Umm al-Khair ( ar, أم الخير) is a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

village located in the

Hebron Governorate The Hebron Governorate ( ar, محافظة الخليل, Muḥāfaẓat al-Ḫalīl) is an administrative district of Palestine in the southern West Bank. The governorate's land area is and its population according to the Palestinian Central Bur ...

of the southern

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

. It is inhabited by five families, roughly 70 people.

David Dean Shulman David Dean Shulman (born January 13, 1949) is an Israeli Indologist, poet and peace activist, known for his work on the history of religion in South India, Indian poetics, Tamil Islam, Dravidian linguistics, and Carnatic music. Bilingual in H ...

, 'On Being Unfree:Fences, Roadblocks and the Iron Cage of Palestine,' Manoa Vol,20, No. 2, 2008, pp. 13-32

History

In 1883, the PEF's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after the ...

'' noted "piles of stones" at ''Rujm Umm Kheir.'' The Palestinian villagers settled there several decades ago, after Israel expelled them from the Arad desert, and purchased the land from residents in the Palestinian village of Yatta.Ilana Hammerman
'West Bank settlement is outdoing its neighboring Bedouin village,'

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...

11 November, 2011 In the wake of the

1948 War The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...

, and after the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. During the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

in 1967, Umm al-Khair came under

Israeli occupation Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...

. According to

David Shulman David Shulman (November 12, 1912 – October 30, 2004) was an American lexicographer and cryptographer. He contributed many early usages to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and is listed amon"Readers and contributors from collections" for the se ...

, the nearby settlement,

Carmel Carmel may refer to: * Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea * Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea * Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order Carmel may also ...

, lies on lands

confiscated Confiscation (from the Latin ''confiscatio'' "to consign to the ''fiscus'', i.e. transfer to the treasury") is a legal form of seizure by a government or other public authority. The word is also used, popularly, of spoliation under legal forms, o ...

from the Bedouin of that village. Umm_al-Kheir

Human rights activists and reporters have criticized the lack of amenities for the villagers while settlers nearby enjoy modern life. According to

Nicholas Kristof Nicholas Donabet Kristof (born April 27, 1959) is an American journalist and political commentator. A winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he is a regular CNN contributor and an op-ed columnist for ''The New York Times''. Born in Chicago, Kristof was ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' Carmel is :

'a lovely green oasis that looks like an American suburb. It has lush gardens, kids riding bikes and air-conditioned homes. It also has a gleaming, electrified poultry barn that it runs as a business.' Beyond its barbed wire fencing, the Bedouins of Umm al-Kheir in shanties are denied connection to the electricity grid, barns for their livestock and toilets, and all attempts to build permanent dwellings are demolished. Elad Orian, an Israeli human rights activist, noted that the chickens of Carmel's poultry farm get more electricity and water than the Palestinian Bedouin nearby.

Hammerman writes as follows: :

Right next to the stately country homes - complete with air-conditioning, drip-irrigation gardens and goldfish ponds - a few extended families including old men, old women and infants live in dwellings made of tin, cloth and plastic siding, though there are a few cinder-block structures, too. They tread on broken, barren ground. They have no running water. They are not connected to the power grid that lights up every settlement and outpost in this remote region. They have no access road.

David Dean Shulman has taken down the account of one of the villagers, a young man named ‘Id al-Hajalin, who after outlining their difficulties, showed two documents, a receipt for taxes he paid on his land, and another, an order from the Military Authorities to demolish his home. He commented:

“Why do they want to destroy my house? Where can I go? Can I go to America? I have nothing, and they want to take that nothing from me. Can you help me? Where am I supposed to go?”

Umm al-Khair was one of the main subjects of the 2016 book ''The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine'' by

Ben Ehrenreich Ben Ehrenreich (born 1972) is an American freelance journalist and novelist who lives in Los Angeles. Career Ehrenreich began working as a journalist in the alternative press in the late 1990s, publishing extensively in ''LA Weekly'' and ''The Vi ...

.Review: 'The Way to the Spring', by Ben Ehrenreich
by Steve Weinberg, June 10, 2016,

Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

Umm al-Khair is also the base community for th
Good Shepherd Collective
a grassroots organization resisting Israeli settler colonialism.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Articles
on

Ta'ayush Ta'ayush ( he, תעאיוש, ar, تعايش; lit. "coexistence" or "life in common") is a grassroots volunteer organization established in the fall of 2000 by a joint network of Palestinian People, Palestinians and Israelis to counter the nation ...

website
Al Faqir (Umm al Kheir) Village Profile

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ar, معهد الابحاث التطبيقية - القدس) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research project ...

(ARIJ)
The priorities and needs for development in Al Faqir (Umm al Kheir) village based on the community and local authorities' assessment
ARIJ *Survey of Western Palestine, map 21
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Hebron Governorate Villages in the West Bank Hebron Governorate Municipalities of the State of Palestine

History

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links