FROM THE JORDAN VALLEY, ONCE THE BREADBASKET OF PALESTINE.
Where today residents must resist just to exist.
An interview with Luisa Morgantini, former Vice President of the European Parliament, upon her return from a tour of the Jordan Valley and the West Bank in which she led an Italian delegation from Associazione per la Pace.
Deprived of water and electricity, surrounded by settlements and imprisoned in a large closed military zone under occupation since 1967, the Jordan Valley’s residents resist. Plagued by home demolitions and land confiscation, they represent one of the most vulnerable communities in the entire C area of the West Bank (area under complete Israeli military and administrative control). Today, the population numbers approximately 56,000; before 1967 it counted over 300,000—a sharp decline provoked by a long process of expulsion and evictions that has taken place far from the public eye and received virtually no media attention.
A delegation from the organisation Assopace, led by Luisa Morgantini, former Vice President of the EP, visited the Jordan Valley and met with the local communities.
Interview conducted by Barbara Antonelli.
Mrs. Morgantini, you visited to the Jordan Valley twice in one week, just a few days after the Israeli Army once again demolished the structures and tents of the Bedouin communities in the North. What did you see?
If area C, 60% of the occupied West Bank, is a synonym for expulsion and annexation for Israeli colonization, in the Jordan Valley all this is greatly intensified. A silent displacement is being carried out by Israel, through demolitions, evictions, land confiscation, and denied access to water resources: these policies have promoted the establishment of over 30 illegal settlements. Even before the Oslo Agreements, Israel had already been aiming to create a seam-zone between the West Bank and Jordan in line with the Allon Plan, through the annexation of this 2400 km² of fertile land extending from the Green Line to the Dead Sea. An area cleansed of its inhabitants today is more easily annexed tomorrow. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has always stated that Israel will never give up the Jordan Valley; and a similar refrain characterised Olmert’s election campaign in 2006. This exact intent to maintain control of the area, beyond being theorised in the Allon plan, was also practised by Israel during the First Intifada, when Palestinian residents in Nablus under curfew were blocked from reaching their properties and harvesting their fields located in the Jordan Valley. Now this area is a closed zone.
Since 1967, Israeli government has continued its expansion of settlements, which today occupy half of area C, while another 44% has been designated as military “firing zones” and natural reserves; only 6% has been left to the Palestinians. [Israeli] Civil Administration takes care of the rest, operating as a counterpart of the government, issuing demolition orders, taking control of all major water resources, even water tanks, as happened in Bardala, or destroying water pipelines and pumps, and putting in motion legal procedures to take away from the Bedouin communities the little they have left. One-third of the West Bank's water resources are located in the Jordan Valley: it's appalling to think that the people living on this land feel the water—a public resource, a basic human right—flowing under their feet but they can’t drink it, they can’t water their cows and sheep, their sole means for the survival of communities that want to continue grazing their animals. Israel’s national water corporation Mekorot has dug many wells to serve settlers’ communities and irrigate illegally confiscated lands. Not to serve the Palestinians or their remaining lands.
In the district of Tubas, average daily consumption of water for Palestinian residents is 30 liters per person, while in the nearby settlement of Beka’ot people consume 400 liters a day. Israeli settlers consume 6 times as much water as Palestinians. In some cases, such as in the villages of Humsa and al-Hadudiya, after attempting to establish water reserves and networks, local communities faced harsh repression on the part of the Israeli Army, who confiscated all their equipment and cut off their water. In this way Israel maintains its monopoly on water resources and Palestinians are obliged to purchase their water by the tank at 33 NIS per cubic meter; while 9,400 settlers receive subsidies or discounts (sometimes paying up to 75% less) for water for domestic use and their swimming-pools. The same is true for electricity: Palestinian communities see utility poles passing over their heads but they can't use them, if ever they are able to hook themselves up, settlers and soldiers arrive to arrest them and take away their electricity.
On 19 July, the Israeli army demolished the village of Al-Farisiya (east of Tubas) destroying over 76 structures and leaving entire families homeless, half of the people were children. You visited the area with a delegation of journalists and diplomats organised by the PA's Ministry of Information and the governorate of Tubas.
We saw the sun burned faces of children and shepherds who narrated their painful odyssey without tears. We witnessed the destruction: mattresses, furniture, personal belongings, destroyed taboun bread ovens, demolished tents. This is what remained of the daily life of a whole community that is today homeless, obliged to move once again. Over 30% of Bedouin families have been displaced at least once since the year 2000, while several families have re-pitched their ruined camps at least 4 times. Where are they supposed to go?
Even though I have been travelling to Palestine for over 25 years, the trip from Tubas to Al-Farisyia was a total shock to me: a desolate and bare landscape, sheep and goats crowding under the skimpy shade of a well-worn tent; skinny cows who use the cement blocks of the Firing Zones to shield themselves from the intense sun. These Firing Zone blocks are everywhere: in front of the Bedouin tents, along the streets. During military training, Palestinians get wounded, as happened to the mayor of Al-Aqaba when he was 17 years old: he is now paralysed and in a wheelchair. Access and movement are restricted through checkpoints, such as the dreaded one in Taysir, where you must have a permit or coordination number to pass, and diplomats, ministers and the local residents of course, have to wait for hours in the suffocating heat (the Swiss diplomat in our delegation did not use very 'diplomatic' words to describe the soldiers’ behaviour here.)
A silent expulsion, but a strong resistance too.
The non-violent popular resistance committee, led by Fathi Khdirat, represents another extraordinary experience of Palestinian steadfastness: a movement focused on non-violent actions to defend the community’s presence and strengthen its skills and abilities. In mobilizing local communities through volunteering their time and energy, the committee represents a response to the Israeli occupation. But it is also a concrete step towards reconstruction, through traditional building methods, such as the school they are building in the village of Jiftlik, which will serve children from the Bedouin camps. The Israeli Army and the Civil Administration have already ordered its demolition: and as they demolish, the communities rebuild. It is a non-violent act of resistance against the occupation, which should be recognized and supported by movements of international solidarity.
Expulsions in the Jordan Valley are distanced from media attention, but also from the funding of aid agencies and for years now they have been far from the Palestinian political summits. What can be done?
It is true: apart from few exceptions, politically and geographically isolated, the Jordan Valley is far from attracting big groups of international and Israeli activists such as those who have mobilized their energies against Gaza’s blockade, evictions in East Jerusalem, or along side non-violent local committees against the Wall and the occupation in villages throughout the West Bank.
In addition to the geographical distance which separates indigenous communities, the Jordan Valley is less inhabited (as it is area C) than other areas of the West Bank. Furthermore, there is a gap between Bedouin pastoral nomadic and stationary communities. As representatives of solidarity movements and groups, it is essential to be self-critical, since throughout the years we have abandoned area C and the Jordan Valley. It is important to achieve an end to the Israeli occupation and support campaigns against settlement expansion, as well as to provide Bedouin communities with water and electricity: all is part of this objective. Eventually, with Salam Fayyad’s government, the Palestinian Authority realized that area C is part of occupied Palestine and it is necessary to advocate for projects and initiatives in the region. The PA’s choice to ask the international community to intervene and to get international agencies to operate in the Jordan Valley, has resulted in positive responses, but Israel has intensified its repressive and destructive policy. I think that the PA should challenge the Israeli occupation and colonization in day to day life, in any possible and impossible place. The Jordan Valley is occupied Palestine, there are no A, B, and C areas. So much time has been wasted!
The Jordan Valley Campaign continues to face several challenges, along with the other popular committees in the West Bank villages: they continue popular non-violent resistance based on determination. As Fathi says, with his bright eyes and sunburnt face, while he mixes home-made hay-and-clay bricks, “To exist is to resist”.
