Springs and Roots of Palestine
On Monday we left central Jerusalem, heading southwest — past the Israeli Tolerance Museum built on a Palestinian cemetery (!) — to visit two suburban villages.
The 1967 war evacuated the district’s largest village, Old Walaja, a huge site that now includes Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium and zoo. The villagers rebuilt Al-Walaja on a third of their once vast agricultural land, from which the new leisure structures are cruelly visible.
Under interlocking Jerusalem and Israeli jurisdictions, Al-Walaja is now 75% encircled by Israel’s infamous Wall; new building or expansions are rarely permitted; and many homes are under demolition orders that might be executed at any moment. Railroad tracks that once served Old Walaja now run an express from Jerusalem to Jaffa along the UN’s 1948 Green Line boundary between what is now Israel and the Israeli occupied West Bank.
Nearby and above is the beautifully terraced village of Battir. It stands where the 1948-49 fighting stopped. The Rhodes Agreement gave Battir’s residents rights to use the land across the tracks. When we were there, a bright white Israeli patrol jeep overlooked the tracks to prevent any supposedly “threatening” Palestinian activity (like the photography we were allowed to enjoy as internationals).
Because of Battir’s designation as a World Heritage site in 2014, UNESCO has prevented any Wall construction on village lands.
Each village offers scenes of historic beauty to visitors who trudge down steep, rocky footpaths. Not eager to encourage foreign tourism, Israel won’t permit improving the paths. But the hike down each is well worth it.
Battir’s footpath runs by an elegant 2000-year old Roman stone pool, fed by an aqueduct from one of three village water springs not yet blocked by Israel. The hillside terraces stepping down to the tracks are lush with gardens.
But across the tracks, the villagers can get spring water only from an old, rusting pipe they aren’t allowed to repair, limiting their agricultural success. Nonetheless, they have just added 200 new olive trees to sustain their claim of needing both land and water, despite Israel’s desires and continuous threats.
Looking up from the defunct site of the old railroad station, we saw fields and trees, terraced gardens, and stone residences perfectly fitting the shape of the land.
Al-Walaja’s footpath is an old pilgrimage trail down to the ancient Olive Tree of the Bedouin, said to be 5,000 years old — with a 5-month-old, 10-foot shoot now climbing up the largest of the tree’s multiple connected trunks.
About 50 feet high and 80 feet in circumference, the tree still produces 500-600 olives annually. But a razor-wire section of the Wall is just 65 feet away, and nearby Settlers have breached it several times to try burning down the ancient tree that Palestinian Christians and Muslims have long revered. So a Palestinian man has encamped there as guardian of the tree. We were served delicious sage tea picnic-style under its branches while he declared, “The people come and go, and the tree stays.”
Both Roman waterworks and the ancient olive tree challenge Israel’s claim to sole historic origins in this much-conquered land the Palestinians have long cared for.