RAMALLAH: The Israeli government claims that it is committed to a peaceful solution with the Palestinians resulting in two independent states. Sitting in a bus to the South Hebron Hills, well outside the territory Israel formally plans on annexing through mutual land swaps, this declaration proves entirely hollow. As the vehicle barrels down Route 60, everything in sight suggests the state's desire to swallow the remains of Palestine: streets signs in Hebrew only; arrows indicating exits to each Jewish settlement; Israeli license plates on every car; and white and blue flags branded with the Star of David flailing from the top of every streetlight. A group of internationals, journalists, and activists are heading to Susiya. The armored jeeps speeding past us, the military checkpoints, the soldiers scanning the fields—a glance any direction testifies to the complete militarization of Palestinian geography. Our bus merges onto another segment of the highway with immense, semi-arching walls, a roofless tunnel designed to protect settlers from rocks or Molotov cocktails. This newly paved path is part of the 80 percent of all roads in the West Bank that Palestinians are legally barred from using. Their 20 percent have no protection walls to block the frequent rocks and firebombs launched at them from settlements. Much of this highway, like most Israeli-only highways in the West Bank, was built on private Palestinian land which was confiscated by the Israeli Occupation Forces. It winds through the rolling terrain, dissecting villages, dividing families, and penning Palestinians in cage-like pockets best described as Bantustans. To the right, a litany of military vehicles parked in a scanty ditch littered with jagged stones. A group of soldiers sit atop a nearby hill, binoculars in hands, assault rifles cradled in laps. Squatting on their haunches, they seem to be focusing on something in the vast panorama of rolling hillocks, the motionless landscape. All I can see on those hills is a child on a donkey, being led cautiously by a frail old man in a black-and-white keffiyeh. Behind him, a long pearl robe flows like a blank flag, pallid and almost glowing as it flutters against the backdrop of the dimming afternoon sky. The further we go, the greater the distance between settlements, the larger the Palestinian villages. We ascend a large knoll, and I see a massive Israeli settlement, Kiryat Arba, with high water towers, electricity grids, and playgrounds. It is as if a strip of Southern California suburbia was airlifted into the throbbing heart of Palestine. The bus turns onto a dirt road, carefully climbs a meandering path up a mellow incline, and parks. To the right, the village of Susiya cringes below. The homes are nothing more than hastily constructed tents, made from metal piping, cinder blocks, and black rain tarps. To the left a settlement that goes by the same name strategically straddles a hill. The villagers used to be semi-nomadic cave dwellers who oscillated across the countryside from season to season, herding and farming. Now they are stationary, waiting for the next military expulsion, defenceless and always faced with the threat of settler violence. Settler impunity in Apartheid state Located in Area C, the 60 percent of land allocated to complete Israeli control in the Oslo Accords, they rarely, if ever, receive building permits from the military. Thus, their presence in their historical homeland, they are told, is illegal. Military bulldozers frequently arrive in the dead of twilight, graciously giving residents 20 minutes to gather their belongings before their homes are destroyed. On particularly bad nights, the IOF proceeds to pulverize the village's water wells and caves, leaving behind an image of ruin and annihilation that forever impresses itself on hearts like a hot branding iron. On five unluckier occasions, the entire village was razed: in 1985, 1991, 1997, and twice in 2001. Nasser Nawajah, a lifelong resident of Susiya and longtime activist, welcomes internationals into his family's home. “Ahla wa'sahla," he says. Welcome. Like all Palestinians, one of his family's biggest concerns is access to water. The military told him that, due to security concerns, they could not dig deeper than three feet. Soldiers came and destroyed his water wells, stuffed mangled car parts in the remains to discourage their resurrection for fear of rust poisoning. A home in the Susiya village of South Hebron Hills. Photo: Patrick O. Strickland As a result, the Nawajahs order water from Yatta, the closest city, and on average pay three times the price of their Israeli counterparts. Mr. Nawajah estimates that their sheep, on which they depend for survival, are now consuming about 70 percent of the water they ought to consume each day to stay healthy. The settlers from next door often make midnight excursions to slaughter Susiya's animals, poison the water supply, and leave behind death threats. The wall of a tent of the edge of the village has been vandalized with Hebrew graffiti. “Death to Arabs," it reads. Not far away is the Havat Ma'on settlement, an outpost that even the Israeli government deems illegal. On a daily basis its religiously-intoxicated residents attack Palestinian children making their way to school. When international pressure forced the Israeli government to assign soldiers to accompany the children to school, the settlers proceeded to attack the soldiers. Despite their violence and illegality, the government has yet to cut off Havat Ma'on's state-subsidized utilities—gas, water, electricity. These violent vigilantes are treated with legal immunity, though they are formally under the jurisdiction of the Israeli civil code. Palestinians in this area, however, have just entered their 46th year of life under a suffocating stripe of martial law. The South Hebron Hills are prominently punctuated by inequality, segregation, and military violence. Amidst the barren hills, the destroyed caves, the shattered piles of stone that used to be water wells, the fresh settlements built on top of Palestinian homes, consider Mr. Nawajah's parting words: “How many times should we be forced from our homes? We shouldn't have to leave again." “These are not two equal sides: occupier and occupied," said Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadeh. During a visit to the South Hebron Hills, one can see all the legal disparities, economic inequalities, and systematic violations of human rights that characterize daily Palestinian life. These hardships are the intentional outcome of Israeli policy. Is it possible to walk away concluding that this is anything other than an apartheid system? [This article was originally published by Palestine Monitor in September 2012.]
