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March 23: Along the Road to Bet She’an. Post by Margaret Olin
Gavriel is the one running, the one with the flowing hair. He looks like he might be at home in a coffee shop with a guitar on his knee, passing a joint. I remember Gavriels like him from my adolescence, non-violent activists who sang of peace. As we shall see, I believe even this Gavriel may see himself as a messenger of peace.
Apologies: The remainder of this post is temporarily removed. I hope to republish it soon.
December 2, 2017 Umm al-Amad, Ma‘in: David Shulman
Umm al-Amad, July, 2017. photograph: Margaret Olin
He’s young, the lieutenant; the faint trace of a mustache tells all. Awkward, inexperienced, unsure. More than a boy, hardly a man. He speaks fast, the words clipped, sharp, hurtful. He keeps playing with his rifle, waving it, aiming it, caressing it, turning it upside down, comforting it when it somehow rights itself again. The bullet clip is loaded; I can’t see if the safety catch is released. I don’t like any of this, for two reasons. First, I don’t like guns. I had to carry one, when I was a little older than the lieutenant, and I hated it. Second, I don’t like men who like guns. Continue reading
September 29, 2017, Erev Yom Kippur Al-Auja – David Shulman
Most photographs here were taken by Margaret Olin in Al-Auja in late July, 2017.
Dotting the slopes on either side of Wadi Auja are the widely scattered houses of Al-Auja. In most cases only three or four Bedouin families live in each such tiny point, some to the west, climbing the steep hill less than halfway up to the ridge that overlooks the Jordan Valley, others, like the homes of our shepherd friends today, further east, near the road to Jericho. Continue reading
Preemptive Demolition Humsa al-Tahta, Jordan Valley, 26 July, 2017
It’s her first time, and it’s an easy start, but it must still be confusing to watch people demolish your home, even if those people are your father, Mahmoud Zouba, Continue reading
A High Stakes Hugging Game, Um al ‘Arais, 14 January 2017
Non violent resistance can take many forms. What they have in common is that they need to be visible and they need to be seen. Continue reading
March 6, 2017 Al-Hammeh, Jordan Valley (David Shulman)
Outpost, Jordan Valley, January 2017. photograph: Margaret Olin
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8:30 AM. Four settlers, more boys than men, block our way as we follow the shepherds up the mountain. One of them is before his army service. They all belong to the new illegal outpost that we’ve watched grow from a few wooden rafters to a fairly substantial set of dwellings, already attached to the water and electricity grids. It was set up where it could do the most damage to the Palestinians of al-Hammeh, cutting off their only route to the grazing grounds outside the army’s firing zone. Continue reading
January 7, 2017: Asael, Susya, Twaneh, Umm al-Khair
text David Shulman; photographs Margaret Olin
I.
Asael, possibly the ugliest of all the illegal outposts in the southern West Bank—and the competition is fierce—is rapidly expanding. Yellow bulldozers, parked at the perimeter fence of the settlement, have carved out a huge swathe of intermeshed, criss-crossing gashes in the hill and valley just below. This wide, deep wound in the soil has been sliced, needless to say, through privately owned Palestinian land. We know the families. We’ve plowed here, on the edge of the outpost. There have been many bad moments with the Asael settlers, the ones we can see this Shabbat morning walking their dogs over the hill or praying to their rapacious god or swinging their children on the swings in the painted park just under their pre-fab caravans.
Continue readingConversations on the Periphery 2: Khirki Village, New Delhi, November 27, 2016
A female soccer player, who once faced another girl playing soccer, now seems bewildered to find herself addressing a mysterious man wearing a halo of banned currency. No doubt the man was intended to be a statement concerning the current demonetization crisis, but his presence left the girls of the Khirkee Collective, who painted the soccer players, in a dilemma. While the artist who painted the man felt no qualms about painting a mural over the girls’ soccer mural, the collective has a code that forbids them to paint over the work of another street artist. The mustached man must remain and so must some offensive graffiti to the right of the mural. The girls made a plan to rescue their mural another way and met a few Saturdays ago to implement it. Continue reading
David Shulman: 19 November, 2016 Umm al-Khair
Nasser Nawajeh. Photo: Margaret Olin, 2015
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It’s a rainless winter, so far, in the South Hebron hills: cold, grey, stony, dry. We spend an hour with Ahmad and his herd just after dawn, whipped by the wind. They’re from Gawawis, just over the hill. Ahmad has a seven-month-old baby at home. Like many of the shepherds we know, he also has a modern cell phone, which he delights in showing us. He wants a radio—a modest wish, I think, for someone living the excruciating life of the shepherd on these rough slopes. We’ll see what we can do. At 7 AM it’s probably too early for settlers to be prowling around, so my day starts with a harsh, frozen serenity. I’m glad to be here after a sleepless night. Even the wind is my friend. Continue reading