Unauthorized presence

Yesterday, I joined the Wi'am Center for another fieldtrip; we went to Beit Ummar, an important Palestinian farming community South of Bethlehem. Approximately 17’000 people live in this municipality and their agricultural production is essential to Palestinians. The village is currently surrounded by 6 Israeli settlements, slowly eating away the farming land of the village. This forced cohabitation generates numerous problems for the local community: a very strong military presence around the village with ongoing risks such as the possible closure of the village by the Israeli army or regular arrests of villagers; the sewage from the settlements being dumped into Palestinian fields; the regular attacks by settlers on farmers; the growing difficulty for Palestinian farmers to access fields and orchards...

Beit Ummar is located on the road that goes from Bethlehem to Hebron, technically the heart of the Palestinian territories. However, driving on this road, it is difficult to see anything of what Palestine could possibly be: the road is built to access settlements and the entire landscape is made of one settlement after another, one outpost after another. It always puzzles me deeply to see the reality of Israeli settlements; to see that they exist, function, prosper, and grow… as if nothing could stop them! And nothing does, right? If you get caught in this landscape (and it is visually very powerful), you are made to believe that Beit Ummar is, at the end, the unauthorized presence on this land.

Site of the Palestine Solidarity Project defending Beit Ummar's rights, in collaboration with international groups as well as Israeli activists: http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/

Site of the Land Research Center providing a study of the settlements around Bethlehem with maps (under Case Studies, go to May 2001, and click on the 3rd link): http://www.poica.org/