Making a difference in the Palestinian territories, one flock at a time

RIC BENJAMIN spends a day walking with a shepherd in the Jordan Valley to protect him from settler attack. 

Some people ask why we bother protesting. “Walking and chanting can’t change anything,” they say. 

Well, walking with a purpose can have power. I saw it when I joined Rabbis for Human Rights (RFHR) on a shepherd escort in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). 

The Bedouin walk their flocks in the morning before the heat of the day, so, I was picked up at 5am by Dani Brodsky, OPT organiser for RFHR, with two other volunteers.

This amazing organisation is out in the OPT on an almost daily basis walking with Bedouin shepherds and Palestinian farmers (mostly olive and almond growers) to protect them and their flocks or trees from settler violence, aimed at clearing them from their land. When trees are vandalised or burnt, RFHR organises groups to come and do planting days to replace them. 

Our job today was to be present, to simply walk silently among the sheep and provide a visible disincentive to the settlers to come and disrupt the shepherds. 

Shepherds from a Bedouin community near a settlement in the northern Jordan Valley have been harassed for months. A shepherd I’ll call Ibrahim showed us these photos of injuries he and his sheep have suffered.

Other times, the settlers have simply opened the taps of the water carriers so that there was no water available for the sheep. The settlers don’t come often, but the last time was only four days before I visited, so the shepherds were on high alert.