Day 3: I give up on trying to think of clever titles

So I will try to describe today to you while my darling husband tries to figure out how to upload the flip video that was supposed to be today's blog. Sidebar: the Flip takes fantastic videos that load fine to my laptops but I will be damned if I can figure out how to upload them here.

Anyway, today we went to Um il Fahm, a now-city that has absorbed internally displaced Palestinians from, among other places, Al-Lajjun village (which is just a few miles down the road from Um il Fahm). We met with a villager (whom you will see, hopefully, on the video) who I will call AM. AM was only 7 in 1949 when the Israelis entered the village and confiscated his family's land. The Israeli government has never allowed the villagers to return home. In fact, within two years, their entire village was destroyed. This after Israel had entered into an agreement with Jordan pursuant to which the Israelis had specifcially agreed NOT to confiscate land or enter villages using guns or violence.

Immediately, the Israelis implemented military rule on the entire town of Um il Fahm, which lasted from 1949 to 1965. This military rule included a curfiew from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. during which time the villagers could not leave their homes and thus could not work. After many years of NONVIOLENT activism, the Palestinians convinced the army to lift the military rule.

But it was not until 1972 that the town had electricity. The Israeli government consistently put obstacles in their way but AM stressed that they developed the town via repeated nonviolent resistance. Still, unemployment for the descendants of this rich and self-sufficient village stands at over 25% today. Nor are the villagers free from oppression. Here is how it works. Israel refuses to grant Palestinians building permits. But Palestinians, like the rest of us, need homes or have homes that need improvements, maintenance, and repair. Or need schools, or hospitals, or libraries or well the list goes on and on. So, knowing the risk, the Palestinians build/improve and then the Israeli government issues a demolition order. Most families live like this for years, knowing that at any time, their houses and buildings could be demolished. (House demolitions are also used, in violation of international law, as a way of collectively punishing a family when one member is accused or detained [but not tried or found guilty] of a security violation. For more on house demolitions, see Jeff Halper's "An Israeli in Palestine" or his website, http://icahd.org/eng/. Jeff's is one of my favorite books). Since 2000, 11 houses in Um il Fahm have been demolished.

But back to AM's village. He took us to his land where he and one of the village elders described pre-1948 village life. The people owned livestock, plows, combines and had irrigation systems (no, it was not the Jews that made the desert bloom - this was a fertile land.) They had wells and grist mills powered hydrolically. They had a doctor and a nurse, 2 mosques, a cemetary, a market, a bus station and a life where all the villagers attended weddings and funerals collectively. And they have documentation of the 480 people that owned land here. Interestingly enough, in this case, likely because of the activism, the State of Israel has offered the people financial compensation for their land. But the villagers refused the government's offer. Why? THEY WANT TO GO HOME. The villagers hired lawyers (that's dangerous) and took their case to court. Despite concrete evidence of land ownership, however, they have lost the case in the Israeli courts. Unwilling to give up, AM reports that they are planning to take their case to the International Court of Justice and the United Nations. If we read that either of those two bodies rules against the State of Israel, I think we can now all agree such a ruling will not be an act of anti-semitism.

I should tell you that AM told us this story while we were standing on his land, where his home used to be. The village was one of the richest villages. All around us, instead of houses and schools, farms and livestock, were JNF trees. To this day, the villagers cannot go home. I have an amazing video of AM - if we cannot get it loaded and you want to see it, please email me and I will forward.

Meantime, we also today visited Ein Hod. So Ein Hod has the distinction of being a village in the Haifa region whose residents were expelled in 1948 but whose village was not destroyed. Standing today are beautiful buildings, occupied now by a "progressive" Israeli artists' colony. In 1948, when forced to flea, the residents fled up the hill and rebuilt their lives in a village they named also Ein Hod. Here's this trick, though. First, once the residents "left" their hones, the "Present-Absent Law" took effect, meaning that if for one month you are not present in your home, it is considered abandoned and the state confiscates it. Second, for years, the state of Israel would not recognize the village. There are numerous unrecognized villages in Israel. This means, for Ein Hod, that when the villagers re-established themselves after having been expelled from their homes, the state refused to provide then with services, like, oh, say water, electricity, sewage services, health, education you know, minor things. Our co-leader told us the story of how, when leading a group of Palestinian teenagers on a Birthright Re-Plugged trip, where the children, because they are not yet 16, can go and visit their land, one young girl called her grandfather on the phone from Ein Hod, her village. He told her how to find the family home. She did, knocked on the door, introduced herself and was told by the current "resident" (squatter?) that she was welcome to visit anytime. How generous.

AnywAy, I should not sign off without tell you that in response to their "unrecognized" status, some of the Palestinians organized into the Association of Forty and fought long and hard for recognition. We ate at the restaurant owned by one of the Palestinian activists and then watched a documentary on the unrecognized villages. I will say one thing for the Israelis - they are frighteningly good at devising mechanisms through which they can "claim" the land.