A spa for Samaria

* By Gideon Levy Haaretz *

Water trickles quietly down the rock, sending grasshoppers skittering to safety as it flows into two small ponds at the foot of the hill. Fields of stubble glisten in the valley below. A gentle wind breezes by. It’s an enchanting landscape, but the abiding tranquility is just an illusion. The waters of the spring are pure, but nothing here is clean.

Like a rising fountainhead, the battle for this spring has thrust another Palestinian village into what has become known as the “white intifada.” For the past four months, the residents of the village of Nabi Saleh, accompanied by left-wing activists from Israel and abroad, have staged demonstrations over the spring, which settlers have appropriated for themselves. One more piece of stolen private land – this time for a spa in Halamish, once known as Neve Tzuf, a settlement in Samaria.

The Israel Defense Forces, of course, didn’t waste any time in declaring the spring a closed military zone on Fridays. Signs put up by the Civil Administration’s staff officer for archaeology now prohibit entry into what has been designated an “antiquities site.” On one sign, someone scrawled: “No Arabs allowed,” and also, “The Lord is the king.” Dozens of Stars of David have been plastered on the white agricultural building in the Palestinians’ fields at the foot of the spring – the settlers’ handiwork.

They’ve also come up with a name for the Palestinian spring, accompanied by a memorial plaque at the entrance: “Meir’s Spring, in blessed memory of Meir Segal, a founder of Neve Tzuf, a man of faith and deed, possessing the virtues of grace and humility, lover of the Land of Israel, who fought for its well-being and clung to its soil.”

Armed with the virtues of grace and humility or not, the settlers took it upon themselves to install tables, camping benches and lean-tos at the site; one table is bound to a tree with an iron chain. There is also a barbecue set up and the remnants of a hafla, a large feast, with an empty orange juice bottle lying nearby. Yet another picnic site in the large and promised land, recommended for use on Shabbat and holidays. “Meir’s Spring,” always and for all time, it’s all theirs.

Only one minor detail has been overlooked: The spring lies in the heart of private land belonging to the inhabitants of the adjacent village, Nabi Saleh. The villagers, prevented from working the fields around the spring by the settlers’ threats – which are backed up by the army’s might – decided to launch a different, declaredly nonviolent struggle, through which they regularly attempt to return to the spring to reclaim their land. Dozens have already been wounded or arrested.

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