Occupation

Wadi a-Siq, September 14, 2023. Text by David Shulman

/ Margaret Olin / Leave a comment

avant-propos: We still could use more funds for our book, which Intellect Press will publish early in 2024. The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine is a book of photographs and texts inspired by our work on this blog. Our kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the book has met its modest official goal. Extra funds will go toward lowering the price of the book. The campaign ends September 27. You can see our video, read our story and donate at this link. Your donations are still very welcome and much appreciated, as is spreading the word about the book. Thank you.

The school at Wadi a-Siq in July. photograph: Margaret Olin
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Ein Rashash, September 4, 2023. text: David Shulman

/ Margaret Olin / Leave a comment

avant-propos: Next year Intellect Press will publish The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine, a book of photographs and texts inspired by our work on this blog. Please consider donating to our kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the book. The campaign ends September 27. You can see our video, read our story and donate at this link. NB: the first, modest goal has now (Sept. 9) been met; donations are still very welcome and much appreciated.

Ein Rashash, 2018, photograph: Margaret Olin

Like so many Palestinian villages in the central West Bank, between Ramallah and Jericho, Ein Rashash is hanging by a thread in the perilous space between life and death. A massive program of ethnic cleansing is taking place before our eyes. Israeli settlers, religious in some perverted sense of the word, have perfected very effective methods to reach their goal. Readers of this blog are familiar with some of them.

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September 1, 2023, Al-‘Auja: Text by David Shulman

/ Margaret Olin / Leave a comment

avant-propos: Next year Intellect Press will publish The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine, a book of photographs and texts inspired by our work on this blog. Please consider donating to our kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the book. The campaign ends September 27. You can see our video, read our story and donate at this link.

photograph: Rita Mendes-Flohr
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Balagan in Twaneh, July 15, 2023. Text and Photographs, Margaret Olin

/ Margaret Olin / 3 Comments

1.

I read that modern Hebrew borrowed the word balagan from Russian or Polish. In all three languages, balagan means utter chaos. But chaos came later in the town of Twaneh. This hot day began quietly in Wadi Jhesch, where we were the only disruption. A man who had been asleep in the back of his truck awoke at our approach and chatted with us in his excellent English.

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Al-‘Auja and Za‘atra, July 14, 2023. Text, David Shulman; photographs, Margaret Olin

/ Margaret Olin / 2 Comments

1.              

Sometimes trying to find Abu Isma‘il in the hills and wadis of Al-‘Auja is, well, like looking for a goat in a desert. The Rashaidi Bedouins of ‘Auja have names for every rocky hill and wadi, names that no one else knows, that appear on no map; and Abu Isma‘il usually has trouble telling me on the phone where he is with his flock. Finally, not long after dawn, we climb a few hills until we sight him, with his red keffiyeh, surrounded by sheep, sheep dogs, and one very young donkey.       

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March 3, 2023. Hawara. Text: David Shulman; Photographs: Dood Evan

/ Margaret Olin / 7 Comments

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Ephraim Moses Lilien, For the Martyrs of the Pogrom of Kishinev, 1903

April 6-8, 1903 (Julian calendar), Kishinev, Bessarabia: A mob, led partly by Orthodox Russian priests, descends upon the town, killing 49 Jews, wounding scores more, raping many Jewish women, burning down Jewish homes. The local police stand by, watching, making no attempt to stop the massacre. Some of the Jewish men fight back with the meager tools in their possession. Children see their parents murdered before their eyes. Shock waves engulf the Jewish communities of eastern Europe and beyond. In response, many Jewish young men join the anti-Czarist revolutionaries; others leave for Palestine to build a new life for the Jews. Bialik, the national Hebrew poet, writes an epic poem on the massacre.

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Muarrajat, January 20, 2023. Text: David Shulman

/ Margaret Olin / 6 Comments
‘Auja, May, 2022. Photograph: Margaret Olin

Umm Rashid, the most intrepid of the ‘Auja shepherdesses, has sold off most of her sheep and goats. I don’t have all the details; a close friend of hers sold her herd a few months earlier. I assume she couldn’t take any more of the ceaseless harassment, beatings, and threats from the settlers. But I don’t think this is the end of the story.

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