Probably one of the things one least expects to come across on a visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank is a high-spirited beer festival in full swing.
But that is exactly what visitors to the small Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh were treated to at the weekend.
The village is home to a successful family-owned microbrewery, the Taybeh Brewing Company, whose co-owner, Nadim Khoury, and his sister-in-law, Maria Khoury, staged its third annual Oktoberfest, modelled on the great beer-drinking event in Munich.
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"Many times the Israeli troops stop deliveries to check every bottle, saying they are looking for explosives, though of course they have never found anything," said Mr Khoury's sister, Beth.
"They ask us to open our sealed kegs, but we explain it is not possible as the beer will be spoilt."
"Sometimes our kegs do explode, but only because of too much pressure inside from fermentation," she joked.
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September 19, 2007
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And just a couple years ago there was this:
Muslims torch 14 Christian homes near Ramallah
At least 14 houses belonging to Christian residents of Taybeh, a West Bank village northeast of Ramallah, were torched by Muslims from neighboring Dir Jarir yesterday, to avenge what they termed the dishonor of a Muslim woman.
According to Taybeh residents, several dozen young men from Dir Jarir descended on their village before dawn, torched the homes and destroyed a great deal of other property.
"The young men, who were holding Molotov cocktails, threw them at the houses, which began to go up in flames, one after another," said Buthaina Sha'aban, a Taybeh resident and the sister of the town's mayor. "They vandalized parked cars and beat village residents who went out into the streets. Entire families were thrown into the street after their homes were torched. Not much remains of their property. We urge all international, Israeli and Palestinian actors to intervene and protect village residents from the Muslim rage."
The attackers also torched stores, a farm and a gas station. The latter fire was put out before fuel tanks exploded. Palestinian Authority policemen who arrived on the scene also managed to save the village's famous beer factory.
The two villages are located in Area B, meaning that they are under Israel security control. Access to the villages from Area A, where the PA police is located, is only possible by going through Area C, under full Israeli control. Residents said that several hours passed until the Israel Defense Forces agreed to allow the PA police to leave Ramallah and enter the village to stop the rampage.
Later, the Palestinian governor of the Ramallah area visited the scene to try to soothe tempers, as did several senior Christian clerics. Most Taybeh residents are either Catholic or Greek Orthodox.
PA security sources said that the rampage was triggered by an incident last week in which a 23-year-old woman was killed by her relatives because they suspected her of carrying on a romance with a Christian man from Taybeh. The woman was quickly buried, but last Tuesday, the PA police exhumed the body for an autopsy.
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Efforts were under way on Sunday to calm the situation in this Christian village east of Ramallah after an attack by hundreds of Muslim men from nearby villages left many houses and vehicles torched.
The incident began on Saturday night and lasted until early Sunday, when Palestinian Authority security forces interfered to disperse the attackers. Residents said several houses were looted and many families were forced to flee to Ramallah and other Christian villages, although no one was injured.
The attack on the village of 1,500 was triggered by the murder of a Muslim woman from the nearby village of Deir Jarir earlier this week. The 30-year-old woman, according to PA security sources, was apparently murdered by members of her family for having had a romance with a Christian man from Taiba.
"When her family discovered that she had been involved in a forbidden relationship with a Christian, they apparently forced her to drink poison," said one source. "Then they buried her without reporting her death to the relevant authorities."
When the PA security forces decided to launch an investigation into the woman's death, her family protested for fear that the relationship would be exposed. The family was further infuriated by the decision to exhume the body for autopsy.
The attack is one of the worst against Christians in the West Bank in many years. Residents said it took the PA security forces several hours to reach Taiba. Others complained that the IDF, which is in charge of overall security in the area, did not answer their desperate calls for immediate help.
"More than 500 Muslim men, chanting Allahu akbar [God is great], attacked us at night," said a Taiba resident. "They poured kerosene on many buildings and set them on fire. Many of the attackers broke into houses and stole furniture, jewelry and electrical appliances."
With the exception of large numbers of PA policemen, the streets of Taiba were completely deserted on Sunday as the residents remained indoors. Many torched cars littered the streets. At least 16 houses had been gutted by fire and the assailants also destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary.
"It was like a war, they arrived in groups, and many of them were holding clubs," said another resident.
"Some people saw them carrying weapons. They first attacked houses belonging to the Khoury family [looking for the man who had the affair with the women, not realizing he had already fled the village.] Then they went to their relatives. They entered the houses and destroyed everything there. Then they tried to enter the local beer factory, but were repelled by PA security agents. The fire engine arrived five hours later."
Col. Tayseer Mansour, commander of the PA police in the Ramallah area, said his men arrived late because of the need to coordinate their movements with the IDF. "The delay resulted in the torching of a number of houses and cars in the village," he said.
Taiba, the only West Bank village that is completely inhabited by Christians, is famous for its Taiba Beer factory, which was established by the Khoury family in 1994.
The residents are Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic. The village was originally called Ephraim, and is thought to be the city to which Jesus came with his disciples before his crucifixion: "Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim" (John 11:54).
According to some accounts, Salah a-Din, who led the war against the Crusaders, was responsible for the name change. He is said to have found the villagers there to be nice and kind – in Arabic, taybeen – and the name stuck, to become Taiba.
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