Palestine: a journal of everyday occupation

Khirbet Zakaria is a small and sprawling Palestinian village in the West Bank. What makes it stand out from so many others is its location. It sits in the heart of the Etzion settlement bloc. As the settlements in this area south of Bethlehem were established and grew, Zakaria became encircled.

Al-Ma’sara is a small village south-east of Bethlehem. Like so many parts of the West Bank, its lands are being taken by Israel: for expanding settlements and for “security”, which is either for the wall or a euphemism for providing a no-man’s land between settlements and Palestinian villages or towns.

The fact that the Palestinian Authority is venal and corrupt should hardly be a surprise. It’s interesting though to see some of the details of what has long been suspected: the PA selling out the people it is supposed to represent, and Israel’s refusal to accept anything other than as much territory with as few [...]

First published in Labour Briefing, September 2010 Georgina Reeves asks the mayor of Bethlehem about the impact of the Israeli settlements and the way towards a peaceful settlement Dr Victor Batarseh was elected mayor of Bethlehem in 2005 and took control of a local council in debt to the tune of 4.5 million NIS (Israeli [...]

According to Ha’aretz, the walls around Gilo are falling. It reports the walls went up in 2002, but in fact it was before that. British photographer JD Perkins ran a story on the painted walls in 2001. The murals on these massive concrete blocks obliterate any Palestinian presence from view and shows a pretty, Arab-free landscape.

There’s a lot of talk outside of Palestine about Palestinians boycotting settlement goods. Yesterday’s Ha’aretz ran another story on it in which is mentioned 3,000 volunteers going door-to-door to explain the boycott to people. No one has been to our home, nor to anyone else’s that I know of. And we certainly haven’t had any [...]

Wadi Fukin is a beautiful village in a fertile valley, west of Bethlehem. Two of my sisters-in-law live here having married into local families. Wadi Fukin has an interesting history: it is the only Palestinian village depopulated after 1967 and the villagers were subsequently allowed to return. To cut a long story short, for a [...]