It’s getting colder, so I headed out to buy some wood for our fireplace from our Palestinian neighbors in the nearby village of Wadi Fukin, situated just a few kilometers west of Bethlehem. In this narrow valley agriculture is still practiced much as it has been since biblical times, with terraces and hand-dug water wells. The land here is fertile, my friend Shaadi once told me, and they live in harmony with the residents of the adjacent Orthodox Jewish settlement of Beitar Illit.
The local Palestinians benefit as much as anyone from the Promised Land flowing with “milk and honey.” The foreign media almost always portrays the situation in the so-called “West Bank” in a negative light, but in reality, agriculture here is flourishing. And what’s more, the Palestinians have Israel’s assistance to thank for it. (image) Palestinians and “settlers” at a memorial ceremony for Shaadi Mohammed Assad, who for years worked the vineyards of his Jewish neighbors. Shaadi’s widow (r.) with her husband’s Jewish employer (left).
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