Saturday, 26 March 2011

The Rape of Aboud


Life under Israeli Occupation The Story of Aboud in Palestine.

I was going to entitle this 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Aboud" but that is not strong enough language to describe what I witnessed in this village over the last 24 hours. Sadly, the Israeli government's 'strategy' in Aboud is not unique but typical of how Palestinian villages and towns are being cut off from their fertile land and olive groves, or imprisoned as ghettos behind the 8 metre high Hafrada (Hebrew equivalent of apartheid) Separation Wall, electric fences and tank traps.

Aboud is a small Palestinian village of 3,000 people nestling in the hills of Samaria, north of Ramallah. The village boasts stunning panoramic views of Jaffa and Tel Aviv. Half the village are Muslim, the other half Christian. There are three Christian communities in the village, the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Church of God. The Greek Orthodox church goes back to the 3rd Century. The village has schools and even a small hospital and visiting doctor.

Before 1967, the people of Aboud worked in the fields and the olive groves on the surrounding hillsides. It was a vibrant hub for around 15 smaller villages. Since 1967 the Israeli government has stolen the best land depriving villages access to most of their olive groves and income. They have built three large colonies exclusively for American and European Jews on the confiscated hills around Aboud. They have even stolen the village water pump, diverting the bulk of the water to the settlements.


All the roads our of the village have been blocked bar one which is monitored by Israeli control towers, infra-red cameras and checkpoints. They have even defaced ancient burial caves stealing some of the memorials which we saw have been crudely hacked off. Their hilltop church dedicated to Saint Barbara was bombed by the Israeli air force a few years back. Yasser Arafat paid to have it restored.

Lets be clear. As Norman Finkelstein puts it so eloquently in the film With God on our Side, the settlements are illegal. That's not complicated under international law, It is prohibited under the 4th Geneva Convention for an occupying power to transfer its population into the occupied territory. The West Bank is occupied territory.


As if to highlight the apartheid nature of this colonization, the residents of Aboud pay the same taxes as Israelis. However, there are no street lights or pavements, except those built by US Aid. And the main street leads no where except to the Israeli roadblock. This is a powerful if ironic symbol to the self imposed US roadblock to a peace process which funds the settlements in flagrant disregard to the rule of international law.