IN STEREO

Battir is in Area C. ‘A’ areas are the ones belonging to the [Palestinian] Authority. ‘B’ areas [are] shared between Israel and the Authority. And ‘C’ [areas are] for Israel. I mean, they’re responsible for them. After [the early 1990s] Oslo [Accords], an agreement was [made] between the village’s people and the other side in Israel, that they preserve the train, that we prevent anyone to come throw stones at the train or threaten the train, and in return they don’t put a wall between us and them. So like this, farmers and the village’s people can reach the lands that they own and plant them and harvest them. But after the occupation came and everything that happened, people couldn’t export vegetables to Jerusalem. The old railway was written off and they made a new railway and a new Israeli train. Village people were no longer able to work on it or to transfer vegetables to Jerusalem. The agreement we had in the past with them remained. But [with] the development of things Israel wanted – to exploit lands and to take them – it’s over. It cut its relation with us and started stealing them, little by little. So the village’s people acted: they appealed to UNESCO, they appealed to abroad in Europe, in America. For the taken lands and the agreements they had and for the beauty of Battir. It has a lot of trees, and it has the old terraces and the Roman amphitheatre and the springs. So the village people delivered Battir to the world and it took the award in the UNESCO World Heritage. Because it has a lot of old buildings too, and it has the [Roman] tombs… I mean, it has many heritage things. More than heritage: old things ahead of their time, from different times. So finally it got the award and [Israel] stopped the project of land looting. [Battir] had like an immunity. – Mohammad