Land, Law, and Family Protection in the West Bank
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CHAPTER FOUR LAND, LAW, AND FAMILY PROTECTION IN THE WEST BANK Bård Kårtveit In early May 2002, Israeli forces withdrew from Bethlehem, ending a brutal five week military siege of the city. For the first time in more than a month, people could leave their houses, walk around, and stock up on food from the shops without fear of being shot by Israeli soldiers. Ameer, a Christian businessman living in the city, was relieved like everyone else. His relief would turn to shock as he learned that, without his knowledge, a man had made legal claims to a large piece of land that belonged to him, and that this claim had already been supported in court. Ameer’s land was now the property of another man. Since its establishment in 1994, the Palestinian Authority has struggled to build a functioning judicial system and provide adequate legal protections for Palestinians under its rule. One of the problems emerging from this has been a notable increase in land disputes throughout the West Bank. Theft of private property and manipulation of land documents have raised widespread concerns in the West Bank, in particular among Christian landowners in Bethlehem, who have been the main targets of these crimes. For a Christian minority whose presence has been gradually shrinking, this is an issue that has fuelled worries about their future within a Palestin- ian community. Based on ten months of fieldwork in the West Bank, this chapter will be centred around three main points: First, the issue of land disputes is part of a wider picture, where a weak and dysfunctional legal system under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the absence of the rule of law have left Palestinians dependent on family and community networks for security and protection. Second, due to their social and demographic characteristics, this leaves Christian Palestinians in a protection gap and a position of structural vulnerability that is further intensified by continued emigration out of Palestine. Finally, in spite of these difficulties, prominent Christians are reluctant to utilize international contacts and to seek external intervention in defence of their own rights and interests. This reflects both en enduring commitment to an ethos of national unity, and a clear prior- ity on the use of ‘voice’ (Hirschman 1970) among Christian Palestinians. © Bård Kårtveit, 2012 | doi:10.1163/9789004216846_006 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Bård Kårtveit - 9789004216846 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 09:18:38PM via free access 98 bård kårtveit The issue of land disputes in particular, and law enforcement in general, will be explored in relation to emigration, Christian—Muslim relations in Bethlehem, and the role of the family as a source of social order and protection in the West Bank. Christians in Bethlehem Christian Palestinians include some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, and their presence in Palestine1 dates back to early Christianity (Pacini 1998). As a resourceful minority, they have been instrumental in the shaping of Palestinian national identity, and have enjoyed a political and cultural influence within Palestinian society that far exceeds their numbers (Aburish 1993; Ayyad 1999). They have a strong presence within the leftwing factions of the PLO and within the Palestinian Authority. By presidential decree, six seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council are reserved for Christians, as is the office of Mayor in ten towns, including Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jericho (Lende 2003; Sabella 2003). Within the Palestinian Authority, they have held at least one cabinet position in each government. In addition, local Christians have a strong presence in health and educational institutions, as well as within the local civil society. How- ever, due to more than a hundred years of large-scale emigration, their number has dwindled, and they now have a total population of approxi- mately 49,000 in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem altogether. Some 22,000 live in Bethlehem and the neighbouring towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour (Soudah 2006). Under Ottoman rule, Christians were formally confined to a second class citizens status, and were subject to a number of legal restrictions within the framework of the millet-system (Gonzalez 1992; O’Mahony 2003). Nonetheless, the Christians of Bethlehem established themselves as a resourceful, enterprising elite, thanks to valuable international contacts, trading privileges obtained through the system of Capitulations (Musal- lam 1992; Arab Educational Institute 1999), control of the local pilgrimage industry, and privileged access to Christian mission schools funded by Western Churches (Sabella 2003: 86). Due to these and other factors, the Christian community in Bethlehem flourished, and prominent Christian families would dominate local commerce and tourism as well as cultural, 1 Here I refer to the areas covered by the British Mandate of Palestine, roughly compris- ing today’s Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Bård Kårtveit - 9789004216846 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 09:18:38PM via free access land, law, and family protection in the west bank 99 especially educational, institutions in the region (Gonzalez 1992; Raheb 1995). The Ottoman land reform of 1858 lifted restrictions on Christian landownership, allowing wealthy Christians to purchase land within the Bethlehem district, further reinforcing the Christian prominence in the area (Gonzalez 1992: 50). Throughout the twentieth century, their prominence gradually dimin- ished, as thousands of local Christians migrated to the Americas, often selling their land in the process (Gonzalez 1992; Sabella 1998). A lot of land was sold to Muslim families from other parts of the West Bank, such as the Hebron-area, and from the rural areas around Bethlehem. After the 1948 war and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, this development was further intensified. As a result, the Muslim presence in Bethlehem increased, gradually changing the social character of certain neighbourhoods. With time, this has become a cause of friction between more recent arrivals and the older families of Bethlehem. Members of the older families frequently complain that their town has been “taken over” by outsiders, and that Bethlehem is no longer “their town”. The Hebron region in particular is seen as more culturally conservative than Bethlehem, and the ‘Hebronites’ are perceived as being very traditionally oriented in matters of family and gender norms. Historically, Bethlehem Muslims have looked upon themselves as being less traditional in their way of life than other Muslims—more in tune with the lifestyle of their Christian neigh- bours. As large family groups from Hebron and other parts of the West Bank make their presence felt, Muslims of Bethlehem origin2 sometimes complain that the “Hebronites” have redefined what it means to be good Muslims in terms of dress codes, family structure and norms of everyday social conduct. Such nuances are often lost on local Christians, who find themselves losing their position to a rising Muslim middleclass (Lybarger 2007). In addition to this, the growing strength of Islamic movements and the decline of secular ideologies have served to create an atmosphere where tensions between old Bethlehemites and newcomers from other parts of the West Bank are increasingly described in sectarian rather than regional terms. One should however bear in mind that, historically, other sources of identity and social boundaries have converged with and occasionally transcended those of religious affiliations in the Bethlehem area.3 2 One Muslim family clan, the Fawaghreh, came originally from a village near Hebron and settled in Bethlehem in the middle of the eighteenth century. Along with six Christian family clans, they are generally seen as one of the original family clans of Bethlehem. 3 One source of affiliation that has held social importance throughout Palestine is the ancient division between people who originated from Southern Arab tribes, referred to Bård Kårtveit - 9789004216846 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 09:18:38PM via free access 100 bård kårtveit Local Christians take great pride in Bethlehem’s biblical heritage, and they feel a strong sense of collective ownership and responsibility for the Christian holy sites of the Bethlehem area, in particular the Church of Nativity (Raheb 2004). This creates a heightened sense of urgency about maintaining a strong Christian presence in Bethlehem, a town where they are outnumbered three to one by a growing Muslim population. In this context, many Christians see the purchase of Christian-owned land by Muslim families as part of a collective effort at marginalizing an already weak Christian presence. Among local Christians, the sale of family land to Muslim buyers is not uncontroversial, but as such transactions have grown more common, those who sell their land do so at little risk of moral condemnation and social sanctioning. Allegedly funded with money from Saudi banks, families of Hebron- origin have bought a substantial amount of land in Bethlehem and Beit Jala (Lybarger 2007). Such transactions are increasingly seen as indications of territorial aggression against Christian land ownership. In Beit Jala, The Orthodox Club has taken steps to prevent such transactions, raising funds to make counter-offers, and block the sale of Christian land to Muslim buyers. Further alarm has been caused by incidents of land theft through fabrica- tion of property documents, and manipulation of the legal system. Internal Land Disputes in the West Bank Since the PA was established in 1994, property scams and land-document forgery have emerged as a serious problem in Bethlehem, and in other parts of occupied Palestine.4 After 40 years of Israeli occupation and continued confiscations, land is an increasingly scarce resource, and even within a as the ‘Yamani’, and the Northern Arab tribes, known as ‘Qaysi’. In the Bethlehem area, the Christian clans of Bethlehem and Beit Sahour were perceived to be of Yamani origin, while the clans of Beit Jala were Qaysi (Elali 1991; Musallam 1999).