‘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.

There is no end to the atrocities. One of Settler Jackson’s sons was driving his ranger vehicle in the village when he encountered Maher, the eighteen-year-old son of Sufyan. The young man was, god forbid, holding a stone in his hand. That was enough to make him a terrorist in the eyes of the settler squads. A Palestinian has no right to hold a stone. The next day a large posse of Border Guards came to the village looking for Maher. He wasn’t home. They sent him a summons to appear today for interrogation at the police station in Ariel. Sufyan accompanied his son there. After many hours we go to pick him up and bring him home, together with Ariel, our super-activist friend. But Maher isn’t there waiting outside the police station with his father.  After the no doubt predetermined meeting with his interrogator, he was arrested and will stay in jail until Monday, at least. Sufyan, a man of great dignity and a strong heart, hides his grief and fear. What will the occupation system do to his son?

The afternoon hours pass swiftly. Tea with Firas outside his home, facing the relentless landscape of rough hills and endless stones and olive trees, including a nearby compound totally demolished by the army. But by late afternoon, two settler boys bring their sheep to graze just below Nidal’s house and our madafeh home. The sheep still have plenty to eat; the boys lie down in the shade of a lonely tree. We watch them, to be sure they are not up to no good. We see them phoning their elders in the outpost for further instructions. After a while they leave the sheep to their fate and come uphill to the madafeh. To enact their infinite superiority over Palestinians and us and all other beings, they march into the rocky courtyard just outside the madafeh entrance. Then they wait. Half an hour passes, maybe more. There’s no sign they will ever leave. Ariel has a good idea: we’ll go down into the wadi and chase away their almost forgotten herd. It works like magic:  the two settlers desert their station at the madafeh and come down to retrieve their sheep. So they’ve made their point. It looks like they are moving the sheep down the dusty path back to the outpost. But no such luck. Instead, they bring the herd uphill to serve as their main weapon in a frontal attack on the madafeh.

I’d thought we were done for the day. Evening arrives, the light fades. The settlers are joined by three others. They fit the prototype:  teenagers, long hair, tzitzit tassles, skullcaps, unkempt, wild-eyed, forlorn, brain-washed, armed with clubs, and violent. A couple of them look even pre-teen. In a way, they’re even more horrible. You might think that we could handle this—there are four of us, Ada, Noa, Rita, and me, and after some time Martin and Anat, who had left for home, rejoin us as the situation escalates. But you’d be wrong. The young thugs-in-training force their sheep, like battle-rams, against the rickety wood fence, riddled with gaps, that stands, if that’s the right word, between them and the madafeh courtyard. Meanwhile, they are spitting out a constant stream of invective, curses, mockery, menace, and lies as they keep photographing us, the benighted anarchists, with their cellphones, threatening us from a distance of two or three millimeters, prodding and driving the sheep at the fence, striving to push them through it. We hold our ground, we hold up the wobbling fence against waves of ovine attacks, we try, foolishly, to tell these boys that  they’re criminal intruders, they’re desecrating the torah, they’re breaking the law, they’re wasting their lives in causing pain to innocent people, they’re simply thieves grabbing at the land—but we’d do better, by far, to discuss these matters with the sheep. Their leader, somewhat older than the others, is already a full-fledged monster. Disgust and nausea rise up in my stomach. There is no way to communicate with them; they inhabit a universe that has nothing in common with ours. They think they’ve got God, a rather primitive god, on their side. They think He likes what they do. As usual, they tell us that all the land belongs to the Jews and none other. They intend to get rid of any others, including people like us.

The monster-leader picks up a lamb and holds her for a few moments, crammed against the fence. He says to her (believe it or not): “You’d be a perfect sacrifice to the Lord on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.” More blood-lust. More nausea. Hopefully, the lamb doesn’t understand Hebrew.

It goes on and on, well over an hour, as the darkness deepens. The thugs become more violent. It looks like this will never end. They have all the time in the world. Finally, I call the police. To my surprise, the policewoman who answers the phone is prepared to listen to my report. She gives me a number for my complaint and says she’ll report this to her superiors. Martin calls the army. They say they’re on their way. By the time the police call me back, the settlers have suddenly gathered up their herd and slowly started to leave. Maybe they don’t want the police to turn up after all. Shortly after that, seven or eight masked soldiers arrive. Another surprise:  contrary to our long experience with soldiers in the Palestinian territories, these ones are relatively attentive and maybe infinitesimally sympathetic. We tell them the story. Their officer says: “You should have called us right when this began.” Then they are gone.

*postscript: Maher came before a judge. who had him released and said there was no reason to have arrested him. Still, he had to pay a 2,000 shekel fine for the privilege of four nights in jail.

Text: David Shulman © 2025. Photographs and other media as credited. Thanks to Rita Mendes-Flohr for allowing us to use her photograph and stills from her video.

Our book, “The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine,” now in its second printing, can be obtained from Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press or from an online or local bookseller