Settlers attack with rocks (Photos: Juliana Irene Smith)
Saturday October 1st in the valley behind the village of Dura al Kara, a group of twenty locals, internationals, men, women and children, experienced rocks falling from the sky.
Except, it was not. It was a group of five teenage settlers from Beit Eil. They were directly above us and threw stones in the size of a fist down upon us. We took cover. Which place was safe, we had no idea. Luckily we had made some rain and shade covering, otherwise who knows what would have happened.
Three young army men came ten minutes later. We wondered how they had heard what happened. They were snide. They told us there are cameras. Where we
asked? Then you can know who came? Apparently the cameras are not good enough to recognize faces. Apparently.
Three hours later, our camera was good enough to get images of their faces. This time they came from both sides of the valley, five of them on one side and seven on the other. One had a gun; at least we only saw one. The army did not come. One tear gas can was blasted.
This is one day and two incidents in one location. This is happening everyday all around Palestine.
We are a group of seven local and internationals working on a social art project called Vertical Gardening / The Carpet. We are working with the village and everyday we have at least thirty to fifty people on location. We have volunteers from the University. The festival opens this Wednesday the 5th and lasts ten days. The core of the art project is to reclaim the space that is already theirs, through culture, agriculture and recreation.
The village of Dura, behind Jelazon, has a population of 3,000 people. It has vital farming land which is being used currently only by a few farmers. A middle-aged woman came by last week and claimed when she grew up in Dura, the valley was always active with farmers, fresh food and gatherings. Now it
has an umbrella of fear from violence and annoyance from the Beit Eil settlers.
Beit Eil is one of the fastest growing settlements, reaching Al Bireh, Dura and beyond. We have been told that many of the settlers from Gaza are now living there and are known for being some of the most violent.
We are not politicians. We are calling upon the local and international community. How do we take action? We will not leave out of fear. We stand with the village. We stand with any person who has been afraid to go into his or her own land. Settler violence must stop.
Please join us in the valley of Dura and help us decide how to handle this situation. We are there everyday from now until the 15th of October. What happens then after? We need support. The village, like many others, needs support and action.
Juliana Irene Smith teaches photography and video at the UNRWA vocational college in Ramallah and curatorial studies at Dar Annadwa in Bethlehem. Visit her website www.julianairenesmith.com.
And yet Palestinian stone throwers are shot at, attacked and imprisoned, whatever their age. When will the Israeli occupation mete out equal justice and the same to these little thugs? Or maybe they know they have impunity and will not be punished. Maybe they are encouraged.
So now stones are dangerous? I’ll remember that next time you complain Palestinians were “just throwing stones”.
“Three hours later, our camera was good enough to get images of their faces. This time they came from both sides of the valley, five of them on one side and seven on the other. One had a gun; at least we only saw one. The army did not come. One tear gas can was blasted.”
Tikkun Olam
http://www.torah.org/features/spirfocus/whatisamitzvah.html#
Mitzvah observance gives the promise of living an enlightened and meaningful existence. This is because the Torah system differs from all other legal systems, as it is the God-given blueprint for living. There can be no claim that the Torah was of human authorship or even that it was divinely inspired — the Jewish people in its entirety was present at Sinai when God Himself gave the Torah to His chosen people. This establishes the Torah laws as absolute and immutable in the same way that their Creator is Eternal.
The most important thing about “Beit El” is that its gated community Florida style villas for Jews are right across the road from the dirt poor Jalazoun refugee camp which is home to several thousand Palestinians whose families were evicted from the land without a people in 1948 to make way for the people without a land .
And most of the settlers are religious so they follow all the mitzvot, the hypocrites.
thank you Juliana Irene Smith. yes, what will happen when you leave? i hope people start coming from all over the world to document the ethnic cleansing of palestine.