Scattered around the periphery of the ever-endangered village of Al-Khan Al-Ahmar, to the east of Jerusalem on the road down to the Dead Sea, are small Palestinian Bedouin communities still somehow holding on. Most of them by now have only one extended family. Many of them are from the Ka`abneh tribe, or a symbiosis of Ka`abneh and the Jahalin. They’ve been there for many decades, at least. All of these communities, without exception, have crazed Israeli settlers at their throats, usually dominating the hills overlooking the Bedouin homes. The settlers do here what they always do:  they cut the pipes that bring water to these communities; they bring their goats and sheep into the villages, so they can mix them with the Bedouin herds and then claim that the Bedouin have stolen the settler sheep; they enlist the police—now totally Ben-Gvirified—into harassing and torturing Palestinians; and so on, with the overt aim of driving these people from their homes. A few days ago settlers came storming in their Ranger tractor into a Bedouin herd near Nahila; they mowed down two Palestinians and several sheep. The police came and arrested, guess who, the two Palestinian victims.

‘Imad is, I think, the sweetest human being I have known, perhaps the sweetest in the universe. He’s 65 years old. We meet him with his flock of sheep out in the fields. He’s a man of gentle disposition, living simply and affirming the basic values—honesty, lovingkindness, generosity, courage, non-violence. He can’t understand how the settlers feed on hate. A few nights ago, after midnight, when ‘Imad was sleeping, a settler armed with a heavy club invaded his house and viciously beat him and his wife. Fortunately, our night-shift activists in the madafeh, just a few yards from ‘Imad’s home, heard the screams and put an end to the attack. If they had not been there, the settler would probably have killed both his victims. When we see ‘Imad today, he shows us the scars and still unhealed head-wounds. Amal, his wife, has black-and-blue bruise marks the whole length of her body.

Afternoon shift. The sun is racing toward sunset. Naif comes to say hello and chat. He’s very shaken by what happened last night, just a few minutes’ walk from his home. A family that originally lived in the village had moved out to the ‘Auja townlet down the road; they couldn’t take the endless harassment and violence. Ironically, it was this same family that was attacked last night by some 20 masked, armed settlers. They did what settlers do best:  turned the house upside down, smashed whatever was smashable, and viciously attacked the father, his wife, and several children. The father was covered in blood, with a gaping hole in his skull. He’s in hospital in Ramallah. The others are in hospital in Jericho.