Palestinian Walks

by Raja Shehadeh

  Walking in this canyon we had the feeling of being in a large, deep basin with high rocks on both sides. That winter in 1993 the water had filled a section of the valley deep enough for a swim. It was a hot day but we decided against plunging in. Though we did not mention it we were both thinking of the murder of a Jewish settler in that same area by Bedouin boys a few months earlier. With her light-coloured hair and fair complexion Penny would be indistinguishable from a settler.

  When we first arrived at the deep section of the wadi after following the curve of the rocks, we saw a large heron fishing. When he heard us he slowly flapped his wide, unwieldy wings and reluctantly flew up. He perched on a high rock and waited for us to leave so that he could finish his meal. I was sorry that he felt the need to fly away on account of us. With the only sea close by being the Dead Sea, it was rare to see a bird fishing in our dry hills. I looked up at him and saw that on the rocks just above where he landed were Bedouin shepherd boys tending their flock of sheep. They too were watching us. I gave them a friendly wave. I didn't see them wave back. It was a tense walk during anxious times.

  As soon as we left the taxi that brought us down close to Wadi Qelt we found ourselves almost running over the hills, which were like a brown tapestry. We felt euphoric. Being stuck in Ramallah, surrounded as it was with checkpoints at every exit, the experience of open space, with no walls, no barriers and a wide open sky, made us giddy with joy. We continued up the hillock until we came to a promontory where we could see the canyon stretched below and began our descent.

  Our leader on this walk was Saba, hulking and dishevelled, shirt-tails out and trouser legs sweeping the ground. Early in the occupation, when he was still in his mid-teens, the Israeli authorities expelled his father to Jordan. He left behind his wife and two young sons. With the father gone Saba was forced to assume responsibility for the family. He resented the burden of having to act as a parent to his younger brothers. Though many years had passed he continued to feel bereavement over his stolen youth. To his friends he is one of the most faithful people I know. When he graduated from high school he left Ramallah and joined the Palestinian armed resistance in South Lebanon. He later spent time in Israeli prisons. But he still managed to pursue higher studies in history in Cairo and Paris. In his academic writings he showed the same boldness that he exhibited in life by writing about topics that others shied away from, like the issues of collaboration and Israeli massacres that remain undocumented. His views on the principal PLO faction, Fatah, and its leader, Yasser Arafat, were revisionist. Though he made great strides in his academic career, that crucial absence of fatherly love and protection when he most needed them left him wounded, suffering a sense of inadequacy and a feeling of being underrated.

  As we walked I observed how Saba approached the hills. I knew how much he loved walking in them and how he found himself in nature. But unlike me he never kept to the trail when one could be found. He clomped down over the terraces, causing stones to tumble and creating his own new paths. And when danger lurked it never deterred him. When we saw a pack of stray dogs ahead we were inclined to change direction. But not Saba. He marched right up to them and sent them packing.

  But perhaps the biggest difference between the two of us was best exemplified by our respective responses to the second Intifada. For several months after it began I refused to recognize what was taking place. I continued to wish it away. Whereas he immediately thought it was bound to lead to our mass expulsion by Israel. For months and years he lived in fear of a second Nakbeh. Clearly his historical readings and personal experiences had worn him down.

  The descent to the valley was quite steep. It was just the kind of walk Saba should lead, for now there were no recognizable tracks that we could follow. We just scrambled down. In the water-filled canyon masses of the fragmite reeds were growing. We had been warned of water snakes, so we avoided walking in the water. Eventually we found the track by the southern side of the canyon and followed it towards A'yn Faraa. We were determined to go as far as we could and only turn back when it became absolutely necessary to avoid confronting the armed guards from the settlement of Almon.

  In this section, the canyon was deep and narrow. The large boulder walls twisted and curved, forming small basins. We walked along the narrow path, negotiating our way around rocks, some of which were as precipitous and unfriendly as in Wadi El Daraj, until we reached a wider part of the valley which was sheltered on both sides by very high cliffs. Below, the water was thick with reeds and spearmint. Further upstream the canyon bent sharply. The part of the valley behind this blind corner was totally concealed. I thought it might have been the point at which Penny and I had stopped when we were approaching the valley from the direction of Wadi Faraa. We found a spot by a large carob tree and had our picnic. The water streamed below where we sat.

  Then we heard noises. We looked up and, below the escarpment at the opposite side of the stream, saw a number of settlers approaching. We assumed they were from Almon coming down to visit their spring next to where they lived. They must have seen us as trespassers, potentially dangerous but perhaps, by the way we looked sitting there drinking coffee and eating our salads, not quite people on a military mission. One of the girls from the group approached Rema and asked her: 'Where are you from?' Rema's answer was both straightforward and correct. She simply said: 'From here.'

  The settler women wore long skirts and covered their hair. They continued walking on the narrow paths along the steep rock opposite us while we held our ground by the carob tree and tried to avoid looking at them. An uneasy sharing of the picnic ground proceeded with each side excelling in keeping watch without seeming to do so. When we finished our picnic we decided not to venture behind the blind corner. Times were such that it was better not to test our luck. We packed our provisions and proceeded eastward towards St George's monastery and Jericho.

  Just as we were leaving I looked up the rock wall below which we had been sitting and saw a young woman with the long orthodox dress and headscarf standing reverently. Her face was turned westward; she had a calm pious expression. She was praying. I could not tell if she was an Israeli Jew or a newly arrived immigrant. In my many expeditions in different parts of the country I had never seen anyone praying, though I often thought of my walks in nature as a form of meditation. Oddly it was a flattering sight: here was someone who appreciated my land so much that she was inspired to give thanks to her God in prayer. And yet I could not help being suspicious of her motives. What was the nature of her supplication? Was she giving thanks to the Almighty for the glory of His creation or for His support of the Israeli army in their conquest and occupation of my land, making it possible for her to settle in Almon by the side of this spectacular spring? Religious practice in the Land of the Bible tends to encourage exclusivity and discrimination rather than love and magnanimity. There is no place like the Holy Land to make one cynical about religion.

  After leaving the settlers we proceeded along a path that followed the contours of the rocks until we reached Fawwar spring. In Arabic the name means 'bubbling', from the fact that this spring gushes and stops at regular intervals like a fountain.

  As we walked away from the sound of the water and came to a quieter section I noticed that Rema, who is an anthropologist, was scanning the horizon. When I asked her if she was looking out for settlers she said she wasn't. She was missing the Bedouins whom she used to meet and chat with on walks in this area. She knew a lot about the kind of life they led in this canyon, where they had grazed their sheep for years. Now they had been chased away by the Israeli authorities. 'It is as though the life had been sapped out of these hills,' she said. Most accounts by travellers who have walked in this area describe how they were struck by the bareness of the hills surrounding the lush valley and the preponderance of the Bedouin shepherds roaming them. Now only the bareness remained.

  I thought of the absent Bedouins as I walked. Theirs was a different vision of the land. They saw it as an int
egral whole. In the summer they pitched their tents over high ground where it was cool, and in winter they descended to the Ghor to reduce the likelihood of their newborn goats and sheep dying from the cold. In a country where there has been such a scramble over land they hardly ever bothered to register any in their name. How could they when they didn't conceive of it as divisible plots?

  The rocks where we walked were indeed strikingly bare, the water down below, which at first gushed over the boulders in the valley, progressively dried up until we reached the next spring, A'yn Qelt, when the flow strengthened again. We could now see that the irrigation canal on the opposite side of the canyon through which we were walking was fed by the water of the spring. The valley here was wider. A short distance later we came upon a dirt road that branched off from the main Jericho–Jerusalem road, which in earlier, more stable times we used to drive down before parking our cars and walking to St George's monastery and back. There were a flour mill and a number of abandoned houses which belonged to the Husseini family. A dedication written in Arabic commemorated the restoration of the old aqueduct that took the water to the outskirts of Jericho as well as the building of a dam and the flour mill by one of the family.

  Not far from this area was the attractive Nabi Mousa khan (inn for pilgrims), where according to Muslim tradition the Prophet Moses was buried. The khan had recently been renovated by the Muslim Trust, the Awkaf. Prior to 1948, every year around Easter, large numbers of people travelled from different parts of Palestine to this spot, where for three days and nights they took part in one of the most colourful festivals of the Palestinian calendar. Those attending the celebrations slept over at the khan or in tents pitched on the surrounding hills. In order to feed the crowds, the mill provided flour for making bread. It must also have serviced the monastery and the Bedouin tribes living nearby. Now this seasonal public event had come to an end and the Israeli Parks Authority controls a region subdued and sapped of its former vibrancy.

  We crossed the stream and walked along the canal which followed the northern side of the valley until we reached the only inhabited part of this wadi. A few families were living in brick houses right by the canal, the last remaining Bedouins in the area. It was clear that they were not sure whether we were Israeli or Palestinian. With our jeans and T-shirts we looked foreign enough. We greeted them in Arabic and they invited us for tea. We sat on their porch next to the canal, overlooking the valley below. The smell of their taboon, where they baked bread, was enticing. Fatmeh, one of the two wives of the man of the family, provided the tea. Her married daughter, who sat with us, was holding on to her baby, refusing to let her go. Eventually two teenaged boys emerged but they spoke very little and spent their time casting curious looks at our group of mixed men and women. I noted that in response to a question about the number of children Fatmeh had, she mentioned that the family included two donkeys, which made us laugh. I was hoping to hear that the children were able to ride these beasts to their school in Jericho, at least a three-hour walk away. But they said they didn't. No such luxury for the kids. They had to make a daily trek to Jericho and back.

  The two women soon disappeared into their kitchen and we realized they were bringing us food along with the tea. We tried to dissuade them from going to the trouble but they would not hear of it. We were their guests and guests must be treated generously.

  We Arabs have traditionally glorified generosity. It is regarded as one of the traits of God and indeed in the Holy Qur'an it is one of His many names. It is also defined as the opposite of meanness. Like love, generosity in the Arabic sense is not calculating. It is giving without any expectation of reward. It is not doing what is expected. It is neither the opposite of penury nor could it be characterized as being a spendthrift. The famous case, which we all learned about in school, was that of Hatem, whose name has become synonymous with generosity, so that one says so and so has Hatem's generosity. He lived in a remote area and was once visited by travellers. He had no meat to offer them so he looked around and saw his camel, his only means of transport. He slaughtered it, offering its meat to his guests rather than sending them off without a proper meal.

  This glorification of generosity and trust in Arab tradition has sometimes been detrimental to ourselves. At crucial moments in our history, Arab leaders failed to look beyond the individual they were showering with kindness to the policy which he was serving. Thus many fell to the charm of those who came to colonize our land, whether they were British or Zionist Jews. More recently it was the Norwegians, newcomers on the international scene, who exploited this weakness by inviting the Palestinian negotiators to live with their Israeli partners in a residence situated in Norway's woods, where the children of the Norwegian officials were brought in to lighten the atmosphere. All this with the intention of making them gain one another's trust, as though the essence of the problem between us was one of lack of trust, not the colonization of Palestine! The Norwegians succeeded. The Oslo Agreement was signed, the settlements were not removed and the much-anticipated peace was not accomplished.

  We sat on the Bedouin family's porch by the cementlined canal with its fast-rushing water, sipping tea and enjoying their freshly baked bread and the quickly prepared meal they offered. Despite our sincere entreaties our hosts would not join us. It is improper, according to tradition, for the hosts to eat with their guests. The hosts' role is to watch over their guests as they eat and be attentive to their every need. After we had finished, and when Fatmeh learned that I was a practising lawyer, she brought a paper to show me. It was notice from the Israeli Parks Authority that they had only one year left in this place, after which they must leave their home because the land had been expropriated and was being turned into a nature reserve.

  There was a time, in the early years of the occupation, when I commended the military authorities for their contribution to the preservation of our countryside through such declarations. Then it became evident that they were doing great damage to the land and its flora and fauna through their extensive building of settlements. They were acting like a sovereign, re-shaping the countryside, exploiting empty land for the benefit of their own people and designating other areas as reserves for their future benefit. After 1967, when Israel occupied and then annexed East Jerusalem, my father lost many valuable plots of land when the Israeli municipality designated them green areas. I began to think Israel was going to turn East Jerusalem into a paradise of green parks, only to realize that a few years after the land had been acquired from its Arab ownership through expropriation, its designation was changed. The noble aim of keeping East Jerusalem green was dropped in favour of using the land to construct neighbourhoods for the exclusive benefit of Jewish residents, making the city more cluttered and depressing, and my father more despondent, than ever.

  Fatmeh wondered whether there was anything they could do to hold on to their home. Her husband had been working for the Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature and his employment was also going to end. She pointed to the land just across from the valley and told us that the settlement of Mitzpe Jericho (in Hebrew, 'lookout over Jericho') was being expanded over the hill just above the ravine. Once this happened they would fence off the area and the entrance to the wadi would be controlled by the settlement. Only Israeli Jews and tourists would be allowed into the valley, there would be no need for the Bedouin employee to ward off incursions by Arab shepherds or walkers. This left me wondering from whom the Israeli Society was trying to protect nature.

  Saba turned to me and said: 'I have always known it. The Israeli plan is to confine all of us in reservations in preparation for our eventual expulsion. Just as they did in 1948.'

  I looked at his pinched face and realized that, more than any of us, he lived with the constant phobia of a repeat of the 1948 Nakbeh. History might not have been the best subject to specialize in for someone of Saba's melancholic temperament.

  Throughout our stay the younger woman with the child had remained silent, holding
her daughter close to her bosom. We asked how many children she had and noticed that she became tearful. She then told us about her young son, a baby just learning to crawl. She had left him on the porch to run inside for a few minutes to fetch some food, when he crawled into the canal and was carried away by the fast-flowing water. She ran after him but could not save him. She found him amongst the reeds and debris that had been trapped by a grating a short distance from her home, drowned.

  We spent what we deemed was an appropriate period of time with them, so as not to offend this family who had treated us with such generosity, and then we were on our way.

  After 1948 and the Arab exodus from Haifa, parts of the Carmel forest were designated as nature reserves. It was deemed that the greatest enemy of these forests was the goats owned by Arab farmers who had managed to stay in the country. Legislation was enacted, and firmly enforced, to restrict the grazing of goats in these protected areas. It cannot be denied that goats are not discriminating in what they eat. They have the annoying habit of climbing up tree trunks to munch on the green foliage, especially of young saplings, often leaving the grass below untouched. Over the years they have caused undeniable damage to the natural flora of Palestine. But any attempt to interfere with nature is not without its risks. In the Carmel forest the goats used to feed on the parasitic plant hamoul (field dodder), which is hard to control and nearly impossible to eradicate. Its threadlike, yellow stems wind themselves around the trunks of pine trees. With the banning of the goats from the forest the dodder spread uncontrollably, so that when wild fires began, they spread more easily over a larger area. And just as the goats ate many of our beautiful wild flowers they also fertilized the land, invigorating the soil and ensuring that growth would be stronger in future years. They took but they also gave.