IN STEREO

Now, why do they consider Battir an archaeological area? Because its buildings are old, from the old, old times, I mean. Us, all these buildings you see [are from] after 1950. After 1960, even. The people of Battir didn’t leave their area; the people of Husan didn’t leave their area; Al-Makhrour remained there. But we didn’t; we left our area. At first, we were at Dheisheh [refugee] camp, [then] we went to Aida camp. I mean, there was nothing [here]. The first people who built in the area were my brothers. They built their houses in 1970. All of these buildings are new. Not from a long time ago, you see? And Israel doesn’t allow us to do anything. I mean, as soon as anyone puts down one rock, they demolish it. If our area remained, if we stayed like Battir stayed, maybe… Because we have the archaeological areas here. I’m telling you, Rweisat is among the archaeological areas, Al-Khirba is among archaeological areas, because Canaanites lived there in the old times. I mean, if you search, there are caves here. All of these are archaeological. I know that this is an archaeological area because it was the Canaanites’ land in the old times and the Ottoman country. But Battir’s people stayed in their area. They didn’t leave like us. Husan’s people stayed in their area. Nahalin, they stayed in their area. It’s good for us that [they] kept our area and stayed in it. This is a green zone. This is the green zone because it has a lot of olive trees, and it has stone fruits, and it has grapevines and grapes and figs and everything, everything. We’re used to living on the land here. Why is it important? Because I’m telling you it’s an opening, an opening for all the areas. All the world comes. Even Israel is greedy for it. Israel would gather us all and throw us out; it wouldn’t say no. – Um Mustafa