Israel’s double standard on nature reserves: No to Palestinians, yes to Israelis

By al-Hareth al-Hussni

JORDAN VALLEY, (WAFA) — Eleven years have passed since Diab Daraghma, from Khallet Samra, had to pay a fine of 1,500 shekels ($430) for herding in the Suwaida area in the northern Jordan Valley on the pretext that he was grazing in a nature reserve, as the Israeli occupying power claimed at the time.

Three years ago, an Israeli settler who raises cows came to that same area and occupied the top of the mountain. Despite his presence there, the so-called Israeli nature authority did not kick him out. Rather, it would go only after the Palestinian herders and prevent them from being there.

Today, it is possible to see dozens of signs on dirt roads with the word “nature reserve’ written on them in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.

And today also, Israel’s Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett declared seven sites in the occupied West Bank as new “nature reserves”, and 12 others will be expanded.

Burhan Bisharat, a resident of Makhoul village who spent all his life in that part of the northern Jordan Valley that overlooks Jordan to the east, says that since the arrival of the settler in the summer of 2017, he and other herders have been unable to be in that place. “The rule of nature reserves applies only on us,” he said.

Daraghma said the same thing, saying that both he and Bisharat have been totally cut off from that area a few years ago except in very few cases but taken with great risk.

Mahdi Daraghma, head of al-Maleh village council, says: “The occupation and the settlers have agreed on one goal, to take actual steps to annex the Jordan Valley.”

But in order to do this, they have to get rid of its Palestinian residents first.

Bennett’s declaration today about the new nature reserves is a first in 25 years.

According to the Israeli rights center, B’Tselem, Israel declared about 20% of the Jordan Valley lands as nature reserves and national parks. It designated other lands for settlements.

“The occupiers have started actual steps to annex the Jordan Valley,” says Mahdi Daraghma. “There are tens of thousands of dunums that were taken over by the occupation on the pretext that they are nature reserves.”

He said that few months ago, Israeli soldiers seized several cows owned by his father in al-Suwaida area. The army told him that the area where the settler had set up his livestock farm was no longer included within the boundaries of the nature reserve.

In two decades, concerned parties have documented dozens of cases of detention and fines imposed on the Palestinians under the pretext of their presence in nature reserves.

But the Palestinians always wonder: Why is the nature reserve idea imposed only on them?

While they are always kicked out of the so-called nature reserves, the settlers roam these areas freely.

Mahdi Daraghma said: “They are crawling towards Palestinian communities to empty them of their residents by claiming that they are nature reserves. They are taking calculated steps to annex the Jordan Valley.”

Al-Maleh, which was included in the decision announced by Bennett today, is inhabited by people who depend mainly on raising livestock.

In nearby Mazouqeh area, Palestinians used to be found there, but, according to the herders, they stopped going there few years ago.