Residents of one village are feeling the effects of Israel's policies as ground is cleared for a wall, writes MICHAEL JANSENin Walaja near Bethlehem
AS PALESTINIAN president Mahmoud Abbas departed for New York yesterday to present the case for Palestinian statehood to the UN, Israeli bulldozers were clearing privately owned Palestinian land to erect the concrete slab wall that will surround the village of Walaja, forcing inhabitants to exit and enter through a tunnel connected to the neighbouring town of Beit Jala.
“One Israeli soldier will be able to control the lives of 2,300,” states municipal councillor Sheerin al-Araj as we drive up the steep dusty roads of the village of white-painted box houses with flat roofs. “We will lose our natural growth area. This wall is a structural displacement tool. Workers, students, bankers, and civil servants will leave because they cannot bear the emotional torture of Israeli security checks at the tunnel and at the [Bethlehem] checkpoint. Walaja will become a village of women and small children . . . until they leave.”
At every vantage point where we halt, the wall looms well inside the West Bank rather than along the old ceasefire line that formed the border with Israel until the 1967 occupation.
We pause at the home of Omar Shananir, his wife and three children located on the outskirts of the village on a steep slope. “This house will have its own wall and fence and private $750,0000 tunnel. It’s crazy,” says Sheerin.
Taghrid al-Atrash, a handsome woman with tearing eyes, invites us into her sitting room. “My son Muhammad was arrested this morning trying to reach Jerusalem. He was with friends who returned home but he is being held at Atarot,” an Israeli military facility in Jerusalem.
“He was looking for work, any work. He is 19. He finished school this year. He was arrested last week . . . ” Sheerin observes. “He can be remanded for eight days, renewable.” He faces jail time or a fine or both.
Muhammad Hassan al-Atrash, a cousin and survivor of the 1948 migration, complains that the Israelis have uprooted 60 olive, hawthorn, pine and oak trees belonging to him and his brother.
“The [Israeli] security guards even stole the wood.” At Sheerin’s cool office, she tells the story of her village as we sip freshly squeezed grape juice. “Everything that has happened in Palestine [since the creation of Israel] has happened here. In 1948, we were driven from our village on the other side of the valley. We lost our homes and 70 per cent of our best land and 30 wells. Many [of the original 1,600] villagers left for Jordan where there is now a neighbourhood called Walaja in Amman, inhabited by 20,000 people from the village.”
Those who owned land on the stony, dry slopes where shepherds grazed their flocks and new Walaja was built, initially sheltered in caves or mud-brick huts. All were refugees entitled to UN Relief and Works Agency rations and services.
“My family lived in a cave for 12 years, until my mother said we had to move to a house so my sister could go to school,” says Ms Araj.
Ahead of the 1967 war, her mother sent her father to buy supplies. “He came back with 10,000 cigarettes.” Her mother took the children to her parents home in the Old City, a move that entitled the family to highly prized blue Jerusalem identity cards giving its members the right to reside in the city and to travel freely throughout Israel and the West Bank. West Bankers hold cards covered in an orange jacket, confining them to the West Bank.
After the war, half of new Walaja’s land was annexed to Jerusalem and proclaimed Israel’s exclusive capital, and half was classified as West Bank land. Some Walaja villagers had Jerusalem ID cards, others West Bank cards.
During the 1970s, Israel built the colonies of Gilo and Har Gilo, deemed illegal under international law. Bypass roads and settlements took more village land, reducing holdings to 1,063 acres. Walaja’s inhabitants must now contend with a new settlement called Gival Yael, 90 house demolitions and stop-buil- ding orders, fines and costs of demolition for homes built without permits, which Israel does not grant. Villagers also face uncertainty over identity documents. Walaja is just one of the West Bank’s endangered villages.
Sheerin dismisses as an “adventure” the Palestinian Authority’s effort to secure international recognition of a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967. “Nothing will change on the ground.” If the Palestinian strategy is successful, change could take years.” If the US vetoes a Security Council resolution proposing recognition and full UN membership and the General Assembly rejects granting Palestinian non-member state status, she asserts, “This will lead to violence. We will see that the whole international community is ganging up on Palestinians again.”