Johann Hari reports on a scheme that aims to help
Palestinian farmers
To get to Berdale, a tiny village of 2,000 Palestinians sunk in
the Jordan Valley, you have to drive through miles upon miles of barren hills
populated only by stray shepherds and herds of goats. You must spend hours
locked in the checkpoint checkmate, waiting for Israeli soldiers to let you
through. But as you finally approach this rickety collection of houses and
fields, you notice a jarring visual contrast.
Out on the Jordanian side of
the valley - just a few miles away - there are neat glistening rows of
greenhouses and lush trees. Here, on the Palestinian side, under Israeli
military occupation, the sickly trees mix with rubble and dust.
Ashraf
Sawafta, a sad, slow-talking 67-year-old farmer, explains why. "Life has been
made impossible for us here in Berdale by the occupation," he says. In the past
few years, the occupying forces have slashed Berdale's water supply, cutting it
from 240,000 litres a year to 140,000. As a result, the wells have dried up, and
they cannot irrigate most of their fields.
Ashraf looks out over his parched
fields and says even this is not their greatest problem. The Israeli forces have
made it almost impossible for farmers here to sell their produce, typically
cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, maize and beans.
To get to Hebron or Nablus,
the nearest markets, these farmers have to pass at least four military
checkpoints. At each one they have to unload their goods, bruising them, and
risk being turned back at any time. Ashraf says: "If I'm really lucky and I get
through, it takes a whole day and most of it has rotted in the sun."
The
poverty has bitten so deeply into Berdale that they have been forced into a
fresh humiliation. Seven kilometres away, there used to be a Palestinian village
called Ein al Bedia. In the 1970s, the residents were forced off of their land
at gunpoint and an illegal Israeli settlement called Mechola was built on the
remains.
Some 80 miles away, another agricultural village is drying up. Salah
Tahir Khadoumi is a 42-year-old farmer who stands, staring at the immense
wire-and-concrete wall that has been built by the Israeli military right through
his land. Two years ago, bulldozers arrived here in Yassid village in Nablus
province to construct the "security fence". They ripped up more than 30 acres of
olive trees.
"My citrus fruit greenhouses are on the other side. This gate,"
he says, pointing, "is the only way to get through, and the opening hours seem
to be random. I need to tend the plants twice a day. Last year, they didn't open
it for a month, and by the time I got through all my plants had died.'' The
Welfare Association, one of the three charities being supported in this year's
Independent Christmas appeal, have been offering hard, practical help so these
farmers can survive.
In Berdale, they have paid for the farmers to shift to
growing dates. They keep much longer and their palm trees need far less water.
An acre of citrus fruit brings in $300 (£150) a month. An acre of dates brings
in $2,000. The farmers could never have afforded the initial capital outlay of
buying the trees, which are $60 each, but now their lives are on track to be
transformed after the trees begin to bear fruit in three years.
In Yassid,
they have been helping to replant the olive trees and providing plastic for new
greenhouses. Mr Khadoumi proudly shows me a Welfare Association palm tree. "The
Welfare Association have stood by us," he says. "At times like this, you need
friends. We only want to be independent and live freely, with normal lives, like
your readers. Like the rest of the world."
The tree is already sprouting
small green leaves, and little shoots of hope.
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