A Protective Presence Shift. An Inevitable Phase: Hatred

Note: The blogs build on one another, like a story. Therefore, if you are new to these blogs please consider starting with the first blog.

We all like to think we’re unique, but I know most of my experiences are universal. For example, I thought I resented my husband when my children were young because he was useless and selfish, but apparently that’s the lowest ebb of marital bliss for everyone (so I guess I owe Hubby an apology—damn)!

My first bad experience in Protective Presence happened in my seventh shift, and it filled me with such rage and despair that I became one with the activists who label all the settlers as ‘bad’, period. Clearly, a universal reaction that happens to us all, sooner or later.

The shift started badly, with one of my usual faux pas.
I am drinking tea with my host, Abu Waseem, during a blessed respite from settler presence. I felt I had known him long enough to be on a first-name basis, and had been calling him “Abu” for days already. He’s the sweetest, most gentle man, and hadn’t said a word; but today he leans forward in his chair and says apologetically, “Abu Waseem means I am the father of Waseem, my eldest son.”

I burble my apologies for calling him “Daddy of” for the length of our acquaintance. He smiles graciously and tells me his wife and daughter want to talk to me. The first time they wanted to talk to me I was happy, thinking I was being singled out for some special purpose. But no; they had heard that I was doing a fundraiser in Canada for better fencing and the mother wanted to know if she could get help with an operation. The next time the daughter wondered if I could get her some perfume. This time it was the son’s Internet.

Now before I continue, several of my Israeli friends have spouted utter rubbish about how Bedouin are really quite well-off, they just like to live simply. One said, “They like us to think they’re poor, so the outside of their buildings look like shacks. But if you go inside, it’s all Ikea furniture.” Yeah, right. This is a photo of the inside of one of their houses.

Totally chock-a-block full of Ikea. They are poor, but I don’t want that kind of relationship. Husni and Fatima would rather die than ask for anything. Fatima cooks for me all the time and once I brought groceries and she was quite determined to refuse them…but I just left them and walked away. A daughter is getting married and I asked what she would like as a gift, and she was too embarrassed to say. I mention this to pre-empt readers from thinking that asking for hand-outs is part of the relationship between activists and Bedouin. It’s not (every human is different, let’s try not to label).

So I sit opposite the beseeching faces and try to mask my embarrassed irritation. Luckily, we get a call from Yosef. Settlers. “Sorry, I have to go,” I say, leaping up with joy.

A bit less joyful when I get to Yosef’s house. There are four settlers and we are only two. I am with Shai again; in my second blog I recounted how he was savagely beaten by settlers and spent months in a hospital. I think he is an amazing human being, coming back to activism after a horrible experience like that. But I also think he’s frightened. He spends his whole time with his camera held aloft, shouting, “Don’t come near me!” just like the settlers do. Except they say it when they’re in our faces, while Shai is always running away. Many of these kids are inherent bullies, and a terrified adult could rouse their malice.

Still, my face breaks into a smile when I see Nehoriah. He practically blew me a kiss last time I saw him! I feel I am beginning to make a connection. Their goats are cavorting through Yosef’s olive grove, eating the trees. I wave my hat and yodel loudly, driving the goats away.

“Don’t touch the goats!” the settlers scream, driving them back towards me. I manage to detach a cluster of goats from a tree with my whooping and waving, but my victory is short-lived. They are too many. Shai is busy filming from a safe distance.

Having won the battle, Nehoriah strolls over to the fence that encircles Yosef’s house and vaults over the gate. I panic. My job is to protect Yosef’s family, to put my body between him and them, if necessary. “Get out of there! Get away from the door!” I yell.

Nehoriah points up at a window. “That Arab woman just threw a rock at me,” he lies, and tries the door. I attempt to vault over the fence but my arthritic knees make it more of an ungainly scramble. Nehoriah walks over to me. I smile at him, conveying that we have talked many times, that we are friends. Relieved that he has left the door.

Nehoriah begins to circle me, close. “I am old enough to be your mother,” I remind him.

Nehoriah begins to hit and kick me, always circling; I cannot film both front and back. Another settler vaults over the fence to join in the fun, so whatever direction I face, there will always be one behind. You cannot see the violence in the attached video, but you can hear me yell when they hit me. I am in shock. Adrenaline courses through my body and I feel no pain at all; in any case Nehoriah is not hitting me hard. I feel nothing but fear. “This is what the Bible tells you, is it?” I ask Nehoriah. “Hitting women is what God wants?”

Shai finally appears and they immediately retreat. They don’t want their violence caught on film. But now we are two petrified protecters against four settlers. I keep looking at Nehoriah in disbelief. How can you hit someone who has chatted to you for hours, building on our common denominators… “We are Jews, we must stick together….”

The other activists are right; all settlers are equally scum. Of course the others are right, most of them have much more experience than I do. What hubris! Thinking I was making a special connection.

We phone for back-up and more activists arrive.  They see I’m in a state and tell me to go to Fatima’s, they will take over from here. Fatima is a 5-minute walk away from Yosef but it takes me much longer. My legs are trembling. I stumble over the rocky terrain.

I pick up Fatima’s baby and hug him, breathing his comforting, baby smell. We all start out good. But not equal. Would I be hurting people like the settlers, if I had been brought up like them?

It’s totally crazy how horrible humans can be to each other. Always have been and always will be.

But not all of us. Not all of us.