July 19, 2021

I struggle to convey sad news. My dear friend, Haj Sami Sadeq, Mayor of Al Aqaba Village, passed away on July 9, 2021. May he rest in peace and may his wisdom and courage continue to guide and safeguard Al Aqaba Village and Palestine, the homeland he loved. He was a great man, and it was an honor to know him.

Because Mayor Haj Sami was paraplegic, even small infections were life-threatening. Months ago, he was transferred to Istashari Arab Hospital in Ramallah to be treated for an infectious sore, where he received excellent care. Unfortunately, the infection became resistant to antibiotics. Because specialists at the Israeli Tel HaShomer Hospital had treated Mayor Haj Sami in the past, he and his family asked to move him there but were refused. After a head doctor with Physicians for Human Rights went to Tel HaShomer Hospital to personally press for Haj Sami’s admission, the hospital finally granted it— but it was too late.

This brilliant man had eyes filled with twinkling stars and big dreams for his village, Al Aqaba. He welcomed all who came in peace, and thousands of people — in Palestine, in Israel, throughout Europe, Japan, and the U. S. — were inspired to help make his dreams for his village, real. Filmmaker Harvey Stein pulled together this short video of our recent visit with Haj Sami, in al Aqaba, in memory.

I first met him in 2003, not long after a brilliant lawyer, Adv. Netta Amar-Schiff, together with hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli activists pressed the Israeli Army to finally stop the live-fire training in Al Aqaba Village that had been going on for 30 years. When the Israeli Army demolished their training camp at the gate of the village, Mayor Haj Sami Sadeq asked villagers to come home. He asked Rebuilding Alliance to help build the Al Haq Kindergarten. This project would become the vibrant heart of his village and inspire over 20 countries to invest in agriculture, construction, and income-generating projects.

After he sent me the photo of the completed kindergarten building, he joyfully called to ask me what I thought. Seeing a two-story building, I told him there was no way our crowd-funding could have paid for it! In response, he excitedly explained that the Japanese, Belgians, and Norwegians helped build the 2nd floor!

That was the remarkable thing about Mayor Haj Sami: with no time to waste, he found ways to make nearly every project grow and offered people everywhere opportunities to lend a hand.

His most important legacy was his determination that no one — especially the children of his village — should ever experience what he was living through. He stood up for human rights with honesty, kindness, creativity, and perseverance, and was determined to keep children out of harm's way. For Mayor Haj Sami, winning is only winning if you first keep your people safe from being harmed or killed.

Every three months he called me in the middle of the night, just after he called Adv. Netta Amar. Together with all the diplomatic might we could muster, we reminded the Israeli army of their promise not to train in Al Aqaba and they usually marched away. Not long ago, he successfully pressed the Israeli soldiers at the Tayasir checkpoint to remove the settlers and their cows from the army's barracks. When the Army threatened to disperse Palestinian protesters with tear gas, he told the soldiers they must first promise to evict the settlers and allow the villagers to peacefully pray. Then Haj Sami and the villagers returned safely home without incident; the settlers were removed the next day (— and he sent me there to confirm).

I want to mention a series of remarkable firsts that were launched with his vision and resolve.

When we brought Cindy and Craig Corrie to Al Aqaba in 2003, Mayor Haj Sami had already begun digging the foundation for our Al Haq Kindergarten. Soon after, he built the signature Salahuddin Al Ayubi Mosque, one of only a handful of double minarets in all the Middle East, designed as a peace— or a victory — sign. As he said, "Victory through Peace." Cindy and Craig became founding board members to launch Rebuilding Alliance as its own nonprofit.
Mayor Haj Sami completed our Al Haq Kindergarten just as the Oslo Accords ceded —ostensibly temporarily — administration of the 62% of the West Bank defined as Area C to the Israeli Army. In 2004, to our shock, the Israeli Army issued demolition orders for nearly the whole village, including the mosque, the medical clinic, our kindergarten, and all homes but two. When the bulldozers came, a U.S. Consular official was able to stop the bulldozers. Al Haj and I never forgot this — I hope our U.S. Embassy will remember how to stand up and stop Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes again soon.
In 2008, after the Israeli High Court ruled, "For the time being, the center of the village [of Al Aqaba] will remain standing," Mayor Haj Sami launched the Al Aqaba Cooperative Assembly for Housing the Displaced. The villagers each invested $2000-$3000 JD, and the cooperative installed a water cistern on each plot of land, eventually providing electricity and adding streets. But homes needed to be designed and built.
Al Aqaba's kindergarten inspired the court's ruling in favor of the village. Now dozens of other Palestinian towns began to build their schools and kindergartens inside their villages, and eventually, the European Union saw merit in providing funding for local schools.
In the summer of 2011, Mayor Haj Sami welcomed Rebuilding Alliance's Architectural Design Charrette, led by award-winning Architect Hani Hassan and Steve Coyle from Town-Green.com, to Al Aqaba Village to design the first three new, affordable homes that Rebuilding Alliance would help build;
Al Aqaba became the first Palestinian village in Area C to issue its own building permits and that was amazing. Inspired by Raoul Wallenberg, Mayor Haj Sami, Artist Hatem Shaqfa, and RA founding board member Ghassan Abdullah joined me at Adv. Rabie Rabie's office (his first name is the same as his last name) to design a permit application that would win the attention of the world! The Ministry of Local Government approved the concept and three homeowners applied to build the homes that Architect Hani Hassan designed in the charrette. How proudly Mayor Haj Sami signed the building permit approval as head of the village council!

To fund construction, Mayor Haj Sami's housing cooperative together with Rebuilding Alliance pioneered a remarkable, revolving loan program called Rebuilding to Remain. Rebuilding Alliance crowd-funded this form of seed funding, with villagers promising to pay back interest-free loans so that other villagers could take out such a loan and also build their homes. In 2014, Mayor Haj Sami finished building those first three new homes in the village, and just like with the kindergarten, he always got the best value for our investment.

When the families moved in safely, and years passed without demolition orders, dozens more Al Aqaba families applied for building permits. Mayor Haj Sami told me that to date, 80 families have received building permits approved by the Al Aqaba Village Council, and over 20 homes in the center of the village have completed or are near to completion, all without demolition orders

Another remarkable thing about our design charrette was the side meetings Mayor Haj Sami held with Steve Coyle and our team to develop his plans for factories — read jobs — in Al Aqaba. Before we finished building the new homes, he built the Al Aqaba Tea Factory, sourcing local tea grown in family plots throughout the village. Then he launched the Al Aqaba Cheese factory, collecting goat milk in a refrigerated truck from goat-herding families throughout the area. He improved the Al Aqaba Guesthouse and installed a wonderful park with a bridge to kindergarten.

For all these amazing reasons, I bring Congressional delegations to Al Aqaba: to show them what it means for Palestinians to live without demolition orders because this is what peace will look like.

Haj Sami Sadeq talking to Israeli forces

In 1972, when Mayor Haj Sami was 16 years old, he was hit by three bullets fired by an Israeli soldier during a training exercise. In his long recuperation in Israel, in the care of kind doctors and nurses at the Tel HaShomer Hospital, he learned to face life as a paraplegic and decided that no one, neither Palestinian nor Israeli, should ever suffer his fate. His priority has always been to keep the children and his village safe and promote human rights with honesty, kindness, creativity, and perseverance. This is his wonderful legacy.

In memory of Mayor Haj Sami Sadeq of Al Aqaba Village, West Bank, Palestine