The tracks .. Palestinians walk on their land to refute the allegations of occupation

As if the late poet Mahmoud Darwish, with his poem “We are a country,” is simulating a reality that the Palestinian Ghassan Dweikat, one of the pioneers of the paths, lives through, and weaves through it the story of a nation whose pillars are completed by discovering the details absent from us and present with it strongly.

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 As our idea of ​​the unknown, narrow and broad

A country when we walk on its map narrows us,

And she takes us to a gray tunnel,

We scream in her maze: We still love you …

A decade ago, the movement of collective paths was strongly activated as one of the colors of Palestinian domestic tourism, and a few of them went beyond the idea of ​​walking, sports and entertainment and went to the deepest, focusing most of their attention on knowledge and documentation of the places he visited.

There is an unknown who is seeking Dwikat, a researcher in Palestinian local history, to reveal it with his paths that he divides into three types.

And the third is where he is a guest with a group of visitors to a historical place where their guide is, and for him he prefers the second type.

And in all paths, Duikat ignites the flame of hope in the places he visits with ample explanations and carefully documented information that the residents themselves are almost ignorant of, as is the case of the village of “Seb” and its historical graves north of the city of Tulkarm in the West Bank.

deep Diving

Religious sites, heritage monuments, villages and migrated ruins are only a small part on the list of Duikat trails. He searches for the ancient roots of Palestinian life, such as ways to collect water and supply it to the Bedouin population in the desert of Jericho, or ways to cut rocks with wood soaked with water.

Or the path casts its shadow over natural, geographical and environmental features related to the place’s fauna or flora, or knocks on the door to the residents’ social life and livelihoods.

Dwikat’s documentary track – which these days celebrates the sixth year of the launch of its track – begins with good preparation of the required tools such as paper, pen, measuring meter and mobile phone for the purpose of photography.

He tells Al-Jazeera Net that he dives deep into any place, relying on its historical extension, its archaeological discoveries, and the information it collects from witnesses and various scientific references, and then publishes his information supported by pictures, drawings and adequate explanation about it.

This is a “secret that distinguishes it” from others who are concerned with walking and entertainment only, without leaving their fingerprints in and around the place.

Refute the allegations of the occupation

About 50 tracks organized by Dweikat so far, and through which he documented dozens of sites from the northern to the south of the West Bank, combining sport with enjoyment of nature, distinguishing them more with documentation, bringing them close to those who did not see them as a reality and correcting any wrong understanding about them.

Although he showed an outgrowth of the paths, Dwikat warns of the danger of slipping behind the Israeli narrative by adopting these sites and falsifying their Palestinian names and turning them into Hebrew, which requires the awareness of Palestinian walkers and an official role for the various institutions, especially the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism, to organize paths that refute the lies of the occupation and refute its claims.

In 2000, the Palestinians officially began organizing their seasonal and orphan track in the name of “Abraham, peace be upon him,” which extends from the north of the West Bank to its south, with a length of 330 km, and later turned into the “Palestine Heritage” route.

Other paths branched out from this path, notably the “Nativity Path” from the city of Nazareth, in the north of occupied Palestine, to the city of Bethlehem in the south, and paths for the Sufi groups.

The dilemma – in terms of the official role – goes beyond the preparation and arrangement stages for the pathways experts and pioneers to the absence of real action by reaching places threatened by occupation and not following up guides who “lack experience and patriotism” by naming places by their original Palestinian names.

This statement is adopted by Anwar Dawabshe, the master and expert of the Palestinian tracks, as he believes that walking is not a goal of the path, but rather a means of introducing the Palestinian land and establishing the identity of its original landmarks and sites.

After the year 2000, Dawabsha began organizing the tracks, but his return intensified there 10 years ago and became a part of his life and a weekly activity, so he does not have a fixed statistic of their number. He says, “Maybe I walked 500 routes with the Palestinians, and the same with foreign tourists.”

Confrontation at all levels

On his Facebook wall, Dawabsha wrote for those who wanted to go out with him by the route, “We will speak in the language of the valleys of the mushash, the squares, the class and the salt lake,” which are places near the city of Jericho, and this is its original name according to the “Historical Palestinian Atlas” adopted in its tracks.

Under the name “Nature Lovers”, Dawabsha launches the eighth season of its tracks, and annually adds 15 new tracks to introduce everyone to the land and enrich the national dictionary with its names, authentic traditions, and the ancient Palestinian life there.

Dawabsha said in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that the Jewish National Fund has added 66,000 biblical names since the establishment of the occupation state to Palestinian places such as mountains, valleys and archaeological ruins, “without any Palestinian effort to counter that.”

He personally sought to place the tracks within the agenda of the Ministry of Education, but his endeavor did not receive official attention in contrast to what the occupation does, which keeps running trips for school and university students, and despite this, he is seeking to publish his book, which they mean by the slogan “Here Palestine”.

Statistics indicate – according to Dawabsha – that there are 2,240 lanes in the Palestinian territories and the Gaza Strip, of which only 15 are in the Strip, and actually do not meet the level of the tracks and their standards, and 66 lanes in the West Bank, some of which are incomplete with conditions and milestones and by individual efforts.

As for the rest, they are Israeli paths on the historical Palestinian land, bringing the number of paths of the occupation state to 25,259.

Dawabsha carries with him a message of a national, religious and educational dimension in documenting Palestinian places through paths and confronting the occupation and its claims, the latest of which was the global promotion of “settlement tourism.”