Abu Ja'bar

The popular committee of Beit Ummar told us about a man who has been having problems on his land. He is an older, religious gentleman and is quite respected by people in the village. Everyday he travels to the edge of town and rides a tractor down a steep and narrow strip of earth that hardly passes for a road. His name is Abu Ja'bar.



Abu Ja'bar invited ISM to come down to his farm and see the problems with our own eyes. Now imagine a group of city folks from the U.S., Ireland, and Sweden riding a FIAT tractor. The scene was pure comedy as we tried to balance taking in the beauty of our surroundings, the length of the commute, and our butts on various parts of this vehicle.

What we encountered, however, was astonishing. Deep within the hills behind Beit Ummar, in tough terrain, men grew grapes and plums and olives and more. I am not a farmer but I have always imagined farms as flat lands with rich soil. Tucked away in a tough valley the land was burdened with thousands of stones but deep beneath the stones lay the roots of these rich crops growing, reaching for soil and moisture.

Far above us, on a hill opposite the direction we came from, there are lightposts and red roofs. These serve a similar purpose to Starbucks in New York City; you know what neighborhood you are in by the number of them. You can tell settlements by their red roofs, Palestinians can too. They are symbols of the anabolic gentrification process under way in the West Bank. These settlements steal land away from Palestinians, who have already been pushed into a reservation-like existence. That is not all...

Settlements are an ideological project of Israel, but they take advantage of interesting socio-economic conditions. On the one hand there are ideological settlers who act very much like cowboys on the frontier using their guns to ward of the "barbaric injuns." But in some cases the settlers are working class families in search of subsidized housing and are less enthusiastic about the Israeli jingoism that drives the civilian occupation. Nevertheless, they live in homes with red roofs which serve as signals of trouble.

In Abu Ja'bar's case, settlers descend the steep hills with their hungry sheep and take advantage of the unguarded fruit and other crops. Entire vines have lost their fruit. Trees have been stripped bare by animals shepherded by nefarious settlers. Maliciousness covers this plot of land like a mantle set before supper, only the settlers would prefer Abu Ja'bar to be the main course. He is literally being eaten out of his farm and home.



Abu Ja'bar has gone to Israeli officials numerous times to complain about the invasion of his crops by settlers and although he has filed complaints, there has been no resolution. He and others have been threatened by armed settlers and have been forced to leave their land in fear of being shot on several occasions. Some trees have been purposely kicked and uprooted, others have had their roots sawed off, while still others have been victims of arson. Wires have been cut, gasoline spilled, and if you can imagine this, boulders have been pushed off the hill, all in hopes of destroying this source of Palestinian fruit.

Abu Ja'bar, like most Palestinians, is valiant. He returns to his farm despite the perils. Isolated as it was I trembled at the idea of returning in the face of such colonial actions and attitudes, but Abu Ja'bar refuses to relinquish his land. He embodies that everpresent Palestinian steadfastness -un guille de nos quedamos. What in Palestine is called summud.