Saturday, August 30 2014 Wadi Simsim, Tequ’a by David Shulman
There is innocence, and there is the smug delusion of innocence. It’s not hard to tell them apart. I saw a lot of both today. Suhail was born in the tents of Wadi Simsim and has lived his whole life here, in the wadi, with the goats and the sheep. This is his world. He knows every rock. He never studied. He speaks only Arabic (the lush, musical dialect of the south). Yet he is a man of the world, and he knows right from wrong. He’s holding in a […]Saturday, August 16 2014 The Good News by David Shulman
1. Umm al-’Amad. Many of you will remember the long struggle to reclaim this fertile valley, the Maraga Lands, for their rightful Palestinian owners, after 12 years or more in which they had no access to them. The wadi at Umm al-’Amad is situated just beneath the large, cruel settlement of Othniel, whose settlers are sitting on the lands of Umm al-’Amad and neighboring villages; these settlers have done whatever they could to drive the owners away, often attacking them physically and subjecting them to the usual regime of […]Saturday, August 2 2014 Tequ’a and Umm al-Ara’is by David Shulman
Dizzy from the dissonance. In the felafel shop off the main street in Tequ’a, the TV is perched high on the wall in the corner. News from Gaza in Arabic. A mother lies on a hospital cot, her face pocked with a hundred tiny, and some not-so-tiny, red wounds, probably from shrapnel. She cannot speak, keeps fading off into sleep (let us hope it’s not death). Beside her, a two-year-old child is crying, hopeless, holding her hand, looking at her face. The young owner of the shop scoops balls […]Saturday, July 12 2014 Umm al-Ara’is, Susya, Bi’r al-‘Id, Ma’asara by David Shulman Business as usual in the South Hebron hills. There’s a war on in Gaza, but that too is business as usual, the meaningless biannual ritual in which both sides gleefully smash one another before reverting to the status quo ante. The Israeli media are drowning us in words, a vast and raucous flood, and the government is putting out its familiar, mendacious statements; perhaps in recent days only Abu Mazen has spoken the truth. The only solution, he said, is a political one, and Netanyahu is no partner. Meanwhile, […]
Saturday, March 29 2014 Zanouta by Edden South Hebron hills, the area of Dahariya, Zanuta’s land – routine of expelling Palestinians from their land by settlers and other occupation forces
Saturday, March 15 2014 Otniel’s settlers celebrating on Palestinian private land, soldiers seem to be impotent Otniel’s settlers celebrating and chasing away Palestinian shepheards and flocks from their land, soldiers and other occupation forces seem to be impotent. Umm El Amad, South Hebron hills 15.3.2014
Saturday, March 1 2014 Tuba, Shahin by David Shulman
We find the shepherds from Tuba with their goats just over the hill from the chicken coup of Chavat Maon, of cursed memory and cursed present. They’re scared. In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing Palestinian shepherds so nervous. Last week soldiers came when they were somewhere nearby, in this same wadi, with the sheep and goats; the soldiers pointed their loaded guns at them and told them that if they ever came here again they’d shoot them. The wadi, even by the lunatic rules of the Civil […]
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