We spent Tuesday in beautiful ancient Sebastia 10km from Nablus. Woke to the delicious aroma of fresh filled breads being baked but then soon heard the terrible news of the morning: 6 young Palestinians killed in the dawn raid by the Israeli Occupation Forces on Nablus. I saw the BBC report about ‘gunmen’. I find that hard to take. There are a very small number who have taken up arms in despair and a few soldiers have been killed, it’s true. But the whole of the West Bank is full of ‘gunmen’ ie the Israeli Defence Forces who have murdered 182 Palestinians in 2022, 28 in October so far. Why is it never reported in context that the West Bank is under a military occupation? There are fully armed Israeli soldiers everywhere here.
We were all set to help our host, Abu Ahmed Yasser to harvest olives but it was no longer possible due to the situation.
Instead we walked up to see Sebastia’s archaeological sites starting with a vast columned, Roman square with antecedents reaching back to the Bronze Age and the Canaanite civilisation. This was the place that John the Baptist was thought to have been beheaded at the behest of Salome in the famous story. However the whole site feels derelict and unkempt. The Israelis have frequently tried to take the site over and take down the Palestinian flag that flies high above it. They have damaged the site and will not allow the Palestinians to put up interpretive display boards or protect the site. This gives the false impression that the Palestinians have no respect for the archaeological treasure trove here when in fact the reverse is true. The Palestinians are working to have the entire area declared a UNESCO world heritage site but this could take years. Unfortunately, the Israelis do not appear share the view of the site’s importance as it doesn’t fit with a Zionist historical narrative. They plan to make the adjoining Roman amphitheatre into a ‘park’ and have brought in a bulldozer to clear some ‘rubble’. As ever the conclusion is stark: not only do the Israeli’s try to take the present and the future away from the Palestinians, they even want to take away their history and their heritage .
We sang ‘only Justice and Equality can bring Peace’ in the amphitheatre and then met some olive farmers harvesting above the ruins and sang with them under the olive trees.
Later we were taken to the community press where large white bags stuffed full of olives were arranged in piles all over the floor around the machinery that shunted, ground and sorted each of the producer’s harvest. The ex-headteacher of the boys school was there and a previous mayor of Sebastia waiting in turn with their yields. We were introduced to them in turn and invited to dip our fingers in the golden liquid that finally emerged. The oil is so much part of life here, always there with the zatar at breakfast. Some of the oil from Sebastia is exported by the Zaytoun Company that markets the Fair Trade oil in the UK.
It was strange for us to have a day of almost being tourists . But it’s really significant seeing people getting on with their lives, fighting to hold on to their heritage and determined to make a future for their children here in spite of all the obstacles.
Abu Yasser told his own story of settlers invading his grove some years ago and pouring sewage all over it. He mounted a huge campaign together with other villagers using international media and got it stopped. For now, they won. But it’s a constant battle – we keep hearing here ‘to exist is to resist’.
