This is Nkheila.
Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to join a short visit organized by the New Israel Fund (NIF) and Rabbis for Human Rights to Nkheila.
This outpost of a few Palestinian Bedouin families is only about 15 kilometers (less than 10 miles) from Jerusalem—it’s literally on the other side of the Mount of Olives:
However, legally, Nkheila is a world away from Jerusalem.
From 1950-1967, this was Jordan. Since the Six Day War in 1967, Israel militarily controls this area but never annexed it. And since 1995 and the Oslo Accords, Nkheila falls in Area C—the part of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli civil and security control and in which Israel has built 146 officially recognized Israeli towns or settlements (i.e., we won’t annex this territory, but we’ll build it up for our citizens).
I was hesitant to join the day because, in my experience, these kinds of organized trips in the West Bank usually push a narrative that not only aligns with their specific goals in the area (whether they be aiding Palestinians in disputes and clashes with Israelis or supporting Israeli Jewish outposts) but also one that shapes the discourse around the reality with a carefully curated language and set of emotions, from which any deviance is rarely tolerated.
One of my biggest frustrations about the endless shitshow in the West Bank is the lack of real, objective journalism rooted in a deep understanding of the complex historical, bureaucratic and ideological realities about what’s actually happening, as well as the inability to go and see for oneself without being guided by a specific group with a political agenda.
Neither “Jewish supremacist terrorists, backed by the racist right-wing government, tried to ethnically cleanse another indigenous Palestinian village today” nor “Arab terrorist neutralized this afternoon after committing terror attack on Jewish boys hiking as army unable to protect Jewish civilians” is ever really the full story.
However, I’m grateful that I joined and had the opportunity to look through yet another window into this beautiful and impossible land.
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