{"id":2990,"date":"2015-08-28T22:22:47","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T19:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jahalin.org\/?p=2990"},"modified":"2015-08-28T22:22:47","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T19:22:47","slug":"mondoweiss-caught-between-jerusalem-expanding-settlements-uncertainty-hangs-over-residents-abu-nuwwar-lydia-noon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/?p=2990","title":{"rendered":"[Mondoweiss] Caught between Jerusalem and expanding settlements, uncertainty hangs over residents of Abu Nuwwar"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published at Mondoweiss\u00a0\u2013 August 28, 2015\u00a0<\/strong>[Photo by\u00a0Lydia Noon]<\/em><\/p>\n

By Lydia Noon<\/p>\n

The leafy city of Ma\u2019ale Adumim lies 7 kilometres east of Jerusalem and is\u00a0Israel\u2019s newest tourist attraction<\/a>. Palm trees lining the sidewalk offer respite on a hot August afternoon, buses driving the well-maintained roads serve Tel Aviv and beyond and a Library of Peace meets residents\u2019 literary and moral needs.<\/p>\n

Ma\u2019ale Adumim is also the third largest illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, 4.5 kilometres east of\u00a0the Green Line and next to the Palestinian town of Ezariya (Bethany). Dubbed the settlement that killed the two-state solution, it achieved city status in 1991. It lies at the heart of the Israeli government\u2019s\u00a0E1 project<\/a>\u00a0that seeks to connect Ma\u2019ale Adumim with Jerusalem by building a corridor of settlements enclosed by the separation wall. It will effectively divide the West Bank into two and will be achieved by destroying 23 Palestinian Bedouin villages and transferring some 2,300 men, women and children into forced townships.<\/p>\n

Most of the 40,000 settlers who live in Ma\u2019ale Adumim will never set foot in Abu Nuwwar \u2013 a village under threat of demolition as Israeli officials also plan to link Ma\u2019ale Adumim with Qadar settlement, within the limits of the E1 plan. They will not walk towards the tents and tin structures blowing in the hot breeze 100 metres away from the settlement fence. Nor will they drink tea with the families that I had the privilege to meet: the five-month-old baby gurgling while making his way across colourful rugs on his belly, 13-year-old Zeinab* who wants to be a lawyer so she can help people and the young man announcing his arrival with the words \u201cI have grapes!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sponge Bob and Israeli number plates<\/h3>\n

Homes in Abu Nuwwar may look shabby from the outside but they boast kitchens, bright interiors, televisions and the odd Sponge Bob poster. Many families keep donkeys and chickens but the harsh terrain and ever nearing settlements make subsistence difficult. Shepherds herding goats and sheep struggle to find edible shrubbery months after the last rainfall and are not able to roam far. They used to sell the milk from their flocks in Jerusalem before they were denied access to the city. Even driving to West Bank cities can be problematic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have Israeli number plates on our cars so we can\u2019t go through checkpoints\u201d, explains Zeinab. \u201cThe soldiers look at our cars then when they see we have Palestinian IDs we can get arrested\u201d. Rather than shepherding, some men in the village now work in shops and construction in Ezariya and nearby towns. Women sew traditional Palestinian cushion covers to supplement their family\u2019s income. Noor, a 61-year-old resident of\u00a0Abu Nuwwar, explains that the finished covers are sold to a non-governmental organization in Ezariya that sells them on in Hebron. Each cover takes her a week to complete.<\/p>\n

Ezariya is a hub for the community. Families go to the town for medical treatment, water and groceries and children make the one-hour round trip to elementary school in al-Jabal and high school in Ezariya.<\/p>\n

E1 \u2013 a project of displacement<\/h3>\n

Abu Nuwwar residents are refugees, along with most of the Bedouin communities living near Ma\u2019ale Adumim. Their tribe \u2013 the Jahalin \u2013 was expelled from the Negev in 1948 during the Nakba. After fleeing to the outskirts of the desert many families relocated to the West Bank where they registered with UNRWA and lived in villages near Jerusalem. They grazed and sold livestock in the busy trading route between Jerusalem and Jericho. The tribe\u2019s fortunes changed in 1967 with the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, the annexation of East Jerusalem, settlement construction, \u2018closed military zones\u2019 and the resulting loss of freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

The village that\u00a0Noor was born in was demolished to make way for Ma\u2019ale Adumim in 1975. \u201cIt was full of people and nice houses; there were no tents\u201d. Life was much better then, but despite everything she still hopes to stay in Abu Nuwwar. \u201cThis is my home\u201d, she says simply. Noor faces a second displacement and an imposed urban lifestyle \u2013 while the oldest members of the community will be forcibly removed from their homes for the third time.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s E1 development project was approved in 1999 but due to international condemnation it was put on hold. Noor explains that from 2005 the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) has been telling the 600-strong community that they will demolish homes. Since Palestine\u2019s successful bid to become a non-member observer state in November 2012 and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s retaliatory approval of 3,000 new settlement units in the E1 area, the project has gathered pace.<\/p>\n

The Israeli army issued stop work orders in Abu Nuwwar on 6 August, a few days after Palestinian lawyer Tawfik Jabareen had begun representing the owners of 20 dwellings in the community. Members of the community were then invited to a \u2018supervision subcommittee\u2019 hearing to tell the Israeli Civil Authority why they shouldn\u2019t carry out the demolitions. Tawfik\u2019s request to postpone the hearing while he familiarized himself with the case was refused and the ICA handed out final demolition orders the following week.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn 13 August they came and told us that they would demolish 30 structures here after three days\u201d, says Ahmed, caretaker for Abu Nuwwar\u2019s kindergarten. \u201cBut they didn\u2019t come; they went to other villages like a-Sa\u2019idi and abu-Falah instead\u201d. Fourteen families were made homeless on 17 August in the E1 area.<\/p>\n

Residents now have until 5 September to lodge an appeal with the Israeli Supreme Court. \u201cWe will go to court at the beginning of next week [commencing 31 August]\u201d, says Tawfik. \u201cIt will then take many months before the court decides to go forward with the demolitions\u201d. He will ask for a temporary injunction preventing demolitions being carried out on the homes of families he represents while the court deliberates. A second lawyer, Shlomo Lecker, is working on a small number of other cases in the village.<\/p>\n

\u2018They could destroy everything\u2019<\/h3>\n

In the midst of legal proceedings, uncertainty among the adults and children I meet is palpable.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoldiers often come to the entrance of the village, they look but they don\u2019t come in\u201d, says Fatima, a 45-year-young grandmother and sewing extraordinaire. \u201cWe don\u2019t know which homes are under theat. Sometimes the authorities go over there and sometimes they come here. Maybe they will destroy my home\u201d.<\/p>\n

Noor lives in another part of the village \u2013 across from the access road leading to Qadar settlement and up a hill. She doesn\u2019t think the authorities want to demolish homes on this side of the road. \u201cBut we don\u2019t know exactly. Where do they want us to go?\u201d asks the mother of eight, to nobody in particular.<\/p>\n

Upon entering Abu Nuwwar\u2019s kindergarten, Ahmed proudly points to new chairs and tables, still in their plastic and stacked up neatly near the two classrooms. The new school year starts on 26 August but the resident caretaker is nervous. \u201cThere have been demolition orders on the school for the past five months\u201d, he says. In May European ambassadors visited the school, but this, along with the EU flag hanging from the roof, offers no protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [Israeli Civil Administration] first came in 1977 with demolition orders but they hardly ever carried out their threats\u201d, says Ahmed. \u201cNow every time we build something they say we can\u2019t have it. They want us gone\u201d. He manages a half-laugh. \u201cThey could come anytime and destroy everything\u201d.<\/p>\n

Buying time<\/h3>\n

The ICA intends to relocate members of Abu Nuwwar to al-Jabal where 150 families, some 2,000 people, from nearby villages were evicted to in 1997 when Ma\u2019ale Adumim began expanding. The Area B town is next to the biggest landfill in the West Bank and many residents suffer from respiratory problems. \u2018What do you think about maybe moving to al-Jabal?\u2019 I ask 13-year-old Zeinab who holds out her hand as I struggle up a hill. \u2018We can\u2019t go there\u2019, she says firmly. \u2018It\u2019s a big town and there\u2019s nowhere for us to put our animals. We want to stay here\u2019.<\/p>\n

According to a\u00a0joint UNRWA-Bimkom report<\/a>\u00a0published in 2013,\u00a0the relocation of Palestinian Bedouins to al-Jabal thus far has resulted in \u201closs of social cohesion and is destroying the social fabric and traditional economic base\u201d of these communities. The forcible transfer of Abu Nuwwar residents into this township will exacerbate existing problems. Officials are coercing individual families into accepting their offer of a small piece of land in al-Jabal by saying that there is not enough space for everyone there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not optimistic\u201d, says Tawfik Jabareen. \u201cThe Israeli Supreme Court rarely interferes with the ICA decisions on demolition orders. We know the final decision will not be in favour of the Palestinians. What we are doing is buying time while we wait for the political situation and Israeli policy on E1 to change. I don\u2019t elude myself. We need a solution. We need to stop the demolitions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Turning away from curious children asking for my name I head back towards the entrance to Ma\u2019ale Adumim where the sandy rock abruptly turns into lush, green grass and the unforgiving sun gives way to shade.<\/p>\n

* The names of Abu Nuwwar residents have been changed for this article as they requested to remain anonymous.<\/em><\/p>\n

Article link:<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0http:\/\/mondoweiss.net\/2015\/08\/jerusalem-settlements-uncertainty<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published at Mondoweiss\u00a0\u2013 August 28, 2015\u00a0[Photo by\u00a0Lydia Noon] By Lydia Noon The leafy city of Ma\u2019ale Adumim lies 7 kilometres east of Jerusalem and is\u00a0Israel\u2019s newest tourist attraction. Palm trees lining the sidewalk offer respite on a hot August afternoon, buses driving the well-maintained roads serve Tel Aviv and beyond and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[21,81,95,113,114,193,195],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}