7/29/2019 The quiet takeover: Inside Yanoun, a Palestinian village under siege

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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.

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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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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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