PA Helpless to Combat Expansion By Israel in Jordan Valley

Comprising 30% of the West Bank, the Jordan Valley has long been the target of demolitions, settlement and forced displacement in what seems to be a successful effort by the Israeli government to change the geographical political map of the territory. Before the 1967 war, the valley belonged to the governorates of five cities in the West Bank: Toubas, Nablus, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron.

Abdelrahim Bishara is a 58-year-old man living in a Palestinian community in the Jordan Valley called Al Hadidiya. His property has been demolished seven times, with the first demolition in the freezing winter of January 2001. 

“The Israeli army wanted me to transfer to another place called Atuf, but I refused. If you agree to move once, you will never stop moving,” said Bishara, also known as Abu Saqr.

The Jordan Valley, according to Abu Saqr, has been targeted for ethnic cleansing since 1967, especially after the birth of Palestinian armed revolutionary parties. The Bedouins and shepherds would guide the fedayeen — freedom fighters — to the other side of the Jordan River, which consequently led the Israeli authorities to try those Bedouins and shepherds in military courts, in addition to imposing increasingly hefty fines of between 10 and 1000 Jordanian dinars ($14–$1400) in order to deter and “urbanize” them after destroying their ability to sustain their way of life.