The West Bank Blog

For the next year I’ll be posting here once a week, writing from an oft-forgotten front in the conflict in the Palestinian territories. I will be working with Yesh Din, an NGO made up of Israeli lawyers who travel into the territories to take testimonies of alleged crimes committed against Palestinian civilians by Israeli settlers or soldiers. Yesh Din then follow up these cases within the Israeli military courts. They also help defend Palestinians who seem to have been wrongfully charged.

At the end of the year these posts will contribute to a Yesh Din report. Their style has been dictated by Yesh Din: everything will be reported, from smells to feelings to violence. They will be a weekly diary of the clash between the occupation authority and Palestinian civilians.

But the next post will be about a different organization, Rabbis for Human Rights. They take Israeli volunteers to work with Palestinians on their lands in areas where they would not otherwise be able to go for fear of extremist settlers. Now is the time of the olive harvest, a time of heightened tensions. The presence of Israeli volunteers means that the army and police check in on proceedings, to protect the volunteers from the settlers. Only with such a presence do Palestinians in parts of the northern West Bank dare to enter their land. Last week a group of about 50 settlers attacked such an olive-picking party, throwing stones and firing a gun. Four were hurt. (See this article for more, and here for a short piece on the Rabbis).

More to come…