The West Bank Blog

A valley somewhere near Nablus/Shechem

I must admit I've stopped remembering their names. They're all nice, to me that is. I come, with the Rabbis or Yesh Din, we help them out and they're nice to me. I used to make an effort to remember their names for this diary, but now it's all blurring into one.

Last Thursday was the QBP, the Queen's Birthday Party at the British ambassador's house. Diplomatic dignitaries, political personalities, and people who have friends who work at the embassy, gathered in the ambassador's garden to raise a glass or two to her majesty, until late in the night. At around 11:30 my friend David Bernstein called from Jerusalem to see if I could arrange for us to go on a Rabbis for Human Rights sponsored expedition to the northern West Bank. I awoke a slumbering Rabbi Arik Asherman who, nearing midnight, managed to arrange for David and myself to be brought to the same location.

At around 6am on the morning of Friday, the 27^th of April I began to battle a vengeful hangover, cycling to Arlozerov Station through Tel-Aviv's deserted streets. I caught the train to Rosh Ha'a'in where the minibus was waiting for me. They'd come from Jerusalem: David Bernstein, Her Whatshername, and Abu Rami, the Rabbis' permanent driver, who I'd not seen in months.

Abu Rami remembered my normal nagging to stop off at Hawara for their two-shekel-falafel. (His news is that his fourth son, who's my age, is getting married. Seeing as each married son needs a place to live, this means a fourth flour needs to be build onto his sons' house next to his own in East Jerusalem.) We stopped at a place where Abu Rami is treated like family and helped ourselves to falafel, my breakfast. We continued on.

We drove through Hawara, taking a right just before Hawara checkpoint where I had once got stuck for an interminable forty minutes. The destination was a valley in the Hawarta Stream area. We stopped in a green valley and were met by a man on a tractor and his two sons. The valley sloped gently: from a flat, broad basin, up to low-lying hills on either side; the road, and the steam somewhere, running down the middle. I clambered up onto the tractor, just for the ride. But the rest of the team didn't follow. They remained on the road for the time being.

I had been worried as to how I would explain my hangover, and my reluctance to work, to a Muslim Palestinian. Five years ago I worked scrubbing dishes in the kitchen of a Kibbutz on the southern coast of the Sea of Galilee. There I worked with two Muslim Arab chefs, who looked at me with incomprehension and distain when I arrived one morning with what still ranks as one of the worst hangovers of my life. Luckily, on Friday the tractor's job was to plough and mine was to sit beneath a tree, to ward off violent settlers and try to communicate with the ten and thirteen-year-old sons of the tractor driver. The tractor driver spoke almost perfect Hebrew, having lived and worked for twenty years in Tel-Aviv. His sons spoke none. So I played slaps and thumb war and arm wrestling with the younger when the cheeky little sod refused to let me sleep.

Time moved slowly. Across the valley and atop its northern slope we could see the southern reaches of the settlement of Itamar. Just beyond Itamar's eastern edge is the village of (Upper) Yannun, where I once spent a weekend. A few years ago the whole population of that village left due to the settlers' harassment. They only returned when a foreign NGO agreed to station a three-person team permanently in the village. So I knew where I was: SE of Nablus/Shechem, E of Hawara, S of Itamar, SW of Yanun. I slept.

A man and a boy on a donkey approached. The man and I spoke in Hebrew. In fact he was hardly a man, seventeen. He wanted to know if it was safe to work in the valley. I told him that where we were stood it was more or less safe. The army knew we were there and their local base, the Nablus DCO, was close-by. The settlers probably wouldn't try anything. He wanted to work his family's land across the valley. I gave him my number, but then suggested that he go and speak to Abu Rami. While we spoke he probably saw the look in my eye and asked if I wanted a ride on his donkey. He ordered his brother off and I clambered on. And so I got rides on a tractor and a donkey within a couple of hours. Every boy's fantasy. Great fun.

The ploughing work was almost finished at around the time that Abu Rami had had enough and that we had to leave to be back before the Sabbath. (The Rabs for Human Rights is a religious organisation). So I left the ploughman whose name, as I say, I forget, and walked back across the valley. It didn't look like there was going to be any trouble, and it being so close to the Sabbath, it was doubtful that the settlers would start anything now. So the ploughman continued on ploughing.

The valley was an amazing green. Rich and bold even by English standards. It was littered with an array of wild flowers. A scattering of competing colours, spread across the green. Then as I walked I came across a putrid little rubbish dump. It stank, was repugnant. I walked on by. The future Palestinian state might well be reliant on tourism, but they're going to have to teach their people to stop throwing all their crap all over the place.

It turned out that David Bernstein and Her Whatshername had worked with the kids on the donkey. David later told me that the seventeen-year-old hopes to study abroad, then be a doctor in Tel-Aviv. He certainly has the Hebrew to do so.

We got back in the minibus and headed for Hawara. Over the radio we heard that the other Rabbis for Human Rights team, working in the South Hebron Hills, had been attacked. Rabbi Arik Asherman had taken some blows. We didn't know how bad it was. Then it emerged that he was with the police, at least not the hospital. Then we found out that he was there to complain, that he had not been arrested. Not too bad then. He's taken blows before. In the past he's been arrested on a Friday, then not released until after the Sabbath has come in. Perhaps, now that the Sabbath is over, I ought to call him…

Well, Rabbi Asherman's mobile phone was switched off. The woman in the Rabbis' office told me that he's abroad, lecturing. They were with Palestinian shepherds when they were attacked by settlers from Pnei Khever. He sustained a few blows. Exactly what she didn't know. She hadn't seen him. Another volunteer had her wrist injured. Rabbi Asherman was detained by police, at which time he also made his complaint.

We passed again through Hawara. Once more we stopped, this time to buy some tasty knafe, an Arab sweet similar to baklawa. They can cost around £3.50 for one in London. In Hawara each was 1.20 shekels, about 30 pence. I bought ten and packed them at the bottom of my bag beneath my jacket. They were still warm by the time I got them back to my girlfriend in Tel-Aviv.

# posted by West Bank Blogger @ 4:53 pm