Palestinian Walks
Forays into a Vanishing Landscape
6
An Imagined Sarha
Wadi Dalb
Much has happened since the walk described in the last chapter. My hope that I would find refuge in my stone house was dispelled in the spring of 2002, when the Israeli army invaded Ramallah, entered my home and broke the sense of sanctuary I had ascribed to it. The ostensible reason given by Israel for invading West Bank cities was to defend the country. Such was the power of ideology that in the eyes of most Israelis, "Israel" had come to mean "the Greater Land of Israel," including most of the settlements. In fact, maps used in Israeli schoolbooks had done away with the pre-1967 borders between Israel and the Occupied Territories. To defend their "country" also meant to defend the settlements in the Occupied Territories. In its decisions the Israeli High Court confirmed this. The settlers, it ruled, had a basic right to be protected by the state. The fact that they were on illegally acquired land made no difference.
When the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, formulated his ill-fated plan in 2006 to annex the Jewish s ... read full excerpt from: Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape ebook
