What is Freedom?

On the eve of Passover – holiday of freedom – I travelled to a place where freedom is for Jews only. It was in the afternoon, a moment before the beginning of the holiday. The settlers from the illegal outpost surrounded the old Palestinian village. To the west –  by homes that cling to the mountainside – was a settler boy with a herd of sheep.  To the north – next to the houses by the Wadi – were three adult settlers with a herd of camels. We stood in the narrow space, in between. We were two human rights activists with the villagers, who were standing as close as they could to the walls - watching.  Their eyes kept darting between the north and the west directions– wondering where the trouble would erupt.

That is the routine. That is the way it goes.

As the holiday is about to commence, the camel shepherds are moving between the houses, entering the yards. They turn on the faucets of the private water tanks so that the water goes to waste. This is a village where every drop of water is as precious as gold, given that the villagers are almost never allowed to access the spring that their village is named for.

The kids are scared and are being chased into the houses. The local shepherds are blocked from taking their flock out to graze on the land. Frightened eyes peek through cracks. Goats and sheep are led back to their pens. This is yet another day where they cannot take the herds to graze and must feed the animals the expensive bagged food they had to buy. The villagers know that if they persist in trying to take the flock out and a confrontation evolves, they, the ones whose village is invaded and whose belongings are ransacked and looted, would be the ones that will be arrested.

That is the routine. That is the way it goes.

We call the Jordan valley army headquarters three times. We are told “Send location…Send a photo.” An hour passes and then another. The minor with the sheep has moved on, so we can stop monitoring the area to the west… a relief. Yet, the camel herders to the west have grown in number – there are now four of them. They are situated right next to us. They threaten, they get even closer. They surround us and invade our personal space. One of them even raises his hand to touch us.

Two hours after the incident started, a military pickup truck finally arrived. The main settler guy and the female soldiers are hugging each other “How are you, homie?” I intervene and say, “But hey, madam solider, we have photos to show how they have trespassed into the village.” She looks at the photos with little interest. “Ah.” she says – "let’s close out this incident, it’s holiday eve, please do me a favor.” and the settlers oblige and move away. Finally.

Just another day. holiday or not – who cares?

That is the routine of this little village… harassment, scare tactics, destruction and theft of property.  Physical violence targets the villagers and does not spare the Israeli activists. The goal is to push the villagers off their land – achieve ethnic cleansing… It all takes place under the protection of the army.  The soldiers treat the settlers as their “homies.,” when they feel like it, they send them off with supportive hugs.  Other times when they don’t feel like it, they just don’t show up.

An hour later, on the way home to Israel, a full moon rises over the Jordan valley. In their homes, Jews are raising a cup of wine to freedom. Some of them mention (and justly so) the freedom robbed of 59 men and women that were forsaken by their state and subjected to endless suffering and death by the hands of the cruel enemy. However, only a few of them understand that the only freedom we still have is the freedom to shed off all our humanity and all moral rules... The freedom to deprive the freedom of others… The freedom to seal our hearts and persecute millions of people.

Tel Aviv. Late evening. I turn off the engine and open the car door. The sound of an airplane returns me, at once, to the other horrific facet of current reality. The ultimate deprivation of freedom - tens of thousands of human beings, including more than 17,400 children whose most basic freedom, the right to life, was taken away.  Hundreds of thousands of others are being deprived of their freedom to eat, drink, sleep, have a roof over their head, love and be loved.

Enough!