Let's not talk about how long its been...

Yeah, it has been more than a month. I've been pretty busy with classes and my internship (both are going swimmingly). But with that out of the way, there are a few things worth mentioning since my last post:

1) Farmers in Jayyous (I transliterated the name of the village)

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet with farmers and other village leaders from the town of Jayyous, a small farming town in the northern part of the West Bank. They filled me in on there day to day difficulties arising from being occupied as well as their specific issues with the building of the Separation Barrier.

If you look at the map you can clearly see the green armistice line from the 1948 war as well as the route of the wall. A large portion of Jayyous' farmland lies on the left hand side of the wall, limiting their access to these areas as I will get to in a second. The purpose of the wall in this area is to secure land and resources for the settlement of Zufin and its planned expansion. The townspeople of Jayyous have sought legal recourse in rerouting the wall, but have met with only partial success.

If you have land that lies within the cordoned off area and you wish to visit it, there is a lengthy permit process at a distant office that one must go through in order to do so. However, this is expensive, tiresome, and usually futile exercise. For those who are actually granted a permit, it will sometimes only be for six months, or as one man showed me, just one month. If you're trying to tend to your fields and orchards, how can you do everything in one month?

To protest this, the people hold frequent demonstrations that escalate quickly to rock throwing by Palestinians and shooting of tear gas, rubber bullets and sometimes live rounds by the Israeli soldiers (or jesh in Arabic).



On a different note, I went to a St. Patrick's Day party in Bethlehem, and yes, I realize how odd that is. Especially when you consider that before the festivities began, a large number of expat activists watched a film title Bil'in Habibti that documents the issues the village of Bil'in is facing (extremely similar to Jayyous). Here is the trailer, but alas, there is no online version that I could find.

I also got a chance to go visit the Museum on the Seam, a fascinating, but ultimately depressing, museum that seeks to foster thought and dialogue concerning social issues in Israel.

See you in a month...