I just returned from two days in Bethlehem. It looks like many of the other Palestinian cities I have been in, except there are way more Christians, and Christian holy sites. It is not falling apart like Hebron, and there are also more foreigners. But getting in and out is like everywhere else--a huge hassle. Going through military check points and climbing over dirt piles. They are building the separation wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and in the process they are trying to claim as much of Bethlehem for Israel as they can possibly squeeze in. Just recently two Jewish settlers grabbed some land close to Rachel's Tomb, on the outskirts of Bethlehem, to turn it into an Israeli settlement. This is likely an attempt to force the wall to go around Rachel's Tomb and make it part of Israel. I have a hard time enjoying any of the holy sites because the people in charge here do not act very holy. I was really glad to see the Church of the Nativity, though.
On Monday I travelled to Tuwani for the first time since the attack. There are two ways to get to Tuwani from Hebron. The way we went on Monday, you take a cab through an industrial area of Hebron to the Yatta roadblock. The roads are blocked by Israeli soldiers. You climb over the roadblock (dirt pile) and walk about a half mile to cross the paved settler road that Palestinians are not allowed to drive on. Across the paved road you climb over another dirt pile and take a van service to Yatta which winds around the hills on narrow sometimes paved, sometimes gravel, roads. We negotiated with the driver to take us through Yatta and Karmel all the way to Tuwani. However, when we got close to Tuwani, we got a surprise: another dirt pile!
On Saturday, the bulldozer had come through on the road to Tuwani from Yatta and dug up the road just before it reaches another paved settler road that the Palestinians can't use. You have to cross that paved road to get to the gravel road that goes into Tuwani. These paved roads are part of a highway system used by settlers, soldiers and other Israelis and foreigners to get around the West Bank. They were funded by U.S. aid. Palestinians can't use them and have to find ways to drive around them, since the army often blocks the access roads as well. So we got out and walked the half mile or so uphill to Tuwani.
This new dirt pile blocks the main and shortest road to Yatta from Tuwani. There are back ways to get there. On Tuesday this week, Naim, a man from Tuwani, was driving his car on one of the back roads and was stopped by the army and handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken to their headquarters, where he was held this way for five hours. Why? Because he was driving on the back roads to Yatta, and they didn't want him doing that. I don't know why. Control? He is also not allowed to use the settler roads, and cannot use the roads that have been blocked. Yatta is the nearest decent sized city to Tuwani, where they go for food shopping and medical care.
The children that we accompanied to school are now going two hours in each direction because the army has branded the shorter roads a "closed military zone." This is in response to the settler attacks on us. The settlers attack, and the Palestinians are punished. I don't get it. It looks like the settlers may also be trying to claim the long road. On Thursday this week the children saw settlers on the long road and ran home, too scared to go to school. We don't know for sure what the settlers were doing there, but the children seemed to think they were planting trees. This is not a good sign, because if the settlers are planting trees, then they are trying to extend the grove of trees which is their outpost even further into Palestinian lands. We haven't been accompanying them on the long road because the army has promised to protect them only if we are not there.
This week some officers from Shin Bet, the intelligence agency, came to Tuwani because they are now in charge of investigating the attacks on us. They spoke a few minutes to the CPTers who were there, and went up and looked at the grove of trees where the attackers came from. But they refused to go in! They are afraid of them, too. Funny, though, a van from Doctors Without Borders was in Tuba at the time, and they drove back on the road that goes right through the outpost without incident. One of my teammates got a ride with them and was able to see what it looks like. They are living in small, rusty trailers and lean-tos made of canvas. Clearly, nobody lives there full-time. People from the settlement itself are rotating in and out in order to retain the land they stole. No question that people from the settlement know who is responsible for what happened to us.
I really don't understand why the government of Israel puts up with them. I guess because they only really adversely affect the local population, the Palestinians, and Palestinians can't vote.
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