The quiet takeover: Inside Yanoun, a Palestinian village under siege
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Transcript of The quiet takeover: Inside Yanoun, a Palestinian village under siege
7/29/2019 The quiet takeover: Inside Yanoun, a Palestinian village under siege
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2 ESQUIRE OCTOBER2012 OCTOBER2012 ESQUIR
REPORT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY ORLANDO CROWCROFTHE TRAGEDY OF PALESTINE IS NOT JUST OF THE LAND
ITS PEOPLE LOST IN 1948 OR 1967, BUT RATHER THE SLOW BUT
INEXORABLE CREEP OF ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS AND DOMINANCE,
ONE FIELD, ONE HOME, ONE CHECKPOINT AND ONE FAMILY AT A TIME.
SPECIAL REP
7/29/2019 The quiet takeover: Inside Yanoun, a Palestinian village under siege
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“A LOT PALESTINIANS DON’KNOW ABOUT YANOUN, ANWHAT HAS HAPPENED HERIT IS IN A VERY STRATEGICPOSITION, WHICH IS VERYAPPARENT TO THE ISRAELIIT STOPS THEIR EXPANSION
EMMET SHEERIN, NGO W
4 ESQUIRE OCTOBER 2012 OCTOBER2012 ESQUIR
Nestled in a narrow valley southeast of
Nablus, West Bank, the tiny village of
Yanoun is a welcome sight after the
barbed-wire and tension of Jerusalem’s
Qalandia checkpoint. Chickens run in the
dusty streets, as old men sit on plastic
chairs outside concrete houses drinking
strong black coffee out of tiny cups. It appears t he picture of
rural calm in a torn and chaotic part of the world.
But as is so often in Palestine, looks can be deceiving.
Surrounded on three sides by Itamar, an Israeli settlement
of over a thousand people that is growing quickly, Yanoun’s
population of sixty-five has halved in the last decade. Thefertile farmland has gradually become appropriated by military
outposts, sheds and settler roads and the village remains the
last sliver of Palestinian controlled land between Itamar to
the east and the Jordan Valley fifty kilometres further west.
Yanoun is a village under siege.
“There are twenty-three adults, thirteen children, one
horse, two donkeys, four dogs, two wells and one mayor,” says
Katrina Reigo, a Swedish NGO worker ticking off the number
of residents in Upper Yanoun, some five-hundred metres up
the hill from the lower part of the village. “It’s very, very small.”
We’re sitting in the headquarters of the World Council of
Churches EAPPI [Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in
Palestine and Israel] programme building on Upper Yannoun’s
tiny main street. A primarily Christian group, EAPPI has had
a presence in Palestine for ten years, with volunteers living
in villages throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem,
documenting the lives of residents and publicising incidents
of settler violence. Katrina and her Irish colleague, Emmet
Sheerin, are on one side of a large wooden table, drinking tea, me on the other. Suddenly, Katrina gets up, rushes to the
window and peeks through worn net curtains, hearing a car
engine. She’s relieved when she realises it’s just the school bus.
“I called Emmet yesterday because the dogs were barking. I
thought: ‘Why are they barking?” she says, sitting down again.
“The things you would probably not worry about usually, you
really have to be aware of here.”
These two young volunteers have been assigned by
the EAPPI as Yanoun’s protection detail, the only non-
governmental organisation in the village. Working three month
shifts, they patrol twice daily, occasionally accompanying
farmers to their fields and taking photographs of the rapidly
expanding Israeli settlement in the hills above. I comment that
the two fresh-faced Westerners don’t look very scary, but the
theory is that the mere presence of “internationals” keeps all
but the most determined settlers away.
At least that is the idea. Weeks after my visit, Upper Yanoun
exploded in a day of violence that left five villagers in hospital,
and a settler with a broken arm. Details are hazy – only oneIsraeli newspaper ran the story – but a statement by the EAPPI
claimed that villagers were stabbed and beaten with clubs by
settlers as well as shot at by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF),
who intervened as the situation escalated. Settlers also burned
Yanoun’s wheat fields, and attacked villagers that attempted to
put out the fires.
Emmet talks me through the area’s recent history to explain
how the current situation has arisen. The settlements around
here, he tells me, were built in the 1980s, but the trouble
really started around settler violence during the mind 1990s.
“There was a constant campaign of incursions into the village,
intimidation and violence,” he explains.
“We talk to many Palestinians and a lot of them don’t know
about Yanoun, and what has happened here,” he says. “It is in a very
strategic position, which is very apparent to the Israelis – it stops
their expansion – but we even have to explain to Palestinians where
the village is. And we’ve been here ten years.”
Settlements are forbidden under Article 49,
Paragraph six, of the Geneva Convention, a section
of the law that was designed to prevent a repeat of
what occurred in wartime G ermany, when the
Nazis colonised areas of its neighbours by moving
its citizens en masse outside its borders. However,
there are around 300,000 Jewish settlers living i n the West Bank
– according to fig ures from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
factbook – including around 200,000 in Palestinian East
Jerusalem, set against an overall population of 2.3 mil lion in the
West Bank.Occasionally the Israeli authorities evict settlers from makeshift
settlements that are deemed illegal by its courts. At the end of this
summer, this happened in Migron, which was built on privately-
owned Palestinian land and was deemed illegal by Israel’s Supreme
Court. However, larger constructs such as Itamar, Beit El and Ariel
remain; vast towns, often with military barracks, factories and
hundreds of homes.
Driving through the West Bank the presence of the settlements
is overbearing. It is impossible to drive more than a mile without
seeing the blue and white of the Israeli flag, the slick roads and
military checkpoints, the yellow, Israeli-registered number
plates and IDF troops. In the southern city of Hebron, an Israeli
That came to a head in 2002 when it got too much for the locals.
The second intifada had begun [The Palestinian uprising between
roughly 2000 and 2005] and pretty much most of the people in the
village left. Eventually international activists – as well as Israeli
peace activists – were involved in bringing people back. It was only
with this support that the villagers felt safe enough to return.
If the activists needed evidence of their effectiveness, Emmet
says it came two years ago when, during a changeover of staff, the
neighbouring settlers thought the EAPPI headquarters had closed.
“They thought that we had abandoned the place, so they came
down and were snooping around. When they realised that there
was a team here they left, but it is an example of how when they
thought we had left, they thought it was fair game to come down
here,” he explains.
Katrina recalls how two years ago settlers came to the village
with their dogs and swam and played in the well, which is Yanoun’s
drinking water. Dogs being considered unclean to many Muslims,
the insult was obvious. Plus the settlers were heavily armed. “You
can see it here,” says Emmet, pointing to a grainy picture on thewall, which shows a group of white, keffiyeh-wearing men around
the village well. “There are four or five people there – that one has
an assault rifle.”
The importance of Yanoun to the Israelis is both geographical
and ideological. The settlers from Itamar, led by a firebrand mayor
and Rabbi Moshe Goldsmith, see the area as given to them by God,
as descendents of Biblical prophets Abraham and Isaac. The second
element is that Yanoun is the Palestinian village between Itamar
and the Jordan Valley, which is the source of water for most of the
West Bank and has been almost entirely occupied by the Israelis
since the end of the Second Intifada. Despite this, Emmet says, its
importance to Palestinians is often overlooked.
settlement sits right in the middle of the Arab district – five-
hundred settlers, protected by four-thousand Israeli troops,
surrounded by 250,000 Palestinians. Only Nablus and Ramalla
the de facto capital of the Palestinian National Authority, were
spared Israeli settlements, checkpoints or troops, and only in
the immediate city centre. Ramallah is bordered by the Israeli
settlement Beit El, separated only by a road block and barbed w
The West Bank remains divided into three areas, A, B and C
Area A, less than twenty percent of previously Palestinian land
is directly policed and administered by the Palestinian Author
In Area B (just over twenty percent), Israel has responsibility
for security while Area C, the remaining sixty percent, is Israe
administered and policed.
Then there is the 700 kilometre barrier that now dissects th
West Bank. The structure, which Israel began building in 2002
after the outbreak of the second Intifada, almost completely cu
the West Bank from East Jerusalem and Israel, in some cases e
slicing fields and villages down the middle. In 2004, the Pales
Liberation Organisation – the international arm of the PA – toIsrael to the International Court of Justice. The PLO argued th
this was a land grab, taking in areas of Palestine that, while no
settled by Israel, were still Palestinian land prior to the 1967 S
Day War, when Israel occupied the entire West Bank. The Isra
meanwhile, say it has been instrumental in cutting down on th
number of suicide bombers from the West Bank.
To get some background on the legal controversy that surr
the construction of the wall, and the settlements themselves,
I speak to Victor Kattan. Kattan is an academic, writer and
programme director of Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian policy netwo
His books have been praised for his willingness to acknowledg
the painful history of the Jews, even if, being half-Palestinian,
clear where his sympathies ultimately lie. When we meet in a
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7/29/2019 The quiet takeover: Inside Yanoun, a Palestinian village under siege
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6 ESQUIRE OCTOBER2012 OCTOBER 2012 ESQUIR
Coffee near London’s Russell Square, he is weeks away from
relocating to Ramallah to take up an advisory job with the UN.
“One of the arguments raised by the Palestinian legal team
and by other countries that supported them was that the wall
was contrary to international law,” Kattan explains. “Their
argument was if you want to build a wall then it should be
built along the 1949 ceasefire line, which people recognise as
being part of Israel, you should not build it on territory that is
claimed by the Palestinians,” he says.
There are fifteen judges on the panel of the ICJ –
represented by all major nations in the UN, including the
permanent five. All of them agreed that not just the wall, but
Israel’s settlement policy, was contrary to international law.
One of the judges was Thomas Buergenthal, from the U.S.,who, although declining to put his name to the decision of the
ICJ, issued his own opinion. He said he agreed that settlements
were contrary to international law.
“The legal standing is quite clear, and no one really disputes
that,” Kattan says, “and I guess your next question will be:
‘Then why are they still being built?’ The answer is that the
enforcement procedures are inherently weak, especially if you
have a big power that supports you. The Americans are big
backers of Israel and a lot of people there support the settlers.”
Such big decisions seem remote when talking to the
villagers in Yanoun, many of whom have watched their land
diminish for generations. In Upper Yanoun, which is home to
three dozen villagers, any new building or farming activity is
forbidden due to its classification as Area C. Lower Yanoun
fares slightly better, being classified Area B. A key argument
made by Israel, Kattan explained, is that the land that settlers
seize is not being used by Palestine. “The Israeli Supreme
Court made that distinction. They said it is illegal to build on
private Palestinian land, but if it is not being used, then theywill take it. The ICJ said it doesn’t matter whether it is private
or public or used or not used, you can’t build on it. But the
problem with the ISC, of course, is that it can make decisions
but they are not always followed.”
Sometimes they are though, as Rashad Murrar,
Yanoun’s mayor, knows firsthand. After he lost
300 dunams [300,000 square metres] of his
land to settlers, Murrar called in the lawyers,
who promptly took the case to the Israeli
courts in Jerusalem and won. “I still can’t go
on my land alone,” he adds when I meet him in Yanoun, but
his triumphant look suggests that the court battle was worth
it. Murrar, who took over as mayor in 2004, is right to be
cautious. Just days before my visit, a young man was severely
injured after being shot by Israeli settlers in Asira Al Qibyla,
and stories of farmers being hassled if not violently attackedon their land abound.
Murrar looks older than his forty-six years, a result, he
suggests, of carrying the weight of a village on his shoulders for
almost a decade. As we speak, a neighbour’s car breaks down
and, mid-sentence, he is out of his seat, hurrying into the street
to lift the bonnet. After tinkering for a minute, the engine starts
and he smiles and waves the man on his way.
“If there is any problem here, people call me,” he says sitting
back down. “My phone is going all the time, it’s very difficult.
You have to think there are around thirty people in the village
(Upper Yanoun) and only four of them are men,” he says,
offering me another painfully-strong Palestinian cigarette.
“There have been many problems. (In the past) the settlers would
come down every one or two weeks. They would come and
they wash in our wells and go into our houses. One time armed
balaclava-clad settlers closed the road between Upper and Lower
Yanoun for ten days,” he recalls.
Murrar has tried in vain to persuade Yanoun landowners, many
of whom have since relocated to Nablus or Ramallah, to follow his
example and take the settlers to Israeli courts. He has also seen
more and more young people leave the village once they grow
old enough to work and marry. Being classified as Area C, it is not
possible to build new houses in Upper Yanoun, and only renovations
are permitted down the valley. It goes without saying that there
is little opportunity for work. “It is difficult because young people
want to go to another city to find work. There is too much trouble
here. There are no houses for young people when they grow up, andwe can’t build any more,” he says.
It is not just the Israelis who Murrar blames for Yanoun’s
problems. He is also critical of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah
and Nablus. He feels that despite the obvious restrictions that
the Israeli occupation presents to the PA, more could be done to
improve the village. “If the government wanted to help us, they
could – so why don’t they? They could build a school (the village
doesn’t have one), or buy the materials and let us build it. I have
been to see them, I have tried to talk to them about it, but still, until
now, it’s nothing,” he says.
Murrar looks around sadly, before draining his cup. His cigarette
is burning low again. “It’s difficult to live,” he says, pausing and
looking to the hills. “It is beautiful here, but when you wake up
every morning and see the settlements... It’s sad.”
G
etting Itamar’s mayor, Rabbi Moshe Goldsmith on
the phone is surprisingly easy, even if the
scepticism in his voice about speaking to a Western
journalist is palpable. Goldsmith, who has lived inItamar since it was a tiny hamlet of twelve
prefabricated houses, is used to hearing the
argument about settlers expanding onto Palestinian farmland, but
he flatly denies that it i s happening in Yanoun. If it was, there
would be redress to the court s, as there is for all residents of the
West Bank. “The land that they claim is being t aken away is open
land; we didn’t come and uproot trees or crops. It’s our h istorical
homeland. If it was Palestinian land then we have a courts system
to sort that out. Things are not done without the authorisation of
the government,” he says.
The mayor blames violence in Yanoun on outsiders, and
repeatedly stresses that Itamar has no problems with the residents
of the village. He points out that the aforementioned incident
between settlers and villagers earlier this year involved hundreds
of Palestinians, far more than the population of Yanoun. And, in the
endless Palestinian-Israeli refrain, he says that the Arabs started it.
“It all started when some of our residents on the hilltop went down
to a spring near the village to enjoy the atmosphere and they were
attacked by people with sticks... We don’t try to make trouble withanyone; we live with the constant threat of attack but unfortunately
the media portrays things the other way around. Look what
happened with the terrible massacre of the Fogel family. We’ve been
victimised.”
The March 2011 killing of the Fogel family wa a horrific chapter
in the history of the West Bank. A father, mother and three children
– the youngest just three months old – were murdered in their
beds by two young Palestinians, who crept into the settlement
during the night. In June the pair were tried and found guilty o
murder. The killings were openly condemned by the Palestini
Authroity, but it still served to intensify relations on both sides
Israel responded by approving the expansion of other West Ba
settlements – although not in Itamar itself – which was condem
by the U.S. Meanwhile there were reports – although, as is so
in the Israel/ Palestine conflict, they came in heavily partisan
media – of revenge attacks against Palestinians, and of Palestin
particularly in Hamas-governed Gaza, celebrating the murder
As Emmet Sheerin and I patrol his morning roufrom Upper to Lower Yanoun later, stopping
occasionally to take photographs, I suggest th
all seems pretty hopeless. The settlements ar
and parcel of an occupation that is unlikely to
any time soon. Politically, the current Israeli
administration is reliant on settler support, and while the Isr
Defence Force backs the settlers against the Palestinians, it i
to assume that the violence and hatred will continue.
Up to a point, Emmet is confident that progress is possible.
about us being here, documenting what happens. They might
have guns but we have cameras – that is a huge imbalance bu
believe that recording these incidents can impact on the exte
to which people will violate human rights,” he says. “There is
phrase here in the West Bank that to exist is to resist, and we
allowing people to exist, we’re giving them that breathing spa
Emmet also talks about the power that evidence of settler
has on the international community. “In my country, Ireland, f
example, the minister of foreign affairs recently said that he w
push for a ban on settlement products being sold in Europe unIsrael changes its policies,” he explains. “Now he didn’t pick th
of his head; there are a lot of people who have been pushing fo
using the information that is gained on the ground. He also sa
he would push for a ban on violent settlers from travelling in E
– these are potentially concrete things that might happen.”
This cautious optimism, however, is tempered by the realit
of life on the ground. “There is no doubt that it is a ridiculousl
difficult situation,” Emmet admits as we stroll along the empty
street that joins the two parts of the village. “As long as they ke
expanding, the chances… I mean... it’s unlikely.”
On the way home, Hasan, my driver, is keen to know what I
make of the situation in Yanoun. He is from another nearby vi
Aqraba, but that too has lost thousands of its inhabitants over
the decades. My answer, rushed, conciliatory, probably means
nothing of substance given what he has experienced will cont
to experience as I cross back into the comfort of Jerusalem, a p
of his homeland that he will probably never be allowed to visit
doesn’t seem to satisfy him, and he shuffles in his seat.
“We watched Egypt on the television last year, then Libya –and the world helped them – now we watch Syria, and the wo
helps them. We watch all this and think, when will it be our tu
For sixty years we have suffered,” he says, falling silent as the h
drop away to a breathtaking view of the Jordan Valley, the pla
shimmering against the earthy red backdrop of the mountains
Jordan, just a few miles away.
We’re driving along the very edge of what’s left of the Pales
West Bank; empty roads weaving through villages and sun-sco
hills. The distant minarets of mosques and dilapidated farmho
dot the horizon. “It’s beautiful,” I say, trying to break an awkw
silence. Hasan shrugs, half-hearted in his approval. He grips th
steering wheel tight, fixes his eyes on the road and says nothin
“WE WATCHED EGYPT ONTHE TELEVISION LASTYEAR, THEN LIBYA ANDTHE WORLD HELPED THEM NOW WE WATCH SYRIA,AND THE WORLD HELPSTHEM. WE WATCH ALL THISAND THINK, WHEN WILL ITBE OUR TURN? FOR SIXTY
YEARS WE HAVE SUFFERED.” HASAN, WEST BANK RESIDENT
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