http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/678656.htmlThe argument over the establishment of the separation fence has become largely irrelevant, since large sections of it have already been built. Nonetheless, the sections planned for future construction are liable to seriously harm the environment and the Palestinians who depend on it for their existence. Therefore, there is a need to argue and question the necessity of erecting the fence in certain areas and the path chosen for it, and perhaps reduce the irreversible damage to the environment.
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However, behind this pastoral tranquility is the serious concern of local residents about the impact of various construction plans that threaten to enclose the village from all sides. On one side, the new neighborhoods of the Beitar Illit settlement are continuing to sprawl. On the other side, right next to the homes in the village, construction of the separation fence is planned, limiting the village residents' freedom of movement.
The village's system of traditional agriculture also faces a real existential threat. A report by experts living in the community of Zur Hadassah, within the Green Line, warns that the cumulative impact of the construction plans, including the separation fence and the planned expansion of Zur Hadassah, will cover the land where rainwater trickles into the earth and feeds the springs of Wadi Fukhin. The springs are liable to dry up, and along with them an ancient symbiosis of nature and human activity that has characterized the peoples and cultures living in this land.
Israel recently took pride in the fact that several historic sites located within its borders (biblical tels, or settlement mounds, and an ancient trade route in the Negev) were included in UNESCO's list of world heritage sites. But, at the same time, Israel destroys important heritage sites like the lands of traditional agriculture in the Judean Hills.
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The article says while this policy is destructive to the environment (in a way that may be irreversible), and will make it impossible to reach political compromise, the ray of hope is that Wadi Fukhin is getting cooperation from Friends of the Earth, Middle East.
See
http://www.foeme.org/press.php?ind=23 Comments: Like the story of
Silwan in East Jerusalem , Bil'lin in the West Bank (see more on nonviolent resistance to the destruction of the village
here ), this is yet another village who "faces a real existential threat". It is merely part and parcel of Israeli policy.
Israeli Amira Hass describes the violence of the Israeli State:
"On a daily basis, Israel attacks every Palestinian with systematic variety. The aggregation is lethal, even if the killing of a nine-year-old girl or setting a dog on an elderly woman are not daily occurrences. It's that aggregation that undermines any attempt to conduct a normal life. It's being locked up in the West Bank's enclaves, so that simple routines like going to school, work, or visiting family are impossible. There's the unceasing expropriation of land for roads and security fences for settlements; the trees uprooted by the army, livelihoods that are cut off daily, and the insult of that; the army's prohibition, on security grounds, against accessing farm and grazing lands; the break-ins to houses in the middle of the night, which the Israeli public rarely if ever hears about; the hours of waiting at checkpoints; the frightened children; the aimed rifles."The violence of the State is overwhelming. There will be no hope for an alternative future of peace until Israel gives up its plans to take Palestinian land, to continue to dispossess others of their homes, their land (good earth), to take away any hope for normal lives.
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