Jonathan Kuttab in Palestine
March 7th, 2025:
Today I visited the hamlet of Jibet el Dib near Bethlehem.
This hamlet of about 43 families is in Area C. It is cut off from all services, and is terrorized by nearby settlers who are hell bent on taking all its lands through roaming thugs who prevent them from accessing their fields, or doing any development or improvements. Their school was demolished, they were not allowed to hook up to electricity, and they cannot leave their homes at night, even for medical emergencies without either permission from the settler “security officer” or being pelted by rocks from youthful thugs on ATV’s. Two years ago they managed to get solar panels to provide minimal electricity, but they are fearful that that might be demolished by the army soon. I visited this location with Michael Beer (from Nonviolence International) and a couple of international volunteers who were considering living in the Hamlet, to learn Arabic, teach English, and provide some nonviolent protection by their presence.
The wonderful thing about our visit was learning that the hamlet is actually run by a committee of women! Apparently the men were constantly feuding, and generally ineffective in running the affairs of the hamlet, so a committee of all-women was elected and they were doing a great job. It was wonderful to meet one of them, Fadia El wahsh, who is a most impressive woman with a pleasant joyful smile, but a powerful personality as she was explaining to us their difficulties. She herself was married at 15, and has been married for 19 years. Her oldest daughter is about to graduate as a nurse from a university in Bethlehem. She is determined to get a clinic in the hamlet, by renovating a small room which would also serve as a community hall, and to renovate the small kindergarden serving the children of the hamlet. This would be a challenge as the settlers had just set up a mobile observation post right on the border of the hamlet, and any building materials would have to be smuggled in and the construction quickly completed, or the army would come in and confiscate any vehicle bringing in building materials. She had learnt to use Instagram, and wanted to improve her English to better communicate with the outside world. It was a real treat to meet such a powerful woman just before International Women’s Day and to witness the determination and resilience of a Palestinian lady clinging to her home and serving her community against all odds.
March 8th: Dreams of the Future
Last evening, I went with friends in Bethlehem to a concert by three Palestinian Musicians, Tareq Abboushi, Ahmed Eid, and Naseem Rimawi, giving “ Expressions of Cultural Resistance”.
They played original pieces of their own creation on the theme of imagining the future.
The first piece “Last Passenger to Al Sham” was a “back to the future” piece recreating the times, and dreaming of a time, after the end of the occupation when they could take a bus or a group taxi to Damascus or Beirut for a day trip to enjoy a meal at a favorite restaurant and return home the same day. This was an apt dream for Palestinians from Ramallah or Bethlehem who do not have free access to Jerusalem a mere 15 minutes away, or the sea at Jaffa, or to other cities in Palestine itself, and for whom any travel within the region is an impossibility or a nightmare of obstacles and barriers.
The most powerful piece to me however, was “ the swing”. This piece musically evoked the scene of a Palestinian who had returned to the home of his family as described to him by his parents, or grandparents, and who was enjoying a quiet evening slowly rocking on an old creaky swing. It clearly needed oil, and was squeaking , but he did not care. He was home, and he was free. He did not care that the house was old and dilapidated. He had not asked for modernity or progress, or anything else. He just wanted to be home, and free, perhaps enjoying the breeze, the sound of the waves on the Jaffa beach, the smell of the blossoms, in his own home.
March 11th, 2025: Yesterday, together with a FOSNA solidarity group, I visited the demolished home of Fakhri Abu Diab in the Silwan neighborhood facing demolition to make room for a Biblical Park below the City of David just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. He was born in that home 62 years ago and has lived in it with his children and grandchildren since that time. The Jerusalem Municipality decided to demolish his home and 28 others (112 additional ones have pending demolition orders). He described for us in detail, the efforts he and his neighbors have made to maintain their homes, or to offer alternative plans for a park that would still allow them to continue to live in the area. Applications for licenses to build, or renovate, or offer community plans for the area have been either rejected outright or remained unanswered for decades.
He continues to live in a makeshift Caravan (also threatened with demolition) while he heads the committee fighting further demolitions. He spoke with dignity, pain and frustration as he recounted the inability of the international community, and diplomatic representatives who had visited him, to prevent the demolitions, while Jewish settler groups freely build and work hard to establish facts on the ground to achieve the “Judaization” of East Jerusalem . Unlike the rest of the occupied West Bank, the work of demolition and settlement expansion is carried out here under civilian Israeli law, with the police and municipality and zoning bodies, rather than army soldiers and unruly settler youth, leading the same policy aimed at displacing him and his family. While the tools are different, the policy behind it is the same.
While I am quite familiar with the legal mechanisms used to carry out this policy, it was painful to see the impact it had on this gentle man as he recalled how on the 10th of Ramadan every year, his family would gather at his house on that location to remember his late mother and share an Iftar feast. This he can do no more. His biggest worry as he still tries to wrestle with Israeli bureaucracy for continued existence is that his children and grandchildren may be too full of hatred and frustration, to continue his unsuccessful but peaceful efforts, and move towards extremism and violence instead.