The day after this meeting with the soldiers stationed in the settlement overlooking Humra Valley, I was immersing myself in a rural environment again, for the first time in a long while.
As country people will - when they get the time and opportunity to travel - I was focusing on water resources (and the lack thereof!) and comparing planting dates and harvesting techniques. I was admiring how barley is grown on the dry hillsides, how grape vines are pruned and trained.
I spent that morning getting to know the local cheese-making industry. I was delighted to be shown Tuwani's dairy - and I’m still waiting for the tour of one of the farms which delivers milk to the dairy!
Then came another call from Humra - a settler was there, causing damage. I had to put aside my preoccupations with smallholding and deal with more pressing matters. When we got to the grazing area, a worried farmer was alone and waiting for help, gesturing at the troop of animals browsing in the olive grove .
Shocked and indignant at the sight of the damage being caused to the precious, living trees. I rushed towards the herd, intending to chase them away from the orchard, exactly as I have done so many times with my own, or with colleagues’ beasts. I was brought to a sudden and startled halt, not by the barking dog which bounded towards me, but by the masked face of the settler. He was not carrying a gun - in my rush to save the trees, I hadn't even thought to check whether he was armed! - his only weapon was a stick. But his face was hidden by a military-style camouflage mask. I felt as though I was looking at something from a sci-fi movie, or maybe Harry Potter: a menacing, faceless alien was blocking my path.
Fortunately, he wasn’t looking for a punch-up. He gradually rounded up the sheep and moved off towards the settlement. My friends looked at the damage and I watched the thug and his herd leave, berating myself for my idiocy. I had been lucky not to have been hurt.
Despite everything I’d heard and read, I didn’t seem to have understood the willful destruction of living things that the Zionist project requires. I put myself into a stupid situation because my instincts were to “manage” the animals and care for the land; forgetting completely that this “settler’s” purpose is to destroy them.
I believe that a month or so later, these olive trees were burned down by the settlers.
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