Nina Mayorek March 2005

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Nina MayorekMarch 2005
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My name is Nina Mayorek. I live in Jerusalem. I
am a peace activist and a member of Machsom
Watch. MachsomWatch, which means
Checkpoint-Watch, is an Israeli women's
organization which carries out observations at
military checkpoints located throughout the
entire West Bank. We strive to de-escalate the
frequently tense situations existing at the
checkpoints between Israeli soldiers and
Palestinians. We report our observations on our
website www.machsomwatch.org . Every Saturday,
my friends and I travel through the West Bank in
order to find out what is going on there. In
light of the great hopes evoked by Ariel Sharons
Gaza disengagement plan and the Sharm al Sheikh
summit of Abbas and Sharon, I would like to share
my own observations of what has been happening
recently in the West Bank. Therefore I shall
take you on an imaginary tour through the
occupied West Bank where we shall see 5
different places. We shall first go south from
Jerusalem as far as Hebron, and then return to
Jerusalem before going as far north as Nablus.
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Lets go to the Occupied West Bank
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Abu Dis
Walaje
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At-Tuwani
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Let us start from my home in Jerusalem. Soon we
shall pass the Green Line the only
internationally recognized border of Israel.
Today, very few Israelis know (or care to
recall), that when they pass the railway tracks
near the Jerusalem Zoo they enter the Occupied
Territories of the West Bank. The West Bank has
been occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.
What does it mean to enter occupied land?
It means that we enter a territory inhabited by
two kinds of people. One group consists of
240,000 West Bank Jewish settlers who have all
possible rights and protection from
Israeli national institutions. The other group is
comprised of West Bank 2.4 million Palestinians,
stateless people, who are denied most basic human
rights to work, to study, to a free movement,
to health care, to ownership of their property.
Many implications for daily life ensue. For
example, we cannot invite our Palestinian friends
to go with us. They cannot use the same roads.
There is a whole system of apartheid roads that
the Israeli army calls "sterile roads," meaning
sterile from Palestinians. On roads open to
Palestinians one frequently encounters flying
(improvised) military checkpoints,
where Palestinians may be stuck for hours, and
yet Israelis pass quickly.
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West Bank Arabs- 2,400,000 Jewish
settlers-240,000
Gaza Strip Arabs-1,400,000 Jewish settlers-7,500
Jerusalem beyond the green line Arabs-
250,000 Jewish settlers-190,000
Source PASSIA
Israel within the green line Jews-
5,200,000 Arabs-1,300,000
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Our first stop is the Wallaje village, just south
of Jerusalem. One cannot see happy faces here.
Nearly every house is threatened with a
demolition order from the Jerusalem
municipality, and we see piles of rubble all
around these are the remains of houses that
were already demolished. The State of Israel
decided to annex the Wallaje land, but without
its inhabitants! The Wallaje villagers were
declared illegal squatters in their own
homes. One may note that right now there are
2000 outstanding demolition orders on
Palestinian homes in the Jerusalem area. Houses
are being demolished under the pretext that they
were built without permits (i.e. illegally).
However, Israeli authorities give very few
permits to Palestinians for building homes, in
very few places. Obtaining a building license is
a protracted and costly process that the
majority of the impoverished Palestinian society
cannot afford.
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House demolition in Walaje near Jerusalem
January 2005-photo EAPPI
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Walaje village- A demolished house of a blind man
(January 2005 photo Nina Mayorek)
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From Wallaje we continue south along the central
road of the West Bank. We see Jewish settlements
expanding in all directions. For miles, we see
the extensive permanent settlements, which are
absolutely illegal under international law. Do
not forget that these nice villas are for Jews
only. Palestinians living in the West Bank can
provide the labor for building the settlements,
but they cannot live in them.
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Jewish legal" settlement Efrata in the West
Bank (January 2005-photoNina Mayorek)
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Here we also see one of 105 outposts (which were
proclaimed illegal by Israel and which prime
minister Sharon promised President Bush he would
evacuate long ago, but somehow the evacuation
is continually postponed, and recently we
heard about forthcoming "legalization" of
outposts). These outposts are built by Jewish
settlers using the Wild West Method with a full
support of the State of Israel (as described in
the recent Sasson report presented to the
Israeli government). It works like this you
like the place, and you do not care if the land
is private Palestinian property. You put caravans
there and you build a road. Very soon you
replace the caravans with proper houses. You
do not worry about security, knowing the army
will provide it for you. You do not worry about
acquiring building permits, infrastructure, water
and electricity, because if you are Jewish, the
Israeli Government will provide you with all of
the above. You know your house will never be
demolished.
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A new outpost-beginning of a new settlement on
the way to Hebron (January 2005-photo by Nina
Mayorek)
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In the meantime, we arrive in Hebron, an
ancient city, where On can visit Abraham's
tomb a worship site for both Muslims and Jews.
When we reach Abraham's tomb we see the empty
streets of the old city. Most Palestinian
families could not withstand any more violent
attacks from Jewish settlers and months-long
curfews imposed by the army, and left their
homes. These Palestinians could not protect
themselves, their property or their
neighborhood. Just recently, the Israeli
Government decided to build a new road to one of
Jewish settlements in the city. The road will
pass over the Muslim cemetery. There is no
institution to which Palestinians can appeal for
protection of their rights. The Israeli
policemen told Checkpoint Watch volunteers when
Palestinians call us we simply hang up the phone.
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Palestinians were chased out and settlers are
moving in
January 2005-photo Nina Mayorek
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The third stop on our tour is the beautiful
village of At-Tuwani, just a 15 minute drive
south of Hebron (for those allowed to drive on
the Israeli road, which excludes most
Palestinians). In this 500-year-old village,
shepherds make their living from their sheep.
However, it is their bad luck that Jewish
settlers also fancied the beautiful scenery and
built the Maon settlement on a hill overlooking
the village. Maon settlers have a very
clear attitude towards their Palestinian
neighbors they want them out. The settlers are
the lords of the land and the Israeli army
provides them with all possible military
support. Palestinians experience different modes
of harassment virtually daily. Palestinian
elementary school pupils on the their way to
At-Tuwani school have been one of the favorite
targets - Maon settlers set dogs on these
children and throw stones at them. The
school headmaster has recorded many days on
which the kids arrived at the school seriously
injured. But nobody dares to arrest the Maon
settlers in the Israeli reality, these people
are above the law. In fact, the Israeli
government wants to expel all the villagers of
at-Tuwani to a nearby town of Yatta, a designated
destination of South Hebron villagers
dispossessed from their land.
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Pupils of At-Tuwani (South Hebron Hills)
are frequently attacked by Maon settlers on the
way to their school (February-2005-photo Nina
Mayorek)
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Let us now return to Jerusalem, where we can
visit the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Dis.
There, an 8 meter concrete wall separates a
Palestinian suburb of 60,000 people from
Jerusalem by cutting across the main road. We
can also see nearby a new (Jewish) settlement in
the process of creation. Now it is only one
house, but a new road is already being built to
the area. Soldiers are stationed on the roof to
provide security, and very soon Palestinian
houses in the area will be demolished because
they endanger the settlement" or for some
other "security" reason.
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Why checkpoints and walls are needed?
Wall in Abu Dis
New settlement-Kidmat Zion
January 2005 photo Nina Mayorek
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From here we continue north, again driving on the
main West Bank road, road number 60. We arrive
at Nablus, home to approximately 130,000
inhabitants. Nablus serves as the commercial,
industrial and services center for a rural
population numbering hundreds of thousands. Over
the last four and a half years the people of
Nablus and its environs have seen more death and
destruction at the hands of the Israeli military
than the residents of any other locale in the
West Bank. Countless invasions, incursions and
aerial attacks left hundreds of civilians dead
and the Old City severely damaged. Moreover,
Nablus is effectively sealed off by a battery of
checkpoints and roadblocks that surround it from
all directions. We stop at the Huwara
checkpoint, at the southern entrance to the city.
This is the military checkpoint that I visit with
my Machsom Watch colleagues nearly every
Saturday. Here we can see crowds of desperate
people who need to reach their workplaces,
universities, schools, medical clinics or
relatives. Do not imagine Huwarra as an easygoing
place where every unarmed person can pass at his
or her leisure. Oh no, there are countless
reasons why one may not be allowed to pass. When
I come there I often encounter the same people,
usually students from the university in Nablus,
who can waste 6 hours daily on their way to and
from the university.
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Huwarra checkpoint -southern entrance to Nablus
(November 2004 photo Nina Mayorek)
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Huwarra checkpoint-southern entrance to
Nablus Students on their way to Al-Najah
University
January 2005 photo Nina Mayorek
Comment, June 2005 Meanwhile, the southern half
of this checkpoint was closed, while the northern
one is still well and alive. So people are
harassed only on the way from Nablus to
surrounding villages, but not on the way to
Nablus. In the Israeli government parlance this
is called goodwill gestures towards
Palestinians.
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Israeli military and state officials tell us that
the above measures - all of which constitute
severe violations of international law were
deemed necessary in the course of Israel's war
against terrorism. This is the place to
emphasize that I personally, like all members of
Machsom Watch, strongly condemn Palestinian
terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and
believe that such criminal acts cannot be
justified on any grounds, including the disparity
of military power between the Israeli army and
the Palestinian resistance groups. Israel's
right to protect its citizens, however, should
be exercised only along and from within its
internationally recognized borders, that is, the
Green Line. By waging a war of destruction
against the entire civilian population of the
occupied Palestinian territories Israel is only
breeding terrorism not eliminating it.
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Nablus is also surrounded by military
checkpoints because it is surrounded by Jewish
settlements Itamar, Izhar, Alon Moreh, Har
Braha and others. Settlers definitely need
protection. They are strongly disliked by the
Palestinian population and with good reason.
The State of Israel expropriated Palestinian land
on behalf of the settlers. There were many cases
when settlers shot Palestinians without being
punished by the Israeli justice system. The
settlers rob and destroy olive trees, which used
to provide livelihood for Palestinian villagers.
Because of these reasons the settlers are hated
and need protection. And they get it. The Israeli
army conducts a colonization war on Palestinians
to protect settlers' interests. The
colonization enterprise leads directly to
Palestinian terror.
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The West Bank
White areas with blue triangles Jewish
settlements with surrounding annexed areas and
access roads
The obstacle to peace 145-permanent
settlements with 240,000 settlers 105-outposts
with 1000 settlers
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Returning from the Occupation Tour of the West
Bank, I conclude that there is no basis for
optimism yet. While Abbas and Sharon may have
shaken hands at Sharm al Sheikh, the situation on
the ground has not yet improved. The chief
obstacle to peace between Israelis and
Palestinians are the West Bank settlements 145
permanent settlements and 105 outposts, all of
which are illegal according to international
law. It is important to add that the settlement
enterprise continues now, in these days, at an
accelerated rate. Settlements preempt
the possibility of a " two state solution." They
prevent the establishment of a viable and
contiguous Palestinian state and could perpetuate
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict forever. I
would like to ask the American public to exert
its influence on the U.S. administration, the
Senate and the Congress to put a stop to the
Israeli government's policy of colonization and
supremacy. This policy destroys all chances for
reconciliation and peace for both nations.