CPTnet
10 June 2007
AT-TUWANI REFLECTION: Harvesting in the South Hebron Hills
by Diane Janzen
"This year is much better than last year." I've heard this often when I ask
Palestinians about the harvest. During the winter of 2005-2006, scant
rainfall caused the worst drought in eighty years the following summer in
the South Hebron Hills. The villagers began the summer season without the
normal stockpile of lentils and wheat for human consumption, without enough
fodder to feed their flocks during the drier months, and without enough
water.
When I left At-Tuwani last year in June, I felt that the violence of living
on the edge of poverty, multiplied by the effects of the drought was, at
times, worse than the physical violence of the occupation.
This year the mood of the villagers is much better. The farmers made
several trips from fields to village in tractors piled high with crops
harvested by hand. The threshing machine rented from a large town stopped
at each family's pile of crops. Sacks of threshed wheat and chopped fodder
were stored away to the villagers' relief and satisfaction.
The Israeli occupation did as usual interfere with the harvesting. Near the
village of Jinba, Israeli soldiers performed a training exercise with tanks
and armed personnel carriers on wheat fields that villagers were about to
harvest, ruining the crops. On fields near several settlement outposts,
Israeli soldiers ordered Palestinians to stop harvesting and leave the area
saying, "It's our settlement security needs, they can't stay here."
In Khoruba valley, very close to the Hill 833 settlement outpost, villagers
from At-Tuwani have struggled to continue using the land and to prove their
ownership of it in the Israeli court system. From the spring of 2005 to the
fall of 2006, I have been present with Palestinians in Khoruba when settlers
harvested the crops with a combine, when soldiers arrested a shepherd for
refusing to move his sheep from the valley, and when soldiers stopped them
from plowing and planting. The last occurred after the Palestinians had won
the court case proving ownership of the land.
I was glad to be a part of a harvesting action this spring in Khoruba--one
where members of three other village families helped, not just the family
that owned the land. Israeli settlers from the Hill 833 outpost did come
down to the fields and try to chase away the Palestinian sheep that were
grazing on the harvested fields, but soldiers in the area half-heartedly
encouraged the settlers to go back to the outpost. After the settlers and
soldiers left, the day turned into a harvesting party that finished with a
picnic on the hillside.
"My piece of land that has grown things, oh my piece of land. You are
without gate and without a guard. Because of you we have eggs and cheese."
(Translation of an excerpt from an Arabic harvesting song.)
Photos from the 2007 harvesting season where internationals and sometimes
Israeli peace activists accompanied Palestinians from the villages of
At-Tuwani, Mufakara, Maghayir Al-Abeed, Sh'eb Botom, Qawawis and Umm Lasafa
are available in the CPT At-Tuwani photo albums at:
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/harvesting_2007
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