Yesterday night was spent in a Spartan bed swatting away mosquitoes under a tent that looked like the standard commission for a foreign aid agency in Africa. Not to complain, just setting the scene – after all, I was there by choice.

Where exactly was I? The Tent of Nations, a Palestinian-farm-turned-political-cause just south of Bethlehem. After going to my first Shabbat dinner in south Jerusalem the previous night, I met someone who told me about the place and invited me along. So the next day, after paying an obligatory visit to the tourist-loaded Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem we took a shared taxi southward, offloaded on the side of the road, and took a short hike to the farm which looks over the Palestinian village of Nahalin.

The farm, run by the Nassar family, has a rich and interesting history. It was started by the first Nassar in 1916, who made a home in one of the many caves dotting the property and began planting grapes on the land. Mr. Nassar was one of the few Palestinians to register his land with the ruling Ottoman Empire, which most other Palestinians at the time neglected to do to avoid paying taxes. This documentation proved invaluable a quarter-century later in 1991, when the family’s farm was in danger of being confiscated by the Israeli military. This was because the farm was now located in an inconvenient place for the Israelis — right between two settlements in the Gush Etzion Block.

Despite the irrefutable proof of his family’s ownership of the land, the legal battle over it has persisted for nearly two decades; to date the Nassar family has spent over $140,000 in legal fees. These Palestinians are difficult for Israel to handle — they have taken an explicitly non-violent stand (“We Will Not Be Enemies” is chiseled into a stone adjoining the front gate) and have strenuously jumped through all of the legal hoops that the Israeli court system has set up for them, leaving no weaknesses to exploit or excuses to utilize. Although Israel doesn’t have much regard for international law, it still wants to project the image of an enlightened and fair legal system within its own borders. After all, if Israelis themselves begin to doubt the moral fabric of the state, Israel is in big trouble.

The history of the farm was told over cups of sage tea by Daoud Nassar, the second-youngest of nine children and the tireless campaigner for his farm’s cause. He lives on the farm along with his mother and the volunteers that often come to stay and work on the land through the WWOOF program. As night fell the walled, uniformly built Israeli settlements around us seemed to have switched on every light possible, while we only had two hours of electricity provided by a generator. Because the farm is located in Area C of the West Bank, it is completely under Israeli control. So thus the Israelis have forbidden the Nassars any access to the electric or water grid as another tactic to try and force them out. They have even offered the Nassars a blank check for the property, which was refused. “The land to a Palestinian is like his mother,” Daoud explained. “I cannot sell my mother.”

Before long the generator switched off and we were in darkness; Daoud turned up the flame on a waiting kerosene lamp. Meanwhile the lights of the Jewish settlement of Neve Daniel burned steadily and brightly into the night. With that, I reflected on the judgments we often make of people through the circumstances they live in. For example, an American ignorant of the political situation surveys the landscape here and sees the sturdy-looking, brightly lit, smartly designed Israeli settlements. Perhaps a half mile away to the left is a Palestinian village much more dimly lit which looks simply like an accidental pile of buildings.

Sadly, I think it would be quite easy for this hypothetical American to take this as proof of the backwardness of the Arabs and the triumphant, enterprising nature of the Israelis. Perhaps a socialist would see the sign of inequality and oppression, but the capitalist would see the sign of laziness. Of course, both are taking guesses based on their political biases — both traits are possible. But how often do we make judgments without knowing the whole story? How many Israelis living in Neve Daniel even know that the Nassars spend most of their night in complete darkness not because they are backwards, stuck-in-their-ways peasants, but people consciously deprived of electricity by the government?

I left the farm inspired by the Nassars’ non-violent, non-confrontational approach to even the most naked oppression. Their kind of resistance makes sense at this stage in the conflict — after all, the Israelis have the most expensive, destructive toys that the military can buy, and judging by the ruinous state of the Gaza Strip, it’s obvious that they’re not afraid to use them. (When they heard the shelling of Gaza in the distance earlier this year, Daoud and his brother “put their frustrations to work” and built a new cistern.)

But I admit that if half my family were killed, if my home were destroyed, and newly homeless, I ended up at a squalid refugee camp…and if the perpetrators had the nerve to claim that they were the victims, and then the world actually believed them…it would be tempting to pick up a rifle.

* This article was originally published at Jeff’s blog HolyLandDispatches

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