IN STEREO

Battir is different. What is the difference? Battir is just 4000 people, and it’s nothing, you know – it’s a small village and not at the centre of the world. But what’s the importance of Battir? We want to make Battir like an example, for hope for all Palestine. This is the point. This is why we gave Battir a power: to make it a model. Battir was nothing. There was no one, no Battir. The farmers left the farms, and there were no shops in Battir. There were no projects; there were no plans. It was just nothing. [Then] a new danger came to Battir again: the wall. I mean, it wasn’t enough that it’s a nothing village – now we had the Israeli government take that decision to put a wall here. They wanted to build this wall in the soul of Battir, where the spring is, where the terraces are. This would be the end of Battir, that’s it.

[If] the Israeli government put up this wall, we’d leave, maybe. After [defeating the plan for the wall] we took a decision, [made] a strategic plan for Battir. We want to be number one for tourism in all Palestine. Number two: we want to stop taking any help from any country [and] from the government. If I want to build a small hospital, I [will] have money from the tourism, from the restaurant, from the workshop... We want to be independent when it comes to money. We don’t want to wait for help. And number three, the important one: we want this village to be the example for all Palestine. Of course, every place is different. They can make it specific to them, not copy/paste. Come to learn in Battir: we’ll teach you how we succeeded in everything we did. – Sultan