Following are photographs from Nahaleen taken after the discovery of Evacuation Warning notices, placed by Israeli soldiers on parcels of land adjacent to the village. Nahaleen (Nahalin) is not the only Palestinian village facing Israeli soldier and settler violence. Last night, the neighboring village of Husan (see map) was raided by soldiers and put under curfew. Village residents were not allowed to leave their homes on threat of being shot.


One of the Evacuation Warning notices left on Palestinian land adjacent to Nahaleen.


The Evacuation Warnings are part of a systematic campaign of harassment orchestrated by Israeli occupying forces and settlers in the area. The settlement of Betar (or Betar Illit) near Nahaleen is an extremely large, wholly religious Jewish settlement. Many religious settlers believe the entire land was granted to them by god and that the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants must be driven out, as the ancient Canaanites and Philistines supposedly were in Biblical myths.


The illegal Israeli settlement of Betar looms over the Palestinian village of Nahaleen.

In keeping with these fundamentalist beliefs, Israeli settlers often attack Palestinian civilians. Settlers from Betar throw stones at Palestinian villagers on the road to Nahaleen. Last week, in Tuwani and Qawamis villages, south of Hebron, settlers from the settlement of Ma’on and its outpost settlements poisoned a piece of grazing land used by Palestinian shepherds. The settlers have also uprooted olive trees, attacked Palestinian villagers, and assaulted international volunteers accompanying the villagers- in one instance two volunteers from the Christian Peacemakers Team ended up in the hospital after they were beaten by settlers.

In fact, settler attacks seam to be on the rise lately. The village of Asira al-Kabaliya, near Nablus, was attacked by settlers on Friday and a settler woman attacked a nine year old Palestinian child in Hebron on Thursday. Such violence is often condoned by soldiers, police and politicians. According to the Israeli Human Rights organization, B’'Tselem, “"when Israeli civilians attack Palestinians, the Israeli authorities employ an undeclared policy of leniency and compromise toward the perpetrators"” (go here for more from B’'Tselem on settler violence).

Settler violence has always been a feature of the Israeli colonization project, as it has been in colonization efforts around the world - from South Africa to the United States. Part of a settler movement's methodology in taking control of the land, is forcing the other, usually the indigenous inhabitants, to leave under threat of destruction. As WJT Mitchell points out, “"the false but efficacious etymology of '“territory”' is “'terror”', the enforcing of boundaries with violence and fear."”

Israeli colonialism, like other colonialisms before, pairs the unhinged, zealous violence of the settlers with the calculated bureaucratic violence of the modern Israeli state. The result is a combined effort to take control of ever larger portions of Palestinian land and expand illegal settlements.