Turmus Aya

Driving through the wonderful pathway of Turmus Aya, I felt the tranquility of the place fall upon me. It was a beautiful sunny day and the sky was high blue. I stood by my car looking at the beautiful landscape. It was green and alive by the spirit of its owners. I wanted to walk through the landscape and hills of Turmus Aya to experience the feelings of some great writers when they had their walks. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau felt true happiness, when he wondered off in landscapes and hills. I wanted to be in the state of true happiness; however, I could not because of the many Palestinians problems and conflicts with the Israelis and Israeli settlers.

Turmus Aya is known for its grapes, which its name partly comes from. According to Ibrahim Jamil, the head of Turmus Aya’s municipality, the name Turmus Aya originated from the following:

The name Turmusaya was written in the older maps and books such as the DABAGH series as THORINASIA. In DABAGH's book, "Palestine is our Land" the name Turmusaya is broken into three parts TOR-MASHh-AYYA. TOR means mountain, MASHh indicates the grape pulp left after squeezing the juice from them, and AYYA means humid. Others say the Name Turmusaya consists of two parts, TERRA which means land in Latin, and MESIA which means THE CHRISTIAN, or the LAND OF THE CHRISTIAN. (Turmusayya Municipality)

Another story which was told by the people living in Turmus Aya about where the name Turmus Aya came from was that a man who was living in the village named Turmus refused to pay taxes to the Israelis, so the Israelis who went to tell the government that he refused to pay, they told him “Turmus Aya” which in Arabic means, Turmus refused to pay. So they named the village after him.

As any other Palestinian village, the landowners of lands in Turmus Aya are forced to cultivate their lands in order to stay owners. As Raja Shehadeh mentions in his book, Palestinian Walks, the Israeli law is the following:

We were aware that the main argument the Israeli military was using was that non-registered land in the West Bank was public land. This could be used to settle Israeli Jews. The implications were calamitous. According to this interpretation of the land law, the only registered land that truly belonged to Palestinians was that over which they would prove use either by living on it or continuously cultivating it for a period of no less than ten years. All the rest was public land. This would render Palestinians living in he West Bank squatters, not rightful owners. The only rightful owners, according to the Israeli government’s version of law and history, were the Jews (Shehadeh 57).

So if a land owned by a Palestinian and it is not cultivated, Israel has the right to take confiscate it forever. In other words, Israel is trying to steal lands from Palestinians “legally.” Israel is trying to take over Palestinians lands without breaking the “law.” Israel is deceiving the world with its laws and no one is able to say anything. If some countries unite and go against Israel, the Palestinian conflict will be solved. However, none of these countries care about what is happening to the Palestinian. They would not care unless if it starts to effect them. As Susan Sontag wrote in her book, Regarding the Pain of Others, about how one could prevent war. She wrote the following passages about how people are passive to images they see: “Whenever people feel save–this was her bitter, self-accusing point—they will be indifferent” (Sontag 100). “People can turn off not just because a steady diet of images of violence has made them indifferent but because they are afraid” (Sontag 100). And “To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering, and may—in ways we might prefer not to imagine—be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark” (Sontag 102).

Walking in the village and reaching its center, I looked at the hill to my left. On top of that hill, stood houses with red roof tiles and they were built with the same structure. There was a water tower for infrastructure in the middle. To the right of those houses, there was a big building, which is a public building. The trees in that area were not olive trees and they were different than the ones I saw in Turmus Aya. All of these characteristics are characteristics of settlements. I asked the people about the settlement and they told me its called “Shilo.” They told me there is another settlement on the other side, which is called “Shf Rahel.” The Israeli government confiscated 4000 acres of land, which was planted with olive trees, in order to build those settlements. One can see this all over Palestine. Israel builds settlements surrounding the villages in order to deny Palestinians to expand their villages. Also, when looking at the settlement I noticed something different. On the hill, there were some containers that some Israeli Jews uses to expand the settlements. These containers are illegally there even by Israel. However, the Israeli Jews are discriminated and treated better than Palestinians are treated. Some laws are not forced on Israeli Jews as much as they are forced on Palestinians. For example, if a Palestinian has an illegal container, the Israeli government will destroy it if he does not remove it. However, when the Israeli Jews does such an action, they might just give him a warning or a fine and eventually he will succeed in whatever he want to do.

Turmus Aya is a village in the process of becoming a city. It already has two banks, jewelry stores, restaurants, café, its own municipality, and many others things that qualifies it as a city. The mayor of the village proposed to the Israeli government for Turmus Aya to be a city instead of a village but they have not received an answer. Turmus Aya also has a population around 5000 people, 80 per cent have a U. S citizenship, and only 2000 people are currently living in it. The people over board come to Turmus Aya every summer to see their family and to cultivate their lands. They leave their jobs in order to cultivate their lands and to save them from being confiscated by Israel. Also, Turmus Aya is like a big family. The people living in it all know each other. If they have a problem, they try to all solve it like a big family. They all share the spring, which distributes water to the whole village. They are also kind and they help the poor. For example, if someone’s buys a land in Turmus Aya and does not have enough money to build a house, the people in the village collect money form everyone in order to build him a house.

There is only one problem in Turmus Aya, which is the old city. In fact, not only in Turmus Aya but in many villages in Palestine. The old city in Turmus Aya was destroyed and ruined in the 1948 war. One should reestablish his or her the roots with their past. There are different approaches that are trying to bring people to live in the old city. Whenever one finds a ruined house, one finds a cactus growing out through the ruins of the house. The Palestinians should renovate these old houses because they are our past and history. The Palestinian problem is that we ask for our old cities that were destroyed in the 1948 war, but when we take them back we do not fix, renovate or even live in them.

Today, everyone prefers a new big house to live in. Also the architecture of the houses is different than it used to be. The used to build the houses with flat roof tops or even with the dome as the roof. Now some use the red tiles in a pyramid shape as rooftops. They use this kind of architecture because people have been living in the U.S. and like the idea. They also live in big houses because each one wants to live with his family. For example, my family and me live in one huge house. My grandmother lives on the top floor, my uncle lives next to her, we live in the first floor, and my aunt lives next to us. This is the reason why they build big houses.