I rarely find any coverage in the US media of one recurring crisis in Palestine. Whenever the Israeli occupation forces evict Palestinians from their homes for one of two reasons, either to annex their land which will become part of the state of Israel, as is the case in Jerusalem, thus the notable shrinking of its eastern parts which were gradually swallowed up since the 1967 occupation; or to build new Jewish settlements like the ones that mushroom overnight on the West Bank.
Hence my joy when I came across a story which ran on the Dec. 21 issue of the Washington Post titled “Poor farmers resist government bid to seize long-held property.
The article told the story of how the residents of one of the river islands were stunned when they woke up one morning to find their land besieged by armed forces. On the next day the forces filled the island and ordered them to evacuate it by government decree without giving any reasons.
The government had tried to take over a neighboring island a few years back, claiming that its residents lived there illegally and that the government owns the entire area.
Suspicious of foul play, they refused to succumb to the strange eviction order and leave their property, especially that there were no signs of any plans for a major project in the island or promises of suitable compensation.
Thus ensued the natural confrontation which occurs in similar circumstances where the owner stands his ground and holds on to his land no matter how pressured he is to succumb. For a peasant, land is a source of livelihood, honor and pride. Selling one’s land is a source of shame, a scandal that spreads like wildfire in the village the moment it is known.
The American newspaper described how the residents resisted the occupation forces and how some of them even dug their own graves and lay in them to show that they will die on their land and not leave it.
The women cursed the forces which didn’t hesitate to fire bullets in the air to intimidate them, (though they returned to collect the shells so it wouldn’t be taken against them).
But some of the wiser residents told the rest of the peasants: “If the government is being unreasonable, we must be reasonable and they set off to speak to the army leaders. They presented all the documents that prove their legal ownership of the land and real estate tax records which they have been paying regularly for generations that go back more than a century.
At that, the military forces asked the peasants to present these documents to their own commanding officers. They packed them into a bus and took them to a secluded area off the island where they suffered for days before they were asked to sign documents relinquishing their rights to the land, otherwise they would not be released.
Under much coercion and threats they were forced to sign off their property, not knowing to whose benefit; but they resolved that as soon as they were set free they would return and defend their right until the day they die.
Thus I was ecstatic when an established international newspaper like the Washington Post finally covered the land grabs of the Israeli occupation forces.
But alas, my elation swiftly subsided when, a few lines into the story, I realized that the correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer wasn’t writing about Israel or the Occupied Territories at all, but was writing about Egypt; and that the land grab was targeting none other than the island of Qorsaya located north of Dahab Island in the south of Cairo; that the confrontation could soon turn bloody and that until now, the government has provided no explanation for its incursion on the island or on whose behalf it was doing so!
Mohamed Salmawyis President of the Arab Writer’s Union and editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo. This article is syndicated in the Arabic press.
