-Come quickly! The settlers are building a sukkhot tabernacle in our front yard!
Thirty minutes have passed since we received a phone call asking us to come and be present as observers. And now I am hurrying down the street feeling worried but determined to get to the Al Khurds family as quickly as possible.
Me and my four colleagues in the ecumencial accampanying program are walking through the Sheijk Jarrah area of east Jerusalem, an area annexed by Israel in the 1967 war but according to international law an area under occupation.
My thought are with the palestinian Al Khurd family who called us and who have half their house occupied by israeli settlers.
Yes, you heard me. Half their house is occupied. That half of their house that they built for their son to live in is since 2001 inhabited by settlers. The actual occupation happend a night when Mrs Umm Kamal was visiting the hospital where her husband Mohammad Al Khurd who is suffering from diabetes was recuperating. A worried neighbour called her and told her that the settlers had broken into their apartment, that their belongings were spread all over the front lawn and could she please come home quickly.
And now they called us.
I have met Umm Kamal and Mohammad before. I have had numerous arabic coffees and thes with them, heard them talk about their situation but never met the intruders before.
Before I reach their house I have time to think about how well known their living situation is. How BBC recently sent the reporter Tim Clark to interview them and how my colleague Warren recently adressed the urgency in the fact that settlers are taking over property inside east Jerusalem with Tony Blair secretary. I also have time to think about the palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas who has alerted the United States, France, Great Brittain and Germany about the possible consequences of the behaviour of the settlers .
Already before I hurry up the cemented path that leads up to the house of the family I know that the settlers have a court order to evacuate the premises on november 8. But I wasn't prepared for what I would see.
On the terass of the family there is lots of activity. When we have pushed ourselves through the israeli security men that the settlers put the premises, the israeli police and the military we are met by two settlers carrying wooden pieces that looks like walls. They are walls!
We are offered chairs and the scene that takes place in front of our eyes starts to resemble a play. The settler men are working fast and efficiently with the wooden construction. They drill into the wall of the families house and attach what soon starts to resemble a sukkhot tabernacle.
The tabernacles are temporary 'outdoor rooms' that according the jewish tradition are being used during the holiday of sukkhot in rememberance of the jewish people being forced to walk through the desert and live in fragile huts during 4o years of slavery during the time of the Faraoic Egypt.
Sukkhot is a family holiday when jewish families all over the world get together in the tabernacle to eat, sleep, socialize and relax. Now there are drills going into the al Khurd families wall and the scene is anything but relaxing.
The apartment occupied by the settlers are literally less than a meter from Umm Kamal and Mohammads front door. The scene therefor gets even more bizarr when a young mother belonging to the settler community suddely appears with a baby in a carriage. She seems totally oblivious to all the commotion, talks gently to the men building, looks into the tabernacle and comments on how nice it looks. She doesn't acknowledge us - the palestinians and internationals present, nor the filming and photograping that is going on - she just quietly passes by the al Khurds and disappears into their sons apartment.
How is this possible? How is it possible that such an obvious violation of overtaking of private property can happen? Why are the settlers still in the Al Khurds house?
The short answer is that the Al Khurds were given the house by the Jordanian state through the UN in the 1950's. They were given the house after being removed from their former home when the state of Israel was founded 1948. The settlers that now live in the hourse are not acting on an independent initiative but belong to a jewish organisation consisting of religiously motivated settlers who claim that they bought the land the house is built on in the late 1800's.
The problem in Palestine is that when the settlers move in they hardly ever move out. Even if they have a court order telling them to do so, the state of Israel are not good at enforcing their own laws.
