Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

“The breadbasket of Palestine”

Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group | 14.04.2008 11:09 | Anti-militarism | Anti-racism | Palestine | South Coast | World

This report is part of a series of diaries from a delegation of Palestine Solidarity activists visiting occupied Palestine. The delegation is part of an ongoing project by the Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group. A group aimed at making links between grassroots groups in Brighton, UK, and Tubas, Palestine....

Day One

It takes a while to fully process what is going on. The past few weeks have been a blur of preparation, meetings, Arabic lessons, lies to parents (sorry mum, I’m afraid this isn’t Turkey), 30+ hour coach journeys, Lonely Planet guides, and border crossings. As such, it is only when we are actually in the taxi with Fathe that it finally hits me that we’re in the Jordan Valley, West Bank, Palestine.

Fathe is a rich vein of information, and is truly passionate about the situation the Palestinians of this region have been forced into. As we travel round, I pick up some crucial background about the Jordan Valley.

Described as “the bread basket of Palestine”, the Jordan Valley is an incredibly fertile stretch of the West Bank. At between 100 and 350 meters below sea level, the climate is the warmest in the region, and there has been plenty of water supplied by the underground streams and the river Jordan. It is also an incredibly beautiful place to live.

Unfortunately, this has proven to be a curse rather than a blessing for the Palestinians inhabiting the region. The Israeli government have planted over 1 million Palm trees in the region (with a further 3 million planned), and are currently doing everything they can to ensure complete and utter control of the region.

Plantation after plantation shoots past the windows, trees in uniform line after uniform line, Fathe informs us that Israel’s current plans will require 10 million cubic meters of water. If the plantations continue to grow at the planned rate, they will actually run the Dead Sea completely dry within 20 years.

There are currently 52,000 Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley. 40 years ago, there were 200,000. The West Bank itself has been split up into 3 different areas:

Area A: Palestinian Control

Area B: Joint Palestinian and Israeli Control

Area C: Israeli Control

The first place we visit is the village of Zebedad was Area C, and we instantly get a feel for what this means in practical terms. Sitting round drinking tea in the only house in the village with a garden, we ask the villagers about their life.

The “founders” of Zebedad were actually Palestinian refugees from 1948. Jordan agreed to exchange each person’s UN refugee card for 10 Dumums of land and 15 sheep, and dug the resulting village of 300 a small well, about 80 meters deep. 60 years on, and the population has swelled to 1800, whilst the Israelis have confiscated 80% of the land. The entire area of the village is now limited by the Israeli government to roughly 3 football pitches, and the Palestinians are not allowed to extend or even repair their buildings. In order to reach the land which they are still allowed to farm upon, the farmers must cross the (virtually unused) main road, but the Israelis own the road, and have declared it closed between 6pm and 6 am. This acts as a work curfew: if a farmer fails to get back across to his home before the road closure, he will have to sleep in the fields overnight.

As part of the restriction on building, the village is not allowed to establish a sewage reservoir, and many of the villagers have gotten sick, after the well became contaminated. To make things worse, the intensive agriculture around the region has caused the water table to sink, so that the well itself no longer yields fresh water even when not contaminated. The villagers therefore have to buy water off the Israelis, but are limited to 6 liters an hour, which can only provide sufficient drinking water for 92 people a day.

Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group
- e-mail: thewallmustfall@riseup.net

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech