Static caravans. The most unassuming of accommodations. Typically
used by holidaying families who want a trip to the great outdoors while also being able to remain in constant control of exactly how much outdoors will be involved.
As always here in the Holy Land, this norm does not apply:
Israel manages to turn even these usually unambitious apparati into yet another
weapon of colonialism.
Palestinian hilltops are bulldozed and flattened, after which immobile metal trailers are
placed in various defensive formations...
Large Israeli flags are raised – a classic custom of colonisers (those who actually own the land tend not to feel the need of making this assertion by sticking a big flag in it).
Long, black electricity wires link these ‘outposts’ with the nearest settlement so that residents can enjoy air conditioning in the summer and central heating in winter (a luxury few Palestinians can afford or get access to). [ Israel's Policy in Area C ]. This enables yet more excuses for harassment and confiscation of land as Palestinians are not allowed to be in the ‘vicinity’ of Israeli electric cables [ See: Israeli Military Order 378, Section 53(A)4 ]. (I recently heard a fellow bus-rider bemoaning that 'vicinity' was generally read by the Israeli military as meaning 30 metres either side of the cables).
Palestinians who attempt to farm their land in the surrounding areas of these obstinate new arrivals are at best stoned [ Israeli settlers stoning Palestinians ], and at worst shot at [ Israeli settlers shooting at Palestinians ]. Often this is done with the presence (and protection of) the
Israeli army (see links above and below).
If Palestinians are not forthcoming in offering themselves
as target practice, groups of Israeli settlers will often leave their fortified
enclave in order to beat and/or shoot at Palestinians who are unfortunate enough
to own the land they are attempting to steal. If no person can be found to
harass, they will settle (haha) for setting fire to olive trees, grape vines
and any other vegetation the local Palestinians are attempting to cultivate. [ Israeli settler families, Head of Kiryat Arba (settlement) Council and Israeli police uprooting Palestinian vegetables and insisting that the owners of the land are 'Muslim, not human'.]
Even Palestinian sheep aren’t safe. [ Poor sheep ] According to the Israeli government, this is how Israel makes the ‘desert
bloom’ thereby saving the Holy Land from the useless Palestinians who
apparently let the land go to waste. [ George, A. "Making the Desert Bloom" ]
The static caravans are progressively supplanted with brick
bungalows which are then replaced with large apartment blocks. Surrounding
fences and defences are fortified (with the help of SBM's 'settlement perimeter protection system'), roads are tarmaced and VOILA – another
Israeli ‘settlement’ is established.
The clusters of tall, bright-white, red-roofed buildings protrude from the hillsides like festering, pus-filled sores. (Sorry, but its true... LOOK: ... )
They stand in
stark contrast to Palestinian houses and villages which dot the hillsides, surrounded by family or community-owned lands which the historically agrarian Palestinians have cultivated for millennia. Which seem to have grown out of the very earth itself.
Strategically, this makes them much harder to
defend in the event of attack. Presumably, this was not a consideration at the
time.
As I drive back from work past the
expanding settlements of Efrat and Gush Etzion, they begin to blink bright, sporadic, burnt umber lights; the setting sun reflected
in their windows. For a moment, they look beautiful. For a moment, they look
like they are on fire.
