1.

Moments of respite. Seven, maybe eight water tankers manage to fill up at the ‘Auja stream toward sunset. We are there to greet them. For once, no settlers come to ruin things.

But from there we go to Musa’s compound, where the long-haired, supercilious teenage settler brings his herd of sheep every day, usually twice a day, with the sole goal of harassing Musa and his family and showing them their place. Musa’s home and sheepfolds are somewhat isolated from the rest of the village, hence easy prey for the settlers. We make sure the boy knows we’re there, and why.

There is nothing for his sheep to eat in the rocky stretch near Musa’s doors, nothing but stones and sand; the sheep look not too well, several collapse to the ground in the fiery heat.  Long Hair comes over to photograph us, no doubt for the sake of some website starring the Enemies of Israel. It’s no use talking to him. Like most of them, he’s ostentatiously religious, if you can call that virulent mishmash a religion. Time passes—maybe two hours– before he finally takes his herd back across the road in the direction of the outpost, and we can return to the Madafe, the guest-tent that is our home in Ras al-‘Ain.

Muhammad brings us tea and baklava. As always, he looks worn down by terror and sorrow. He speaks of the two wolves and the jackals that come at night to prey upon his sheep. Yael wonders: Couldn’t he build a higher fence around the sheep pen? “They can still jump over it,” says Muhammad. He wants me to tell him again how many children I have, how many grandchildren; then the same question to Yael. He is alone, unmarried, never wanted to marry. He never sleeps before dawn.

We try to sleep, but at 9:30 there’s a sudden alarm:  soldiers are driving Ibrahim away from the aqueduct. The call of that cool, clean water is irresistible; many villagers come there late at night, to escape the heat, to picnic. We rush over to the water. Two big army vehicles block the road, and some ten soldiers are fussing with whatever situation they have created. The woman officer in charge asks us not too politely who we are and why we are there. We say, “We heard you are expelling a friend of ours from the stream.” “Expelling? Us expelling?” Mock mild shock. Another soldier asks again: “Who are you?” I say, “We are human rights activists, staying in Ras al-‘Ain.” He grimaces in disgust. “Human rights” are the enemy. They tell us this is a closed military zone. “Show us the order,” we say, as always. “Just a minute,” says the officer; she goes off staring at her telephone. But there is no order, it was just a lie. Apparently this nocturnal prohibition, a new rule no doubt cooked up by settlers who tell the soldiers what to do, is becoming the norm. Meanwhile, Ibrahim has gone.

2.

3AM in the Madafe. Suddenly, there is too much pain. The awful list floods my sleepless mind: wolves, jackals, settlers, soldiers, police, Netanyahu the werewolf, the Hizbollah missiles, the Iranian missiles (soon to fall on us), the Occupation, the Hebrew media, the poisoned public space, and then the rest of the world. No comfort anywhere. So much of the pain comes from the mix of sheer malevolence, blood-lust, and lethal stupidity, like the assassination in Tehran that may have set off a terminal war.

3.

Up before sunrise, Arab coffee; by 6:30 we are back at the water. Four seasoned volunteers for the morning shift have arrived early, a welcome reinforcement. Another two tankers come to fill up with water. But yesterday’s teenager with his woeful sheep is back at Musa’s. Worse, we hear by phone from Naif that settlers are threatening the few herds that bravely came out to graze this morning. The sheep are thirsty, but the shepherds—five or six, each with his herd—are already retreating to the village. They won’t go anywhere near the road and the water. We search for them amidst the desert rocks, we speak to them, we tell them we’re with them, they don’t have to be afraid. Not much later, we see that Long Hair has already begun to leave Musa’s place. He’s crossed the road, his sheep have drunk from the stream, and after a while he moves farther away. We hurry back to the still hesitant shepherds:  the coast is clear. Much relief, but still several of them can’t bring themselves to water their sheep at the aqueduct; terror eats away at their minds, destroys even the simplest, most everyday morning task. Some of them, however, do overcome their fear, maybe because we are with them, and their sheep get to drink.

No one can survive in Ras al-‘Ain without water.

This is reality, and it hurts. One lousy teenager, brainwashed with apocalyptic visions, rotting inside with hate, is enough—simply by being there—to keep six or seven herds from reaching the water. Today we helped the village shepherds. A small victory. Most of the sheep drank their fill. One of the shepherds asks me, “Why does Netanyahu want war? Why isn’t there even an iota of what all of us want and what everyone needs, just a good, simple peace?” “That’s why we’re here,” I say, “for your sake; for the work, ‘amal (with an ‘ayin), and also for the sake of hope, amal (without the ‘ayin).” “Oh,” says the shepherd, as if remembering something lost long ago, “yes. For hope.”

4.

A few hours after Yael and I left for Jerusalem, a gang of nine settler thugs attacked a lone Palestinian beside the stream. They smashed the windshield on his new car and stole his phone. The army—the same soldiers we met last night–  turned up and interrogated the victim. Surprisingly, he was not arrested, as usually happens to Palestinian victims of settler violence. The settlers were still there, making obscene signs with their fingers, smirking. [We can’t publish their photos, some of them are minors.] They are proud of their work. It goes without saying that none of the settlers were detained. The army closed the road once again.

In case you have any doubt, this incident is entirely ordinary and routine. Note who rules Area C on the West Bank, who literally calls the shots, who can steal, destroy, wound, and worse, with impunity.

Text: David Shulman © 2024. Photographs as credited © 2024

The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine, by Margaret Olin and David Shulman, 2024, can be ordered from Intellect Books or The University of Chicago Press or from an online or local bookseller.