Hi all,
It's been a while since my last diary. Whatever online energies I had since then were put into setting up the Villages Group blog, where a shorter version of this diary was posted last night.
The headlines: this week, Israeli activists, working in collaboration with local Palestinian activists and international sponsorship, have successfully installed a combined wind+solar electricity-generation point in a Palestinian hamlet in the South Hebron Hills. This modest start (roughly half a kilowatt) will serve basic needs of a couple of extended families
More below the fold...
Here's the original message from Noam, one of the installers:
Today on a clear sky and cold weather in the South Hebron Mountain, we have accomplished our installation with the family of Abu Sami. We have mounted a 350 W wind turbine and 130W solar panel, to charge a 12V battery. The energy is used for DC illumination and small TV set. Each of the 4 tents were equipped with a DC lamp and there is 220 V line to be used for a TV or a small refrigerator.
I would like to thank all the people who were directly involved today and those who help us get to this day.
We are making the first steps in a long journey, but today we managed to show how the sanction of the state, to prevent people from the elementary use of energy can be overcome.
Attached are few snapshots and a short video clip. We are in the process of editing a larger scale video of the project.
Thanks. Noam
Ehud of the Villages Group added:
To Noam's words I'd like to add our warm gratitude to the two organizations
who sponsored this turbine and help us to bring light to Abu-Sami's place:
British Shalom-Salaam Trust and the Center for Emerging Futures.
Don't miss the images and video, accessible from the Villages Group's image link
--------- Some More Background
The South Hebron Hills is a region of remote, rugged high-desert beauty straddling the southeast corner of the West Bank and the adjoining region of "Israel proper". Here is a map of the region (pdf, from Btselem site).
The region is populated by Palestinian semi-nomads, many of whom live during part of the year in the town of Yatta a few km to the north (visible on map). Their way of life has been going on at least since the 18th century.
Since the consensual Israeli conventional post-1967 thinking goes along the lines of "any open areas are ours to keep", the Israeli government has repeatedly tried to uproot these semi-nomads. In the 1980's large areas were confiscated for "military needs", with some of them flipped over in typical fashion within a couple of years - to set up the settlements of Sussya, Ma'on and Karmel. The new settlers are among the most fanatic in the West Bank.
During the Oslo years (mid to late 1990's) these settlers set up some "outposts" whose residents specialized in robbery, vandalism and intimidation of the locals in order to drive them out. Meanwhile, the "peace-seeking" Barak government sought to clear the area completely of its Palestinians, in order to include the strip of land between the 1967 border and the 3 settlements as "logical border modifications" in a future peace agreement. By the way: though sparsely populated, Palestinians still strongly outnumber settlers in the region.
This policy has of course accelerated during the second Intifada years. The Sharon government initially sought to build "the separation barrier" north of the settlement line; this was overturned by Israel's High Court in 2004, and now the barrier is supposed to go much closer to the 1967 border (see Btselem map again). I will not go into the details of all the harrassment measures taken, including but not limited to destruction of buildings and wells, confiscation and butchering of livestock, and construction of a meter-high concrete barrier barring Palestinian access to the region's major paved road.
Meanwhile, the government and settlers have found an unexpected adversary, and the locals an unexpected ally, in Israeli human rights activists. Both Ta'ayush and the Villages Group, as well as individuals and professionals, have helped local activists carry on with court appeals and humanitarian assistance. Ta'ayush activist and world-renowned scholar David Shulman devotes much of his new book Dark Hope to South Hebron activities (I, too, participated in a couple of those depicted in the book, including "the blanket march").
This is the background really in a tiny nutshell, you can find out much more by searching on the web or by reading Shulman's book.
In any case, last week's action is another link in this chain of solidarity, and also a demonstration that instead of waiting for governments and politicians to catch up, we can lead on the ground.
Anyone wishing to help out can look up the Villages Group contact page, the A-Tuwani contact page, or the Ta'ayush contact page.