Protect the Village!

About 13km from Nablus are the small villages of Lower and Upper Yanoon. In fact, Upper Yanoon is barely a hamlet, but it lies in a valley between two settlements near the Jordanian Valley; that village, its connecting road and olive groves, are all that stops the settlements joining together and further strengthening the settlers’ grip on the West Bank. By exploiting the zoning regulations set out in the Oslo Accords, building the separation wall, and through settlement expansion, the Israeli government is pursuing a strategy of divide-and-conquer in the Palestinian Territories - you just need to look at a map of the West Bank to see how vividly these policies have fragmented peoples’ homes and lives. Villages like this are a common target for the settlers, who genuinely believe that this is their God-given land.

And so, the tiny village of Upper Yanoon is host to an international guesthouse, a home for volunteers who wish to protect the locals by providing international witness to the harassment. A group will come, stay for three months, live in the community, help with the harvest, and return; all the while their presence will discourage the settlers from their acts of vandalism. In the past, they have burnt trees and destroyed the road – the journey is actually 25km because of a detour around the hills – they have sabotaged the generators and they have even been as petty as to wash their dogs in the fresh spring water. This weekend it was time for one group to leave and another to move in, and we had to sit the house for the night.

The land itself is beautiful - rolling hills and olive groves – and had it not been for the mist we would have been able to see villages across the valley in Jordan. The sun was warm and the land was open, and that alone was a good enough reason to take a trip out of Nablus. As much as I enjoy this city, the high walls and the concrete can feel claustrophobic, and the shadows bring a chill now that winter’s rolled around. Sad to say, on our little excursion, nothing of interest really happened; these days the settlers largely stay away thanks to the international guesthouse. Our highlight was during one patrol when we got an anxious phone call from one of the previous volunteers. He said the mayor of the town had seen us scrambling up the side of valley – we wanted to see the view, we didn’t know it counted as Israeli land – and the settlers shoot trespassers. We clambered down through the thorns and headed home.

In Nablus, things are settling down for Christmas. The terms are coming to an end, classes are cancelled for exams, and many – in fact most – of the volunteers are leaving. Times are quiet, days drag by, and the nights are cold. Soon though, the holidays will be here, we’ll go to Bethlehem, bring back supplies for Christmas, and the New Year will pass over us once again. We’re at the lowest ebb of the long and dusty year, and so the days can only get brighter from here on in.

Happy Solstice everyone.