Israel trip, part 3

Day 4 - Thursday

The day started with a trip to a settlement called Ephrata, to hear a settler (immigrant from the US) try to justify their position. For someone brought up with his beliefs and fed with the misinformation that is disseminated, coupled with a lack of desire to dig and find out the true facts his opinions are (just about!) understandable. However, that point of view does depend on believing the myths... which are aided and abetted by the undeniable acts of terrorism which are the direct result of living under the pressure-cooker conditions of the Palestinians. On a more positive note he did say that, if there were mass rallies by the Palestinians demanding peace negotiations he at least would be happy for the wall to come down. He seemed to genuinely believe that it was simply there for security!! He also could not see that, just because the West had 'used disproportionate force' in dropping nuclear bombs on Japan this did not justify Israel doing the same to the Palestinians. Also, his line that the Palestinians had only been there for a generation or three while Jews were the rightful inhabitants due to having been there 2000 years ago (albeit not at any point in between) rang a bit hollow - not least because he ignored the fact that most of the indigenous population had been there since time immemorial, and were almost certainly descended from the Jews who were not evicted by the Romans (only the ruling classes actually got evicted leaving the peasantry in situ, & the DNA of the Palestinians is largely Semitic, rather than Arabic).

From there we went to Hebron - a Palestinian (Zone A) city, but unique among them in having a section which is Israeli. The main road through has been cut off by the Security Wall. The prime shopping area has been closed down and sealed off by the Israelis, who welded up the shutters across the shops in the street of gold- and silver-smiths (in some cases with the goods inside!). This whole area is now a ghost town. Sections of the souq have a wire mesh roof to prevent the settlers’ kids throwing stones down on the heads of the Palestinians - though of course this does not stop liquids of various sorts! (This part is known as 'the cage'.) From there to the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Abraham Isaac & Jacob + one wife each) in the Mosque of Abraham - well – all are in the same building but currently 4 are in a part which is a mosque & 2 (Isaac+ wife) in the other part which is a synagogue with 'only' a bullet-proof partition (partly glass) between them, though at different stages it the entire building has been a temple, church, mosque, church, mosque, church and mosque again! The current building was originally a crusader church....

We then had lunch (after a bit of shopping in his emporium) on the roof of the shop-owner opposite the mosque. He is in Israeli territory but is a Palestinian - but unlike most of them he can prove ownership irrefutably so they can't kick him out - but he can only walk across the road & into the Palestinian area; he can't walk to the left or right of his shop... while we were there the water ran out despite the water tanks on his roof because the water is not on 24/7 for Palestinians - the Israeli's control it and turn it off at will. They have 7 tanks on the roof, each about 1m diameter by ~ 1.3m high as well as a series of smaller plastic barrels, but all of these had run dry... (Each of those tanks holds just over 1 cubic meter of water which is 10,000 Litres). I clearly don't know if they had been fully filled last time the supply had been turned on, but they were certainly all empty then!

Most of the water in Israel/Palestine comes from aquifers under the West Bank. Under the Oslo Accord, Israel was given the right to 85% with the Palestinians only getting the remaining 15%, and all water extraction & distribution is controlled by Israel to ensure they get their share. They randomly cut off the supply to Palestinian’s, especially in summer months. (In the winter they cut off the electricity instead!) Consequently you can always tell a Palestinian-occupied building from an Israeli one, due to the water tanks on the roofs of the Palestinian ones.

After lunch we went to the Tent of Nations via a glass & ceramics factory where the glass-blowers were wearing sandals! The plates etc were hand painted –really rapid work – quite amazing to watch. We also passed the only camel butcher in Hebron! The Tent of Nations is another Palestinian establishment working for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. In this case it is a round hill entirely owned by a family who, like our lunch hosts, have impeccable title deeds (including from the Israelis in the early years of statehood!) who are nevertheless embroiled in 'land rights' court cases, and have had the road past them to Hebron blocked with giant boulders by the Israeli army. They have no water supply or electricity supply, so solar power is a Godsend technology! With it they can heat water, and pump it from underground cisterns. Even so they need to bring it in by bowser from the nearest village in the other direction from Hebron - quite a lot further.  They are entirely surrounded by settlements (including a 'spur' from one settlement which even by Israeli standards is illegal), all of which have mains electricity and water 24/7, but they still get demolition orders on the tents they put up to accommodate foreign visitors despite the illegal spur not getting any demolition orders on the houses; and when they say this they are told it is none of their business whether those other places have demolition orders on them or not! They have managed through legal means to stop the development of roads which would have cut through their land on both sides - or at least get it suspended - the case is still sub-judice (and is likely to remain so for some considerable time!). Again it is a case if Israel trying to make it so unpleasant that the occupants leave 'of their own choice' - at which point they seize the land as being 'unoccupied'! I left not sure whether or not to be inspired by their stubborn refusal to be ousted… They have even refused an open cheque - how many million do you want - and where do you want a residency visa for? Their response? ‘No. This land is our mother and WE do not sell our mothers...’ This turns out to be a typical reaction of the Palestinians who have had similar offers.

From there we went to Mar Saba monastery, Passing 'Herod’s Mount' on the way - a hill built by Herod to commemorate a famous victory, on top of which he had a palace, and bathing pools at the bottom. Mar Saba is probably the monastery with the longest occupation in the (western) world. It was almost certainly emptied briefly by the Persians, but apart from that appears to have been in constant use since the time of its founders in the first few centuries AD - I forget which one! There are buildings still in use as well as (now-deserted) cave cells - at its height about 5000 monks were here; meeting only on Sundays, and remaining in their cells the rest of the time – the Desert Fathers

Reflection: It is hard to understand how a people who have been persecuted as thoroughly and for as long as the Jews can then turn round and do the sort of things they are doing to the Palestinians, but they are determined ‘never to be in a minority again’ in their own country and since the Palestinians have a higher birth-rate they have to find ways of redressing this… Also, it is a very narrow country – you can fire an artillery shell from one side of it to the other, so they feel insecure militarily as well which aggravates the problem, especially as they think the only way to ensure peace it to defeat any possible enemies by force!