Kay,
Patty, Bernhard and I left for the village of Salfeet. It is located
between Nablus and Jerusalem. It is a farming community of approx.
10,000 people. We had to walk to the check point leaving Nablus,
then get a taxi to take us through another check point and to
where we walked over 3 roadblocks to get to a small village called
Yasuf. From there we called for another taxi which took us into
Salfeet. Total distance approx. 5 miles, total time approx. 4
hrs. And we had it easy compared to the Palestinians.
We spent
the rest of the day talking to community leaders getting a feel
for Salfeet. Our primary task here is to determine if ISM should
put people here for the duration of Freedom Summer. We found that
60% of all the settlers in the West Bank live in the district
of Salfeet, an area approx. the size of a county in Michigan.
Also 40% of the underground water is in Salfeet district, so it
is an area coveted by the Israelis very much. For example, overlooking
the town of Salfeet is the settlement of Ariel which contains
70,000 settlers.
While
the town of Salfeet is under curfew most of the time, the soldiers
are not in the town all the time and people move around carefully,
in defiance, trying to bring some normality to their lives. But
while we were setting in the mayor’s office talking, the
soldiers came into town and enforced the curfew, so we had to
set and drink tea for several hours until the soldiers left.
Later,
we visited several buildings and houses that had been destroyed
by the occupation forces. This included a water tower in the process
of being built. A sign on the tower said it was a project of the
U.N. being financed by USAID. It was damaged beyond repair by
tank and machine gun fire. Taxpayers’ dollars at work -
building then destroying.
Friday
6am: we were woke by the sound of tanks and APCs 2 blocks
away. We saw people being forced out of their house and standing
in the street. We called our Palestinian contact person and asked
if he wanted us to go out and investigate. He said go ahead. We
walk out and down the street towards the tank. We heard an explosion,
which later we were informed was a sound grenade. We stood approx.
25 yards away from the tank in full view. The soldiers did not
see us until they were leaving the house, which said to us that
they know there is no resistance fighters in this town. When they
did finally see us they were startled and got into their vehicles.
A jeep drove up to us and the soldier inside said to me: "what
are you doing here?" I told him: "we are here watching
what you are doing here." He looked at me and said: "you
can go," and we walked about 10 feet away and stopped and
watched them leave.
We then
spent about 2 hours with the family who fed us breakfast and told
us what happened. It seems as the soldiers were patrolling the
town, they saw movement on the roof of this house, and they drove
the people out to the street. They made a man who lives across
the road go into the house being searched as a human shield and
they went to the roof and found a small herd of goats the family
keeps there for milk.
We continued
to meet with people from the town for the rest of the day. Most
of the military activity is for the purpose of harassment and
disrupting of normal life. No one can go to work, all roads are
blocked, no travel in or out. In the night usually around 2 or
3am they enter the town and start shooting randomly, sometimes
at houses. Flares are shot into the air and everyone’s sleep
is disrupted. The children are being traumatized, and the school
exams which are very important to their future are not allowed
to happen. Much of the military activity is pure vandalism.
Saturday
- we went to a small farming community called Iskaka,
about 6 kilometers from Salfeet where Israeli settlers were in
the process of confiscating a farmer’s land. They had bulldozed
a road around the land they were taking. Because it was Saturday
no one was working at the time we were there, so we were able
to see very clearly what they were doing. We told the farmer we
would return tomorrow and see if we could talk with the settlers,
hopefully not getting shot in the process.
We returned
Sunday and walked to the area being confiscated. About 20 Palestinian
farmers went with us which caused us some concern as they were
at risk of being shot at more than us, and the settlers might
not see us at first. So we asked the farmer to stay a way back
while we walked slowly towards the settlers. When we were approx
100 yards away they shot several times into the air. We stopped
and the farmers moved further back. We stood there for about a
half hour in plain sight watching for what they would do next.
Finally a small pickup truck came up and drove right by all of
us without stopping. Checking us out, I guess. Over the next half
hour all the settlers left but 2. Finally they drove up to within
25 yards of us and motioned for us to come to them. We walked
up to them, the one not driving was carrying an Uzi on his lap.
He offered me his hand and I shook it. They wanted to know what
we were about. I told him we were from the U.S. and we were touring
the West Bank to see for ourselves what was going on as we did
not believe what we saw and heard on our media. I asked him what
they were doing and he told me they were constructing a military
base, which is the standard first step in land confiscation. They
asked us if we were with the farmers up the hill and I said that
they asked us to come and see what was happening. At this time
the conversation ended and they drove away. They left the area
a few minutes later and we went back to the farmers house had
tea, coffee, and food. At 2 pm we left to go to Jerusalem to see
the rest of Michigan Peace Team’s team off as they were
all leaving except Kay, Mike and I.
