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Tuesday, June 17 2003 This morning I was in Tel Aviv, having arrived Monday evening with my 23-year-old grandson Jay Onyszchuk on a flight from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We took a regular Egged bus from T.A. to Jerusalem where we met up with the ISM (International Solidarity Movement)and IWPS (International Women's Peace Service) people. Jay went off to Nablus/Balata and I came to Yanoun here. Traveling anywhere in the West Bank is a hassle, but from Jerusalem to Yanoun it wasn't so bad since I was with a couple of experience travelers. Barbara Bakewell of Canada, who speaks fluent Arabic, and Nadya of the U.S., traveled with me as far as Aqraba where I got a taxi from there to Upper Yanoun. There are maps at this link, Where is Yanoun? The mayor of Yanoun, Abdel Latif Bani Jaber, universally referred to as Abdel Latif (which I learned later means "slave of god"), and several of the men and boys of the community greeted me warmly. I was dead tired, but talked and drank sweet tea for a couple of hours with them. I found two internationals here in Yanoun: a Swede, Kent Jonsson, and an American Jew, Ethan Heitner from New York. Kent is with a mission of the World Council of Churches, and is based in Jerusalem. He will stay three months, but in different locales. Ethan is also here for three months, also based in Jerusalem working with Bt'selem, the Israeli organization that monitors human rights violations in the occupied territories. He speaks Hebrew and is learning Arabic - already knows quite a bit. Ethan is another Jew who spent part of his youth on a Kibbutz in Israeli and now opposes the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Neat guy. He explained that Bt'selem means "in the image of" a reference to the Torah's statement that all men are created in the image of God. This includes Palestinians, but you wouldn't know it from the behaviour of the Israeli occupation forces and Jewish settlers.
The house with the green door is used by the Internationals who come to watch out for settler attacks on the village. IWPS and ISM made a convenant with the villagers in October of 2002 that there would be a continuous presence of internationals to report and help prevent settler attacks. More on this later.
In the distance in the picture you can make out another cluster of houses: Lower Yanoun. The families of the two villages are closely related, and in fact are one big "clan." It is about 2 kms from Upper to Lower Yanoun. Living in Yanoun is like living inside a horseshoe with a very narrow opening at the Lower Yanoun end. Ringing Upper Yanoun and the few acres of farm land left are "outpost" of the Jewish settlement of Itamar, populated by Zionist Zealots who over the years have confiscated land and terrorized the villagers.
I finally got to bed at about 10:30 P.M., after Ethan and Kent promised to shut down the generator without me. I slept like a log on the mattress on the floor. Not bad for a 78 year-old. |
Looking north at the cluster of houses of Upper Yanoun from the only cropland left after the confiscation by Jewish settlements. It is used to grow wheat for home consumption and a few vegetables for sale. If Yanoun weren't besieged by settlers it would be a lovely spot for a vaction.
Looking south from the International House in Upper Yanoun. At the foot of the hill in the center is Yanoun Springs, dating back to Roman times, but greatly improved in recent years. It provides pure, cool, drinking water for the villagers and some for irrigation and sale. Also at the bottom of the hill is the generator which is turned on from 7:30 P.M. until 11:00 P.M every day, no more, no less. The Internationals have agreed to start and stop the generator. There are electricity lines to the east and west of the villages running to Jewish settlements and "outposts," but not to Yanoun.
Looking west across Upper Yanoun you see the buildings and guard tower of an outpost. At night there is a huge searchlight turned on that obliterates the stars. From the guard tower there is constant surveillance of movements in the village, and if a person strays a few meters from the confines, there will be armed settlers coming down to send them back, sometimes with warning shots, sometimes with live bullets. To get an idea of how the Itamar settlers have encroached on the land of the village you might want to