My Indignation

The night passed uneventfully. In the morning a couple of settlers drove a few cows along the public road. They turned off the road taking a short cut across Palestinian fallow land. Across the valley, a settler shepherd herded a flock of sheep from another direction across the Palestinian fallow land. The settlers met and then turned and drove their animals directly into a Palestinian olive orchard and garden. 

My first response was, “Let's just go down and drive the sheep out of the Palestinian's olive trees and garden.” The Palestinians said, “No, we are calling the police.” 

After half an hour of watching the sheep and cows grazing on the olives and garden, my indignation was growing and I was feeling more like, “Let's just go run the sheep out of the garden and orchard. While we’re at it, we could also scatter the sheep and even drive a few of them off.” The Palestinian owners again said no; instead they called the police another time. This was a saga in itself. The police had an endless list of questions to find the complaint that had been made just half an hour earlier.

Meanwhile, because of the injustice, my anger had risen more and I started thinking we could butcher a couple of sheep or maybe put out poison for them; anything to stop the settlers from deliberately grazing on the Palestinian olives. The sheep and cows would do irreparable damage each time they grazed in the orchard, eventually denying the Palestinians any value from their orchard or land. This was the intent of the settlers.

After another half hour, the Border Patrol showed up. This was after the cows and sheep had eaten their fill and moved off the Palestinian land. Even though the settlers and flocks were still visible, and we showed the Border Patrol videos, they said they couldn't do anything unless they eye-witnessed the crime. The police could act on complaints, but the Border Patrol could not. It was unclear why, when we called the police, they sent the Border Patrol. It is easy to ask if maybe that was intentional.

We have seen this before, where settlers drive their herds into Palestinian crops. The police are called and eventually the police say the settlers can't graze there, but not until the sheep have eaten their fill. Then the same sequence of events often plays out on subsequent days.

The patience, the nonviolent resistance of the Palestinians, was astounding. I was not watching years of my work being destroyed and I could barely restrain myself in the face of the injustice. By contrast, it was the Palestinian's income and future that was at risk, yet they restrained their emotions and worked methodically to prove that the system was not working.