Today ICAHD provided an opportunity for camp participants to gain understanding of another important aspect of the conflict, that of the position of Israeli Arabs (Palestinian citizens of Israel or Palestinians ‘48) and the destroyed villages from the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of May 1948, which resulted in some 531 Palestinian villages being completely destroyed and many others being damaged.
Guided by ICAHD staff member, Ashraf Abu Moch, our journey began by traveling north on highway 6. This Trans-Israel highway is known as the “spine” because it links the Jewish regions in the north of the country, south to Beersheba in the Negev. Officially, this road is to ease the traffic load (density). The route was planned carefully so as not to take land from the many kibbutz and moshavs in the area. Instead, further Palestinian land was confiscated, more of their homes and buildings were demolished and trees uprooted. The highway separates farmers from their fields with access to them becoming increasingly difficult.
Eighty percent of the Israeli population live in five cities along the Mediterranean Sea. Highway #6 facilitates quick travel to the settlements in the east, thus it is part of a scheme to encourage the Jewish population to move eastward, continuing the judaisation of the Galilee. It squeezes most of the Palestinians into a small area called the Triangle, where most of the Palestinians live.
During part of our travel, we could see the Wall to the east of us. What was so shocking was knowing that on the other side, where the Palestinians live, the full nine meters of the wall is exposed, whereas on the western side, high banks have been made and planted with shrubs and trees. Within three or four years, the currently visible four meters of the top of the wall will be completely hidden to those driving by, thus the realities of the “prison” on the other side can be completely forgotten.
Our first destination was Baqa el-Gharbiya, a Palestinian town of 24,500. As it is where Ashraf grew up, he was able to give us detailed insight to the history of the locality. Located right on the Green Line, this town in Israel modeled the possibility of Arabs and Jews intermingling. Most of its population used to work in various parts of Israel and felt free to travel around the country. Jewish people made weekly visits to Baqa el-Gharbiya taking advantage of the cheaper prices in their bustling market.
In the last few years, this has changed dramatically. In August 2002, Israeli bulldozers destroyed the entire market, which had more than 250 stalls resulting in Baqa el-Gharibiya becoming more like a ghost town compared to the prosperity it once knew.
Few residents feel comfortable visiting Jewish areas because of the treatment they receive and most Palestinians from here have lost their jobs to the influx of people Israel has brought in from countries like Romania, China, Thailand and Malaysia who now do the menial jobs. The erection of The Wall has stolen 1500 dunams (nearly 400 acres) of the town’s land and is located along the eastern edge of the town. From a gap in this concrete monstrosity, Ashraf pointed to Baqa e-Sharqiya, its neighbouring town just metres away. The people’s lives had been closely inter-twined by marriages, businesses and friendships. Now any contact between people from the two towns is financially prohibitive and exceedingly difficult as they can now longer simply cross the check-point but they are sent on an arduous detour that can take hours to complete and is very expensive. Indeed the people of Baqa e-Sharqiya have no agricultural land and no industry, thus they live off monthly donations from the European Union.
In the afternoon, we went further north, driving through Nazareth. This ancient city is home to 70,000 Palestinians on 14,000 dunams of land while neighbouring Nazareth Illit, founded in the 1950’s now houses 45,000 residents on 30,000 dunams of confiscated land, which chokes Nazareth of any possible expansion.
Soon we found ourselves in the countryside, near a park. Thirty-four year old, Ziad Awaysi, guided us in a walk to a cemetery, over grown with weeds, it was once part of Tsipori, where his grandmother was from. This was one of the towns that were totally destroyed when the state of Israel was established. Ziad held up pictures, taken of this town with its sandstone houses covering a hill when 6000 people lived here. Only a castle jetting above deciduous and conifer trees, built in 1870, remains.
Ziad’s words continue to echo in my ears, “Palestinians need to know what it is to simply exist before the move to coexistence.”
