"The
trees are killing us,"
The man said.
The
Rabbi has escorted us here
To
this village in the desert,
Or
what's left of it,
So
we can see for ourselves.
We
are a few European Christians,
One
Harvard Divinity student.
And
mostly Jews:
American
and Australian and Canadian
And
a couple of Israelis.
We
are there to
To
meet the Bedouin,
Israeli
citizens all.
They
have lived in this village for a long time
With
houses and fields
But
officially unregistered
As
far as the Israeli government is concerned.
The
paperwork is not properly filled out
Someone
can't find a deed from before World War One
When
such things didn't exist
for
the Bedouin
Or
something like that.
I
admit my knowledge is fuzzy
And
there may be room for interpretation,
Though
what is crystal clear is that
Someone
wanted that land
And
the land of 18 other such places.
The
State of Israel wanted it,
Developers
wanted it,
Large
municipalities wanted it,
And
they passed a law so they could "legally" take it.
The man, son of a Bedouin sheik, speaks.
We are seated in a trailer in this village in the Negev
and he tells us,
"The trees are killing us".
The
Rabbi had brought us here in a mini-bus from Jerusalem
To
witness the grab
And
he asks us to tell others what we see.
Okay.
So this is what I saw:
One
of nineteen villages
Now
ramshackle sheds and trailers
But
there used to be houses and fields and livestock:
They
showed us a movie of happier times.
Then
the army came and tore it down with bulldozers:
They
showed us this movie as well.
Someone
wants the lands
On
which sit the nineteen villages.
In
one location the powers that be want to build factories,
In
another, suburbs for Beersheva,
It's
a done deal, there are larger needs,
There
is Long Term Planning
And
the Bedouin are not part of that Plan.
So
what is the plan for the Bedouin?
Take
them off the land
But
do it "legally".
This
is going to happen
Whether
they like it or not,
Whether
it's legal or not.
At
least this way they will get compensation
Of
a sort,
And
some support
Of
a sort,
As
their way of life is destroyed
And
they are forced into ersatz towns,
Reservations
really,
And
into the cities
And
what may be lives of
Crime
Alcoholism
Drugs
Despair,
All
the terrible things that happen when you take people out of their context
And
force them into yours.
Those
of us on the mini-bus are all the children of immigrants,
No
one's history entirely clean:
The
Europeans think about the Gypsies, or the Jews;
The
Americans, the Native Americans;
The
Canadians, the First Nations;
The
Australians, the Aborigines.
An
Israeli professor I meet later will boast, "as land grabs go, this one is
pretty civilized."
Now
maybe I don't have all the information,
Maybe
there are wheels within wheels
And
probably not all Bedouin motives are pure,
Not
all Bedouin are victims,
But
still...
In
this village, the Jewish National Fund wants to plant trees.
Yay,
trees are wonderful!
I
love trees!
When
I was a kid and did well in Hebrew School?
Or
graduated from something
What
did get? A tree!
A
tree was planted in Israel in my name,
What
could be better?
What
could be more ecological?
In
the empty Negev,
They
planted your tree,
A Jewish tree!
Screw
the Nazis and plant a tree!
And
you got a certificate
And
imagined that someday when you went to Israel
You
would look up your tree
And
it would have your name on it.
God
forbid any of these trees have my name on them,
These
killer trees
Planted
on top of
The
not so empty Negev.
Planted
in an ecology where they don't belong
Stealing
water they shouldn't have
On
land that isn't theirs.
In
this village the JNF planted only about half the trees that were planned
And
then they got stopped.
By
lawyers.
Now
the people of the village are poor
They
say they can't leave to get work
Because
if they leave the village unwatched
The
Army will come and finish the job.
The
village will be dead.
"The
trees are killing us."
On
the way home
The
Rabbi asks us how we feel.
Most
of us despair.
One
Israeli is defensive and grabs the mic on the bus to harangue us:
“You
just can't let people move anywhere they want!”
We
let him talk longer than we should,
We
can see how much it hurts him that the accusation of state-sanctioned thievery
may be true.
The
Rabbi has seen all our reactions many times
And
he lets us feel or think whatever we will.
After
the defensive Israeli puts down the mic
We
are quiet for some time
On
the mini-bus taking us back to Jerusalem.
Then
someone asks the Rabbi,
How
is it you are not burnt out?
How
can you keep doing this,
Year
after year
With
so few victories?
And
the Rabbi says,
"I
believe in Jews
And
I know that eventually they will do what is right,"
Let
us hope so,
Because
The
trees are killing us, too.
