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Father Ibrahim Shomali leading a sermon near the monastery.. Photo by Laura Gelfond Feldinger

Outdoor service conducted by the Salesian convent in the Cremisan Valley, a Palestinian hamlet ordered to be carved up with the separation wall by an Israeli court. (Photo: Catholic Philly)

by Allison Deger for Mondoweiss

Alcohol drinkers in the West Bank know the Cremisan Valley as the agricultural lands where sacramental wine, as well as Merlot, Chardonnay, Vermouth and Brandy are produced by nuns and monks. Since the late 1800s when the Salesian order established a monastery southwest of Jerusalem, this hidden gem of land has served the Palestinian Christian community for business, education and religion.

But last week an Israel court ruled on the route of the expanding separation wall, and it will now chop up the Cremisan Valley like so many other localities caught between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

The court's findings come after seven years of litigation to change the route of the wall. The barrier will now "surround the Salesian Nuns Convent and Primary School from three sides and will confiscate most of the convent’s lands," said the Society for St. Yves, a Catholic legal rights group that represented the Cremisan community, in a press release on Friday.

Originally the wall's planned route would have barricaded the school from the city of Beit Jala, a historically Christian city adjacent to Bethlehem. But St. Yves was successful in partially re-directing the path of the wall. From the press release by the organization:

The Society of St. Yves was initially successful in changing the primary course of the wall, by which the Convent and the School will remain on the Palestinian side of the wall. Still the Society of St. Yves sees the verdict as highly problematic and unjust as it doesn’t even discuss the violation of freedom of religion, the right to education as well as the economical damage caused for a unique Christian minority in Beit Jala by the construction of the wall.

The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood also reports the route of the wall will usurp most of the monastery 's land as well as agricultural fields from 50 families:

The route of the barrier will separate a small community of elderly nuns at the Cremisan convent from 75% of their land and from a nearby monastery with which it has close ties. The playground of a nursery and a school run by the Cremisan sisters will be bordered on three sides by the wall.

More than 50 Palestinian families will lose free access to their agricultural land, causing economic hardship to the dwindling Christian community.

In particular Cremisan Cellars is caught between the Green line, "with the main building officially in Jerusalem and the storeroom on the other side of the parking lot in the West Bank. The long winding road to the monastery is just past one of the coordinating offices between Israel and the Palestinian Autonomy [Authority]," says the vineyard's website.

Although to the outside world Cremisan is a little-heard-of agricultural and religious hamlet, it is situated in between regions of heightened settlement expansion. To the west of the valley is Har Gilo where hundreds of Israeli settlers live on territory expropriated from the Palestinian towns of Beit Jala and al-Walajah. To the east is Gilo, a Levittown-on-the-Holy Land, home to some 40,000 settlers. Together Gilo and Har Gilo form the nexus of the Gush Etzion and East Jerusalem settlement blocs. Connecting them while carving up the surrounding Palestinian villages schematically reinforces a "Greater Jerusalem" into the West Bank.

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Vatican under scrutiny as nuns, landowners lose Israel wall challenge

By Charlotte Alfred for Maan

BEIT JALA, West Bank (Ma’an) -- After a seven-year legal battle, a group of Palestinian landowners and Catholic nuns this week lost an appeal against Israel building its separation barrier on their land.

The ruling by an Israeli appeals committee places the lush Cremisan Valley, in a northern corner of Bethlehem, behind the Israeli wall.

Running straight through Vatican-owned land, the route of this section of the wall also places the position of the Catholic hierarchy under uncomfortable scrutiny.

The proposed construction will also cut off 58 Palestinians in Beit Jala, a predominantly Christian suburb of Bethlehem, from their fields. They launched a legal challenge in 2006.

Throughout the case, both sides tried to demonstrate that the church was behind them, aided by the fact that the church’s position was far from coherent. The Catholic Church in the West Bank lent support to the appeal, the local monastery equivocated, while the Vatican kept quiet.

But as the landowner, the Vatican is still the key player. Israeli officials insist the Vatican agreed to their initial route for the wall, which put both the monastery and convent of the Salesian order on the Israel-controlled side. The Vatican denies the church ever made a deal.

After the nuns belatedly joined the case saying Israel had misrepresented their position, the committee adopted a compromise position.

Wednesday’s ruling keeps the convent and the school they run for Palestinian children on the West Bank side of the wall. But it will be surrounded on three sides, and the nuns will have to pass through a gate controlled by the Israeli military to access the monastery, which the nuns reject.

In its final stages, the monks also expressed support for the Cremisan sisters’ legal challenge. Yet to the end, Israel’s attorneys insisted that there was no pressure from higher Catholic powers to keep the separation barrier off church land.

The ‘deal’

When Israel started planning a barrier to surround the West Bank in the aftermath of the second intifada, Israeli military official Col. Danny Tirza was tasked with negotiating the route with church officials.

Tirza insists he secured explicit Vatican agreement before drawing the route through the Cremisan Valley.

He says that in 2003, he met Pietro Sambi, then the Vatican’s Apostolic Nuncio to Israel and representative in Palestine, to discuss various church properties along the barrier route. Sambi personally asked them to put Vatican properties on the Israeli side, Tirza said.

The Israeli official, who retired in 2007, said he also traveled to Vatican City to discuss the maps in detail with the deputy secretary of state at the Vatican.

In both meetings, the Vatican was “delighted” with the outcome and agreed on an “exact line” for the barrier in Cremisan, Tirza said.

He admits that the Cremisan Salesians expressed some concerns.

The Vatican delegation to Jerusalem and Palestine refused to confirm or deny Tirza’s account or any other aspect of the Cremisan case.

“Our position remains the same as the beginning. We have nothing to say on this case,” an official at the delegation, who did not identify himself, told Ma’an.

But in one public comment on the issue, in 2012, the Vatican representative signed a statement denying any “explicit or implicit agreement” between church bodies and Israel on the wall.

The church “therefore strongly (calls) on the State of Israel to restrain from its plan to separate Cremisan valley from Bethlehem,” the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries’ communiqué read.

Trying to stay out of politics

Before 2012, the church was less forthcoming. It took years for the nuns and monks to get on board, and in public statements, the Salesians said they had not asked to be on one side or the other.

“Salesians do not get involved in issues and decisions to determine boundaries between the two States,” a 2009 communiqué said.

“We do not intend to address the issue of (the) Wall, because we do not recognize its legitimacy,” the statement said, referencing a 2004 International Court of Justice ruling that the barrier is illegal.

“They refer to international law, and that they are against the wall in principle, but that is not enough,” a Palestinian Christian activist complained to Ma’an.

The ambiguity arises from the Vatican’s principled opposition to the Israeli wall, but simultaneous insistence it will not take a political stance on territorial issues, such as where the route should go.

The church has no interest in being seen to take sides. The Vatican is a significant landowner tied in long negotiations with Israel over the status of its properties. At the same time, it is trying to support its Palestinian members, part of the dwindling Christian presence in the Holy Land.

Getting behind the case

In October 2010, the nuns broke from the monastery and joined the Palestinian petition, saying their wishes had been misrepresented by the Israeli army.

Running a popular school for Palestinian children, the nuns were deeply concerned "the school ground could easily become a battle ground," their lawyer said.

The following year, local Catholic priests and activists started organizing a weekly mass overlooking Cremisan to highlight opposition to the wall. The Salesian monks were repeatedly invited but declined to join, activists say.

In November 2011, the Palestinian president’s office summoned the Vatican envoy, and the Palestinian Authority foreign minister wrote to his Vatican counterpart, to solicit support for the case.

The Salesian monastery responded with a rehash of the communiqués denying any deal with Israel. But two months later they reissued the statement, giving their first unequivocal support to the Palestinian case. In 2012, the monks testified in support of the nuns and Palestinian landowners.

How the nuns and the monks came around is a matter of debate. Manal Hazzan-Abu Sinni, the nuns’ lawyer, said their testimony was evidence that the Israeli army had simply lied about having the church’s support.

The monks’ lawyer, Nihad Ershid, said they were “not interested in giving any information to any journalist.” Neither would the Palestinians’ lawyer be drawn into discussing the church’s about face. “We had lots of problems with the church for many years … I don’t want to say more,” he told Ma’an.

Israeli authorities say the church is under pressure from the Palestinian Authority, while the Salesian monks say Israeli government pressure was actually the problem, when they were trying not to get involved.

Local activists say the weekly Christian demonstrations shamed the Vatican into instructing the order to take a clear and united stance.

“The monks live in a completely different world, dealing within their own structures. They just thought it would pass by,” a human rights activist close to the case told Ma’an.

A spokeswoman for the Society of St Yves, the Catholic rights group representing the Salesian nuns, said the church eventually weighing in had unnerved Israel’s stance.

“They thought they were just taking land from 58 landowners and six old nuns -- not anymore,” she said.

Palestinian lawyers are planning an appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court.

Just say the word

Despite the eventual challenge by the monks and nuns, Israel has continued to maintain that the Vatican was not concerned about the wall on its land.

Israel’s state attorney assured the judge last year that neither the foreign nor defense ministries were worried that the case would harm their relations with the Vatican, and were happy for it to proceed.

The attorney argued at a final hearing in February that if the Vatican was concerned, it would have joined the petition itself. The Palestinians’ advocate countered that as a state, the Vatican would not join an Israeli legal process to express its views.

Hanna Amira, a member of the Palestinian presidential committee on Christian affairs, said the Vatican raised the issue with Israel but had not reached a common position. With the election of a new pope, both sides are looking for a stronger stance.

Israeli President Shimon Peres will visit Pope Francis next week. On Friday, Palestinians and Catholic supporters gathered again in the Cremisan Valley to protest the ruling.

“The church is an important owner of land and they have a lot of influence. Therefore there could be a lot of impact if they take on our cause,” senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath told Ma’an at a solidarity service.

“If the Vatican wants its words to be heard, it will be heard. It depends how much it wants to publicly help our cause.”