The hills are alive

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Umm Salamona is a village south of Bethlehem. In Umm Salamona there is a hilltop lying close to the big settlement of Efrata. The inhabitants of Efrata and two other settlements in the area want to use this hilltop for a cemetery. The Palestinian family owning the hilltop has taken the case to court, and the supreme court ruled that the land had to be cultivated within three years, otherwise it would be confiscated (and beyond doubt given to the settlements). This is according to an Ottoman law that Israel often uses to take land from Palestinians.

The land owner, Ra'ed Taqatqa, with the local TV team in the background.

Some kind of apathy seems to have stricken the owner family at this point. For two years and ten months, nothing happened. Then Awad Abu-Swai discovered what was going on, and mobilized people in order to start cultivating the land. Awad is the same person as I wrote about in my September blog about the village Artas, which is also threatened by land confiscation, and where he has initiated a similar project. Every day people come to remove weed and stone and prepare the land for planting trees. Next week almond trees are coming, and in December olive trees. The plan is to plant a total of 3000 trees at the hilltop in Umm Salamona.

Lars, Gjermund, Christine and I came there on Monday because we had received an SMS from a friend, saying that Israeli authorities were coming to inspect. It was necessary to have as many internationals there as possible, to show the support that the project had. We were around thirty internationals there that morning, and local TV had also come. "Don't talk to the soldiers", Awad warned us. "Don't throw stones or burn weed"(we were carrying stones to build walls) . It was important not to give the Israeli authorities anything to complain about. But the authorities never showed up. They didn't want to with so many internationals present, I was told. They only wanted to speak to the land owner alone.

Removing weeds. The houses with the red roofs in the background belong to Efrata.

So we spent the morning carrying stones and building walls. It is a battle against time in Umm Salamona. Two months to prepare the whole hilltop and plant 3000 trees. Will they make it? I don't know. The theft and the injustices in this place makes my heart heavy. But it leaped when Awad mentioned the almond trees. It reminded me of a poem by Nikos Kazantzakis:

I said to the almond tree
"Sister, speak to me of God".

And the almond tree blossomed.

The wall we built that morning.