The Hebronisation of Hawara: the Settlers’ attempt to conquer the State of Israel
We saw how the army and settlers effectively crushed a living town and turned it into a ghost town. ■ This attack is part of the cycle of hostility fuelled by the undemocratic military regime that Israel imposes on millions of Palestinian subjects who lack civil rights in the West Bank. ■ “The world protested what Smotrich said,” Moeen told me, “but now, little by little, he is still wiping us off the map.”
By Eran Tzidkiyahu • (Translated by Sol Salbe)
Yesterday we saw with our own eyes how a town is crushed and in fact, practically erased from the map.
As part of a geopolitical tour that I led in the West Bank, between the villages of Deir Istiya and Hares in the Salfit governorate and the town of Hawara, near Nablus. About fifty Israelis joined me for a long day full of meetings with Palestinian residents from areas near the settlement of Ariel all the way to Yitzhar. Every place and every encounter had its story, and in all of them there was a common pain and a common experience of suffocation, anxiety and lack of basic security and freedom.
We started with a walk in Wadi Qana, which originates in the mountains near Nablus and ends in the al Auja/Yarkon River. In its western part, a number of springs flow in the stream that turn it into a strong stream at the heart of a green valley. In the 1980s, by order of a general, the stream became the Nahal Kana Nature Reserve. In the heart of the valley, we met Nazmi Salman, the principal of a middle school in Salfit, who was born in the village of Deir Istiya in 1967 and who had served as the head of the village for the previous decade. On both sides of the stream stretchwa the farmland of his village.
Nazmi spoke about the struggle of his agricultural community against the challenges of life under Occupation. In a consistent and ongoing process, the village has been stripped of its land and Palestinians’ freedom of access to the river, one of the preferred tourist destinations for Palestinians in the West Bank, is getting smaller and smaller. At the same time, outposts and farms have been built around the stream, and the feeling of suffocation is growing
At Issa’s in the village of Haris, we ate mujdara, stuffed vegetables and maqluba. We drank coffee and finished off with cold melon and watermelon. After we calmed down, Issa told us his life story, how he grew up all his life under occupation, how he decided to struggle non-violently, how he was punished and even shot in the back and went from being a sports teacher to a wheelchair-bound, disabled while being single father raising five children alone. Instead of falling into the realms of despair, Issa, thanks to the spirit flowing in his heart, established a meditation and non-violence centre in his village and became a key activist against the occupation in his region.
In his fluent Hebrew, Issa presented his guests with a harsh picture, without discounting the responsibility of every citizen of Israel, but also without blaming or increasing despair. Every time I meet Issa, I am filled with wonder, faith and hope. In my opinion, I am not the only one in whom Issa inspires such feelings.
In Hawara, we met with Mayor Moeen Dmeidi. At the Town Hall, he presented us with the council’s activities and the main challenges facing it, mainly in the field of infrastructure and the economy. We then moved onto a village tour. We saw how the army and settlers effectively crushed a living town and turned it into a ghost town.
Hawara is located on the main road between Nablus and Ramallah, and between the heart of Samaria and the isolated settlements on the back of the mountain. In fact, the town’s strategic location is the source of both its wealth and suffering: in the heart of a fertile valley beneath which is an abundant groundwater reservoir and as a necessary passage in the heart of the central mountain avenue. The town became a rich and bustling commercial and agricultural centre.
For the past year and a half, the main road has become the focus of harassment by settlers who have begun posting pictures on social media of themselves ripping Palestinian flags from the doorways of Palestinian shops in the heart of the town — flags that they are permitted to fly and hang according to law and the Oslo Accords.
On the night of 26 February this year, a settler pogrom took place in the town following an attack in which two brothers from Har Bracha, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, were shot dead (in the days preceding the attack, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Jenin and Nablus. Even if this does not justify killing civilians, this attack is part of the cycle of hostility fuelled by the undemocratic military regime that Israel imposes on millions of Palestinian subjects who lack civil rights in the West Bank).
Since then, the army has maintained a formidable array of forces on the town’s main road, it has blocked many access roads to and from the town, and imposed a reign of terror on the town’s main road, all in order to keep traffic flowing so that the settlers on the back of the mountain (Yitzhar, Bracha, Itamar and Alon Moreh) will not stand in traffic jams within the town (three minutes after our bus stopped on the side of the road, a military vehicle arrived and asked us to stand on the sidewalk so as not to disturb traffic, Despite it being the Jewish Sabbath).
In the period leading up to Eid al-Adha, Hawara is supposed to be crowded and business is usually at one of the annual trade peaks. But yesterday we saw a desolate and battered town. Since the end of February, 15 businesses on the town’s main road have gone bankrupt (!), others have closed and moved.
We saw the ruins of the town’s amusement park, which was burned by settlers from Yitzhar. Near it we saw the regional country club — an open but empty pool. In recent months, three times a drone arrived from the settlement of Yitzhar and poured an unidentified coloured substance into the pool, causing the owners to empty it and refill it. The place, which in normal times was bustling with life, was found deserted and the owners were on the verge of bankruptcy. Next to it stands a large building with an elderly couple, about 75 years old, natives of the village who apparently made their money in the United States and returned to age on their land leisurely. In the parking lot there is a charred vehicle that burned down two days ago for the third time. Their home is covered with a fine mesh grill against Molotov cocktails, and their yard is surrounded by barbed wire in the hope that it will stop the attackers from Yitzhar (who will cross it with a small leap). The man told us that he was fed up, he was going back to the United States to spend the rest of his days in peace.
The trend is clear: in order that several thousand settlers could travel quickly and safely through the town of Hawara, the town must be crushed and its busy and lively main street turned into a ghost street in the style of Shuhada Street in Hebron.
“The world protested what Smotrich said,” Moeen told me, “but now, little by little, he is still wiping us off the map.” Just before we left town, the mayor was adamant about inviting us to Knafeh at his own expense. After a slight hesitation we agreed, and I think it was the most delicious knafeh I have ever eaten.
The reactions I received from the participants in the hours after the tour gave me lots of strength. On the ground, people suddenly understood that it is impossible to separate what is happening in Israel from what is happening in the [Occupied] Territories. The main motivation for the regime coup in Israel comes from Hawara, Kedumim and Karnei Shomron, not Jerusalem’s Rehavia and Givat Ram.
More tours will soon be available to the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque, East Jerusalem, the South Hebron Hills, the northern West Bank, Wadi Ara and the Triangle, and more, all within the framework of my cooperation with the Geopolitical Education initiative and the Regional thinking Forum.
Original Facebook post in Hebrew
