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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 |
