“Security” as Land Theft: The Case of Jayyous

By William Parry


	Israeli soldiers check the permits of farmers seeking to work their land in Jayyous (Photo W. Parry).

IT WAS A joke of exasperation that I heard from a number of Palestinian farmers months ago: “Next we’ll need permits from the Israelis to sleep with our wives,” they would say after they had summarized the bureaucratic hoops they have to jump through to go about their normal lives. Having witnessed the catalogue of Kafkaesque routines and requirements that they patiently undergo to, for example, access their farmland to earn an honest living, it didn’t sound so outlandish a prediction.

What should be outlandish—and outrageous—is Israel’s blatant duplicity concerning the separation wall it has erected within much of the Palestinian West Bank. Israel speciously calls it a “security barrier.” Anyone who examines Israel’s policies and methods of ethnic cleansing of Palestine, however, will quickly realize that “security” is an over-exploited ruse used to legitimize its colonial policies and to shield itself as a nation from moral responsibility for its actions. The annexation, apartheid or separation wall, or barrier, or fence—whatever phraseology one wishes to use—is a de facto land grab that is destroying lives, livelihoods, communities and a people.

Israel’s PR machine is sophisticated, far-reaching and efficient. Articulate and media-savvy spokespersons use air time on our televisions and radios to explain that the wall, incursions, blockades, bombardments, targeted assassinations and the like are regrettable but necessary for the sake of “security,” to safeguard innocent, peace-seeking Israelis. But when you witness firsthand Israel’s illegal and destructive occupation of Palestine, it becomes clear that “security,” like “anti-Semitism,” is a term whose intrinsic gravity is greatly—and dangerously—undermined and eroded by Israeli spin.

“Security” Issues


Abu Azzam on one of his many phone calls to his lawyer to see if Israeli authorities had renewed his permit to access his land (Photo W. Parry).

While literally tens of thousands of individual examples could be used up and down the West Bank to reveal the true nature and consequences of Israel’s annexation wall, take the experiences of the residents from the verdant Palestinian town of Jayyous as an example. Home to 3,500 Palestinians, Jayyous has two things that Israel covets: prime agricultural land and important aquifers. The wall, slicing two and a half miles deep into Jayyous from the Green Line, is simply about annexing land and water resources—5,585 dunams of land and four aquifers to be exact.

Jayyous is one of several Palestinian villages that in recent months has seen its peaceful demonstrations against the destruction and expropriation of its land met with severe brutality by the Israeli army. These weekly demonstrations, which began in November 2008, are organized by the Stop the Wall Youth Campaign in Jayyous to challenge the Israeli High Court’s decision last year to re-route the wall in Jayyous—which would destroy hundreds of dunams more of agricultural land and uproot 200 additional trees (6,000 were uprooted to make way for the wall in 2003).

Sharif Omar, known as Abu Azzam, is one of Jayyous’ most charismatic and—although 67—indefatigable sons (see October 2004 Washington Report, p. 49). He is Jayyous’ largest land owner and proudly lists what he grows as if they were his children: “We grow whatever the earth gives—loquat, twelve types of citrus, apricots, olives, guava, avocados, figs, walnuts, almonds, pomegranate and grapes,” he says with a warm laugh.

Last September, Abu Azzam received me at his home. Two years earlier I had met him and his wife, Seham, on their farmland, but this time he was waiting for his permit to access his land to be renewed—it was 50 days late, enough time to have a serious effect on the farm’s productivity, and on Abu Azzam’s mental and physical health. While visibly less upbeat than normal, he still teemed with generosity, hospitality, patience and tenacity.

This permit tug-of-war was becoming a pattern, he said: three months with a permit, three months’ legal struggle to have it renewed again (with prohibitive legal fees of 2,000 NIS). The word from the Israeli Civil Administration was that it was a “security” issue. However, Abu Azzam had just been given permission to travel into Israel to visit one of his sons, who was being held in administrative detention—so clearly security wasn’t the issue for his permit being declined. He believes that he is being punished for speaking to journalists and solidarity groups internationally about the wall. The message the Civil Administration is sending? “You can go to the UK, India or Sweden to talk about the wall, if you like, but you won’t go to your fields. You choose.”

“Security” reasons are also the official reason why Abu Azzam’s three sons have never been given permits to work the land either. “My eldest son, Azzam, cannot get a permit to our land a few hundred meters away from here for ‘security’ reasons,” he says, pointing down the hill from the house. “However, Azzam works in Ramallah for a private company that has dealings with Israeli companies. He has a permit to enter Israel to conduct business. You see how ridiculous it is?” he asks, laughing at the blatant absurdity. “They want to make our lives impossible so that we abandon the land.”

Unfortunately, this “ethnic cleansing by bureaucracy” is working. Eighty-five percent of Jayyous’ population were formerly employed in agriculture. Last autumn, Abu Azzam said, of almost 700 farmers in Jayyous only 216 had permits—and many of those, like him, did not currently have active permits. Because the paucity of permits means labor shortages, productivity has fallen, and almost half of Jayyous’ 136 greenhouses have been abandoned. Travel restrictions due to (“security”) checkpoints and flying checkpoints throughout the West Bank mean that merchants no longer come to Jayyous to buy produce in bulk. Transporting it to local population centers, even local villages like Azzun and Beita, is labor-intensive (unloading and reloading every 33-pound crate at each checkpoint), requires anything from four to six hours, and is therefore unprofitable and untenable, explains Abu Azzam.


	Israel’s wall—ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice but approved by the country’s High Court—will effectively annex much of Jayyous’ farmland to the illegal Israeli settlement of Zufim (background) (Photo W. Parry).

While he has managed to maintain his production level, with the assistance of family, friends and international volunteers, his income has halved. Two-thirds of Jayyous is now dependent on food aid, he says. Scores of residents have permanently left Jayyous, he adds, for Europe, North America, Australia and to other parts of the West Bank where prospects of finding work are somewhat better.

While Jayyous struggles for justice and survival, the illegal Israeli settlement of Zufim, which occupies much of Abu Azzam’s land, is expanding. The proposed new routing of the wall will annex much of the land for Zufim’s benefit, including the construction of additional housing units and an industrial zone, according to the grassroots anti-wall coalition Stop the Wall.

The Israeli army has used brutal force in response to the town’s opposition to the wall. On Feb. 18, for example, 25 army jeeps and 75 foot soldiers stormed the village, shooting sound grenades at homes which they then entered at gunpoint, vandalizing and looting, and rounding up some 65 residents, including members of the youth committee and the mayor’s son. The detainees were interrogated at a local school, which the soldiers also vandalized, and 17 of them were later arrested. Israeli troops also occupied 10 homes, flying an Israeli flag at each, sealed off the entrances to the village with mounds of dirt and stones, and imposed an indefinite curfew.

Muhammed Jayyousi is the youth coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign. Despite Israeli threats and violence, Muhammed says the demonstrations will continue. “To resist is to exist or we will lose more of our land,” he says. “We need to come back for as long as it takes to show Israel that we won’t accept the wall, we won’t live in a ghetto, we won’t be refugees in our own land. It’s our only choice.”

On my last visit to Jayyous, I accompanied Abu Azzam’s 60-year-old wife (who has a permit but a bad back), son-in-law and sleepy 8-year-old grandson to the agricultural gate when it opened at 7 a.m. I felt outraged that I could visit Abu Azzam’s land while he couldn’t. When I returned to his house, we stood on his rooftop, from which we could see his land. “Each day that I can’t go to my land I feel very angry,” he said, momentarily abandoning his usually sanguine manner. When I asked if he would ever give up the struggle, he grinned and said: “William, we have a saying in Arabic: Al ard aghla min el ’ard”—land is more precious than honor.

Israel’s occupation continues unbridled. Gaza remains an open prison, settlement construction and settlement expansion are ongoing, demolitions of Palestinian homes continue and, almost five years after the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s wall is illegal and must be dismantled, more of it is erected on Palestinian land each day. Israel has been told time and again: peace will only come with justice.

That, Israel, is security.

William Parry is a free-lance writer and photographer based in London. His book, Against the Wall, will be published by Pluto Press this spring.