Jordan Valley 2008

11th April: Fairly tired after four days of listening to tales of life under a belligerent military occupation so this isn’t going to be my best writing but i promised we’d start our blogs today, so…

We started with a tour of the Jordan Valley, the most fertile part of what should be the west bank, occupied Palestine except they only control 6% of their own land, 34% is military land, the rest is controlled by illegal Israeli settlements. 4000 religious zealots in 36 sttlements control all the water supplies in this region. Electricity is only available for five ‘legal’ Palestinian villages which,combined, cover an area of 10 km squared. (Legal according to Israel, a flagrant recidivist when it comes to international law.)

The Israeli company Carmel Agrexco has 30 packing houses here. Incidentally the water used by Carmel, the illegal settlements and the Dimona nuclear plant and weapons research facility is the reason the Dead Sea will be gone in 20 years. Fortunately the EU will be funding the piping of water from the Red Sea to the dead Sea so you can forget your diving holidays in Sharm El Sheik soon. Our tax money well spent.

Most of the Jordan valley is Area C, this means that Palestinians have to ask Israel permission to build, get electricity or renovate their wells. Guess what Israels answer to these requests tends to be? Two words beginning and ending in ‘f’.

Let’s take the village of Zbeidat as an example of the magnamanity of the Israeli occupation:

Refugees from the the Nakbah, (Yes we are still bloody well talking about it, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians by Zionist terror gangs that heralded the birth of Israel), settled in what was then the Jordanian controlled west Bank. The Jordanian Government and the United Nations came to a deal with the Zbeidat Clan and each other. This extended family of sheep herders swapped their refugee status for 10 dunums of land and 3 sheep per herder. This was an alright deal right up to 1967 when they found themselves back under the control of Israel. All land 1 km from the Jordan River was confiscated by their new masters, removing 80 percent of their farmland. As they are in an area where they are not allowed to build, or renovate their well, or receive electricity they are now a community of 1800 people with a well poisoned by sewage in receipt of six cubic metres of water per hour, which they share with the nearest village. A friend on the delegation with a clearer brain than mine worked out that this was enough water for 97 people given to 3000 people. Which they have to pay for, despite the fact that this should rightfully be their land, and the water they are paying for is theirs by birthright, furthermore being boundaried by two settlements to the East and West, Road 90 (Which they are only allowed to cross to reach thier little remaining farmland between 6am to 6pm) and mountains behind their sense of isolation must be absolutely maddening. The right to, Build houses to accomodate a population that has expanded since 1967, clean water, electricity and freedom of movement are very basic human rights. (Please remember housing, water, electricity and freedom of movement as this is going to be a very common motif over the next few days.)

As a delegate from the country responsible for most of their suffering (the Balfour agreement may be a boring bit of history to us but these people are living with the consequences) I would not have been surprised by some resentment towards us, but instead we received the warm welcome that Palestinians ought to be famous for if our media wasn’t biased towards those with money and power.

Next stop Al Farsij, A farm run by two brothers, Jassir and Fayek. we saw the documents that prove they own the land and the spring on top of their hill that used to supply their land with all the water they needed until the Israeli Defence Force cut their water pipes and diverted the water to israeli settlements. Refusing to cave in to terrorism the brothers took water from a friend in the settlements that had been used to wash dates and recieved drinking water from Ma’an, a Palestinian NGO. Once the IDF saw that these people were still managing to survive they posted demolition orders on every structure. (We were told that the last straw for the soldiers was when they saw one year old olive trees flowering, which means they are ready to bear fruit. Palestinians are superior farmers. FACT.)

This is where it starts to become obvious that they are now the victims of a scam. The Israeli army is using Jordanian law which states that farmers in this area cannot build any structure without government permission. The fact that Jordan has not had control of this area for 41 years seems to have eluded Israel. This gives them 30 days to get an Israeli lawyer, at great expense, to generally have their first application refused by the courts. This process will continue for three years, making their lawyer and the courts much richer. Generally they will see their buildings demolished at the end of this three years. Being determined sorts they will rebuild in a slightly different place and the whole process will begin again. Occasionally the IDF will cite ’security reasons’ and demolish every building on their land with five minutes notice. Nobody likes to be considered predictable I guess.

1:20 am, so this is all you get for today. This is not the sexy occupation we see in other areas, it is simply the slow death of a nation when a foreign occupier steals their water, demolishes even the flimsiest family homes made of plastic sheets and forces them to live in the 9th Century by denying access to electrictiy that runs through cables over their heads. Palestinians are resourceful people who value education above all other things and are excellent farmers. They are not asking for charity or pity. Just to be left alone to get on with their lives using the resources they own by rights. They are not a nation of terrorists or religious zealots. Just people who deserve the right to live a life of their own choosing.