For the Life of Fatemeh

May 9, 2005

Fatemeh’s cooking facilities © www.nickpretzlik.com Click to enlarge photo

Nick Pretzlik in Beer Sheva, Israel, November 15, 2003

Fatemeh’s misfortune was to be born in Khashem Zeneh in 1923—a time when storm clouds were gathering beyond the horizon and Jewish immigration to Palestine was rising. Balfour had made his famous Declaration in 1917 and decisions were being taken in faraway places that would seal the fate of Bedouin tradition and culture in the Negev forever.

The village of Khashem Zeneh is now part of Israel and remains to this day Fatemeh’s home. But the semi-nomadic world of her Bedouin youth has gone—replaced by life in a single roomed corrugated zinc shack 15 feet (4.6 m) wide by 18 feet (5.5 m) long. A shack I initially mistook for a chicken coop.

The rolling plains of the northern Negev are where the rump of the Bedouin population live—the 70,000 people not yet cajoled by the Israeli authorities into living in seven purpose-built ghettos around Beer Sheva. Today, all but 2 percent of their traditional lands are off limits.

Khashem Zeneh is not difficult to find. Just head out of Beer Sheva on the Dimona road and opposite the exclusively Jewish community of Moshav Nevatim —10 kilometers (6 miles) down the dual carriageway, and turn right at the sign that reads “Cemetery.” Then follow the dirt track directly to the village.

It sounds easy. And it is easy. But not if you use a map. On the map Khashem Zeneh does not exist. In 1965 the stroke of a Knesset pen created the phenomenon of “Unrecognised Villages” by passing the Planning and Construction Law, and even though in reality Khashem Zeneh does exist, post-1965, legally it did not. Along with many other Bedouin communities in the Negev, it disappeared—was made invisible to government planners and became illegal in the eyes of the authorities. What is more, logic dictated that a community that did not exist had no need for municipal services. Consequently, Khashen Zeneh has no school, no clinic, and no electricity supply, and—had the villagers themselves not funded a hosepipe connection to Moshav Nevatim’s water main—no source of running water either.

It was a few days ago when I walked through the village and the winter rains had not yet arrived. Cyclones of rubbish and dust spiraled through the air. Gray, desiccated earth stretched away on all sides with no sign of vegetation except for the swaying green trees and shady shrubbery of the Moshav and its cemetery, where the dead are provided with what passes for a paradise on earth in comparison to the living of nearby Khashem Zeneh.

Fatemeh’s coop © www.nickpretzlik.com Click to enlarge photo

Although autumn was well underway and the time was 10:15 in the morning, the corrugated zinc sheets of Fatemeh’s shack were already hot to the touch and the temperature inside was oppressive. In summer, temperatures in the Negev soar above 50° Celsius (122° F) and at that time of year, if left long enough in the shack, a chicken would probably roast. As it happens, roasting—in the true culinary sense—is not possible for Fatemeh. She has no oven. She possesses for cooking only a single iron ring screwed into a gas bottle. Nor does she have a lavatory. She must hobble outside into the yard with her stick, go round to the acrid-smelling alley at the back of the shack, and squat on the bare earth.

Unlike Moshav Nevatim, Khashem Zeneh has no land to speak of—nowhere to grow crops or keep animals. Unemployment hovers around the 80 percent level and ill health is endemic. Fatemeh has diabetes. She also suffers from asthma and high blood pressure and travels to Beer Sheva for treatment—rather different to what occurs in Jewish communities, where support for the aged and infirm is provided in the home as a right. Not that Fatemeh has no rights at all. She has two. As a fully-fledged citizen of the state and an Israeli national, she has the right to pay taxes and may vote in national elections—just like a Jewish resident of the Moshav. Who says Israel is not democratic?

Fatemeh’s front yard © www.nickpretzlik.com Click to enlarge photo

This article was written by British activist Nick Pretzlik, who, sadly, passed away in summer 2004. Nick was a semi-retired businessman. He spent three or four months of the year in the West Bank, Gaza and the wider Middle East working as a freelance journalist. Nick was passionate about the Palestinian issue and believed that broad public awareness of the plight of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in refugee camps situated in neighboring countries is key to promoting a just resolution of their appalling predicament.

Nick did not fit the stereotype of a European activist. Nick and his quiet determination and total commitment to others is deeply missed by those here in Palestine and back home in the UK.

Click here to visit Nick Pretzlik's web site