By Verónica Snoj
Ras ‘Ein al ‘Auja, West Bank, July 4 (EFE).- Ben Zion Eshel, a 61-year-old Israeli Jew, stands out in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Ras ‘Ein al ‘Auja in the West Bank thanks to his colorful hat and glasses.
Although he spent his adolescence in an Israeli settlement—communities built in the West Bank that receive support from Israel but are considered illegal by the international community—he now devotes his life to protecting Palestinians from the violence of surrounding settlers, alongside other volunteers.
Ben and the other activists stand guard and sleep on alert for the possible arrival of settlers from a large tent furnished with mattresses and a small kitchen next to the desert village north of Jericho, he explains to EFE.
A life of reflection and change
In the 1980s, Ben moved with his parents from a town south of Tel Aviv to Kedumim, one of the most radical settlements in the West Bank, home to Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Daniela Weiss, a far-right activist who promotes the expansion of settlements citing nationalist and religious reasons.
Ben recalls that Weiss was friends with his parents: “I never liked her, even when I was a real extreme settler. I didn’t like her. She wasn’t my style,” he recalls.
In his youth, Ben believed that by moving to the West Bank, he “returned to his land” and had the right to be there. He never considered how his presence might negatively affect others.
Now, Ben criticizes the ideology of today’s settlers, particularly those near the village he is protecting.
“Their only purpose is to empty Ras ‘Ein al ‘Auja, to make life so impossible for the Palestinians that they have to leave for Areas A and B,” he says.
The 1995 Oslo II Accord established the administrative division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C. Area A is administered by the Palestinian Authority, Area C by Israel, and Area B under joint control.
The divisions were intended to be temporary, with the Palestinian Authority gradually assuming full jurisdiction, which did not happen. “When I was a teenager, Areas A, B, and C did not exist,” Ben recalls.
At 18, Ben enrolled in an ultra-nationalist yeshiva, a religious school, in a settlement near Hebron in the southern West Bank. However, he soon became uncomfortable with the environment.
“They were very indoctrinated. I felt I was losing my personality,” he recalls.
After a year and a half, he decided to continue his education at a yeshiva affiliated with the Israeli army near Bethlehem. This program combines religious studies with military service.
It was there that he learned an acquaintance from his first yeshiva had shot Palestinian workers returning home from work in Israel.
“I heard that a friend of my friends from Joseph Town took a gun and shot workers, laborers coming back from Israel. Palestinians coming back to the West Bank, he shot people who just went to bring food to their families.”
“This made me change my mind… I said something is not well.” Ben added.
Within a few months, his ideas began to shift. However, for 30 years, he kept his political opinions to himself.
“I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying what I thought,” he recalled.
Saving the world, one step at a time
A second major change came during the pandemic when he read the novel And the Mountains Echoed by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini.
“I realized that it doesn’t matter how fair you are, whether you’re a good person or a bad person, what really matters is whether you act or remain passive in the face of reality,” Ben reflects.
When he closed the book, he felt like going to Afghanistan to “save the world,” but he soon realized that his fight was closer to home.
Since then, along with other volunteers—many of them Israeli—Ben has been protecting Palestinians, escorting them to prevent attacks by settlers and documenting abuses.
Constantly, day and night, settlers enter the village to terrorize its inhabitants, steal livestock, and cut off the water supply, Ben explains.
“We stay here (in the village) trying to help, even though we often fail,” he says with a bitter smile, in the shade of the midday sun, ready to act if the settlers invade the village and its resources.
Of course, his reflection is still linked to faith, albeit with a different approach. “God commands us to remember how we (the Jews) were treated in Egypt. But we should also remember how Jews were treated in Europe before the Holocaust,” he adds.
“The life of Jews between the two world wars is very similar to that of Palestinians now,” he says. “But now we are not on the side of those who suffer. We are on the side of those who do not let others live,” he adds.
“This is something that really drives me crazy. I cannot shut up (…) I know it may seem crazy, but there are times when you can’t act sanely. You can’t be normal when something like this happens.” EFE
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