Today I was contacted by Susan Hoder of the Rhode Island Qalkilya Alliance for help in their continuing efforts on behalf of the citizens of Jayous in the West Bank. Susan’s organization, RIQA, has been working furiously to garner public attention to bring international pressure on Israel to stop the destruction of this agricultural village. She will be meeting tomorrow with members of Senator Kennedy’s staff and is looking for anyone or any organization that wants to help in their efforts. The following is a brief explanation from their web site, www.riqa.info.
Background on the Current Situation
On Nov. 29th, farmers in the Palestinian agricultural village of Jayyous found Israeli construction crews with US-made Caterpillar earthmoving equipment destroying village farmland. The construction workers said that they had orders from the Israeli army to build 80 Jewish housing units as the start of a settlement called Zufim North and expect they may use 500 acres of land belonging to 79 Jayyous families.
Families of the community of Jayyous have farmed their ancestral orchards and fields for many hundreds of years. They first lost 500 acres of land in 1948 to Israel. The rest of Jayyous was captured in 1967 by Israel and in the years since Israel has stolen more and more of the land and water resources of the Jayyous community. The Jewish settlement of Zufim was built in 1989 on land belonging to Jayyous families. Jewish setters from Zufim in the past have stoned Palestinian farmers and stolen their agricultural produce.
The LIDAR corporation is the developer for Zufim. LIDAR is owned by Lev Leviev, who is said to be the richest man in Israel and is associated with the Lubavitch Chassidic sect which opposes giving any land to a Palestinan state, believing God meant for all the land “between the river and the sea” to be settled by Jews. LIDAR confiscated additional land from Palestinian farmer Sharif Omar for the building of the Zufim North quarry a few years ago. The quarry has blasted deeper and deeper into the farm land and is now just 15 feet from the water reservoir which provides most of the water for Jayyous’ farmers and risks being destroyed by the explosions.
Two years ago farmers in Jayyous found military orders in their orchards saying that some of their farmland would be destroyed for the building of a Separation Barrier that would run 6km deep into Jayyous land from the Green line (Israel/West Bank border) and 75% of their remaining land would be trapped behind this barrier. Jayyous organized active non-violent campaigns to resist this. Jayyous farmers offered to share the cost of the wall to have it built on the green line instead of severing their land, but Israel was not interested. Israel stated the Barrier was for security, not illegal land theft, but farmers anticipated that the Barrier would be used to annex existing Jewish settlements and additional land to Israel to be used as “facts on the ground” in further negotiations.
Farmer Sharif Omar testified at the Hague regarding the impact of the Barrier on his community. The US House of Representatives passed a resolution opposing the IC’s ruling regarding the illegal nature of the Barrier. Since the creation of the barrier farmers have struggled to access their land behind the barrier. Israel would only allow access through the successful application for a temporary permit. From the time the farmers finally accepted that they would have to do this, permits have often been issued to babies, dead people, people living abroad, or those over 50, while many of the farmers whose families and community depend on the land have been denied permits. This, along with restriction from taking produce to markets, has resulted in the economic collapse of this agricultural community, and devastating anguish and despair for its people whose identity and livelihood is drawn from the land. In the past Israel has prevented Palestinian farmers from access to their land and then declared the land abandoned and confiscated it under the Ottoman Land Law of 1858.
The first warning of the current land confiscation came in mid-July of this year, when a group of Jewish settlers and Israeli army troops arrived in buses and jeeps and filmed staged confrontations, some of the Israeli settlers playing the part of Palestinians. Afterwards, Jayyous residents saw signs posted in the area with the names of famous Zionists, and saw that further properties had been marked to be confiscated.
A new dirt road was built leading towards the illegal settlement of Zufim, which has already confiscated 450 acres of Jayyous’ farm land. in November, Military Order #04/75646-2004 was issued, stating that “no building is to be allowed within a 300 meter wide area on the eastern side of the Wall,” further hampering development of towns already hemmed in by the barrier, and possibly presaging demolition of already-built structures near the fence. (StopTheWall.org, Dec. 1)
Intervews with a farmer and a landowner from Jayyous about the situation can be heard online at Flashpoints(scroll down to Wednesday, Dec. 1st). Photos of Jayyous can be found at Jayyous Online in the Arabic section of the website at the blue highlighted tab. We also have video interviews and footage from Jayyous available.
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