On the
edge of a long dirt road lies a row of plum trees with rotted
plums scattered at the foot of the trees. On the other side of
the dirt road lies Karmit Zur, an Israeli settlement in the middle
of the West Bank, near the farming town of Beit Ommar. Ibrahim,
a Palestinian farmer shows us his land. He points to his land
where the split by a freshly made dirt road, “That is my
land”, then he turns towards the Settlement across a barber
wire fence, “so is that.” Ibrahim’s fruit is
rotting on the trees because he cannot come to his land to harvest
it. Normally, when he attempts to come to his land, he is chased
off by settler security who yells at him and / or shoots at him
with their Uzis.
Today
about 10 internationals are accompanying Ibrahim to his fields,
but he has no real hopes that it will change much. His plums have
already rotted and it is too late to spray for the grapes which
should be ready by next month. As we stand in the hot sun, we
see a soldier start running towards us in the distance. He comes
up to us and tells us that we can’t be there. “There
is a security area here”, he tells us. “You have to
be at least 300 meters away from the security fence”.
Ibrahim
steps forward, “But this is my land, can’t I harvest
it?”
“No,
how do we know you are not a terrorist? You know that someone
came in here last month and killed people here, now go back!”
Ibrahim
looks at the young soldier, “But this has always been my
land and you can see that I have no weapons.”
“Look
I think you are right.” The young man finally admits to
us, “but I can’t do anything about it. I am just following
orders”.
One of
the other internationals steps up, “And if you were given
orders to shoot these people, would you follow them?”
“Look,
I’m not going to shoot these people, but I am gong to enforce
the law which says you can’t be here”
Then,
Settler security arrives and suddenly things are much more tense.
They immediately question the Palestinians and detain one man,
separating him from the rest of the group and forcing him to sit
in the hot sun. We inquire about the man, but the settlers are
less friendly than the soldier and they try to get us away from
where the man is. I sit on a rock in eyesight of the man along
with a couple other Internationals. A settler comes up to us demanding
that we move. “You must go!” The large man with an
Uzi tells me. He lifts up his hand as if to slap me across the
face, but is soon distracted and walks away. Eventually, after
a half an hour of sitting in the sun, the man in released. His
crime, not carrying his Identification with him.
We walk
away from the fields as fruit falls to the ground and the Palestinian
farmers of Beit Ommar still can’t return to their land.
