Settling Them Down

Truth may walk through the world unarmed.

~ Bedouin Proverb

This tiny land, this "Land Between" as it is often called, occupies a space not quite the stature of New Jersey at the intersection of continents.  Yet despite its size, Israel/Palestine packs a lot into a small package.  While the Israelis and Palestinians capture the headlines of the BBC and Al Jazeera, there is another group struggling to maintain a presence between the giants of international appeal.  These nomads and shepherds, bedouin as they are better known, roam the hills and wadis of even the harshest areas of the Judean wilderness.  Their herds of sheep and goats graze on dust and rock, straining to draw from the barren, forsaken earth the only drop of moisture it possesses, legacy of an inch of winter rains long forgotten.

Yet these miracle workers and the art they have mastered never fail to tame the land for which we can only imagine death and dispair.  Their knowledge of geography and geology bring life out of the dust to their flocks, like one who lowers her bucket and conjures water from a dry well.  The words of the psalmist come to mind when he says "he makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters."  These words of David speak not to a land of obvious bounty and bliss, but of barreness and bereavement.  And yet he understood that God supplies in the midst of the wilderness.  The bedouin are intimately aware of the delicate balance between provision and poverty; they, better than anyone, are masters of the dance with wilderness.

It is with this image that the irony of reality creeps into view.  Today the bedouin find themselves the targets of a modern effort to obtain stability and control in the region.  Despite their long presence in the land (and in reality their lifestyle speaks more to the history here than the adjacent industrialization), the authorities make continued attempts at settling down these restless people.  As tents turn to shacks and eventually to shantytowns, the freedom of the bedouin to roam the barren landscape begins to fade.  This subtle restructuring of their lifestyle may lead to the disappearance of a piece of the mosaic that makes this land so beautiful and complicated.

Must this be so?  Must the clash of civilizations find no boundary, even the harshest corners of this earth?  Will we leave no room for the cultures of our forefathers of old, instead choosing to, as the metaphor goes, fit square pegs into round holes?  This battle of old against new, wild against tamed has pitted the weak against the strong.  How can the bedouin hope to compete with the needs of their neighbors who, after engaging each other, have little time left for these nomads?  Although the bedouin believe that "truth may walk through the world unarmed," they themselves may need creativity and appreciation from the outside world if they wish to continue walking with it.