"It is unlikely the people of Susya, on the southern tip of the West Bank, have heard of Asterix. But these poor Palestinian farmers are familiar with the scenario.
"For more than 20 years this small agricultural area has served as an example of how Israeli military occupation and right-wing Jewish settlement have ground away at the lives of Palestinian civilians.
"It is mainly thanks to the support of Israeli human rights and peace groups that any Palestinians are left in Susya at all. But under a petition pending in the country's Supreme Court, what is left of the Arab village may soon be bulldozed into history.
"Mohammed Nawajeh, a Palestinian lawyer whose family owns land in Susya, says the village's misfortunes began in the early 1980s when the Israeli government began planting Jewish settlements - illegal in the eyes of the International Court of Justice - on the rocky hills around the village.
"One settlement even bears the same name as the Arab village, which is mentioned in the Bible. "These settlements grabbed more and more of the village's land every time they expanded, and then they started expelling people," said Mr Nawajeh, pointing to the ring of eight Israeli-held positions on the surrounding hillsides."The whole intention of the soldiers and the settlers is to make us so frustrated that we leave the area for good."
Found on What Really Happened.comI like the way this article points out that while Israel does use its highly weaponized military to attack Palestinians, in its efforts to push them off their land--land/resource grabs being what empire and imperialism practiced by both Israel and the US are actually about--Israel also uses the slow erasure of a way of life as a tool. Linda
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