and they had nowhere to go. The nearby town, Lifna, had no place for them and they didn’t t in there: they were shepherds and farmers.
Apart from their di culties with the army, the cave dwel ers were continual y assaulted by the set lers. One cave dwel er had already been kil ed in a dispute over a stolen sheep.
Our caravan of cars was stopped twice by the army, but for less than an hour each time. But three kilometers before the path that would take us to the cave dwel ers, the army stopped us again, and this time they said we would have to turn back. The o cer in charge had a friendly, worried face and he peered at us apologetical y through his round metal-rimmed glasses. He wanted to let us through, he said, but the set lers from Elisha were blocking the road. “They’ve driven their cars onto the road, and they won’t let you through. You’l have to go back. I don’t want a mess here.”
We could see the set lement of Elisha in the distance, eighty or ninety suburban houses with triangular burgundy roofs arranged in sti clusters on a hil top. The houses looked out of place in this ancient landscape, like smal Monopoly pieces; houses without a past, without a future, suspended in a fantasy world their inhabitants claimed was God’s. Volvo’s family lived in a set lement like this one.
“We’re not going back, we have permits, we have blankets to deliver,” the main organizer said. He was a young man with oppy black hair. Beatrice knew him wel ; he taught in her department.
“Al right, I’l see what I can do,” the of icer in charge said. “Maybe we can get tow trucks to tow their cars away.”
We wandered along the road and waited. The rabbis who had come to pray with the Palestinians began to worry; they had to be home before sunset.
I sat with Ra by the side of the road. We waved at the Palestinians in the distance but we couldn’t see whether they were waving back.
They were too far away.
We waited for three hours. We were very hot, and nearly al of us had run out of water. Ra passed around the extra bot les he’d brought.
Some of the women had to pee, and they wandered away from the road in smal groups. There were no boulders or trees to hide behind, so they either took turns sheltering each other or else relied on the courtesy of averted eyes.
The rabbis had to leave; they wouldn’t be able to have a joint prayer session with the Muslims after al . I phoned Beatrice on my mobile phone and left a message. I told her we were delayed, and that I’d be too tired for a visit tonight.
Final y the army announced that the area had been declared a closed military zone. The lawyers argued that this was a government road: it couldn’t be declared a closed military zone. If there was no choice, they said, we would just disobey and start walking.
But the army was adamant. So everyone locked arms and we began to walk past the army trucks and police vehicles. The police had been cal ed in, just in case, and now they went to work. They were furious. They hit the marchers at the edge of the procession and pushed them to the ground. One o cer knocked down Farid, a heavy man in his fties, and knelt on his chest. A group of demonstrators pul ed him o Farid, and the of icer turned on them, but Farid was able to get back to his feet.
I lost sight of Ra for a moment; he’d gone to help Shadi, who had been dragged into one of the police vans. Then he came back into view. He was trying to enter the van too, but a police o cer pul ed him by the col ar, slammed him forward against the front hood of a police car, and twisted his arm behind him. With one hand the o cer held Ra ’s head down on the hood, with the other he twisted Ra ’s arm. I saw Ra ’s face contract with pain, but I couldn’t reach him, there were too many people between us. I couldn’t photograph him arm. I saw Ra ’s face contract with pain, but I couldn’t reach him, there were too many people between us. I couldn’t photograph him either, because a wave of nausea came over me, and I thought I would vomit. And then abruptly the violence ended. The army announced that they would al ow us to proceed through the mountains and bypass the people from Elisha. But Shadi would have to remain behind; he was under arrest.
Several demonstrators lay down on the ground around the police van in which Shadi was being held. As soon as the police dragged one person away, another moved in. Final y they agreed to release Shadi, though he was given a summons. He stepped out of the van, the summons in his hand, his thin red ka yeh wrapped stylishly around his neck. He was young and fearless, and his eyes glowed with amused pride. I took a photograph of him emerging from the van, and I wondered whether he was a heartbreaker.
I heard two o cers talking. Now that the struggle was over they were relaxed and gregarious. They didn’t care one way or another about the convoy. One of them shook his head and said, “Al this for some blankets … couldn’t they just mail them?”
We each took a blanket or bag of clothes, and we began climbing the hil . The ground was dot ed with flat white rocks that looked like the roofs of underground houses. Dark green bramble grew between the rocks, and the earth was hard and dry under our feet. The mountains stretched out on al sides; they looked resigned and mournful under the soft gold of dusk. A large area had been expropriated by the military and was cordoned o by barbed wire and spotlights. We had to walk four kilometers to circumnavigate the enclosure. A few soldiers accompanied us.
Rafi walked next to me. He wasn’t carrying a blanket. With his left hand he held his right arm against his midrif . We didn’t speak.
It took us nearly an hour to reach the other end of the restricted road. But some of the set ler children from Elisha, along with three or four men, had moved down the road in anticipation of our descent from the hil s, and they were there now, waiting for us. The women and most of the men had returned to the lit le hamlet with the burgundy roofs to prepare for the Friday night meal. In an hour the sun would set and they’d al be gone. But the Palestinians waiting for us couldn’t travel through the mountains at night. If we didn’t get there soon, they’d be forced to disperse.
A teenage girl wearing a long navy skirt and a loose white blouse held a sign that said, The Left is insane, support bin Laden.
“Why should I support bin Laden, I don’t understand,” a bald man standing next to me joked. He lit a cigaret e, cupping his hand around the flame.
Next to the girl stood a lit le boy with earlocks. He’d forgot en al about his sign; he was too busy staring at us as we came down from the hil s, and he seemed trans xed by our appearance. I felt he was drawn to us on some level, and I wondered whether he would dream about us tonight, two hundred Jews and a few Arab citizens, bare
