Sheep on dry land

For my last day in Palestine/Israel, I decided to sign up for a tour of the Jordan Valley organized by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD: http://www.icahd.org/). The Jordan Valley is under settlement attack, the land is being taken over, greenhouse by greenhouse, date grove by date grove: the Jordan Valley is the richest "area of Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Israel has extensively targetted the region for Israeli settlement allowing it to divert the local resources from Palestinian use as well as creating a defensive 'buffer zone' between Israel and Jordan."

See article on Jordan Valley Solidarity page: http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=301%3Aisrael-plans-to-double-settlement-area-in-jordan-valley&Itemid=/6/.

This is not a covert operation: at the beginning of July, Israel officially announced that it would double the size of its settlements in the Valley, raising significantly its use of natural resources proportionally to its agricultural production in the region. Water is probably the main problem! Since we are in the desert, there is already not enough water; additionally, settlements are diverting every single source of water to its various cultures. Palestinian farmers are left with very little to no water to tend their fields. Visually, the contrast is striking: on one side, a green Israeli settlement, on the other, brown and dusty Palestinian land that cannot be cultivated.

When we leave, I see a herd of sheep grazing on dirt and I am naively asking myself, "what are they eating?" When I picture sheep, I picture New Zealand or Ireland, a very lush landscape; here, in this dry land, they seem displaced, lost. And yet, here, what is unnatural is the green side of the landscape.