Monday, October 6 2014 Join The Olive Harvest in The Occupied Territories Rabbis for Human Rights is pleased to invite you to join us as we begin this year’s OLIVE HARVEST Every fall, Rabbis for Human Rights brings hundreds of volunteers to work side-by-side with Palestinian farmers during our Olive Harvest campaign. Our presence provides protection against possible settler intimidation, enables farmers to pick within the limited number of days that they can safely do so, and has also become an act of solidarity between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. If you would like to join us for a day of harvesting in the territories, please […]
Saturday, September 20 2014 Umm al-Ara’is by David Shulman New outpost of Givat Sorek. Photo by Amir Bitan. September 20, 2014 7:00. Ezra leaves me off near the ‘Awad tents on the steep slope north of the wadi. It’s another one of those times when he says: “Just keep walking, and you’ll find the shepherds.” He also tells me that last week there was a violent attack on them by settlers from Mitzpeh Yair; the shepherds and two international volunteers were beaten and a camera smashed. For now, I’m on my own. It’s autumn: sharp wind, a timid sun, […]
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