Muhammad Rashaida, 1964-2025. photo: Margaret Olin, December, 2024.
Emptiness. Sorrow. The madafeh, indeed the whole village, feels empty without Muhammad. Just last week we were sitting with him, drinking tea, chatting,devouring the cake he had bought for us. We took for granted his gracious manner, his steadiness, his gentle nature. He seemed as solid as the desert rocks, as the rolling waves of the hills. He was killed earlier this week in a car crash near Nablus; his car collided with a huge truck, and he died instantly. This man who survived years of settler violence and harassment, the theft of his herd, the never-ending threats from soldiers and police, died in broad daylight on the road.
“I’m a soldier in the army of peace.” Thus Yehonatan, as night falls in the madafeh of Ras al-‘Ain. The mystery has been solved: he is the ultra-religious Haredi young man who has become a familiar activist in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere. In fact, he seems to be almost everywhere. He was wounded by a settler at an olive harvest at Battir, near Jerusalem, not long ago (the settler threw a stun grenade at him). He makes light of his wound. Muhammad told us about him, with admiration and wonder, last time I was in Ras al-‘Ain. He is my partner today for the night-and-early-morning shift.
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.
Goat in front of military installation, Al-Hadidiya, Jordan Valley, 2019. Back cover of a Passover Haggadah, 5779.
Before Pesach most years, I revise the Haggadah I began to compile decades ago. I gather material from traditional sources as well as from more recent alternative Haggadot created with various agendas in mind – political, ecological; or from commentary, unrelated literature, and remarks of friends and colleagues relevant to our family or to whomever we might be hosting at our seder table that year. I insert images that I find or create. Some years ago, I placed on the back cover of my Haggadah a photograph of a goat I met in the Jordan Valley, to recall the traditional song Had Gadya, an only kid, sung toward the end of the seder. It begins with the verse “an only ,kid, an only kid, my father bought for two zuzzim, and continues with a litany of woe, as the goat is eaten by a cat, that is then bitten by a dog, and, after a series of beatings and burnings and slaughter by various agents, including objects and living creatures animal and human, the song ends with retribution by the angel of death, who in turn succumbs to the Holy One, blessed be He, thus ending the carnage on a peaceful note, none of the predators left standing, like the end of a bloody Elizabethan play.
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.
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.
Dawn. Several children still asleep in their blankets, on the ground outside the house. Good desert smells. The older girls are beginning their chores: water has to be brought from the tanker; milk is being churned, or perhaps pasteurized, in what could be a repurposed washing-machine. There is a new baby, two months old, sleeping in her crib. Ghazal, maybe a year and a half old, holds a glass of tea in her hand while her eyes, obsidian black, study Yigal and me with unwavering interest. Then a smile. Nadia asks if we’ve been well. Yigal answers with the blessing: “‘aishin min shafek,” “We come alive when we see you.”
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.
Everyday drudgery has its own kind of beauty, heartbreak and even suspense, especially when it comes to facing down the occupation. Today as we pass Taybeh’s quarry on the way to the lands of its neighbor Deir Jarir, darkness lifts almost enough to show us the dull glow of the earth we have come to protect.
The worst thing was looking into his eyes. That was anyway about all I could see of him, since his face was masked with a filthy cloth, lest he be photographed and identified. Not that there was any likelihood the police would bother him in any way.
