BEIT JALA, West Bank - Palestinians in this Christian village are hoping the new pope can succeed where others have failed - pressing Israel to drop plans to build a stretch of its West Bank separation barrier through their picturesque valley.
Since Vatican properties are affected, residents have appealed to the Roman Catholic Church to use more of its significant influence in the Holy Land to reroute the barrier, even as local Catholic leaders hold a special protest Mass in threatened orchards each week.
The Vatican has called on Israel not to seize the lands, but local Palestinian Catholics want the new pontiff to lean more heavily on Israel.
“We have hope in the new pope, as he is close to the poor and the oppressed,” said the Rev. Ibrahim Shomali, the Palestinian priest who has been leading the protests.
Israel has been building the barrier since 2002 in response to a wave of suicide bombings early last decade that killed hundreds. Israel says the barrier is needed to keep out Palestinian attackers.
Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab because it zigzags through the West Bank. When complete, nearly 10 percent of the West Bank, including many Israeli settlements, would lie on Israel’s side, according to the United Nations. Roughly two-thirds of the 430-mile structure has been built.
Beit Jala is a postcard-pretty Christian town of 16,000 in the overwhelmingly Muslim West Bank. The likeness of the Palestinian patron, St. George, is carved into building facades. Groceries sell beer and butchers sell pork, items banned under Islamic law. A bowling alley faces an Israeli military base.
Yet the village feels hemmed in. It abuts the biblical town of Bethlehem on one side. On another, barbed wire separates Beit Jala from the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo. Part of the separation barrier seals in another side, protecting a nearby road used by Jewish settlers. Residents say the planned stretch of construction will close off one of the village’s last remaining open spaces.
An Israeli defense official said Jerusalem would remain “open and vulnerable” if the section isn’t built. He noted that during the height of violence a decade ago, militants fired at nearby Gilo from Beit Jala. Although the fighting has quieted, he said Palestinians now use the valley to sneak into Israel to work. The official spoke anonymously under ministry policy.
In the Beit Jala area, Israel’s Defense Ministry plans to seize some 790 acres of the Cremisan Valley, said lawyer Ghaith Nasser. Israel’s Defense Ministry would not confirm how much land it intends to seize.
About one-third of the land is Vatican-owned, with a monastery surrounded by pines, a playground and vineyard that monks have used to make wine since 1882.Nearby is a convent where nuns run a school for 600 Palestinian students. Some 60 families own the rest, a series of terraced olive and apricot orchards plunging into the valley. Residents go there to relax, barbecue and pray.
If the route goes as planned, the monastery and orchards will be on Israel’s side of the barrier. The convent and school will be on the Palestinian side, surrounded by high concrete walls, lawyers said.
Residents have been challenging the project in court for years, and construction remains on hold pending a ruling.
Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said the government is in “direct dialogue’’ with the Vatican and affected monks and nuns in the area to try to come to an amicable decision.
Religion, Pages 12 on 04/27/2013