1.

Eighteen families live in Magha’ir ad-Dir, high in the hill country overlooking the Jordan Valley. It’s a rocky, dusty place. One could easily die of thirst. The village survives with water drawn every morning from a pumping station belonging to Mekorot, the Israeli water company; the villagers pay for the water. All that is fine. But there is a problem. Israeli settlers from the illegal outposts nearby often come to attack them at dawn beside the pump. There have been several recent attacks, including shooting live fire. So now every morning we are here beside them as they fill the tankers.

Today there are six or seven medium-size tankers tied to tractors,  patiently waiting their turn at the pump, and we wait with them as the sky turns from black to grey to white. A heron or two fly past us and land somewhere near the water that has spilled from the pump.

There is something joyful about water gushing freely in a desert, even more so in the intense heat of the last few days. Yesterday the temperature in the Valley was 45 degrees Centigrade.  Happily, this morning no settler thugs turn up. But several villages near Dir Dubwan, such as Khalat al-Maghara, a kilometer away, are now mostly deserted; many families, unable to bear the constant violent harassment, have gone into exile. Magha’ir ad-Dir is hanging on.

2.

It is good to be back. My foot may or may not be healing, but anyway I can walk. Guy and I circle through the grazing grounds, the rough stone-strewn hills, checking to be sure that the shepherds are OK.  It’s a quiet morning. I call Abu Isma‘il. He has sold off some of his herds and hardly comes out to graze. He bubbles over with delight when he hears my voice. “I’ve missed you,” I say to him. He laughs, he misses me too. Guy has a plan to get him a permit to come to Tel Aviv in May for the premier of Hadara’s new film on the “Guardians of the Shepherds” (that is, on our volunteers in the Valley). Abu Isma‘il and Guy star in it. I ask Abu Isma‘il if he will come if the permit comes through. He laughs. “Me? Come to Tel Aviv? It’s a totally crazy idea. How can I do that? I’m tired, I’m not well.” “But the film is about you,” I say to him. He laughs some more. “You’re all crazy.”

Two or three herds from Ra’s al-‘Ain are out in the rocky expanse of the desert. There is still plenty of dry grass and thorns for the sheep. “How are things?” A young shepherd says, “Al-hamdu lillah, today we’re fine. But two days ago it wasn’t OK.” It’s clear what that means.

Guy introduces me to Husayn, who invites us home to the village for coffee. Ra’s al-‘Ain is a jumble of tents, metal shacks, solar panels, sheepfolds, and some more solid homes. My kind of place. It’s a big village sprawling over the hills not far from Mu‘arrajat. Husayn is gentle, amiable, handsome, lucid. The coffee is as I like it—bitter and strong. It is served by his first wife (married 40 years); there are two other wives; altogether, 23 children and lots of grandchildren. I tell him I have 10 grandchildren, and only one wife,  and a huge smile bursts from his eyes. Three wives, he says, are a lot.

Despite everything, Husayn is a sadly happy man. We bond at once. He was born in Dir Dubwan, in the hills near Magha’ir ad-Dir, as were his father and his grandfather before him. They were shepherds. They owned a she-camel, a childhood wonder. Here is some of what he said to us today:

“You are Jews. That is good. We are happy to have you as guests in our home. But the settlers have ruined the Jews. True, they threaten us, they attack us, they beat us, sometimes they shoot us—just a few days back they shot and killed several villagers—but even before all that, they ruined the Jews.

I remember the good years, before the settlers came. We could travel wherever we wanted, and if we needed help, they would help us. The soldiers too would help us. I went to the sea, to Jerusalem, to Tel Aviv, to Netanya. I’m crazy about Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In those days there were no thieves among the Jews, only among Palestinians. Now it’s the other way round. The settlers steal whatever they can. They would drive away your mother, they would drive away your children, and your grandchildren, and your sheep and goats, and take everything you have. Not long ago a settler came and tried to block our access to water; he tried to build some structure on privately owned Palestinian land, in Dyuk. That time the army stopped him.

We were happy before the settlers came. When I was a boy, in the Jordanian time, we used to buy delicious dates from Iraq, and huge juicy tomatoes, and much more, that was a time of plenty even though we were poor. I used to carry the dates home in my pockets. We came here in 1979. At first there were no troubles. But then it went bad. Don’t think it’s only the settlers. The Sulta—the Palestinian Authority—is also terrible. All they want is money. Endless greed. Bribes. Extortion. The Sulta is worse than Israel. And Hamas is much worse than the Sulta. They are crazy.

Israel doesn’t want a Palestinian state to come into being. That we know. But above all, what Israel wants is to kill any hope that still exists, to kill our life.”

We sit in his living room, on cushioned sofas and armchairs. His grandchildren keep peeping in at us from outside. The family has electric power—a refrigerator—and several operative solar panels, thanks to the selfless work of Comet-ME, that is, Elad and other activists, who have electrified Palestinian villages all over the Jordan Valley and South Hebron. After more coffee, and then tea, we take our leave with the formal blessings.

As we embrace, he says, “If only Zohar weren’t here [he is one of the most noxious of the settlers], our life would be good.” 

3.

We have one slightly unnerving adventure on our way back to Jerusalem. First a settler car tries to block our way back from the field, where yet another new outpost is being built, to the main road. Guy swiftly maneuvers around it. But as we begin the steep uphill drive back to Jerusalem, we see another car full of settlers tailing us, photographing, certainly aware that we are the “anarchists” they detest. They pass us. The fear is that they will block the junction—and then who knows what they may do? They are almost always armed, and they have no god, or no God, as the Jews say about someone who is capable of any crime. When we reach the top, luckily the junction is clear.

Husayn is right. Israel– not just the settlers– has killed off hope. What Israel will never live down, for all eternity, is the shame.

text David Shulman © 2024; photographs as credited © 2024