CPTnet
13 May 2006
HEBRON LETTER: Planting virtual tomatoes
by Christina Gibb
[Note: The complete text of Gibb's letter to supporters, with accompanying
photos, may be found at http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/hb040506.htm]
On May Day, three of us went to help plant tomatoes at the village of Um
Salamuna, south of Bethlehem. The South Bethlehem villages had planned to
come together for the first time, in an action in solidarity with a local
farmer who is threatened with the loss of almost all his land through the
projected building of the Wall-- It is described as some of the best
agricultural land in the region --well terraced and growing grape vines,
stone fruit, chickpeas and barley.
The family have lived there for hundreds of years -- Mahmoud (not his real
name) told us his grandfather had been born in the cave across the valley.
Generations before him had lived in the caves and cultivated that land,
amounting to 300 dunams -- about 30 hectares. Now the large Israeli
settlement of Efrata -- started about twenty-five years ago - is encroaching
over the hill tops opposite. Of course the Wall will expropriate a lot of
extra Palestinian land round the settlement. This in spite of Mahmoud's
1980 document from the Israeli High Court, confirming his ownership and
saying that the land was to remain his. Many other farmers are facing the
same problems.
Mahmoud's house, near the road, is rather isolated. Settlers have come and
invaded it several times, so he now lives in the village, and only comes
there in the day time. A CPT intern who works in Bethlehem and comes to us
for Sunday and Monday nights, knew many of the villagers and has been going
to some of their meetings leading up to today. She drove us in her old car
-- a luxury for us not to take the minibuses for once. We arrived very
early, as there were no delays at checkpoints, which we always have to allow
for. By ten thirty there were about 40 people there. It turned out that
there were no tomatoes! One person said it was too early to plant tomatoes,
while another said they weren't suitable for planting between the grape
vines anyway. Our intern had brought some packets of sunflower, squash and
other seeds which were said to need very little water to germinate and
grow, but sowing those didn't seem to be what they wanted to do either.
Eventually, when there had been much socialising, and reporters had been
shown the maps and the line of the Wall, we all headed down the hillside
and set to work pulling weeds, and clearing larger stones to the sides of a
terrace. No settlers came over, so the morning passed off peacefully,
ending with the villagers boiling [water] for us all to have some sweet mint
tea under the shade of the trees.
We didn't plant any tomatoes, but the day sowed seeds of nonviolent joint
action. The village organisers plan to take the pictures from the day round
to other villages to enlist more support. We can expect to be out there in
solidarity with them again.
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