Ramya: Palestinian Land Israel Is Seizing Inside the Green Line

By Maxine Kaufman Nunn

The growing disappointment with the peace talks among Palestinians in the occupied territories is hardly surprising. The "autonomy" being advanced by Israeli negotiators leaves Israel in control of both land and water in the occupied territories. This would leave Israel free to continue expropriating Palestinian lands not only for settlements, but for the roads and utility rights-of-way being used to cut off the Palestinians from access even to the lands not yet expropriated.

The mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories mirrors discriminatory treatment meted out to Palestinian citizens of Israel throughout the 44 years since Israel's founding as the "state of the Jewish people," rather than of the citizens of all religions who live there. One of the most blatant expressions of this discrimination is the massive expropriation of Arab-owned land by the Israeli government.

"Abandoned" and Expropriated Villages

This dates all the way back to the birth of the state, when lands belonging to the more than 350 villages "abandoned" during the war for Israel's independence were declared "state land." By 1962 an estimated 948,000 hectares (nearly a quarter million acres) of agricultural land belonging to Palestinian towns and villages throughout Israel had been expropriated "for public need." This left their inhabitants without their traditional livelihood, turning them into a cheap labor force for neighboring Jewish towns and farming settlements, many of the latter located on the very land these workers had previously owned and cultivated themselves.

A related expression of this policy is the phenomenon of "unrecognized villages." In 1965, when the National Planning and Building Law was passed, more than 100 Arab communities (76 in the Galilee alone) were left off the official maps. An amendment added in the early '80s prohibited the provision of services to these communities. This prevents them from obtaining sewers, schools, water that isn't hauled in, and electricity except from privately owned generators. Worst of all, occupants cannot get permission to build or even to extend houses to accommodate growing families.

The tiny Palestinian village of Ramya, situated on the outskirts of the city of Carmiel in the Galilee, illustrates how being "unrecognized" can compound the sting of expropriation and vice versa:

The Israeli press refers to occupants of tiny Ramya as "illegal squatters," who can pack up and move with the desert winds. In fact, they settled in their present location some 50 years ago, on 25 acres of land purchased from the villagers of Be'eneh. The purchase of the land, divided into 17 family units, is officially registered, making their occupancy as legitimate as that of any homeowner in the country.

The city of Carmiel, founded with the declared purpose of "Judaizing" the region, was built on land expropriated from several Arab villages, including thousands of acres of fields, olive groves, and some of the best marble quarries in the country. The land upon which Ramya itself stands was included in the massive 1976 expropriations which sparked the Land Day protest, when police fire left six unarmed Arabs dead and 10 wounded. No one bothered to inform the residents of Ramya of the expropriation order, however, despite the legal requirement to do so, and since few Jews were interested in moving to the area, the land remained in their hands.

With the wave of immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991, however, Carmiel saw the opportunity to expand. In the spring of 1991, the residents of Ramya were ordered to vacate "to make room for Russian immigrants." The order was upheld on June 16, 1991, by the Haifa District Court, which gave them three months to leave. This is the first time since 1951 that an entire village has been threatened with wholesale expulsion to make way for Jewish settlement.

In exchange for the land, the Israeli Lands Administration (ILA) has offered Ramya's 100 residents one-eighth acre per family in a neighboring village, plus ridiculously low monetary compensation. But in spite of ILA threats to remove them forcibly, the villagers of Ramya are standing fast on their land. Said resident Yusef Sawa'id on Aug. 17, 1991, "If they come with their bulldozers, they will have to bury us with our houses. We will not leave here. . ."

Refusing to accept the idea that they, who have inhabited their land for generations, now must leave to make room for newcomers, Ramya's residents appealed both to the courts and the public. The courts upheld the expropriation, even going so far as to "correct" with the stroke of a judicial pen the acknowledged irregularity in the manner of its imposition. But public outcry, including a number of large demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns, and support by Knesset members, has delayed the expulsions for a year.

It was even beginning to appear that negotiations between Ramya, Carmiel and the ILA might result in Ramya's incorporation into Carmiel as an Arab neighborhood. The villagers expressed willingness to cede part of their land in exchange for the right to build on what remained, and for the municipal services which would come with being part of the town where many of them earned their living.

Early this September, however, the residents' request for a new hearing of their appeal contesting the expropriation of their land before a five judge panel was turned down. In addition, the appearance on the Carmiel scene of an organization calling itself the "Committee for Coexistence Alongside Our Arab Neighbors" poisoned the atmosphere. It proclaimed in the pages of the Carmiel newspaper: "We have nothing against the Arabs of the land of Israel. We want to live in peace—they in their place and we in our place." Lobbying against the mayor's acceptance of Ramya as a part of Carmiel, the committee stated, "Carmiel was intended to Judaize the Galilee and this we must not forget. . .We came to live here and this was one of the reasons. Anyone who doesn't care about this can move to one of the mixed cities."

Then on Oct. 14, each Ramya family received a registered letter from the bailiff's office in Nazareth, ordering them to vacate their homes and lands within 20 days in response to a demand by the ILA. The villagers quickly called an emergency meeting on Sunday the 18th, attended by some 100 Arabs and Jews, including many public figures. This meeting, which generated a variety of ideas for resisting the eviction orders, both politically and directly, also demonstrated the breadth of support now enjoyed by the people of Ramya, in both Arab and Jewish sectors of Israeli society. It was clear that Israel's Arab population was now fully aware that Ramya was not an isolated case, and that despite its small size, the fate of this village was, on the one hand, a symptom of the continuing inferior status of Israeli Arabs and, on the other, carried the potential for recognition of this population's rights in heretofore neglected spheres.

The meeting's significance was not lost on the government, which hastened to set up the long-promised negotiations with the people of Ramya. At a meeting with Ramya residents and Arab Knesset members on Nov. 10, the Knesset Interior Affairs Committee came out clearly in favor of "the incorporation of the village of Ramya as a neighborhood of Carmiel" and appealed to the ILA to cooperate (Ha'aretz, Nov. 11, 1992). The Ramya subcommittee of the Monitoring Committee has decided to suspend demonstrations and other local expressions of solidarity as long as negotiations are progressing. However, since the ILA still is pushing for Ramya's eradication, letters of support from abroad continue to be important (see below). Should the negotiations break down, the active local campaign will resume.

Since Ramya residents have all but exhausted legal avenues, the struggle has shifted to the political arena. Former MK Mordechai Virshubski of the Citizens' Rights Movement, at a meeting sponsored by the Committee of Solidarity with the Residents of Ramya, stressed the moral necessity of changing a law which is discriminatory and inhumane and called for Israeli supporters to show the ILA that the Ramya residents are not alone.

Armed not with rifles, but only with their own will, the people of Ramya are protected only by the conscience of the Israeli and international public. So far, it has not let them down.

Maxine Kaufman Nunn is a member of the Committee of Solidarity with the Residents of Ramya. Further information on the Ramya situation may be obtained by writing the Committee of Solidarity with the Residents of Ramya, P. O. Box 14338, Tel Aviv 61142 (phone: 972 2 255382; fax: 972 2 251614).