Rasmi Sweity from Beit Awa/Um Khashrom: "This is Our Third Expulsion"
Community Voices, PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, September 20th, 2004
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| Above: Rasmi Abd Al Aziz Sweity from the village of Beit Awa holding the deeds to his property, one of which is 103 years old. The Occupation Forces have and will continue to destroy his lands for the building of the Apartheid Wall. |
My name is Rasmi Sweity from the village of Beit Awa, the wage earner for a family of 10 with 8 children, as well as for my mother and father.
This Apartheid Wall which is being built by the Occupation steels land and property, and has taken all of my lands and leaves me nothing, not for my brothers nor for my family.
This is the land that we live off of, our main source of income and we do not have another source. Where do we go? They expelled us one time (1948), and a second time (1967), and this is the third, and where do we go..
And as you see, my right hand has been severed while I was working in a factory inside the Green Line. I returned to work the land as I could no longer do other work, but even if I could work somewhere, elsewhere, why do I have to work for others when I own land that is sufficient enough to sustain the entire family.
My lands alone, not including the lands of the rest of my family, totals some 50 dunums of fertile lands filled with olive groves, all of which are bearing fruit as the olive-picking season nears, all of which are taken and isolated for the Apartheid Wall, In 1948 they expelled us from our original village, Um Khashrom, and stole our lands and now they want to steel the rest, which is all that remains for us, and we have no other.
And I am the owner of this deed you see here, which is 103 years old, and which proves that this land is our property. Now, the Occupation wants to put us in a massive prison for no other reason than as an opening to destroy us one more time. And I ask the entire world, and the Arab people, save us, as no one has asked about us or even knows of us.
The media is called upon to focus on this reality--the disgraces of the Apartheid policies that are imposed on the Palestinian people: from the Wall, to the killings, the destruction, and the expulsion.
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