As the strike force of Yesha-stan (combining Yesha, the official acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza, with the state-like suffix -stan) devotedly carries out its missions in the West Bank, expelling as many Palestinians as possible from their lands, another, quieter expulsion is taking place away from the headlines.
Its violence is not carried out with iron bars or live ammunition, but with orders and regulations crafted by nameless, well-dressed legal experts, signed by army generals, and approved by Israel's High Court of Justice.
This population transfer is better known by the name Seam Zone: an immense area of about 320,000 dunams (nearly 124 square miles) lying between the separation barrier deep inside the West Bank, and the Green Line – open to Israelis and closed to Palestinians.
Israelis and tourists are free to move around there at will and to expand their suburban settlements , which are illegal under international law. For Palestinians living in the territory occupied by Israel in 1967, this mostly rural area is their natural lands reservoir, , now pushed beyond the proverbial mountains of darkness.
The minority among them - farmers from villages between Qalqilya and Ya'bad who had been granted entry permits, were banned from accessing their lands there for the past two years. After petitions by the Israeli human rights group HaMoked, a few farmers recently received permission for just two or three days of olive harvesting. They soon regretted going: their hearts broke at the sight of withered trees and long-neglected groves.
When the true experts on Israeli policy – the Palestinians, the left, and human rights organizations – warned in the early 2000s that the separation barrier's route was designed to seize more fertile land, state officials rolled their eyes and scoffed: "Us? Wanting as much land as possible with as few Palestinians as possible? Come on. Where did you get that idea? Security is our only concern."
Meanwhile, the Yesha-stan marauders set up pirate caravans and livestock pens just meters from Palestinian olive groves, then claim that the harvest poses a security threat. It is their God-given right, therefore, to attack harvesters until they bleed.
The state, for its part, condemns the population it occupied in 1967 to an eternal fate as rightless subjects, treating every water well, market, or organized tour in the artificially designated Area C as a punishable offense. In the Seam Zone – Area C squared – the restrictions are so draconian that the few thousand Palestinians who live in villages trapped inside it can reside in their own homes only if Israel deigns to issue them special permits.
Recently, the residents of three villages northwest of Jerusalem – Beit Iksa, Nabi Samwil and Khalaila – were added to this trapped population. For them, this is not a dramatic change hardly matters: they have long been completely cut off from their relatives, friends and workplaces. For 20 years they have faced severe restrictions on movement and construction. Once, a lively area connected these villages to each other and to their fields and orchards. Now, it has been "cleansed" of Palestinians and effectively annexed to Israel.
Today, however, residents of these three villages must also obtain Israeli permits simply to live in their own homes. Several hundred have not received such permits; several dozen have been told they never will. Israeli bureaucrats, dutifully following orders, will decide whose permits to revoke in the future, free to invent new "residential conditions" as needed.
This is a quiet, ongoing expulsion, and one that unfolds beneath the radar. It helps explain why most Israelis are not truly shocked by the bloody, unrestrained expulsions carried out by the "envoys of the Almighty," and why they are not filling the streets in protest to stop it. In the end, everyone supports a real-estate bonanza for Jews.
[Amira Hass is a reporter and columnist for Ha’aretz Daily, a newspaper based in Tel Aviv, Israel. She has been a journalist for two decades.
Hass has written critically about both Israeli and Palestinian authorities. She has not allowed her gender, ethnicity or nationality – all hindrances in the region she reports from – to obstruct her from pursuing the truth in her reporting.
In 1989, Hass quit her studies in history at Tel Aviv University and began working as a copy editor for Ha’aretz Daily. At the same time, she volunteered for Workers Hotline, a human rights group dedicated to reaching out to vulnerable workers, many of whom were Palestinian. She became acquainted with life in Gaza and grew frustrated about how poorly Israel’s occupation of Gaza was represented in the Israeli press.
By 1991, Hass was writing weekly features for Ha’aretz Daily, and in 1993, she became a full-time writer for the paper. She moved to Gaza, which at the time was under direct and full Israeli occupation.
Hass, now based in Ramallah, has lived in the Occupied Palestinian territories for nearly 30 years. She has been reporting on the life of Palestinians under the Israeli occupation and covering the major armed clashes and Israeli military attacks. Her goal has been to provide her readers with detailed information about Israeli policies, especially restrictions on the freedom of movement.
In the course of her work, Hass has been threatened, harassed and detained. In May 2009, she was detained by Israeli police on her return from a four-month stay in Gaza “for violating a military order” (which forbids entry into Gaza) and “for staying illegally in an enemy state.” She had also been detained in December 2008 by Israeli police on her return to Ramallah for violating the same military order.]
