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This is a bypass-bypass road, an invention of the occupation. First, they
built the cross-Samaria road, from Kafr-Kassem to Ariel and beyond, so
as to by-pass the Palestinian villages. But the Palestinian village of
Bidia, which, on Saturdays, has become a shopping mall for Israelis,
slowly crept up to the road. In anticipation of the next intifada,
Benjamin Nethanyahu and Ehud Barak (each in his turn) decided on an even
more sterile, bypass-the-bypass road. Again great stretches of
Palestinian land were expropriated, again we demonstrated together with
the Palestinian villagers (November ‘98), again we were tear-gassed (one
does not shoot at Israelis), again to no avail.
But now the
road is empty. Only from time to time we meet groups of cars. The
settlers are driving in convoys for fear of stone-throwing children. But
we were lucky. Here and there we saw stones lying around on the road,
remnants of previous stone-showers, but we passed unmolested.
On the previous evening we received a SOS call from the villagers of Hares
to please come there. This Palestinian village, near the big Ariel
settlement, is cut off from the world. The army is blockading it, no one
is allowed to enter or leave. The olives, the only product of the
village, are going to rot on the trees, especially in the orchard
bordering the Revava settlement. Anyone trying to harvest there is in
mortal danger. A 14-year old boy was shot and killed there only three
days ago, when he was alone in the orchard with his father. The
villagers hope that the presence of Israelis will restrain the settlers
and soldiers, allowing them harvest the olives on which their livelihood
depends.
A woman from
the village also called. She cried excitedly that at that moment the
soldiers had opened fire on the village and on her. She begged us to
come the next morning. Until darkness, she promised, there is generally
no shooting.
Hares is
situated on a hill, 100 meters away from the road, at a stretch where
the bypass-bypass joins the bypass road. The stretch is an ideal place
for throwing stones, and therefore the settlers are angry. We know the
landscape well, because in March, 1999 we helped a family in the next
village, Kiffel-Hares, to build a house demolished by the army.
It was not
easy for us to decide what to do. It was clear that this is a war zone.
In order to get to the place, we had to risk being stoned or shot at by
Palestinians, who would think that we are settlers. On the other hand,
our presence would be like a red rag to the settlers. The army would
consider us breakers of the occupation laws. All this in order to pick
olives a few dozen yards from a settlement.
Gush Shalom
activists who can come on a workday include youngsters in their teens
and elderly people. Men and women. Was it responsible to advise them to
enter a war-zone?
On the other
hand, in these difficult days, in the middle of the Palestinian war of
liberation, it is very important that the threads still connecting
Israelis and Palestinians are not broken, as extremists on both sides
would wish. It is also important to show the Palestinians that there are
peace forces in Israel who want to display solidarity during their
hardest hour.
These
arguments won. It was decided to mobilize by phone the activists who
were ready to leave their work on a working day
and to take
part in the action. Within an two hours, 20 volunteered. And so, on
Friday, we were on our way from Tel-Aviv in a minibus driven by an
Arab-Israeli. From Jerusalem, another contingent, led by the “Rabbis for
Human Rights” group, were also on their way.
We arrived at Hares without mishap. On the way we did not encounter any
army checkpoint. Even the checkpoint which was located for years on the
green Line, near Kafr Kassem, had mysteriously disappeared.
We entered
the village by foot, climbing the hill, crossing a field of desolation –
old olive trees cut down, ancient terraces destroyed, apparently to
enable the army to shoot without hindrance.
From the
direction of the mosque we heard the Friday prayers as we crossed the
quiet village by foot and left it by the western entrance, on the way to
the plantations. There the army stopped us with armored jeeps and
heavily armed soldiers. A tough major (or perhaps lieutenant-colonel,
the bullet-proof vest made it difficult to be sure) quickly filled out a
prepared form, signed in advance by the C/O Central Command for all
occasions, declaring the Hares plantations a ”closed military area”. We
were requested to leave.
We refused,
of course. We pointed out that the settlers, who were shouting slogans
and cursing us, were allowed to pass freely in their cars. Then a
superior officer, a lieutenant-colonel or perhaps colonel (as above)
appeared. We were told that he was the brigade commander.
We argued
with him. He was a sympathetic, intelligent officer, with a sense of
humor, one of those who are called “regular fellows”, which made what he
said sound even more objectionable. Why the discrimination between the
settlers and the Palestinian villagers? Well, it’s because the villagers
throw stones. Why punish a whole village for the deeds of a minority? “I
am not sure it’s a minority.” It was quite clear that his heart is with
the settlers, whose life, as he said, “had become hell.” For him, the
Palestinians were enemies, no sentiments attached.
Why does he
not permit us to harvest olives? “Because you came here to provoke the
settlers.” We answered honestly that we had no such intention.
While this
argument went on, our activists started to infiltrate into the
plantations one by one. The brigade commander had to choose between
several alternatives: he could call for reinforcements to get us out by
force, or he could allow us to harvest olives. Wisely, he chose the
latter course.
The next six hours where an experience
taken straight out of an old Zionist propaganda film. We picked olives,
one by one, from the trees nearest the settlement. We used our hats as
containers, until buckets were brought. We climbed trees in order to get
at the higher branches. Hard work, but really enjoyable. On the hill,
opposite us, at a distance of some fifty meters, a cluster of angry,
bearded, scull-cap-wearing settlers had gathered, but soldiers prevented
them from approaching us.
When the
villagers saw us working, families of the tree-owners dared to come and
harvest too. Friendships developed quickly. Everything was done at a
hectic speed. The Palestinians knew that they could work there only as
long as we were there. They chose work methods that were damaging to the
trees, hitting the branches, gathering the olives on nylon sheets spread
on the ground, in order to gather as many olives as possible in a few
hours.
At 3 p.m.,
when we were about to finish, we received a call on the mobile phone. We
were asked to come as quickly as possible to the other side of the
village, where a confrontation was developing with the army. The
villagers wanted to use the presence of Israelis (those who had come
from Jerusalem) in order to remove the roadblock put up by the army to
prevent them having contact with the neighboring village and the world
at large. The Palestinians calculated that the army would not open fire
in the presence of Israelis and foreign TV crews. Since the situation
was deteriorating rapidly, we were asked to come and try to prevent a
fatal clash.
We boarded
the minibus and drove into the village. Along the main street, a lot of
children were standing around. At some distance, children were playing
(training?) throwing stones at each other. Some local youngsters
volunteered to walk in front of our bus and tell the children that we
were not settlers. Proceeding this way we were nearing the place of the
clash when we were stopped by the village head and a very authoritative
lyoung man. The head said that the confrontation had ended and that he
would show us the place. The young man said that the confrontation was
still going on and that we should not go on any further. It was clear
that he was the boss. He strongly suggested that we go by the way we had
come. But first he gave as a short, passionate speech, in which he
called Ehud Barak some highly uncomplimentary names from the animal
kingdom.
The village
head volunteered to show us the way, so that we could view the site of
the clash from the army side, from the main road. But as we were leaving
the village, we encountered an army jeep. A sergeant with Russian
features stopped us with a movement of his hand generally reserved for
Arabs. One of us asked him to be polite. He became very angry and told
us that we could not leave the village. A blockade was in force; no one
comes in, no one goes out. He doesn’t give a damn whether we are
Israelis or not. Orders are orders.
Only with
great difficulty did we convince him to call his superior, who told him,
of course, to let us pass. We reached the main road (the cross-Samaria)
and had to drive behind a convoy of settlers, when suddenly we were hit
by a shower of stones. At some distance we saw a group of small
children. Fortunately, only the body of our bus was hit. At lightning
speed police and army jeeps appeared on the scene and took up firing
positions opposite the village. But the children had already
disappeared.
In the
meantime, we were told over the phone that the confrontation was really
over, so we decided to make for home. On the way, the village head (a
renovation contractor active in the Tel-Aviv area) alighted. We waited
for a few minutes, to make sure that he got home safely. He started to
climb the hill, but before he had gone no further than a few meters,
soldiers ran after him, rifles ready to shoot. We got down from the bus
and convinced the soldiers that the man was not a dangerous terrorist,
but a villager who had been kind enough to show us the way. They let him
return to his village. But in the meantime, police had stopped near our
bus and made out a traffic-violation ticket, because it was standing on
a part of the road where it was not allowed to stand. A stubborn young
police woman refused to yield, but we finally convinced the Druze
policeman at the wheel to relent. After all, the bus had been standing
there only because we were talking with the soldiers.
Over the
phone we heard that two activists from the Jerusalem group had been
arrested during the clash at the roadblock. (Neither of the two belonged
to Peace Now, as was erroneously reported on the Israeli Channel 1.
Peace Now had taken no part in the events of the day.)
This is how
the reality of the occupation, November 2000, looks.
We returned home tired but content, as
they say. The time was 4 p.m., the hour shooting usually starts.
For me it
was a long day. An old friend of mine had invited me to a dinner-party
in Ceaesarea. The elite of the elite was there, financiers, doctors,
senior bureaucrats, media people, artists. Wonderful food, excellent
wines. I had no strength left to get into arguments. So I just sat
aside, looked and wondered about what was happening at the time in
Hares, some light-years away.
At midnight,
on the long way home, I heard on the news that a settler woman had been
slightly wounded by stones near Hares village.
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ua / hagalil.com /
18-11-2000 |
