photo: Shlomo Roth

This morning the Palestinians of Susiya returned to their original home, if only for a brief moment.

Khirbet Susiya is a village in the South Hebron Hills where until recently, Palestinians lived for at least a century. The people of Susiya originally lived in caves and maintained a simple agrarian life, cultivating fields and shepherding their flocks. Everything changed when Israel began to archaeologically excavate their land in the 1970s, eventually uncovering an ancient synagogue underneath a mosque on the land. In 1983 a new Jewish settlement, also called Susiya was established nearby. In 1986, Israel expelled Palestinian villagers and expropriated their land. They moved to an area close to the settlement of Susiya and the original site of the village; in 1991 they were expelled from this site as well. They eventually went to live elsewhere on their cultivated farmland, where they still live today.

The people of Susiya have been engaged in a constant fight to remain on their land where, like the Bedouin residents of Umm al-Kheir, they under the constant threat of demolition and expulsion. Their struggle has gained the attention of solidarity activists in Israel and around the world – and their cause has now even reached the EU and the US State Department.

The Juedeo-centric sign at the entrance to the archaeological park.

This morning, our delegation went to Susiya to help them briefly return to the site of their original homes. It is now located in an archaeological park; as is the case in so many other sites around the country Israel uses archaeology to lay claim to the land – and highlight its Jewish history in a manner that erases the memory of any people who might have lived there before.

Today’s action was undertaken by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence along with the Israeli anti-occupation collective, All That’s Left.  The plan was fairly simple. We met the villagers in Susiya and walked down the road to the entrance of the archaeological park. We then bought tickets for Jews and Palestinians alike and just entered the site.

At least three generations were represented, including adults and elders who remembered their life before the expulsion as well as children who were seeing their families’ original home for the very first time. The children ran ahead immediately, peering down into wells, running up and down the stairs of the ruins. It’s hard to describe the emotions we felt as we watched parents and grandparents showing their children their place where they played as when they were young.

We gathered at the site of the synagogue and heard from village leaders who told us stories about their life in their village before the expulsion. In the picture above you can see Nasser Nawaja (in the blue shirt) and his father and mother speaking to our group, with CJNV leader Isaac Kates Rose interpreting their words for us. We also heard from Fatma Nawaja, who related to us in depth her memories of when Israeli archaeologists first came to their village. At first their relations were quite friendly she said, and they would often offer the workers food and drink. They had no idea, said Fatma, that this project would one day cause them to be expelled them from their homes.

She also told us about the village midwife Haji Sara, who delivered many of the young people who were present at our gathering. Haji Sara was no longer alive, but Fatma made a point of telling us how much this moment would have meant to her. Later, when we toured the site, we were shown the cave that was Haji Sara’s home (below). It is now used to house a multi-media presentation on the archeological site.

While we were fully prepared for the IDF to interrupt our visit (and had a nonviolent contingency plan in place), thankfully this did not occur. It was truly a blessing to be able to experience this visit without the traumatic presence of soldiers to remind the villagers of the brutal reality of their life under occupation. As it turned out, as we walked back to Susiya, we saw a green bus filled with soldiers roaring toward the archaeological park. About ten minutes later it passed us, heading back in the opposite direction. (Mission accomplished).

It seemed to me that there was something very Jewish about this witness of the exiled returning to their homes. Of course I was also aware that it was our own Jewish privilege in an ethnocentric nation-state that allowed this to brief return to happen at all. We can only hope that this moment offered us all a glimpse of a future when all Palestinians will be able to return to their homes

Tomorrow we’re going back to Hebron, then back to Susiya for Shabbat. I will be reporting on something very special in my next post.