Up at 5 am to see the sunrise from our bedroom window - fantastic !
Kiya wondered if I was in the priesthood as I "look so spiritual" ! She's sweet.
Visited a Jewish settlement today and talked to the Settlers PR man. Very nice chap but definitely unbending in his views. "The land is ours, given by God.". How do you argue with "God has told us to take the land back" ? We asked if anybody could live in the settlement, including Palestinians ? Yes, he replied, anybody is welcome. This sounds admirable until you remember that in order to get into the settlement you have to drive pass the soldiers, and they wont let any Palestinian into the settlement, that's why they're there.
We did manage to speak to a couple of Jewish women in the settlement and they expressed their fear and anxiety of the Palestinians. A definite lack of awareness. There is lots of water for the Jews, but the lack of water for Palestinians is a Palestinian problem; they seem unaware that Israel controls the water of the Palestinians. They wont go to Bethlehem as their cars would get stoned by Palestinian children.
Palestinian homes have water tanks on their roofs to store water, Jewish homes don't as they have no need to store their water. The PR mans answer to the Palestinian water shortage is that their infrastructure is out of date (it probably is but then they don't have as much money as the Jewish authorities), and Palestinians don't conserve water like the Jews do (this again is probably true, but since a large majority of the Jews are westernised they expect to have large amounts of water on tap). They have increased the amount of water given to the Palestinians by 17%. Palestinians currently have 10% of the water, the Jews have the rest.
From seeing the Jewish settlements and the way in which water is used I don't think most Jews appreciate the necessity of conserving water. They just aren't used to living in dry arid conditions, they come from Europe and America and bring their lifestyle with them instead of adopting a lifestyle that is appropriate for the climate. We could see when we went to the Sea of Galilee that it's water level had dropped quite dramatically. How long I wonder before the Jews experience hose-pipe bans ?
Drugs, drink, and car thefts are the major problems in Jewish communities (very western !) - Not so in Palestine, unemployment and boredom here. Learning Hebrew is subsidised by the state.
Homes registered with British or Jordanian occupation (pre-1948) (about one third of the land) is recognised as owned by Arabs, the rest has been taken by the state. Israel does compensate for taking the land but if the person refuses the compensation, which isn't market value anyway, then the land is taken anyway. The problem is though that although Arabs have been living on the land for centuries and all their neighbours know it, they didn't bother to register their interest, and so when the state of Israel came into being two-thirds of the land, although owned by Palestinians, was not registered and so the Israeli courts deemed the land as state land - It's not registered therefore it doesn't belong to any one !
Into Hebron, heard from the Christian Peacemakers Team and heard about the house demolitions. In order to build a house you need a permit. Palestinians are consistently refused permits and so build their houses anyway. Once the Israeli's notice this they send an order in which the owner has 30 days to demolish their own house or the army will do it and then charge the owner for this privilege. But it isn't a case of after 30 days the bulldozers move in, there have been cases where the bulldozers haven't moved in for up to six years after giving the demolition order !
The Israeli's take aerial photographs once a month to see if any new homes have appeared on the West Bank.
TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) can only see and report, they can't interfere. But the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) can and do interfere. TIPH if officially recognised by Israel, the CPT aren't. TIPH is made up from Police officers from Scandinavian / European countries - not UN. Israel does not like the UN as they condone what Israel is doing - its occupation. 60% of all UN resolutions that have been passed have been condoning Israel for one thing or another. Israel has yet to comply with any of them !
The CPT'ers are either full time or part time. For the full-timers they spend 3 years in Hebron with 2 months a year back home for a bit of R+R, talks and fund raising. The part-timers spend 1 month a year.
Had a talk in the evening from a Jewish anthropologist who is a member of the Israeli Coalition against House Demolitions.