When there is nowhere left to go

Life in Upper Fasayil is precarious. It is in the Jordan Valley that comprises 30% of the Palestinian West Bank. Since 1967 the local community have gone from being a thriving farming community to a group of families squeezed into a villages with mud roads, single story houses, and animal pens. All the farming land around their village has been stolen from them by Israeli settlers, now used to produce crops for profit. They are prohibited from building any new buildings, or from repairing their existing homes. In the centre of the village lies the new school, built of mud and clay by the local community, and supported by volunteers from Brighton. Two days before we arrived the villagers received an order from the Israeli military, stating that they do not have permission to build the school, and if they do not apply within 40 days the school will be domolished. They know that such permission will never be granted, but they will struggle for their children’s right to an education. Palestinians now live on only 5% of the land in the Jordan Valley: the rest being divided between Israeli settlers and Army. Despite this, they are fighting to stay on the tiny bit of land they have left, knowing that the nearby settlements of Tomar and Fasayil(sic) want to expand with the support of the Israeli government. They are all too aware of this plan, and the pressure for them to move into even more overcrowded conditions in Lower Fasayil, 3 km away. A visit to Al Jiftlik, another village not so far away, tells the same story. Standing by the roadside we could see 5 demolished houses, now nothing more than piles of brieze blocks, brightly painted on the side that was once the families’ living room or kitchen. There were 20 houses still standing in this part of the village, and all but two have demolition orders on them. The only difference here is the name of the settlements that will swallow up their land when they have been ethnically cleansed: Pa’qot and Na’ram. Zainab, the mother of one of the local families who now live in just one room, told us that they have been told they will have to move to another area of the village near the school: again squeezing the Palestinians into even less land, and pressurizing them to leave. With such limited access to water, electricity, education and health care, 90% of young people leave the area to live elsewhere in the west bank, or abroad. Israeli plans to completely annex the Jordan Valley, keeping impoverished and landless Palestinians to work and live like slaves in their settlements are moving fast. Their ethnic cleansing is going unchallenged by the international community. I ask myself: If I return here in 10 years what will I find. Will I once again meet, Halla, Zainab, Faisal, Nasser, and the others who welcomed me into their homes, fed me and gave me somewhere to sleep? Or will I find their lives obliterated? The answer to my question rests with the international community and our decision to challence the Israeli occupation, or sit by and watch another people ethnically cleansed and obliterated. This entry  is filed under Agrexco, Boycott, 2007, al jifflik, Jordan Valley, Fasayil, Child Labour, October 2007 Delegation.