October 19, 2025

Where are the dogs of Ras al-‘Ain? There used to be lots of them. Together with the donkeys and the out-of-synch roosters, they performed the nocturnal symphony from midnight to dawn. They had a mission in life:  they could warn you if settlers were invading the Palestinian houses and sheepfolds. But now most of them are gone. We found out why. The settlers from the outpost threw cut-off heads of chickens, doctored with poison, into the village; the dogs died, and apparently some of the jackals and the wolf also died. One lonely, mournful dog still haunts the madafeh, where we sleep. He seems glad to have company.

After two months of transient relief in India and New York, I’m back; finding my way again. We are two tonight, Alon and me, with some help from outside. We arrive to find the families sitting solemnly in the madafeh with Yael and the lawyers; there are legal processes under way, with endless lists of the crimes the settlers have committed against these people. You may remember the Great Sheep Heist in March (1500 sheep stolen, with army and police both complicit); then there are the often violent invasions of the village, several times every day; yesterday the settlers stole three of the Palestinian beehives and sealed off another two; and a few days earlier they cut the electric cables and the pipes bringing water into Ras al-‘Ain. And so on.  Is there a chance the civil courts, or the High Court of Justice, might offer some redress? Let’s leave that question open.

If Arik Ascherman were here tonight, he would assert that even these settlers were created, like everyone else, in God’s image. Maybe he’s right. But the image is black, shattered, and perverse. Also murderous.

An hour or so before midnight we go for our usual patrol over the rock-strewn paths in the dark, to be sure no settlers are at work near the homes of Abu Talib and Musa and Salameh. And there is the new and threatening outpost near the “Burnt Houses”, only a little ways from the madafeh. We don’t go there at night; the last time one of our activists went, he ended up in the hospital with 13 stitches in his head. Twice more, at 11:30 and again around 12:15, we get an emergency call from Na’if, who is terrified:  settlers have come, one on horseback, another on a donkey; and one of the Ranger vehicles, supplied gratis to the settlers by Ben-Gvir the Kahanist,  is driving through the village. Both times we rush out to track them, but there is no sign of horse, donkey, and riders, and the Ranger continues past us, away from the “Burnt Houses”  toward Kochav Hashahar, high on the ridge over the Valley.

In short, the people of Ras al-‘Ain live with non-stop terror; anything at all, a leaf falling from a tree, a rock tumbling down the slope, is enough to set off fierce panic. It takes courage simply to live like this from hour to hour.

We who have seen Ras al-‘Ain from before the Great Heist find the empty sheepfolds and homes eerie and sad. Muhammad is dead; his sons have taken what was left of their herds north to the hills around Tubas (the army devastated Tubas two days back).  Still, there are shepherds stubbornly holding on here. That’s why we have come.

Not long after dawn, the schoolchildren come running, dressed in their uniforms, mostly in small clusters, some just off the minibus from Auja. They smile, they laugh, we tease them a bit; sometimes I wonder how much they have taken into themselves of the relentless threat hanging over them. It is for their sake, too, maybe mostly for their sake, that we are here.

October 26, 2025

Night patrol, again. 1:30 AM. The activists’ Mitzubishi, banged up jalopy that it is, is probably the only car that can handle the infinity of jagged rocks and boulders waiting for us when we turn off the potholed path through the village. It’s pitch dark. I’m searching for something akin to level ground that will take us to Abu Taleb and Salameh.  

It’s like driving on the dark side of the moon. There’s a surprising beauty to the petrified shapes and sculptures revealed by our headlights. We come first to the beehives, standing orphaned, savaged. Then more rocks and cracks in the earth, past the solar panels that the settlers like to smash; the abandoned soccer field that the settlers plowed and earmarked for their new outpost; the houses and sheepfolds of Salameh to the right, Abu Taleb’s to the left, closer (too close) to the main settler outpost and its lights. For a change, there are no signs tonight of anyone sabotaging the Palestinian water pipes and electricity cables. We turn back, over the rocks.

It’s quiet—and within the quiet, the threat of murder and exile. But when I call Na’if in the morning, he says things are OK, for the moment; so far, they are surviving. Another night has passed. But what violent acts are in store today? I say goodbye to Na’if, with the usual blessings, and suddenly I think:  whatever little good we can do, we have been graced with sadaqa, not just friendship, suḥba, but something deeper, more intimate, more fully committed, maybe wordless. You don’t just speak sadaqa, you live it together.

One good thing is that the dogs are back, howling, barking, whimpering through the darkness. They, too, are survivors.           

Text: David Shulman © 2025. Photographs Margaret Olin © 2025, except where otherwise credited.

Order from Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press or from an online or local bookseller.