It’s plowing season. We escorted people to their lands, to places that they unfortunately were not able to access with out us. In the picture: a land near the military base of Susya. The soldiers told the farmers not to come or they will bring the entire army on them. Today was quiet, cold and a bit rainy. picture: Guy Butavia.Thursday, July 7 2016 Al-Hadidiya, Jordan Valley
| photograph: Guy Hircefeld | Four months away provide just enough distance to see the madness and the cruelty for what they are. Who has set up this crazy system and kept it running for half a century? Is it not mad to deliberately deprive human beings—families, children, the elderly– of water at the height of summer in a scorching desert? It was at least 37 or 38 degrees Centigrade, almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit, today in Al-Hadidiya. No running water, of course, and almost no water at all. You can’t […]Sunday, April 17 2016 Join Ta’ayush activity in the Jordan Valley!
Following a decade of successful activity in the South Hebron Hills, Ta’ayush is expanding its model to the Jordan Valley, where the Israeli Occupation has been systematically demolishing Palestinian villages, restricting access to water supplies and grazing lands, and incessantly limiting Palestinian’s freedom of movement. Join us to accompany shepherds and farmers in the Valley! People from all over the country are invited to join, specifically from the Tel Aviv area and from the north. We expect to go to the Jordan Valley about once a week (not on Saturdays), […]Sunday, January 24 2016 The Brave Israeli Soldiers and the Palestinian Pothole Attack
Read Amira Hass’s story in Ha’aretz http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.698402Sunday, July 12 2015 Bi’r al-‘Id By David Shulman
July 11, 2015 From early morning, when the air is still almost cool, until noon, when the sky is aflame, we work on the rock-and-dirt path to Bi’r al-‘Id. First you gather the medium-size rocks from the side of the road and the hill and arrange them in even rows; then you gather many bucketfuls of gravel and sand, scraped with rakes and picks from the caked surface of the soil, and pour this over the rocks; then you cover it all with earth carried in buckets from wherever you […]Saturday, October 19 2013 Umm al-Ara’is and Susya by David Shulman
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 […]
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