The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine, by Margaret Olin and David Shulman is now available through Intellect Books, Great Britain, or The University of Chicago Press, USA, or any of the usual places, like Amazon. Perhaps your local bookstore carries it.

The Mini-War of the Water continues apace.

It’s hot in Ras al-‘Ain, in more ways than one. It’s become a flash point. The settlers are fully focused on driving the shepherd families of this village out of their homes and fields. And it’s high summer. Nights are stifling in the tent where we sleep, though the flaps are open to the stars and the distant lights across the river, in Jordan. At 4 AM there’s a cool breeze, a tease; as soon as the sun rises, at around 6, the temperature hits 40 degrees Centigrade; by mid-morning, it’s somewhere between 45 and 50. Sometimes a strong wind blows boiling dust over everything and everyone—our tent, the sheep in their pens, the few vehicles parked on the gravel paths, the shacks of tin or asbestos, the scraggly trees. At first you don’t notice how thirsty you are. Then it hits you and won’t go away, no matter how much you drink. I feel the thirst, first, in my eyes, every minute (even drier than usual). And then there’s the other kind of thirst, in the heart.

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