0:00

Time for a quick break to talk about

0:02

McDonald's. Mornings are for mixing and matching at

0:04

McDonald's. For just $3, mix and match two

0:07

of your favorite breakfast items, including a

0:09

sausage McMuffin. Well,

0:27

that's what I'm asking. Like, how serious is this? Could

0:30

people start to become hungry? Let

0:32

me give you now the full picture of what's happening.

0:35

There is a war in Gaza, but another silent

0:37

war is happening in Palestine. That's

0:40

the globe's Nathan Vandercliff, speaking

0:42

with Abbas Milham, the executive

0:45

director of the Palestinian Farmers

0:47

Union. He says that

0:49

farmers in the West Bank are getting

0:51

pushed off the land as Israeli settlements

0:54

expand. The

0:56

Israel-Hamas war continues in Gaza,

0:58

but conflicts have also grown

1:00

in the other Palestinian territory,

1:02

the West Bank. Since

1:05

October the 7th, nearly 500 Palestinians

1:08

have been killed by Israeli

1:10

settlers or security forces, according

1:12

to local authorities. At

1:15

least nine Israelis have also been killed

1:17

in the West Bank since then, according

1:19

to the United Nations. Nathan

1:22

Vandercliff is the globe's international correspondent,

1:24

and he was recently in the

1:27

West Bank. Today,

1:29

he'll explain what's been happening on

1:31

West Bank farmlands since October the

1:33

7th, and what

1:35

expanding Israeli settlements mean for

1:37

Palestinians who live there. I'm

1:41

Meineke Ramen-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from

1:43

The Globe and Mail. Nathan,

1:52

thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

1:55

So in the intro, we just heard from

1:57

Abbas Milham. He calls what's happening on agricultural

1:59

land as well. the West Bank a

2:01

quote, silent war. Nathan, why does he

2:03

call it that? Because

2:06

it's a war without shooting. It's

2:08

a war that for Palestinians

2:11

is a war that's not being

2:13

fought with guns and with the

2:15

traditional implements of war, but with

2:17

agricultural implements and often with

2:20

things like sheep and cattle.

2:22

And we've seen in the last couple of years, some

2:25

of the Palestinians in the West Bank call shepherd

2:28

settlers, a shepherding component

2:32

to settlement. And often there's

2:34

a geographic component to this. You can

2:36

imagine a lot of the topography in

2:39

parts of the West Bank as

2:41

being hills and valleys. And so

2:44

many of the communities, both Palestinian and

2:46

settler communities are located on the top

2:49

of hills. The valleys are often where

2:51

perhaps there's a spring or there's something

2:53

else. And that's often where agriculture takes

2:55

place. And so what you're seeing with

2:58

some of the settlement agriculture is

3:01

an expansion of some of the

3:03

Israeli settlements down from the hilltops

3:05

and down into some of the

3:07

valleys around them where

3:09

lands are being taken and often

3:11

occupied by grazing herds. And

3:14

we're going to get into that a little bit more soon, but

3:16

I think maybe we should just establish, Nathan, you've

3:18

talked about the West Bank. Where exactly is

3:20

the West Bank? So what's really important

3:22

when you're thinking about the West Bank is to think

3:24

about it, not in

3:26

the context of the

3:29

confines of Israel, where much of

3:31

the West Bank is actually located

3:33

to the east of Jerusalem, but

3:36

with regards to the River Jordan,

3:39

the River Jordan, which forms a

3:41

lot of the eastern border of Israel.

3:43

And the West Bank is in fact

3:45

areas on the western bank of the

3:47

River Jordan. It is

3:49

an area that has been a source of

3:52

a great deal of conflict and fought

3:54

over in a series of wars

3:57

occupied by Jordan. after

4:00

a war in 1948 and then a war in 1967 brought

4:05

Israeli occupation forces into the area. And

4:07

since then, Israel has been sort of

4:10

an administering or occupation

4:12

force in the area.

4:15

And population-wise, do we have a sense of how many

4:17

people live there? Today,

4:19

there's about three million Palestinians

4:21

who live in the West Bank and about

4:24

500,000 Israeli settlers who live in the West

4:26

Bank. When

4:29

we say Israeli settlers, I guess, who do we mean

4:31

by that? We

4:33

mean people, largely Jewish people,

4:35

who have moved into areas

4:38

in the West Bank. And there is a

4:41

history of settlement that goes far

4:43

back in the history, into Ottoman

4:46

times and before. But I

4:48

think when people think of settlements, what

4:50

they often think about is what has

4:52

taken place in the last number of

4:54

decades, which are parts of the West

4:56

Bank that were

4:58

occupied by Israelis, typically

5:01

with either sort of state

5:03

sanction or the state

5:06

turning a blind eye and then

5:08

moving towards formalizing their residents down

5:10

the road. And so you've got

5:12

a system, it's a very complicated

5:14

system of formerly recognized

5:16

settlements, as well as outposts. And

5:20

those outposts are places that

5:22

are not technically authorized

5:24

by the Israeli government, but

5:27

what often happens is after a number

5:30

of years, they become formally recognized

5:32

as being part of existing settlements.

5:34

And that's been a process that's

5:37

taking place. But there's been a

5:39

pretty considerable expansion of settlements and

5:41

settlers over the years. If you

5:44

think back to the 90s,

5:47

when there was the progress towards the Oslo

5:49

Accords, it seemed as if perhaps there might

5:51

be progress towards a Palestinian state

5:53

and a peace treaty and

5:55

all the rest, the population

5:57

of settlers at that time.

5:59

time was about 110,000 in the West Bank. This

6:03

is, we're talking 1993, and

6:06

that has grown massively since then. I mean,

6:08

in last year, the population settlers in the

6:10

West Bank last year alone was up by

6:12

3%. If you look back in the last five years,

6:14

it's up by 15%. So

6:17

this has been an area of considerable

6:19

population expansion. Yeah. And

6:21

who governs the West Bank? It's

6:23

complicated. Israel is an occupying force in the

6:25

West Bank. There are Israeli

6:28

military that man's

6:30

checkpoints in and

6:32

around the West Bank, those may

6:35

travel into and out of and

6:37

through West Bank areas

6:39

are often difficult and slow.

6:42

But the Palestinian Authority runs

6:44

sort of municipal services, runs

6:47

education, and other things. So

6:49

it's a blend of governance.

6:52

So obviously, what you're saying here, there has

6:54

been tensions going on here for a long time.

6:56

We're going to talk about kind of some

6:58

of the recent tensions. Since October 7, things

7:00

have been quite elevated. And Nathan,

7:02

you were just in parts of the West Bank. Can

7:04

you give us a sense of what it's like in

7:06

the places that you visited? Yeah,

7:09

it can be a very, very tense place.

7:11

And there is often violence in the West

7:13

Bank, according to Palestinian

7:15

authorities at least, that the number

7:17

of Palestinians who have been killed

7:20

since the beginning of the war in the West

7:22

Bank is right about 500 now. And

7:25

of course, there have also been some Israeli settlers

7:27

killed as well. Absolutely, yeah.

7:29

And in one of the recent

7:31

incidents, we saw a 14-year-old Israeli

7:34

shepherd who was killed. He

7:37

left his home in a

7:39

settlement, left with his

7:41

herds, his flocks, and he didn't come back

7:44

home. And there

7:46

were at least two Palestinians who

7:48

were killed in a subsequent attacks

7:50

and houses burned down, cars set

7:53

on fire, sheep

7:55

killed, and so some

7:57

fairly considerable reprisals. And

7:59

Nathan, when... When you were in the West Bank, I know

8:01

you spoke to a farmer, Saman Mohammed Shreita. Can

8:04

you tell me about him? What did he say? Well,

8:07

he is an elementary school

8:09

teacher. He spent 37 years as

8:11

an elementary school teacher. But

8:14

his family, also

8:16

like many families in

8:18

the West Bank, have farmland that

8:20

they tend in addition to

8:22

other jobs. And for them, it's 400 hectares

8:24

of land at a short distance away

8:27

from their house. Most of them live in a town

8:30

called Mazra, Garpia. The

8:33

farm is quite lovely. It's a green valley

8:35

in between arid,

8:38

limestone hills. And

8:41

it's filled with trees. There's olive

8:43

trees, lemon trees, walnuts, pomegranates, figs.

8:46

And then near the bottom of

8:48

the valley, there's a spring. It's

8:51

a picture of backyard pools, about the size of

8:53

a modest backyard pool. It's about two and a

8:55

half meters deep. It's

8:57

called Ain Harasha. And

9:00

it's the source of water for the

9:02

farm, for irrigating vegetables in the summer,

9:04

hydrating lemon trees, and that sort of

9:07

thing. And Mr. Shreita's

9:09

extended family says about 40, 50

9:11

people depend on the farm, sort

9:14

of both for some produce and these sorts

9:16

of things, but also for revenue. All of

9:18

us in particular are a major

9:20

source of revenue. And in

9:22

2022, for example, the family counted about 120 liter

9:26

jugs of olive oil that they made from this farm.

9:28

Each one sells for about 200 bucks. That's

9:30

about $20,000 in revenue. Last

9:33

year, because they were interrupted

9:35

from doing their harvest, they were able to fill

9:38

just eight jugs with olive oil. And

9:40

what did he tell you, though, about what's been happening since the

9:43

war began on October 7th? The

9:45

last time he was able to

9:47

access his land was October 7th, the

9:49

day the war started. October 8th, he

9:52

came back with his daughter, and

9:54

they encountered a group of soldiers

9:56

and settlers, and they

9:58

blocked him. about 20 of them

10:01

and they sort of descended upon him and

10:04

his daughters that came in and he

10:06

said somebody pressed a gun to his chest

10:08

and the soldiers told him don't come back

10:10

here again until the war ends. We've

10:14

seen in other parts of the West

10:16

Bank and the Jordan Valley in particular,

10:20

the Palestinian Farmers Union counts

10:22

something like 25,000 hectares of land that has become

10:24

inaccessible to

10:29

farmers and to put that in perspective,

10:32

that is more than twice the

10:34

size of the city of Vancouver.

10:37

So it's a fairly expansive area

10:40

of land that's become inaccessible. Do

10:43

we have a sense of how much money that

10:45

represents on a whole here, Nathan? We

10:47

have some indications. So again, the

10:50

Palestinian Farmers Union did some tabulations

10:52

on the value of the olive

10:54

harvest across the West Bank that

10:56

was lost last year after

10:58

the war started. They estimated that

11:01

only half of the olives were

11:03

successfully harvested and that

11:05

the losses from that totaled

11:07

60 million US dollars. Of

11:11

course, we're talking about food here, right, which

11:13

is obviously essential for people. Do we know

11:15

if these tensions are actually causing an issue

11:17

for people in just basically accessing

11:19

food in this area? Well,

11:22

I mean, the Jordan Valley, for example, is

11:24

a real source also of vegetables. I mean,

11:26

they grow tomatoes and cucumber and eggplants and

11:29

peppers and zucchini and cabbage and carrots and

11:31

all these sorts of things. The

11:33

estimate is that 90% of the Palestinian

11:36

consumption of potatoes and onions comes from

11:38

the Jordan Valley. And so of

11:40

course, that's been limited. The estimate

11:42

is that something like 90% of

11:44

the grazing area in the Jordan Valley is

11:46

now difficult if not impossible to access for

11:49

Palestinians. And I

11:51

think one really striking number is the

11:53

count of the goat

11:56

and sheep herds that are maintained by

11:59

Palestinians. farmers and again the

12:01

Palestinian farmers union said three years ago

12:03

their account was 1.75 million

12:06

head by last August which

12:08

was their most recent count it was

12:11

700,000 their estimate now is that it's

12:13

probably down at 500,000 and there's

12:16

also been an increase in hunger

12:20

in Ramallah where I've spent some time it's

12:22

now grown more common for people

12:24

coming in asking for food to

12:26

come into shops to ask for

12:29

money or food the the

12:31

farmers union is has over 3,000 families to

12:34

which it's now begun delivering food

12:36

parcels to help out. We'll

12:40

be back in a minute. The

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love of home. Nathan

13:17

we talked a little bit about the the Palestinian

13:19

family that you were speaking with the the farmers

13:21

there. You also spoke with

13:23

Israelis and nearby settlements in the West Bank as

13:26

well. Can you tell us about what they said?

13:29

So I spoke with a couple of folks in town from

13:31

Harsha which is a settlement

13:34

community that was established in the late 1990s. There's

13:36

about 75 families there. It's

13:38

expanding though very obviously there was a number

13:40

of houses that were under construction when

13:43

I was there and I spent

13:45

a bit of time there. I sort of tried to

13:47

get as close as I could to the spring. A

13:50

soldier said you know you can't you can't go down

13:52

there and in fact on the

13:54

edge of the community kind of overlooking some

13:56

of this farmland there

13:59

were rows of dog kennels and

14:01

in between each of those dog kennels was

14:04

a metal cable that was strung

14:07

and there were dogs in some of those

14:09

kennels and they were actually chained to those

14:11

metal cables so they could go back and

14:13

forth along that those metal cables forming kind

14:15

of a perimeter in

14:17

that area so it was clear that there was an

14:19

attempt to sort of create a defensive barrier. What

14:22

they told me was they literally

14:24

said tall fences make good neighbors and this

14:27

this notion that it was better to have

14:29

a buffer zone around

14:31

their community ever since October

14:34

7 and I spoke a little bit

14:36

with Elon Giat

14:38

who's a spokesman for the

14:40

community and he described a

14:43

decision made in conjunction with the

14:45

military to treat the surroundings of

14:47

the settlements as what he called

14:50

a sensitive and delicate

14:52

place. He said you know people

14:54

in Harsha settlers fear that Palestinians

14:56

will do everything in their power

14:58

to continue what happened on October

15:00

7th the idea being that

15:03

Palestinians who live nearby have

15:05

murderous intent and he faulted

15:08

nearby Palestinians for supporting

15:10

Hamas and and then he talked about

15:12

mr. Shrata as well he said you

15:14

know he does everything in his power

15:16

to prevent Jews from coming to the

15:18

area and he described polluting

15:21

the spring with cow manure

15:23

in order to prevent you know bathing

15:25

in it by Israeli settlers and and

15:27

that's true mr. Shrata told me that

15:29

story he said yeah he

15:32

said there was so much conflict over that because I

15:34

would go down there and I would use the spring

15:36

water to irrigate and that would lower the water in

15:38

the spring before it refilled and

15:41

people would come down find it empty and they'd get

15:43

angry and it would lead to conflict and I tried

15:45

to keep people out of it so I dumped manure

15:47

in it so it just gives you a sense

15:49

of some of the conflict yeah

15:52

yeah there's a lot of tensions as you're describing

15:54

here Nathan there's something interesting you

15:56

said a little bit earlier that I want to come

15:58

back to this idea of shepherd sense settlers and how

16:00

this is a little bit different kind of

16:03

than a broader understanding of settler expansion that

16:05

we talk about too. Can I ask you

16:07

directly about shepherd settlers and what exactly does

16:09

that encompass? Yeah,

16:11

it's a question of sort of

16:14

expanding the bounds of settlement and

16:16

expanding it from, I suppose,

16:19

more urban areas, residential areas

16:21

and into more agricultural areas. It

16:24

has added another dimension of

16:27

conflict in the West Bank. One

16:29

of the Palestinian farmers I spoke

16:31

with described livestock

16:33

being stolen and some

16:36

of those livestock are tagged, they're marked and

16:39

Palestinian farmers have then seen some

16:41

of those livestock appearing

16:43

on grazing lands that have been taken by

16:45

some of these shepherd settlers. And

16:47

then, of course, the death of this 14-year-old

16:50

Israeli settler and there

16:52

was an arrest just made of that Palestinian man,

16:55

Israeli authorities called it

16:57

an act of terrorism, his death. And

16:59

it was a

17:01

really horrific event and I think really

17:03

horrified people across Israel and particularly in

17:05

the settlements. At the

17:08

same time, you've had increasing

17:10

numbers of settlers who are sort

17:13

of grazing on lands that

17:15

Palestinians considered to be theirs

17:17

and in some cases have documentation for

17:19

their ownership of. What is

17:21

the state of settler expansion more broadly in the

17:24

West Bank? When we look at this today, Nathan,

17:26

what do we know? Well,

17:28

what we know is that there's been a huge

17:31

increase over the last 30 years,

17:33

but I think

17:35

there's been a real acceleration in the speed of growth,

17:37

particularly in the last couple of years. We now have

17:40

Benjamin Netanyahu, who is

17:42

a prime minister because he's been able

17:44

to assemble a coalition, a coalition that

17:46

has included members of the

17:48

far right. And these are

17:50

members who are committed to

17:52

the expansion of settlements. In

17:55

February, Israel talked about looking to

17:57

build another 3300. homes

18:01

after a fatal Palestinian

18:04

shooting attack. And

18:06

then there's been another issue of sort

18:08

of remapping lands to be state-owned lands,

18:11

Israeli state-owned lands, and this is a

18:13

government sort of exercise. You

18:15

know, the Haaretz, which is one of the

18:17

major newspapers here, has done some tabulations on

18:20

that and found that between 2018 and 2023

18:22

there are about 2,400 hectares of those state

18:27

lands that were remapped. But

18:30

since the start of 2024 alone, we're only a few months

18:33

in, yet they're already

18:35

looking at 1,100 hectares. So there's a dramatic

18:40

increase in that. There's been a real increase

18:42

in the amount of Israeli

18:44

state financial support for settlements

18:46

too. And you know,

18:48

these are budgets that are now spending hundreds

18:51

of millions of dollars a year to support

18:53

settlements. Canada and other

18:55

Western countries consider West Bank settlements illegal,

18:57

of course. Israel disputes this, saying they

19:00

have an historical claim to that land.

19:03

Has there been any word from Western governments

19:05

here, Nathan, on this expansion? Well,

19:07

there has, and there has too, in the

19:10

context of the war in the last few

19:12

months on some of the violence

19:14

that we've seen in

19:16

the West Bank. And that

19:19

has led to steps that we've

19:21

not seen before. We've seen sanctions

19:25

in the US and elsewhere directly

19:28

against Israeli citizens, Israeli

19:31

citizens who have been sort

19:33

of involved in violence against

19:35

Palestinians in some ways. Canada,

19:38

by the way, too, has also

19:40

promised sanctions against settlers who

19:43

are involved in violence. We've not yet

19:45

seen anything concrete

19:47

from Canada on that, but

19:50

Canada, the Canadian government has promised to do that. So

19:52

I guess what does this change tell you then?

19:54

I guess you're saying like an unwillingness

19:57

to tolerate what's happening. But I guess what

19:59

is the signal to you? about the situation?

20:02

Well, it signals that, you know, I think

20:05

what has taken place in Gaza,

20:07

I think, has really pricked

20:10

the consciences of people around the

20:12

world inside and outside of government.

20:15

And I think in Gaza, there

20:17

are questions about what is and

20:19

is not legitimate, particularly given the

20:21

events of October 7, where, you

20:24

know, we had attacks on Israelis that killed

20:26

1200, and what

20:28

is a legitimate response to that. But I think

20:30

in the West Bank, in some ways, you know,

20:32

some of these issues, some of the violence and

20:34

that sort of thing has perhaps allowed

20:37

for a greater latitude for

20:39

countries to act and to

20:41

express some of the broader

20:43

displeasure over how

20:46

Israel as a state is

20:48

using its power toward Palestinians.

20:52

Nathan, thank you so much for taking the time to be

20:54

here today. Thank you. That's

21:00

it for today. I'm Mayna Karaman-Wilt.

21:03

Our intern is Raisa Alibi. Our

21:06

producers are Madeline White, Cheryl

21:08

Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-Moglocklin. David

21:10

Crosby edits the show. Adrian

21:13

Chung is our senior producer, and Angela

21:15

Pecenza is our executive editor. Thanks

21:18

so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow. The

21:25

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