Autumn in the South Hebron hills. Thick sun, in and out of cloud. Wind: a taste of winter. Blue hills trimmed with green. Crstyal light, unearthly clarity. Mauve ridges rushing in waves down into the desert. Scattered rocks that look like sheep, and sheep that could be rocks. The smell of wood ovens in Twaneh; someone is baking pitta. It’s good to be back. I’m here, among other reasons, as a way of remembering, a quiet, intimate gesture for my mother, Deana, who died last month at 96, lucid, witty, […]Saturday, January 28 2012 Umm al-Khair and Sadat al-Tha’ala
A day in wet mud: cold, slippery, squeaky, clammy, squishy. Mud, they say, is the mother of all life. You sink into it as soon as you set foot in Umm al-Khair. In an instant your shoes are encrusted with dark brown slime that is upwardly mobile; soon your legs, pants, socks are caked with it as well, freezing layer pasted on layer. You slither and slip your way along. The freezing drizzle stops for a moment, I fold my umbrella, somehow it falls from my hand; I pick it […]Saturday, January 7 2012 Al-Rakiz
“I was born here, in these hills, sixty-five years ago. I’m a farmer, and these are my lands. We have all the deeds of title: first the Jordanians issued one set, stamped and sealed, in 1953, and then again in 1963, and the Israeli courts have confirmed them. No one can take my land from me. This morning I have come to plow.” Ahmad Muhammad is heavy-set, his face a palimpsest of wrinkles, his voice jagged and melodious. He lives in al-Rakiz, a tiny khirbeh just over the ridge. It wasn’t […]Saturday, March 5 2011 al-Tawamin (2) – By David Shulman End of winter, early spring: the hills of south Hebron are a shocking green. It won’t last long. Very soon now, unless there’s one last burst of rain, green will revert to the usual palette of yellow and brown. Already the sun is strong, a taste of the fierce summer to come. The rocky trails are white with asphodels in full bloom—what the Palestinians call ghosalan and the Jews call irit. On the drive down we pass dozens of almond trees, another white miracle, in their short spring flowering. I […]
Saturday, January 1 2011 restoration of the cisterns in Um Daraj, solidarity visit to Susya and cleaning the cistern in Bir El Id
Today we started with cleaning one of the thirteen cisterns destroyed by the army in December 2010. The cistern is in the area of Um Daraj and we reached it by a roundabout way and went down into the wadi where it used to be. Only the mounds of earth left by the bulldozers hinted that until quite recently there was a cistern here. We set to work on the restoration. We had spades, hoes and a pick-axe. The work proceeded quickly. In a few hours we had uncovered the […]Saturday, November 6 2010 Samu’a – By David Shulman Another good day, as good days go in south Hebron. This means two relatively hopeful reports in a row; my readers may begin to lose interest, or to suspect my judgment has somehow become impaired. Certainly, the objective situation, including much violence and terror on the ground in south Hebron, is worse than ever, given this settlers’ government that is contemptuous of Palestinians, blind to the catastrophe that it itself is creating, and utterly unwilling to make even the slightest move toward peace. Then there’s the virulently anti-democratic right, well […]
Saturday, October 9 2010 Working the Hushieh family’s lands and attack on Ta’ayush activists’ car
Ta’ayush activists arrived in the South Hebron Hills in order to accompany members of the Hushieh family to their lands near Susiya. For many years settlers in the area have harassed them and taken control of their lands. Moshe Deutsch from Susiya planted an orchard on land of the family’s land, and shepherds from Havat Dalia Har Sinai enter land and water their herds from the family’s wells. Recently the court has ordered Deutsch to leave the Hushieh orchard; Deutsch has ignored the court order, and recently picked the suspect […]Saturday, July 31 2010 A Solidarity Visit and Work Day in El-Arakib
On Saturday we went on a solidarity visit and work day in El-Arakib. This unrecognized village north of Beer Sheva was demolished to its foundation four days before. Eye witness accounts of the demolition can be found here and here; the village was razed in order to plant a JNF forest. When we arrived in the village it seemed like the a parking lot at the seashore, full of the buses and cars which had brought the hundreds of activists from all corners of the country, those who came to […]
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