Salem

Salem is a rural village outside Nablus. In a perfect world without any checkpoints and separate roads for Jewish settlers (which are beautiful, smooth freeways) and the Palestinian population (which is forced to use dirt tracks or unsealed bitumen roads) the journey between Nablus and Salem would take 5 minutes by car. Instead, it usually takes around an hour because of the numerous checkpoints scattered along the way. Thankfully when I visited Salem there were no checkpoints so the journey only took 15.

I travelled to Salem with Pat, an Australian studying Arabic and teaching English in Nablus.* Pat came especially to Salem to help Asim, the son of the local Imam (Muslim priest), who is applying for a scholarship to study in England.

I came with Pat to see the famous earthen separation wall of Salem. Asid's family farm has been split into two by a giant ditch dug by the Israelis. The ostensible reason for the ditch is, yes, you guessed it, for 'security' reasons. The Israelis built a settler road alongside the farm area, so they decided to confiscate half the land in order to protect settlers driving along the road from being attacked by Palestinians.

(The land to the right in this photo has been seized as a buffer along the settler road. Some 200metres of Palestinian land extending for several kilometres.)

Forget ostensible explanations. This is a land grab. * It turns out both Pat and my parents live in the same suburb of Sydney. Talk about a small universe.