Now all the days are hard.
activism in Jordan Valley
January 21, 2026. Requiem for Ras al-‘Ain: Nakba 2. Text by David Shulman
It happened fast, much faster than expected. Once the more isolated neighborhoods of Salameh and Abu Talib and Abu Musa were gone, their people expelled, the rest of the villagers also began to dismantle their homes and burn whatever they couldn’t take with them.
Continue readingJanuary 1, 2026 Ras al-‘Ain. Text: David Shulman
I knew it was coming. I could feel it in my body, also in the air. For the last two or three weeks, settler harassment was constantly intensifying. You could see they were planning something big. They brought a settler called Micha Sudai down from the hill country to take charge of the ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley. Sudai has a reputation for being brutal and effective. Now he’s in the outpost just a few yards away from Ras al-‘Ain.
‘Abed’s Wedding, October 31, 2025. Texts: David Shulman and Margaret Olin
We sent this message, with no pictures, to our email list last month. Some of our correspondents thought that it should be posted on our blog, so we offer it here:
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Ras al-‘Ain, October 19, 26, 2025: Text: David Shulman; Photographs: Margaret Olin
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.
Continue readingAwdah Hathalin (1994-2025). August 11, 2025
David:
I’m sorry to say that these recent blog reports keep turning into obituaries, including the loss of the lovely village of Mu‘arrajat (but see below). This is life in the Occupation. People, Palestinians, are killed routinely, and with total impunity, by the settlers. As Awdah himself said in an interview two weeks before he was murdered, “The life here is not a life anymore.
Continue readingJuly 9, 2025 Aliya
I used to be afraid to cross the road and look at my house like a stranger.
Today, what I feared has happened.
Today, we are strangers — as if the house was never ours, as if we never drank tea there, as if we never played there.
We are strangers.
When you pass by, ask the house: Where are your residents? Where is your family? Where are your loved ones?
Our names are still there on the wall — all the names of my family.
I can never forget Ma’arajat. Every time I pass through that road, I will cry for it.
Life ended after Ma’arajat. —- Aliya
In Memoriam Mu’arrajat. text: David Shulman; photographs: Margaret Olin
The village of Mu‘arrajat is gone, ravaged and despoiled by savage settlers. There were years of harassment, large-scale theft, repeated violence, and death-threats. On July 3, 2025, after a gruesome night, the villagers took apart their homes, loaded their few possessions onto trucks, and left. Remember that date of infamy.
Continue readingJune 27, 2025. Mu‘arrajat and Ras al-‘Ain. Text: David Shulman.
Ras al-‘Ain has been partly vacated. Muhammad’s compound is totally empty: no sheep, no shepherds, empty sheepfolds. We are told they went north to the hill country, near Tubas, where the temperatures are somewhat cooler. Many of the shepherds in the Jordan Valley have made this seasonal migration in the summer months. But this time it’s different. After the ceaseless harassment and attacks, the massive theft of sheep, the lack of water, the shameless complicity of the soldiers and police in the settlers’ crimes—or for that matter, their joint initiatives—Muhammad’s sons may have embarked on the first stage of leaving their homes forever.
Continue readingIn Memoriam: Michal Peleg, 1959-2025. Text by David Shulman; photographs and additional text by Margaret Olin
Michal Peleg is now gone. Another enormous loss, just two weeks after Muhammad died.
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