Israeli settlements and persecution are crippling the Palestinian West Bank. Lauren Booth reports
My daughter Alexandra and I stood on the noisy streets of Hebron, waiting for the Middle East peace envoy’s motorcade to zoom into vision. Tony Blair had just been on a whistlestop tour of the Old City. This was presumably to silence his many critics, who say he is little more than a salesman for Israeli business interests.
Certainly, he didn’t stay as long as his disappointed Palestinian hosts would have liked. Nor did he see all that needed to be seen of the perniciously mis-titled “natural growth” of settlements in the region.
Once a bustling centre for Palestine’s wealthiest families, Hebron’s ancient souk is now an oppressive ghost town. Four hundred and fifty armed Jewish extremists stole a section of the buildings in the Old City in 2002. Since then, life has been made a living hell for around 150,000 Palestinians in the city and outlying villages.
Alexandra and I walked through areas of the Old City, where netting and plastic sheets fluttered overhead. They were bulging with empty coke cans, plastic bags and kitchen rubbish. They are hung up to keep detritus (including reports of nappies, porn magazines and used sanitary towels) hurled from the settlers’ windows above from striking the Palestinians who must walk below.
Palestinian sources reported that, on October 9, about 40 settlers armed with M16 rifles launched an unprovoked attack on a crowd outside the mosque in Shalalah Street following Friday prayers. Many people, including women and children, were there. Israeli soldiers were also present at the time of the attack, but made no attempt to stop the violence. The settlers tried to catch Palestinians and beat them up. The assault was aborted because of the intervention of a group of about 15 Norwegian tourists, who happened to be in the area.
Alexandra, who is eight, had been in the West Bank for nearly two weeks. In Hebron, for the first time, she felt afraid. Israeli guns were trained on us from above. To reach the Ibrahimi Mosque – site of the massacre of 40 Palestinians by a settler in 1994 – we had to pass through a horror movie of clunking iron and turnstiles courtesy of the Israeli Defence Force. The settlers roam the city at will.
Peace Cycle 2009 was a bicycle convoy of 17 internationals, all riding from Jordan to Jerusalem, to express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice and self-determination.
It was a unique experience and vivid way to witness the expansion of the Israeli state deep into the heart of what remains of Palestinian lands. Travelling by bike provided a chilling, yet, scenic, overview of an occupation that is morphing, changing shape, expanding and gaining confidence.
The bike ride from Nablus to Qualqilya was interesting for a start. Just 15 minutes cycling from the city centre, a barrier erected by the IDF lay before us. It has been put up to disrupt Palestinian traffic flow between two major cities. Stone blocks and rubble made the road impassable to vehicles.
Our cyclists, including 20 teenage boys from Qualqilya whose club we had joined for a couple of days, steered their way through the obstruction. Our over-laden van nearly overturned as it was forced of the road into an olive grove for 50 metres. It was a short but steep uphill climb afterwards, so the cyclists paused in order to close ranks.
If one person was to be left alone along this route, it would be very dangerous. The village of Burin and its surrounding neighbours have all been subject to numerous violent attacks from two illegal settlements not far away. These are Bracha and Yitzhar.
On September 9, the neighbouring villages of Asira al Qibliya and Urif were attacked by armed, masked settler youth. The following week, armed settlers brutally attacked and shot local shepherds from the village of Einabus. In short, we were in Israeli bandit territory.
Alexandra was angry that she had to ride in the van for safety. The local lads, used to the harassment, but still fearing the risks, eventually persuaded her, using frowning faces and arms posed like guns to explain the danger.
On a winding stretch of road, just a kilometre further on, a settler in a car drove up to our teenage guides. He leant out of his window and demanded: “where are you from? What are you doing here?” Luckily, all the boys speak “interrogative” Hebrew.
“Qualqilya”, they answered. “Qualqilya”, repeated the settler.
The city of Qualqilia is in the north-west of the West Bank, situated about 12 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, in what is now considered the border between Israel and the West Bank. The city covers less than four kilometres meaning there are more people per square kilometre living cheek by jowl there than anywhere else in the world – even Gaza.
Yet Qualqilya is dying. Since the apartheid wall cut it off from the rest of the countryside, its population has shrunk from a peak of around 150,000 to around half that. The Israeli government is practising a stealthy policy of ethnic cleansing areas such as this.
Locals are put under such pressure – physical (settlers), psychological (checkpoints) and financial (more checkpoints cutting off arable land and imports) – that they are driven to leave. And here Israeli policy is working very effectively.
The settler we encountered drove 10 metres and stopped. He leant out of his car and stared back at the line of Palestinian boys. He drove on another 10 metres and then began to do a U-turn. It looked like trouble.
It is not uncommon for young Palestinians to be attacked by adult settlers, driven off the roads, stoned and verbally abused. But today, from inside the van, I was filming. As the settler drove back towards the boys, he spotted me, saw “white” faces and a video camera and reconsidered whatever action he was about to take.
What I saw happening at army level, settler level, and government level is a crime against humanity. It consists of the transfer and removal of a civilian populace against their will, house demolitions in East Jerusalem, the apartheid wall which segregates communities from each other and landowners from their means of income and the government-endorsed settlement movement and its non-stop violent land theft. All these things we saw as we cycled along in the glaring light of an October heatwave.
Back in Hebron, meanwhile, the Middle East envoy’s motorcade had arrived. We waved our neon vests emblazoned with the word “Peace” at him. Someone shouted: ‘Tony Blair – shame on you”. The envoy and his flunkeys saw European faces and waving hands and smiled our way. In the West Bank, travellers within the security of a motorcade see only what they want to see. l
Lauren Booth is a journalist and broadcaster. To read more about her journey from Jordan to Jerusalem visit: rememberthechildrenofpalestine.blogspot.com and www.theopenmind.org/Blogs/EyesOfAChildWestBank
