Unavoidable?
My least favorite thing about political season is the slanderous ads. Apparently, they are unavoidable. In the Jerusalem Post a new ad has appeared from the McCain Campaign. Barak Obama’s photograph is put beside Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, with a comment “Is it OK to unconditionally meet with anti-American foreign leaders?”. I’m going to leave politics aside here, but just use it as an illustration of the significant power and role that the Israeli lobby plays in American government. The majority of individuals living in the illegal settlements throughout the West Bank are Americans. The government subsidizes the mortgages and provides fabulous municipal services, beautiful parks and efficient transportation. Our country has an intimate connection to Israel; inshallah (God willing), our government’s future leader will be one who places the dignity and respect of humanity above the lust of power and the temptation to use generalizations and stereotypes to exploit situations and circumstance.
Closer to home, we are about to have some new Israeli neighbors. I talked about a Bingo protest we had at Oush Grab a month or so ago. Oush Grab served as an Israeli military base from 1967 to 2006. In 2008 the private land was finally returned to the Palestinian landowners and the rest became public land under the jurisdiction of Beit Sahour municipality. Due to the lack of open space or safe play-havens for children, the municipality has transformed the land into a recreational park complete with a climbing wall and picnic area. There is one issue, though, at the top of the hill there remains some deserted Israeli military structures. A military order still stands on them which prevents the development of space, so the municipality has left the area alone. This order makes all development, Israeli and Palestinian, illegal. The municipality has respected this order; unfortunately, there has been a change in wind.
On the 60thanniversary of Israel’s statehood, the day referred to as Nakba (catastrophe) day to the Palestinians, a group of 40 settlers, some armed, appeared at Oush Grab to take over the site at the top of the hill. They declared they wanted to build a new settlement outpost there. They spray painted slogans such as “Israel belongs to the Jews” on the walls. The presence of settlers at Oush Grab and the possibility of a settlement threaten the Beit Sahour community as well as the new recreational area. Area NGO’s have worked with an organization, Decolonizing Architecture, to develop the hill top space for community usage without breaking the military order and, until now, have succeeded in abating the settler’s presence.
Our internet sleuthing has discovered that this week the settlers plan to come back. Some of us are on a mailing list of Israeli activist movements: here are excerpts from the email (I can forward it to you if you want to see the whole thing!)It’s kind of crazy to be reading it from “the other side”). Note that Oush Grab is referred to as Shdema, the bold emphasis is mine:
1) SHDEMA:
Will Shdema remain in Jewish hands?
This depends on us! The public is invited to participate in a meeting and a visit to the place.
1) On Friday, Tamuz 8 (11.7.08) at 10:00, a meeting will be held in the Gush Etzion Committee Center (Matnas) to thwart attempts by the Palestinians and their collaborators to gain possession of the Shdema Camp in Gush Etzion, on the Gush Etzion - Jerusalem road, near Har Homa.
2) The Shdema Army Camp is located in Zone C (under full Israeli control) and was abandoned two years ago. Despite opposition by senior officers in the IDF, the government agreed to transfer the area to the Palestinian Authority for the purpose of construction of an Arab neighborhood. People from the Palestinian Authority from Beit Sahur have recently taken over the camp with the aid of Leftist and foreign anarchist organizations, whose aim is the destruction of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.
We must act in order to keep Shdema in our hands, because this is Eretz Israel, as well as:
* To guarantee the security of the Eastern Gush Etzion - Jerusalem road.
* To preserve the connection between the Eastern Gush Etzion and Jerusalem.
* To facilitate the development of the Har Homa neighborhood.
* To prevent control of the area by the anarchists and leftists who have recently intensified their activities in the region in general, and in Judea and Samaria in particular. They are acting with great cunning, aided by European budgets, and are stirring up the Arabs.
3) We are preparing a variety of activities with the aid of the Gush Etzion Regional Council and the Action Committees of the settlements to thwart the attempts by the Palestinians- and the anarchists to gain control of the area, and to establish a Jewish settlement there.
…
5) The participation of each and everyone of us is vital.
6) On Monday, Tamuz 11 (14.7.08), with G-d’s help, we will come to Shdema and hold a kumsitz with committee singing until dawn.
Summary: Friday settlers are going to show up to tour the land. We are going to hang out in the municipal park and just observe and ensure that the IDF does its responsibility to remove the settlers (because of the military order it’s just as illegal for them to be there as it is for Palestinians). Point #6 is their plan to come on Monday night and sleepover at Oush Grab/Shdema. This is a very strategic move that is common with the establishment of the settlements. Honestly? It makes me very nervous. A settlement at Oush Grab will bring in floods of disaster to the community. A settlement will first take over a large part of the community for homes and even more land would then be destroyed to build the Wall around it for it’s ‘protection’. This would completely illiminate Beit Sahour (the West Bank’s largest Christian community), enclose Bethlehem, and cut off all of the access of the Palestinians in the Bethlehem region from Wadi Nar— the only connecting road they have to other villages. I can’t hide the fact that I’m a little bit more than afraid for my home. God is big, He knows what is going on, He is in control. All I can do is have faith in that.
