I get regular updates from the villagers group. Please let me know if you wish to be added to the list. I am lucky enough to consider the amazingly strong Erella a friend of mine. If you want to find out more about the Villagers Group give me a shout. I still shocked by the daily acts of nastiness / evil / aggression that Palestinians are subjected to by Zionist settlers - this is officially not anywhere near the 'war' (read genocide)-area. Maybe it's a good sign that I am still shocked. Maybe I'm just naïve to still have hope for anything different... Becs ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: The Villages Group <villagesgroup1(a)gmail.com> Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2024 at 10:50 Subject: Erella\ Report from Last Week's Visits To: Ehud Krinis <ksehud(a)gmail.com> Dear friends, Again, I sit in front of the empty computer screen, and have a hard time deciding what to tell you now. Every hour, every day, difficulties and crimes pile up even in the south Mt. Hebron, and there is no justice, no pay, we cannot even help, not to mention rescue. Since the present war broke out, our permanent aid (helping with studies and professional courses) has been augmented with existential needs of a population now denied the possibility of making a living. We can still bring them pampers and milk powder for babies, basic food for families, medication and the like - thanks to your donations, dear friends! - but we cannot affect the trampling, power mongering settlers and the government’s policy (army, police, Civil Administration). These now multiply basic needs and our abilities diminish. Sometimes I think that even Sisyphus would give up… What we do unconditionally is maintain discourse in which our friends, and we, might find a source of strength. Early this week we visited our friends in Taban. A. said that for a few days, settlers did not bring their flocks to graze in Taban’s farmland. “And now on Saturday again they came,” he continued. “Their large flock dined on the barley we had sown in our fields and which had just begun to sprout.” A familiar pain between smarting insult and helplessness took over the room. Into this silence, I said: “You are brave people.” They asked me why I say this, and I answered it was because they manage to control themselves and not take revenge. I googled and found the poem “Revenge” by Taha Muhammad Ali, and asked young F. to read it aloud in Arabic for those present: At times … I wish I could meet in a duel the man who killed my father and razed our home, expelling me into a narrow country. And if he killed me, I’d rest at last, and if I were ready— I would take my revenge! * But if it came to light, when my rival appeared, that he had a mother waiting for him, or a father who’d put his right hand over the heart’s place in his chest whenever his son was late even by just a quarter-hour for a meeting they’d set— then I would not kill him, even if I could. * Likewise … I would not murder him if it were soon made clear that he had a brother or sisters who loved him and constantly longed to see him. Or if he had a wife to greet him and children who couldn’t bear his absence and whom his gifts would thrill. Or if he had friends or companions, neighbors he knew or allies from prison or a hospital room, or classmates from his school … asking about him and sending him regards. * But if he turned out to be on his own— cut off like a branch from a tree— without a mother or father, with neither a brother nor sister, wifeless, without a child, and without kin or neighbors or friends, colleagues or companions, then I’d add not a thing to his pain within that aloneness— not the torment of death, and not the sorrow of passing away. Instead I’d be content to ignore him when I passed him by on the street—as I convinced myself that paying him no attention in itself was a kind of revenge. *Nazareth* *April 15, 2006* *Translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi and Gabriel Levin* After this there were no more questions. Only the head nods, agreeing. Later in the week we visited A. in the outskirts of Susya. Settlers of Susya settlement and its satellites have now been harassing A. and his aging parents daily (I wrote about him in past reports). Last Saturday, February 3, 2024, work began, paving a track through his own farmland, the same land the settlers have prevented him from tending since the outbreak of the current war. They just brought a bulldozer and began works. They work at night. As usual, there is no justice. No one to turn to. We sat in the morning sun with A. and his father, next to what would be a house when A. would be able to afford completing its construction. We saw the injustice with our own eyes. So much sadness was in their eyes, and no rage. I heard myself telling A. what I had already said in Taban this week, and for the second time this week I was asked why I said this. I told A. the Taban story and gave him the same poem, printed out. When he was done reading, he said: “We don’t think about revenge. We think about ways to stay on our land. We would gladly live in peace with our neighbors. But they do not want this.” A’ speaks very little, if ever. I never heard him utter so many words at once. Every word is golden and when I write them, they are etched in my heart. I send them to you with much love. Erella On behalf of the Villages Group -- https://villagesgroup.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/villagesgroup/