Umm Jamal – Mother of Beauty

In which we witness the death of a Bedouin village in the West Bank. August 2024.

It is afternoon and we are driving through the northern Jordan Valley of the Occupied West Bank—a land for sheep, cow, and camel herders. There is an understated allure to the rolling hills; the undulating, exposed earth; and the small springs of water which are marked by little bursts of green in the brown landscape. 

This is Bedouin country. At least it used to be.

For some, this dystopian terrain must bring triumphalist gloating. The remains of recently depopulated Bedouin villages are evident; traces of homes and animal pens still visible, even as Israeli flags cover partially destroyed buildings. Some of the barren hilltops have an Israeli flag planted on top, as though claiming ownership of the moon.

Road signs indicating directions to nearby villages are spray painted with blue stars of David, Arabic names crossed out with the same paint.

I quietly snap photos through the window of our minibus. It feels like we are driving through a crime scene: crimes which are openly committed, and yet still somehow, remain in secret.  I say “secret,” because so few seem to be paying attention to what is happening here.  Because the genocide in Gaza dwarfs the land grabs, pogroms, and settler/army violence in the West Bank. Because it is always like this in the West Bank, although since Oct 7, there is much more of it.

The Checkpoint

We had not planned to visit Umm Jamal today.  Our original plans were to visit the family of Layan Nasir in Ramallah, a young Palestinian Anglican woman who has been under indefinite detention in an Israel prison since early April. (As of this writing in mid-November, she is still imprisoned). But this morning, while in Nablus, we were informed that a little village named Umm Jamal was in the midst of packing up, forced out by militant settlers.  It will be tight for our schedule, but our group decides to visit Umm Jamal on the way to Ramallah. If we are careful with our time, we should just be able to do both.

While descending in elevation on the Palestinian road between Nablus and Ramallah, we pass a creek running through the valley. There are many greenhouses in this area. The traffic slows: there is a checkpoint ahead. We come to a full stop. Judging from the lack of movement, we could be at this checkpoint for several hours.

Omar Haramy, our guide, decides to go outside and try to talk to the soldiers. I join him, and so do a handful of others. We weave our way through the cars, under the hot sun, towards the checkpoint. A soldier motions for us to leave.

Omar cups his hands around his mouth and shouts:  I want to talk to you. The soldiers continued to wave us away, but we don’t move.

How long is the wait? Omar wants to know if we should continue or turn around. The soldiers do not answer.

Everywhere we go, Omar disrupts the status quo in the gentlest way possible.  He tries to engage the soldiers, respectfully challenging them. The way he carries himself through this dysfunction emboldens me. 

I yell out: We just wanna know how long the wait is!

My voice is so female, so American. The soldiers respond this time, asking if we have Israeli license plates. We do. They motion for us to drive to the front of the line, where we are directed to move to the right and park our minibus. Ten minutes later, a soldier comes to the window and confiscates our passports. We see him from a distance, taking photos of each passport with his cellphone, no doubt sending our information off to a headquarters somewhere. We are stuck at the checkpoint now, with no possibility of turning around or modifying our plans.

The line behind us stretches and disappears behind a curve in the road. There is little movement. Every once in a while, one car passes through the checkpoint and the line inches forward.

While we wait, I observe Palestinian men outside, waiting for the soldiers to check them. They stand in a row, passing a cigarette back and forth. A soldier finally arrives. The men lift their shirts, as directed. They pass inspection and return to their cars.

Palestinian men waiting to be checked

While waiting, we try to find songs that everyone knows. We sing a Taize song. We sing Down to the River to Pray. We sing Ain’t Gonna let Nobody Turn me Around. We sing Down by the Riverside.

Almost an hour passes and Omar informs us that we will have to cancel our meeting with Layaan’s family. We are disappointed. Our remaining goal for the day is now simply to make it to Umm Jamal before the village is gone.

I ask Omar if he can ask the soldiers what someone should do when they need to use the bathroom. I don’t have to pee, but it wouldn’t hurt to relieve myself and know others feel the same way. When a soldier comes near our vehicle, Omar asks about restrooms. We need to know how much longer the wait will be. We have elderly Americans here. The soldier suggests that we go the old-fashioned way—by the side of the road, on the ground. We refuse—there’s no privacy. Nevertheless, this tactic seems to move them into action, because shortly thereafter, they return our passports.

We breathe a sigh of relief as we head down the road, turning left towards Umm Jamal. Towards the living crime scenes that would soon be visible through the windows of our minibus.

Umm Jamal

In the Islamic tradition, Jamal is associated with one of the beautiful attributes of Allah, meaning beauty or perfection.  Jamal is also the word for camel, one of the most honored animals in the Middle East—a symbol of strength, patience, and endurance. In Arabic, parents are lovingly referred to as Umm or Abu—followed by the name of their firstborn son (or daughter if they have no sons). Was Umm Jamal the wife of the village’s founder?  Perhaps his mother?  Or is the name indicative that the village is itself a mother, a shelter of strength, patience, and endurance for the community, a place to rest in the beauty of God?

Resident of Umm Jamal driving the livestock away from the village

We find the exit to Umm Jamal and pull over by the side of the road, noting a group of Bedouin men on horses driving a herd of cattle into the distance. Our bus driver chats with them. They are from Umm Jamal. They are in the process of moving.

We exit the bus. Some of our group, including a few Palestinians, decide to stay in the minibus rather than walk out to Umm Jamal. They don’t think their knees can handle the walk. Or else they are frightened of the settlers. Israeli settlers are driving ATV’s loudly up and down the hills. 

Settler revving his engines around the village of Umm Jamal

Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, wrote of settler violence in this area earlier this year:

The violence includes speeding erratically directly into Palestinian flocks and herds on ATVs or horseback, running over livestock, grazing settler livestock in cultivated Palestinian fields and damaging crops, setting dogs on Palestinian residents, raiding communities by night, stealing livestock, vandalizing property, setting property on fire, physically assaulting Palestinian residents and Israeli protective presence activists and repeatedly threatening community members not to go out to pasture. The Israel Police largely refrains from investigating these incidents, and when Palestinians or Israeli activists file complaints with the police, they often find themselves interrogated as suspects.

We begin to make our way down a dirt road towards the half-disappeared Mother of Beauty.

The path to Umm Jamal

Umm Jamal is a collection of empty houses built of corrugated sheet metal, and painted pale green. It was once home to about 78 people.  The central “yard” is covered with tarps on the ground, hoses, water tanks, and many other objects in disarray. Trucks come and go, carrying away the village’s possessions one load at a time.

We are greeted by community leader, Abu Hamad and several other men from the village, who sit on bedsprings as they share their story with us. 

“Please excuse us for sitting,” says Abu Hamad. “We are very tired. We sent the women and children away yesterday.  It is only us men here, packing up the rest of our possessions. We were attacked by settlers at 8 PM last night, and again at midnight. They do this every night. We have not slept for three days.”

With Omar translating, he detailed more of their story of settler harassment, which always existed, but over the past week was made unbearable. 

“There is a new settler outpost nearby.  They just moved in. They are very aggressive. Our existence has become a nightmare. They will not allow us to access our spring of water.  They demolished some of our buildings. They shout threats and throw stones at us while we are working. They stole our agricultural vehicles and some of our livestock. Then, they began breaking into our homes during the night, while our children are sleeping. They have no respect! They even opened our windows and looked in to see people in the shower. My mother is 84 years old and left here yesterday, crying. Today, she is still crying. Our children are throwing up from fear. We had to take one to the hospital because of dehydration from vomiting. I don’t mind if a settler comes to hit me, but if he’s coming to hit and terrorize my children, I cannot allow it. The Israeli soldiers are with the settlers. We have no one to protect us. We are living in a horror movie. We have no one except God.”

The men sip tea and continue their conversation.  A woman emerges from one of the houses. Her name is Nurit, an Israeli. She tells me that she’s been coming to this area for the past year, to be a protective presence in these communities.  “Even after October 7, I continued coming. I see what is going on here and I will not be complacent. My advice to you: go back to your government and tell them to change their policies. They are enabling this.”

Nurit

An army jeep drives up.  The soldier tells our group that we must leave. Omar talks to him. Nurit joins in, speaking loudly in Hebrew to the soldier.  He wants to know why we are here.  Nurit and Omar explain that this community is under attack, and we are here to help, not hurt anyone. We want peace. We care about humanity.

The soldier insists that we must go. He says this area is now a military zone.

In the distance, we can see settlers circling, waiting for us to leave.

Nurit tells me that she and other activists get beat up every few days by Israeli settlers—and sometimes by Palestinians who think they are spies. This work takes patience, energy, commitment, and logic, she tells me. 

Packing up. Photo by Paul Jeffress, on our delegation

The men get back to work, stopping to pray at the appointed hour, their foreheads to the earth. 

Our group convenes. What should we do?  Should we practice civil disobedience and risk arrest? How can we abandon the men of Umm Jamal, after drawing more attention to them by our presence? What is the best way we can help?

After mulling our options, we decide that the smartest thing we can probably do is follow Nurit’s advice. We will go back to our hotel in Jerusalem and contact our government. Tonight. We will tell them that it is an emergency.  We will demand protection for the men of Umm Jamal and accountability for the settlers. This is the only thing that gives us solace.  We are not abandoning the men—we are going to use our privilege as US citizens, in their behalf.

Umm Jamal had several little fruit trees like this planted around the houses

We make our way back to the place where the bus dropped us off. A settler drives by on his ATV, middle finger extended in our direction. He looks like a teenager. He probably is.

When we arrive at our drop-off location the bus is no longer there.  Omar calls the driver, who tells him that they were forced to leave because some of the settlers started threatening them, driving in circles around the minibus.  “When we pulled out, they followed us, chasing us down the road” he told Omar.  “We had to drive quite far to be rid of them.  We will come get you as soon as we can.”

Waiting for the minibus to circle back and pick us up as clouds of dust roll along the highway.  .

Fifteen minutes later, the minibus appears, those inside it trembling and anxious. We head back to Jerusalem, through the same dystopian landscape—spray painted road signs, traces of ethnically cleansed villages covered in Israeli flags.  One of the settlements boasts a giant menorah, big enough to see from the highway.

It hurts my heart to see sacred symbols of Judaism used in this way.  It reminds me of the degradation of Crusaders, who clothed themselves in a cross while killing everything that lived in Jerusalem.

How it ended

Oc course, this story is not ended. 

As soon as we get back to our hotel, we meet in the dining room and begin writing letters to the US state department, the US embassy in Jerusalem, and other representatives. We ask for sanctions against such settlers. We note that Hamas has nothing to do with these events, that there is no justification for them. We strategize.  We pick at our food. We stay up till midnight.  We fall asleep, exhausted.

The next morning, we hear good news.  The men of Umm Jamal slept through the night without attack. Was this due to our advocacy?  We don’t know for sure, but we can hope.

I google for more information on this little community. I discover that the residents were forced out of Beersheba in1948 and were later forcibly displaced from several other locations, before they settled here three decades ago, determined to make it their long-term home.B’Tselem has chronicled the events at Umm Jamal for some time. Here is an article from 2014 when many buildings in Umm Jamal were demolished by the army—back when some of the young men that we met today were just children.

Prior to the arrival of the violent settler outpost, here are a few recent events:

On Wednesday, 17 January 2024..Israeli soldiers arrived at the community of Um al-Jamal… detained a local resident in his car and then confiscated the car, claiming it had been taken into Firing Zone 900. The soldiers ordered the man to drive the car to a military base near the community of Kh. Samrah, where they held him for five hours.

And here:

On Thursday, 15 June 2023…Civil Administration and Jordan Valley settlement regional council personnel arrived with a military escort and a bulldozer at the community of Um al-Jamal in the northern Jordan Valley. The forces dismantled and confiscated four dwellings donated to the residents by a humanitarian organization, as well as sunshades belonging to four other families. 

The diary of events for Umm Jamal goes on for years like this: demolitions, confiscations, harassment. It is the story of every similar hamlet and small community in Area C of the West Bank, the stories beneath the stories in every Palestinian experience.

Young men of the village. What have they seen in their lifetimes?

The people of Umm Jamal have relocated to Tayaseer, a small community in the northern Jordan Valley. 

I discover, unsurprisingly, that Tayaseer has its own troubles with the army and settlers.  In this recent article schoolchildren from Tayaseer are enduring chronic violence, fear and intimidation from the Israel army, due to a new military firing zone outside the school.

The expansion of these military zones is one method the state of Israel uses to confiscate land in the Occupied West Bank.  Shortly after the residents of Umm Jamal relocated to Tayaseer, the Israeli army seized a large chunk of land to expand their military zone: 732,719 dunams of land from the villages of Bardala and Tayaseer—over 181,000 acres. That was in September.

An article from October 2024, mentions long waits at the checkpoints allowing villagers in and out of Tayaseer.  And here’s another from early September.  Such articles about Tayaseer checkpoints go back for years—a line of articles almost as long as the line of cars waiting to enter and exit the village.

I wonder how Abu Hamad and the others from Umm Jamal are doing in their new home? How are the children doing in school? Are they still experiencing trauma?Where are they grazing their animals? How are they getting in and out of town? 

In all my time in the West Bank, this was my first personal experience of the expulsion of a community by militant settlers.  It is not something I will ever forget. The Mother of Beauty is now just a memory.  But I am a person of faith, and so I try to imagine what it will look like to see beauty’s resurrection in place of all this ugliness.

But the deeper questions remain: How long before Tayaseer and the surrounding villages are also ethnically cleansed?  Where will the residents go then?

Notes:

Here’s an article about the ethnic cleansing of Umm Jamal, with photos of some of the settlers—no doubt some of the ones that our group encountered at a distance. Umm Jamal is one of many Palestinian villages in the Jordan Valley depopulated since Oct 7. The forced depopulation of Palestinian villages and settler terrorism continues to this writing and shows no sign of abating, especially with the expected annexation of the West Bank under the upcoming term of President Trump.