One of the most dangerous places we serve in Masafer Yatta, our location in the West Bank, is what is called the Garden. It is not a garden in the typical sense but rather a massive platform of stone, rock walls, shrubs, struggling olive plants, cacti and dirt.
The view, however, is incredible. One can see a panorama of sloped grazing farm land, the local village and an illegal Israeli settlement. The family who owns the garden has worked the land for decades and holds a 100 year-old deed for it. Twice a day, he takes his goats and sheep out to graze, 6:30 to 10 AM and 4:30 to 7 PM. Two of us accompany him because he is harassed daily by Israeli settlers, soldiers, military or some combination thereof.
The point of the harassment is to push him off his land. It would be easy to give up after decades of persecution but this man and his family do not. They are practitioners of “samud,” steadfastness. Generations before them have resisted, therefore, they resist, always nonviolently.
The farmer keeps going out into the garden to feed the sheep and goats, knowingly facing harassment. Each day before we serve in the garden, the farmer treats us to cups of warm sweet tea and perhaps a treat. Then we follow the animals and him to the garden, maintaining a short distance.
We are to be the buffer between the harassers and the farmer. At some point, settlers, police or military approach us and ask for passports. They photograph them or take them even though that is forbidden by the United States government. They research our backgrounds to see if we are Palestinian sympathizers or members of organizations Israel considers terrorist. The irony of a nonviolent peace organization ever being considered a terrorist organization is not lost on me.
The conclusion of these interactions can result in a wide-range of possibilities from simple harassment to deportation. I had been enjoying the landscape and photographing the view when a settler told border patrol I was filming the illegal guard post on the farmer’s land. Border patrol took my phone, looked through the photos and discovered I had only shot panoramas and photos of my friend. They returned my phone and my passport and warned me not to photograph the empty guard post because it is classified.
Despite these disturbing interactions, we have the satisfaction of protecting the farmer who is able to do his job. In addition, we can look over the landscape, and enjoy the natural beauty of the West Bank and build relationships.
Why do Palestinians resist and persist under such stressful circumstances? Faith, history, love of land and samud. I see it in the farmer’s body as he contentedly crouches on a rock, sipping a coffee, smoking a cigarette, watching his sheep and goats graze.
This is his legacy.
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