Ein Al Beide women’s group: ‘To exist in this region is resistance!’

To the north of the Jordan Valley is a remote town called Ein Al Beide, a picture of devastation and destruction surrounded by Israeli opulance created from stolen Palestinian lands. Where once they had thousands of dunums of land only 100 dunums remain. It was in this town where we met with the Womens Cooperative Group who meet weekly or, they say, up to three times a week in emergency situations, to discuss general womens issues and undergo training for cultivation of produce. They have been established now for approximately 18 months and meet in a large purpose built community centre funded by themselves from the sale of honey. Amana is a key woman from Tubas town who travels to instruct the women and encourage topics for discussion. They have many ongoing projects. Today we met with over 20 members of the group and they kindly allowed our delegation to interview them before this training session began. We asked of them: ‘What kinds of things you do, why and how you come together?’ and they replied: ‘We come together during the day between childcare, farming and discuss issues for women in general, locally and to learn and begin many projects to develop our skills, produce goods for sale in Tubas, Ramallah and Bethlehem. We keep bees to produce local honey and make some handicrafts’. Their newest project to date is the cultivation of mushrooms from information provided from a European delegation. They fund their projects themselves in their own way and receive help from a similar women’s project in Jerusalem. They talked about their families and marriage and they said to us: ‘We are now beginning to marry later, now maybe from 20-24 years old which is a change from before. We do use birth control at times, we are starting to’. We also asked about problems at checkpoints when they are in labour or close to their due dates? How close the nearest hospital is, if they face delays, and how long it takes to arrive at hospital? ‘We have Allah’s help. Many of us prepare for childbirth close to our due dates. If we can, we stay with families on the other side of the checkpoints in Tubas, the nearest town to Nablus and Jenin hospitals. Some travel to families in Jerico (85km away) to avoid crossing the checkpoints. The older (more experienced) women of the communities help the younger women when giving birth in the home. We cope’. We asked: ‘You must be angry and very upset with the situation in Palestine. What do you say to your children to help them cope and help them suppress their anger and upset at the Israeli treatment which is often very aggressive or humiliating?’ ‘We are used to the situation and ask our children just to be patient, we are afraid to lose our children to Israeli violence. Some groups still want to resist but our communities are punbished. We continue to ask them to show patience. This area is sensitive: we are small communities and need to remain here as the Israeli’s want kick us out completely. We ask them not to aggravate the situation. We know we have the right to resist against the occupation which is recognised by the United Nations but local communities are often punished.’ How do women here deal with their frustrations, do they have their own way to deal with life under occupation? ‘To exist in this region is resistance! To force us out from our land makes life very unbearable’. If women resist at checkpoints what happens to them? ‘We resist by refusing. We are asked to open our clothes. When we refuse we are not allowed through checkpoints, this is the Israeli punishment. One woman reached the Tayasir checkpoint during labour and it was closed. She then wanted to go to Al Hamra checkpoint to get to hospital but gave birth in the car on the way.’ Many of the women offered additional comments relating to their situation: ‘We will remain on our land under all kinds of conditions under occupation. We want people outside know about the situation. We have the right to refuse Israeli violence, we only want to live in peace, this is our right, it is everyone’s right. We will stand strong on our land and challenge the occupation and we will not leave.’ One woman passionately added ‘Our smile is to encourage the coming generation to stand strong and firm on our land’.