Life of a Palestinian farmer

Friday, September 3
Jayyous
photos by Stella Carrol


The penetrating mid-day heat has drained my energy and left me in a state of semi consciousness. A sound of rain begins to wash over me. I imagine the refreshing rain drops cooling my skin and slaking the thirst of the parched land and plants outside. However, the illusion is soon broken by the realization of the impossibility of August rain here in Jayyous during the hottest driest season of the year. Now confused, I search for the source of this impossible sound of rain. Just outside the door of the house there is a small tree casting its sparse shade over three empty chairs. The leaves of that tree are vibrating in a very slight breeze, performing like a giant rain stick in constant motion.

Earlier we had crossed a farm gate checkpoint and were now sitting together in a comfortable room in Abu Azzan’s “palace,” a shelter on his land that has been transformed into a small home away from home. We sip coffee after a very substantial lunch. We are taking refuge from the blazing sun. There is quiet conversation and some are taking naps. It is very still outside. All life seems to be on hold, waiting for relief from the mid-day heat.

The refreshing sound of the “rain tree” and another round of cold drinks revive us enough to listen to 69 year old Abu Azzum’s stories about his life under Israeli occupation. He has showed us his land, staked out for 1000 new illegal homes for Israeli settlers. This take over of his land is being disputed in court, but meanwhile the Israeli army has destroyed many of his olive trees to make way for the surveyors to stake out the new home sites. He has also showed us a Jayyous community well, one of five, which Israel has metered to regulate how much the farmers use. He tells us stories of his interactions with the authorities and the struggles to get permits to go onto his own land. His stories are filled with pathos and promise. He told of the stump of an olive tree that the soldiers had left. The stump has sprouted some new shoots. He understands the tree as sending a message that the culture and land of the Palestinians will prevail. He tells of a young man who was injured in a protest demonstration and how his blood has watered the soil in a bond with international supporters.

As I write this several weeks later, we have been told that the Israeli military has refused to renew Abu Azzam’s permit to go on his land even though he has a certificate stating that his permit is to be renewed automatically. He is in the process of appealing to the court. A few days before his old permit expired he was told at the farm gate that he would not be able to pass through again because there was a small tear in his permit from being folded and unfolded over the months he has used it. He is without a permit to go to his fields to harvest the fruit and the olive which will soon be ready.

It is not easy for him to be separated from his life long bond with the land. His feet merge with the land as he walks over it, his body an extension of the rocks, soil, and vegetation. The land becomes more alive as he moves over it, irrigating the century old olive trees and the more recent figs, guavas, bananas, peaches, mangos and avocados. He knows each tree and the different amount of water that it requires. As he carefully trims a tree or pulls some weeds it’s as if the land, in thanksgiving, nurtures him, offering to him its deep rooted vitality and persistence for life over the centuries. As he walks through his vegetable garden with an eye for harvesting the next meal {as well as some extras to send home with his guests) the plants seem to drop their fruit into his extended hands. His eyes twinkle, his body is strong and relaxed. This is his land and he belongs to the land.

For now the land and the man are separated. The rain tree beside the man’s front door is still. Man, land and tree immobile, parched and powerless. Within a week this Askadinia tree will blossom. Our hope is that man and land will once again be together to witness its display.

The Askadinia tree grows wild in Palestine and Israel. It may pop up anywhere. It popped up next in the Israeli settlement of Efrat, south west of Bethlehem and 8 kilometers inside Palestinian territory. I noticed the tree as we sat in the living room of Bob Lang who helped to found this settlement in 1967. As Bob talked to us about Efrat, a collection of 15 settlements on 7 hilltops with a population of 10,000 people and 2000 families, my attention strayed to the sound of rain outside the window. And there it was, the tree that witnesses the struggles of a Palestinian farmer now shades the yard of a settler in an illegal settlement, according to UN resolutions, overlooking and encroaching on six Palestinian villages on Palestinian land south of Bethlehem.

As I was drawn back to Bob’s presentation, the gentle rain sounds from the tree grew urgent. “Remember the land is the life blood for the Palestinian farmer.” In contrast, Bob Lang explained, “the land you see on these seven hilltops is holy for the Jews” and ripe for development expansion. He was energized and enthusiastic as he described the development of this land: 23 kindergartens, 3 elementary schools, 3 high schools each for boys and for girls. The infrastructure is in place for many more houses. They are only waiting for the building freeze to expire this month. “The day it expires, we will begin building.” For Bob, the Palestinian farm land is empty land to be buried under the development of more Israeli “suburbs.”

As they expand they have some problems with their Palestinian neighbors, he calls them Arabs, but Bob says, “basically, we get along well.” He told us that neither group wants the planned wall to be built between them. What he does not tell us is that the Israeli settlers are reluctant to have the wall in place because it would restrict Settlement expansion In the future. Bob concludes saying, “It is important for the Jews to live here. It is Holy land for us.”

The Askadinia tree outside Bob’s window and outside the Palestinian farmer’s cottage door spans the divide, rooted in the Holy Land of the Patriarchs and Prophets of two peoples and three Faiths. Its sound of rain falls on the just and the unjust. Some will take off their shoes to be in touch with the “holy ground.” Others will put on the armor of coercive power to posses their “holy” land. The sound of the rain tree and its flowering in the fall continue to suggest an inclusive holiness in this disputed land. It invites the two peoples and three faiths to sit together on the three empty chairs in its shade.

John Buttirck

EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.