IN STEREO

I took a tabu [permanent lease] here. I’m working with a Jewish-Israeli lawyer to make a barrack for sheep and cows and so on. Look, if the land is clean and there’s tabu, they give a percentage of the land to building. For example, I have six dunums [6000 square metres]. [That] takes [a building of] up to fifty square metres. Either tin, brick, or wood – not cement. They call it an ‘agricultural house’. Of course, no question the permit is very costly. Listen, I want to tell you one thing with my experience in life – I’m fifty years old now. People always put the problem on Israelis. Look, Israelis don’t have a problem. I mean, you’ll say I’m against Arabs or something. But no, I’m telling you something real. If someone died at the door, they’d say it was from the Jewish-Israelis. If someone’s terrace was destroyed: the Jewish-Israelis. This is wrong. I mean, I don’t want to judge people or something, but this is the truth.

I was born here and I know how people are here. I’m not absent, not in summer nor in winter. Not a day; I can’t. I mean, if I don’t come in the morning, I must come in the evening. People who are [really] here, I mean the whole year, who come every day, can be counted on fingers. The rest [only] come when fruits come down. Look, if everything is legal, if you have a piece of land and its papers are official, they won’t intercept you. You should apply to them. You’re Area C; you aren’t under the [Palestinian] Authority. If you go apply to them, they study the situation; they examine the land; they see the land’s papers; they have them already. If everything is 100%, you don’t have a problem. They don’t prevent you; they give it to you. What do they say? Work legally, [and] no one would talk to you. But something illegal, they’d talk to you. – Abu Laith