by ELLA DAVID
“We refuse to be enemies”
An oasis of calm in the midst of chaos’ is how people often describe the Tent of Nations, a farm owned by the Nassar family in occupied Palestine. It is a unique place – sitting atop a hill to the west of Bethlehem and overlooking the village of Nahalin.
On 20 May – days before the Pope’s prayers at the separation wall and his call for peace – Daoud Nassar wrote this on the farm’s Facebook page:
‘Today at 8.00, Israeli bulldozers came to the fertile valley of the farm where we planted fruit trees 10 years ago, and destroyed the terraces and all our trees there. More than 1,500 apricot, carob and apple trees as well as grape plants were smashed and destroyed.’
The Nassars had recently found a document from the Israeli Civil Administration left on their property which declared that the trees were planted on ‘state land’, constituting trespass, and therefore should be ‘evacuated’.
On 12 May the family, who have owned the land since 1916, filed an appeal with Israel’s Military Court against the order; the trees were planted on private land for which they hold the documents, explains Bshara Nassar. They have been trying to re-register their land with the Supreme Court since 1991 but the process has been delayed numerous times.
Under Israeli law, it is illegal to demolish structures or evacuate defendants while an appeal is being deliberated. The bulldozing of the trees a week after the appeal was filed violates these conditions and the Nassars have been advised to pursue compensation. But the damage has been done. The motive, says Bshara, ‘is to facilitate the construction of a road that will connect the [Israeli] settlements.’
This is not the first time that the Nassar family have experienced threatened or real annexation of their land.
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