In this West Bank village committed to nonviolence, attacks by Israeli settlers are the new daily norm
Life in the Bedouin community of Umm al-Khair was never easy. But it’s never been this bad before
The village of Umm Al-Khair, in the West Bank. Photo by Alessandro Levati/Getty Images
Robin Podolsky August 17, 2024
“No one can leave their homes. The shepherds cannot get to their fields, the farmers cannot get to their crops,” said Awdah al-Hathalean, a local English teacher and community leader in the West Bank Bedouin village of Umm al-Khair.
I first visited the village, which is renowned for its commitment to nonviolence, in 2017. At their community center, a modest building with whitewashed walls, filled with paintings and drawings by the local children, we were served cardamom-infused coffee and Middle Eastern sweet tea. The village has long held a commitment to nonviolent activism; in those days, it also had a rich, warm, peaceful communal life.
Now, that existence has been fractured, as Israel’s military and civilian infringements in the West Bank have escalated in context of Israel’s war with Hamas. The whole West Bank is suffering increasing violence, most recently in a Thursday attack by settlers on a Palestinian village, so shocking that even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt obliged to register an objection. But that a nonviolent community like Umm al-Khair is being targeted shows just how hollow the Israeli government’s excuses are when it comes to the dire situation in the West Bank. Netanyahu’s government would have us believe that only those Palestinians who threaten Israeli settlers and soldiers are at risk; the changes in Umm al-Khair tell a much different story
“Even when armed settlers are not present, the army blocks roads that the villagers depend on,” al-Hathalean said when I spoke to him recently by video on WhatsApp. “They cannot graze their sheep, so they are forced to drive miles of back roads to get to cities where they can buy food for their animals — and for themselves. Increasingly, they have less money with which to buy.”
“These are really tough days,” he said. “Financial support for the people has collapsed. It has never been so tough.”
Historically, the residents of Umm al-Khair have lived sustainably off the land. The village in the south Hebron hills lies in Area C, the part of the occupied West Bank that is completely under Israeli military control.
Its founders were displaced from the Negev in 1948, after the establishment of the State of Israel, so they bought land in a place where they could continue their traditional way of life by herding goats and sheep and coaxing crops to grow in the arid desert soil. Ten years ago, over 600 people lived in Umm al-Khair. Today, it has a population of 250 people — a decline attributable in part to the increasingly painful conditions of life there.
Like most Palestinian villages in Area C, Umm al-Khair has not been granted what is known as a Master Plan by the military government. Without one, all developments in the community — new buildings, new solar panels, even paved roads — are subject to summary demolition at any time.
Many of the villagers’ homes are built of nothing more than siding, often covered with a tarp or woven cloth. Inside, the homes are as nice as people with little money can make them. Pillows on couches are covered with the characteristic vibrant embroidery of the women of Umm al-Khair. Walls are bright with mirrors and salvaged tile. The provisional look of the homes is a kind of camouflage against the authorities. If they don’t look too nice or permanent, perhaps they won’t be bulldozed.
But the threat of demolition is a constant presence. Even outhouses have been torn down. The ruins of a demolished mosque remain, a testament to the price of hope.
Life in Carmel, an Israeli settlement established next to Umm al-Khair in 1980 through a military seizure order and transformed into a civilian moshav in 1981, looks very different. The settlement is hooked up to the water and power grid; its houses have lawns; there are cell phone towers and a poultry farm, run-off from which pollutes the land of Umm al-Khair.
Despite these daily glaring inequities and the incessant fear of destruction, the people of Umm al-Khair have created a culture of mutual aid, self-respect and joy. But since the onset of Israel’s war with Hamas, which corresponded to an escalation of incursions in the West Bank, that joy has been harder and harder to find.
Young engineers, graduates of Hebron University, used to dream of the day when they could transform their homes, marrying sustainable agriculture with energy self-sufficiency. Villagers constructed a library and playground for their children, and a brightly painted soccer pitch. They wanted only basic freedoms: access to the water and power systems that illegal settlements enjoy; real showers, flush toilets and reliable internet. Today, such dreams feel very far away.
“Everything went crazy after 7th of October,” said al-Hathalean, “More attacks, raids, demolition and confiscation.”
Soldiers walk through and set off tear gas at will. Armed settlers have come into the village, shot pepper spray into villagers’ faces, and beaten them with sticks, al-Hathalean said. They have cut the village’s water lines twice.
One fourth of the housing stock in the village has been destroyed. They have been cut off from their fields, which settlers now roam freely, injuring, stealing and even killing sheep and goats. In June, Umm al-Khair was invaded by armed settlers who told the villagers that, if they did not abandon their homes, they would be murdered.
“I don’t know what to tell my son,” al-Hathalean said. His 4-year-old, Watan, has developed a stutter in recent months, in what al-Hathalean is sure is a trauma response. The culture of determined hope and resilience of Umm al-Khair is under great strain.
Having seen that culture firsthand, I — like others I know who have put their hearts into maintaining ties with our Palestinian partners in peace — am enraged by Israel’s baseless efforts to destroy it.
I visited at a time when the lovingly constructed village school had just been demolished. The children of Umm al-Khair had to walk on dirt roads over hills to get to the next village in order to learn. I asked a teenage girl about her favorite subjects. She said science and math. And Arabic. And English. And all Israel had done for this bright, eager, peaceful young woman was make it close to impossible for her to thrive in a way that would allow true peaceful coexistence to flourish.
And, still, al-Hathalean said, “The people here are against any violence. They just want to live with safety.”
I have often been asked, by those without direct experience in peace efforts: “Well, where are the nonviolent non-terrorist Palestinians?” They are easy to find — and being terrorized under a far-right government that transparently aims to make Israeli control over the West Bank permanent. A cynic could be forgiven for thinking that the Israeli government actually wants to provoke a violent response, because the visibility of nonviolent Palestinian activists make it harder for them to justify seizing more power.
“We still believe in nonviolent resistance,” al-Hathalean reiterates. “But everyone is really stressed. Our future is dark. We don’t know what will happen.”
So what can we do? We can reach out to our elected federal representatives and demand investigations and sanctions. We can share the stories of Umm al-Khair and other villages in Area C with our congregations and Jewish organizations and ask that they raise their voices.
And, yes, that can feel horribly inadequate. But there have been victories. In 2017, a campaign led by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Diane Feinstein actually saved the West Bank Palestinian village of Susiya from a planned demolition. But, of course, since Oct. 7, Susiya has been threatened again. For every small victory, there is endless more work to be done.
Ultimately, we must convince the U.S. government to pull back its financing of Israel’s military and diplomatic cover for the country. The loss of unconditional U.S. support is perhaps the only catalyst that could spur Israel to genuinely seek a peaceful solution. And nothing else will do: only a political transformation that guarantees the safety, human rights and freedom of all the peoples of the land can make things right.
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