Hope resides in the Spirit - reflections on a David Shulman lecture

By Julia Stone

“What time is it right now in Israel?” David asks. He’s sitting next to Rabbi Misha in the front of the room- father and son- clad in earthy winter flannels and sweaters. It’s a Monday night and the two men are staring out at a crowd of about 70 Jewish New Yorkers, anxious in our folding chairs, all of us looking for some kind of lifeline. When David starts to speak, he’s so gentle it’s like he’s having 70 private conversations at once. He is effortlessly intimate.

“It’s the middle of the night in Israel”, someone answers. You can see David’s chest cave in slightly. “The nights are the worst”, he whispers like a confession, “the nights are filled with terror.”

David lives in Jerusalem, but he’s one of a group of devoted Israeli activists who have been traveling to the occupied West Bank for some 20-odd years to protect Palestinians from increasingly violent Israeli settlers. The activists wake up before dawn, travel through checkpoints, and decamp for the night in Palestinian homes – their physical bodies serving as the last line of defense.

I googled David before I arrived at the talk, and it’s difficult not to be immediately impressed by him. Or should I say enamored. He’s a multi-lingual, multi-award-winning scholar and Indologist, and he’s also a poet- although I’m not sure which language he writes in. Somehow, in the early 2000’s, he found time to join the nascent grassroots volunteer organization - Ta’ayush - that’s long since been at work to “break down the walls of racism and segregation by constructing a true Arab-Jewish partnership.” It strikes me that David is many things inside of one human vessel.

***

Reporting about the October 7 Hamas attack and what’s happening in Gaza has dominated the Western media in the past two months, but the West Bank is also under attack. Right now, amidst the devastation and chaos of war, a segment of Israeli settlers has seized the moment to further its goal of eliminating Palestinians from the southernmost part of the West Bank- and they’re doing so with the tacit approval- and sometimes even direct support- of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The settlers launch their intrusions into the Palestinian homes at all hours, but they particularly favor the middle of the night. They know to strike in the darkness- when the cameras of the Israeli activists struggle to capture what’s happening in the shadows. When the Palestinian children are asleep. Aren’t we all the most vulnerable while dreaming?

But David lets us watch the sunrise with him as he begins his talk. He paints the sky over the Palestinian homes- golden, warm, the glow transforming throughout the day like onions turning to caramel. He describes a village of shepherds. These aren’t political extremists- these aren’t individuals affiliated with the various Palestinian terrorist groups that dominate the news headlines. These are people who plow the land. Their livelihoods depend on the fruits of the soil.

Under the Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided into three areas: A, B, and C – noncontiguous sections of land where an estimated 3 million Palestinians currently reside. David’s group of activists primarily focuses on advocating for Palestinians in Area C. “Let’s imagine a village”, he begins, “in the South Hebron Hills- the southernmost part of the occupied West Bank.”

The land here is inhabited by shepherds and small-scale farmers, or a combination of the two. David tells us that they are not nomadic people, but are firmly rooted and many of them have worked this very land “since time immemorial.” They are ordinary, peaceful human beings with an “almost-blank” security record. They live a “biblical lifestyle” in small hamlets, where their homes consist of 4-7 canvas tents, maybe a few metal shacks. As David speaks, it is increasingly clear that these people are a threat to no one.

It is ravishingly beautiful there, he tells us. There are sheep and goats and the hills are rocky and elevated and speckled with green, thorny shrubs against the backdrop of beige. In the spring there are wildflowers. There’s a vista and you can gaze out for miles as the land and the sky change color in tandem throughout the day-- wrapping-up in a blanket of deep purple blue. David tells us that the sight of the shepherds never ceases to move him.

***

About half a million Israelis currently live in the West Bank, which under international law is completely illegal. Under Israeli law, however, the older settlements are still regarded as legal. But the same can’t be said for the new outposts.

There are three primary types of Israeli settlements, and David outlines important distinctions among them. First, you have the “quality of life” settlements, built close to the 1967 border Green Line. The Israelis who live here don’t usually have a particular ideological attachment to the land, but instead typically settled there because it was cheap. Israelis could build a big villa there with the help of government subsidies, and most of them commute to the larger Israeli cities for work.

The residents of these settlements don’t tend to be violent, although some, like the settlers in Halamish in the hills north of Ramallah, have from the start having been “making life hell” for the Palestinian villagers of Nabi Saleh. These settlers constantly harass, attack, and steal land from the villagers, and they even took over the beautiful well that was a central site and vital component of life in Nabi Saleh. Three Israelis were also killed Halamish in a stabbing attack in 2017, which only increased the tensions.

The second type of settlements are the “veteran” settlements placed in the heart of the West Bank; these residents are ideologically committed. These are the Jews who believe they have a religious commandment to settle the land, and most of these settlements were established in the 1980’s and 90’s. The settlers who live there are virulent and impassioned, with the settlers of Itamar southeast of Nablus representing some of the most violent among them.  

The third type of settlements – and easily the most terrifying- are the “outposts.” David tells us that outposts are a relatively new tactic of the most radical settlers- and they’ve only been established over the past five or six years. But he estimates that there are already about 100 outposts.

The outposts are where the most aggressive settlers- often teenage boys- come to claim their turf. They bring with them sheep and goats and M16s. David describes these boys as frequently “deeply troubled, brainwashed teens” who have found a type of asylum within the settler movement. They embody a certain form of religiosity that isn’t unlike other religious extremist groups. And they are a perversion of every Jewish value that I hold dear.

Most importantly, perhaps, these outpost settlers are completely safe from any consequences of their actions. They think they’re going to bring the Messiah by clearing the land of any non-Jews, or more secular Jews like me, and they’re in favor of an apocalyptic war. To them, the Palestinian farmers and shepherds are the ones defiling the land.

***

And here’s where David begins to tell us about how, exactly, these settlers go about ridding the land of the Palestinians. It’s important to note several things about David- highlighted both by his son Misha and his daughter-in-law Erika who had gone with him on some of his protective missions into the West Bank.

David isn’t a person who complains much. He was born in the United States but he chose to move to Israel in 1967 after a self-proclaimed love affair with the Hebrew language-- but his life work has involved the study of Indian languages and cultures. He served in the IDF and raised his three sons in Israel, where they also served. David doesn’t consider himself to be on the far-left. He thinks that any moderate person would feel the way about the settlers that he does - if only they could see them in action, face-to-face.

David has regularly made the uncomfortable and dangerous journey to the southern edge of the West Bank for over 20 years. He’s no stranger to the area, and he has no reason to exaggerate or lie about anything that he’s about to tell us. Listening to him, you quickly understand that he sees this particular slice of land, with these particular inhabitants and intruders, with a sense of indisputable moral clarity.

It’s also clear that David understands the full gravity of his descriptions and language. He tells us about how his beloved grandmother, who lived in the Western Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv was subject to a devastating Cossack pogrom. He describes how his grandmother’s brother nearly escaped the violent onslaught by taking refuge in a pool of water nearby, but instead he drowned to death while hiding. David doesn’t take the word “pogrom” lightly.

And yet, that’s the word he uses to describe what some of the settlers are doing to the Palestinian villagers. David explains that he’s only going to share details from events that he’s seen with his own eyes. There’s too much disinformation and misinformation to believe almost anything else at this point. Bearing in-person witness to the violence is crucial.

The outpost settlers like to attack between midnight and 3am. They arrive in groups ranging from 3 to about 50, but typically there are around 20 of them. Every single one of them is armed. David mentions here that the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has been instrumental in ensuring that these settlers get plenty of M16s.

The settlers also carry pistols and butcher knives. Butcher knives. The attackers are sometimes young- about 16 or 17 years-old, but there are also older men in their twenties or thirties. They are rage-filled and destructive. David tells us that the settlers wear Israeli army uniforms- but they are not soldiers. They are pretend soldiers.

These teens are not trained to use weapons, but that doesn’t seem to faze Ben-Gvir. They go house to house and start shooting- sometimes into the air, but often aiming at sheep and goats- killing anything in their way. David tells us that he personally knows of about 10 people who have been murdered by settlers on these rampages over the last few weeks, but nothing ever happens to the killers. Israeli law has no purchase here.

And often the IDF soldiers actively support the settlers as they launch their midnight pogroms. The attackers “break anything that is break-able- doors, windows, cooking vessels…they might set fire to the house.” They are screaming curses and threats- “a mantra of threats.” They tell the Palestinian families that they “have 24 hours to leave” or else they will all be killed. Women, children, whoever.

If there’s any food in the homes, the settlers will throw it all out, maybe piss on it. Over the years, David’s group and other activists have helped the Palestinians secure water tanks on their property- essential infrastructure in such arid land. And the activists have worked to secure wind turbines and solar panels so that the Palestinians have electricity. But the settlers use these goods for target practice.

As they’re ransacking the locals, the outpost settlers shoot the turbines and solar panels and water tanks. They could be there from anywhere between half an hour to 3 hours, wreaking havoc upon the inhabitants. Sometimes these attacks will be coordinated with the IDF and other times the soldiers will just stand-by passively and watch it.

The Palestinians under attack are a far cry from the militant gunmen who invaded southern Israel. These Palestinians are not affiliated with terrorist groups. They have no weapons to defend themselves. They still use plows pulled by donkeys. If they can’t take care of the land, next year’s crop will be ruined. They won’t be able to survive.

David reminds us here that the entirety of the West Bank belongs to Palestinians- noting only one exception of the Etzion bloc- a bit of land purchased by Jews pre-1948. “Everything else is theirs”, he says. The settlements are built mainly upon so-called “state lands” meant to be kept in reserve for the Palestinian population; instead, they have been appropriated, through a legal ruse that the Israeli courts have accepted, for settling Jews on them, in clear contravention of international law.

Listening to him, you can tell that David is personally attached to many individuals that he’s come to know through his years in the West Bank. He doesn’t talk about Gaza- it’s too big, a live-wire, complicated by a different imbalance of power and grievances. Instead, he describes how some Israelis are at war in what are clearly the wrong places, adopting what are clearly immoral methods.

In the Southern Hebron Hills where he and the activists go to sleep, David uses his body as a shield. The Hebrew word “Magan” can mean a shield, a protector, or a source of peace in times of great trial.

David tells us about how the settlers and IDF soldiers take the plows that belong to the shepherds. Sometimes the soldiers even take the tractors. They confiscate the goods- knowing that they are essential to the Palestinians’ survival- and hold them in an army outpost somewhere. If the Palestinians or activists manage to track down the equipment, they are often charged 4-10 thousand shekels for their retrieval- an insurmountable amount for the shepherds and farmers.

These Palestinians are “living in terror”. They have zero rights and no recourse. They are frequently prohibited from accessing the land they own for their livestock to graze, and David tells us that with “lands in dispute” the Palestinians are at the mercy of a ruthless, bureaucratic machine.

***

Someone in the audience asks, “When the settlers launch their attacks and encounter you and your fellow activists, what do you do then?”

David answers that he speaks directly to the settlers who are attacking. He tells them that “what they are doing is illegal”- that the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that Israelis cannot prevent Palestinians from accessing their own grazing lands. He feels it’s his job to inform them of their transgression- and if they don’t absorb the meaning of it in the moment, that maybe at some time later what he says might resonate.

The activists have also learned to stream the violence on Facebook Live, so the video can be shared even if their recording devices get destroyed.

But the activists are committed to non-violence, so their only weapons are the unenforced Israeli law, live videos, and the presence of their bodies. David concedes that all of the activists have been brutally attacked over the years. And the risk to their own lives only seems to be increasing.

The settlers see the war in Gaza as their moment of opportunity. David tells us that the Palestinians are being constantly harassed, and over the past six months Palestinians have been expelled from over 16 villages – highlighting how many Palestinians were forced out of Ein Samia village earlier this spring. With all eyes on Gaza, who will stop these violent marauders who violate the most fundamental principles of decency and humanity?

It is clearly not right that activists like David need to take their own lives in their hands to protect people who should never be under attack in the first place. There are enough actual enemies in this neighborhood to fight. As David finishes up his talk, one of the audience members asks him what we can do- how do we help? David admits that in the crush of war, there’s not much anyone can do- that he’s only doing the most micro thing and even that he says is not enough.

But in a world of big ideas and grand deception, the micro actions take on even greater meaning. The personal interactions between his group and the Palestinians they attempt to protect. The talk delivered to 70 strangers who are suddenly closer because of the shared experience of listening.

Someone asks David if he is an optimist. He replies that he’s not really an optimist- an optimist would have to look at what’s happening and rationally say that it’s going to get better. He thinks it might get better, but he doesn’t know for sure. Instead, he says that he still has hope. “Hope resides in the spirit” he tells us.

***

I hesitate to write about Israel as an American Jew, and especially as there’s a war going on that I’m not fighting. I don’t agree with the policies of the Israeli government, or many governments for that matter. I despise extremism in any form- be it the zeal of violent Jewish religious settlers or the leadership of Hamas.

But if David is brave enough to put his life on the line to protect his neighbors, the least I can do is to share his teachings. If I cannot prevent injustice, at least I can help keep injustice visible.

Listening to David speak, I’m reminded of the shaken feeling I had when learning about the Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, who died at the hands of Hamas. Was she naïve to believe that the people she wanted to coexist with would also accept living side-by-side with her? Was her effort to befriend and support Palestinians all in vain?

And then I watched a clip of one of Vivian’s Palestinian friends, weeping on live TV. The news anchor was also weeping. What made Vivian a righteous woman has everything to do with her life and nothing to do with her death. Vivian might not have chosen how to be killed but she fully decided how to live.

Rabbi Misha wrote that his father, David, is perhaps most at peace right now while sleeping in the homes of Palestinians in the West Bank. Doing something, doing nothing. Existing there, side by side. His body, both a weapon of protest and a shield of justice. His spirit above them, preparing for a new dawn.

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