories has
increased from about 110,000 in 1993 to close to 200,000 in 2000.
These settlers now control about 42 percent of the land.
These numbers plainly indicate that while Israel is employing
the rhetoric of peace, it is doing everything in its power to
create an irreversible situation on the ground, settling thousands
of Jews on expropriated Palestinian land. When the Chinese employed
this practice in Tibet, the administration in D.C. condemned it;
but Israel's expansionist policy barely warrants a murmur of protest.
It certainly has not endangered the nearly $3 billion in foreign
aid that Israel receives each year from the United States.
While part of this money has been used to build Jewish settlements,
another portion has been spent on miles and miles of "Palestinian-free"
bypass roads that connect the settlements to Israel proper. These
roads have a sinister political purpose.
Imagine that along route I-90 connecting South Bend to Chicago
is a road so narrow that its width is not enough to accommodate
two cars, even though cars are moving in both directions. Imagine
also that the last time this road was paved was 20 years ago,
and that it is full of potholes. Now picture yourself driving
your car to work at about 30 mph on this narrow road while cars
are passing on the newly constructed highway at 65 mph. The only
reason you can't drive on the highway is because you're a Palestinian
and not a Jew. In South Africa it was called apartheid; in Israel
it's called security.
The Israeli government says it constructs these roads to protect
the settlers but fails to mention that the Jew-only roads encircle
Palestinian villages and towns, thus severing Palestinian communities
from one another. The ability of bypass roads to create small
island-like enclaves demonstrates how roads too can be employed
as a mechanism of control.
Regardless of which road I am driving on, I am always amazed
by the extent to which the Palestinian landscape is characterized
by grinding poverty. In the territories, no more than two miles
from my Jerusalem apartment, which I rent for $600 a month, are
thousands of Palestinians living on $2 a day per household, that
is, two adults and four children. A recent Israeli military report
suggests that more than 60 percent of the population actually
live on less.
The intense sense of despair is now ubiquitous in the territories.
I first felt it when I took part in another Ta'ayush activity:
a food convoy to the northern part of the West Bank. About 70
cars and two trucks loaded with such basic foods as oil, flour,
sugar and canned goods made their way to the Palestinian village
Burkin. The access roads to the village were blocked by dirt mounds
in order to prevent the population from exiting. After digging
through the mounds with hoes -- the military decided not to stop
us -- the cars managed to pass but the trucks couldn't make it
through. Using human chains, we transferred about 20 tons of food
from the trucks, over the mounds, and onto old tractors belonging
to the Burkin residents.
After we had finished loading the tractors, we drove two miles
from the blockade to the village school, where we planned to unload
the food. I took a local resident with me in the car, but since
it was packed with pea and bean cans he could squeeze only into
the back seat. Although he looked as if he were in his mid-60s,
I soon learned that he was actually only 45 and had eight children.
I asked him what he did for a living, and he told me that he used
to work for a carpenter inside Israel. Since the military siege
began he had been unemployed; he had been out of work for nine
months.
"From what do you live?" I asked.
He was silent for a moment. I looked in the car mirror and could
see his blue eyes shying away from my glance. "People leave money
outside the door," he said, then added, "at night."
This is the backdrop of the current intifada, which
has resulted in horrific violence. Israel has, in the past year,
bombed Nablus with American-made Apache helicopters and Gaza with
F-16 fighter jets, dropping one-ton bombs on buildings in the
center of the city. Tank and infantry units have entered such
cities as Bethlehem and Jenin, and Israeli death squads operate
regularly in the Palestinian territories of Tulkarm, Hebron and
Ramallah. Hundreds have died -- including many children -- and
thousands more have been injured. Simultaneously, Palestinians
have sent suicide bombers to city centers inside Israel and have
been shooting soldiers and citizens both inside and outside the
occupied territories. They too have killed scores of innocent
men, women and children and injured hundreds of others.
This conflict, we need to remember, is about real grievances.
It is not, as the American media often portray it, a clash of
civilizations, whereby Israel as the representative of the West
is challenged by an inferior but highly dangerous Islamic civilization.
Even a prominent columnist like George Will has succumbed to this
demagoguery, writing for the Washington Post that "this
is not a dispute between Israelis and Palestinians about land,
it is a clash of civilization and it is not solvable by splitting
differences." The notion of a clash of civilizations is actually
employed as a concealing mechanism. In our case, it is meant to
hide the oppression and subjugation of the Palestinian people.
But the clash-of-civilizations discourse is also a thinly veiled
racist attempt to create an "us" versus "them" mentality. The
best way to counter this mentality and to expose the fallacy of
the "clash of civilizations" is through dialogue. This is also
one of the objectives of Ta'ayush. Dialogue, though, is not always
easy.
I clearly remember the meeting, which we convened in order to
discuss the possibility of organizing a food convoy to the cave-dwellers
who had just been evicted from their land. About 30 people had
attended it, and everything seemed to be going well. We were already
deliberating which date would be most suitable to transfer the
supplies when Muhammad, Widad's cousin, interrupted. He said that
he, as the representative of the families, did not want our food.
Most of us did not know Muhammad at the time and were taken
aback, but he stood firm, insisting that he would not accept our
help. I asked him why.
"We will survive without your food," he said. "More important
for us is that you go back to Israel and educate people there
about the brutality of the occupation, about the injustices committed
against the Palestinian people. If you have come here to help
us," he continued, "then please go home. But, if you have come
because your liberation is tied with ours, then and only then
can we work together."
There was a moment of silence in the room. One could hear a
car passing outside the window. Muhammad's powerful words were
reverberating in my mind, and I at least felt that he was echoing
the message of the prophets who once wandered through the desert
that he calls home. He was asking us to take responsibility, which
is, in a sense, the true meaning of Ta'ayush.
* * *
Neve Gordon is a contributor to The Other Israel: Voices
of Refusal and Dissent (New Press 2002). He currently teaches
politics at Ben-Gurion University in Israel and can be reached
at ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il.
July 2003
