Water in the Desert

Driving east from Jerusalem into the desert on the eastern side of Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives is easy, unless you are a Palestinian with a West Bank ID. As I was part of a group that included a West Bank family and two van drivers with West Bank IDs, we began our vehicular trek to Jericho by taking a bus from Jerusalem to the Israeli army checkpoint on the north side of Bethlehem. We walked through the checkpoint, and then met our Palestinian friends on the other side.

Then we drove from inside the Separation Barrier to the main road that goes east to the Jordan Valley. This route requires winding around on the back side of Mount Scopus along old highway 398. We passed all kinds of open shops and also the walled Theodosius Monastery, and drove through the congested Jerusalem suburbs of Abu Dis and Al-Azariya, before coming to Ma’aleh Adumim, which is visible from the top of Mount Scopus.

This massive settlement of 30,000 Jews has been in the news lately, because the Israeli government is committed not only to expanding it, but also to building a large settlement on the land between the communities of Abu Dis and Al-Azariya and Ma’aleh Adumim. Constructing a Jewish settlement in this area (known as E1) would connect Ma’aleh Adumim to metropolitan Jerusalem, and the borders of the municipality would be expanded by the Israeli government to bring its jurisdiction eastward to the Judean desert that overlooks the Jordan River.

The American government has demanded that the Israeli government not built in the area west of Ma’aleh Adumim, because doing so would make a continuous state of Palestine impossible. Moreover, settlement construction violates the commitments made to the Road Map, for the expropriation of Palestinian land by the Israeli government poses the most serious threat to a negotiated peace settlement between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

If you think only of the short commute into Jerusalem through a tunnel under Mount Scopus, it would seem that Ma’aleh Adumim is simply a walled suburb of Jerusalem. But if you are thinking of Palestine as a contiguous state, then Ma’aleh Adumim represents a major barrier to the realization of that goal. As we passed the entrance to Ma’aleh Adumim, we saw that an old olive tree had been transplanted into a small garden in front of the settlement. And we could also see the green trees and shrubs of the settlement, for the lush environment is in stark contrast to the desert that surrounds Ma’aleh Adumim on every side.

In a land where water is scarce, it must be noted that Israelis use much more water than Palestinians. In part, this is because they have taken control of all the main sources of water and allocate more for Israeli settlements and cities than for Palestinian communities. Ma’aleh Adumim is full of swimming pools and well-watered gardens, but anyone who has visited a Palestinian community knows that water is conserved for drinking, bathing, washing, cooking, and growing food to eat. In the Palestinian world, there are no lawns.

It is wonderful to see the desert come alive, when water is applied to the dry land. But rarely do visitors realize that the water is not merely taken from a flowing stream or underground aquifer, but is being diverted from others who need it. Clearly, there will not be a just peace in this land without a more equitable division of its water, and a more efficient use of this scarce resource.

Driving east beyond Ma’aleh Adumim took us deep into the desert, where stream beds were dry and what little vegetation there was lived under considerable duress. Yet, there were Bedouins camping here in the clefts, under shacks made with plastic, tin, and tarpaper. A water tank on wheels and an occasional tractor provided clues to the survival of these families in such difficult circumstances, and we saw small herds of goats and a few donkey carts nearby. In at least one Bedouin community I also noticed a TV satellite dish on top of a ramshackle dwelling.

Turning north off highway 1, and following a winding, narrow road for several miles led us to place where we could look down into a deep gorge. It seemed to be dry at the bottom, but there was a strip of green foliage running down the one side. And just beyond this incredible thread of life down the desert walls of the gorge was a monastery built into the far side of the gorge.

After I walked up a hill to find a better view, I could see in the bottom of the gorge the ancient ruins of an aqueduct that dates back to the time of King Herod in the first century BCE. The aqueduct once carried the water from the stream flowing down the side of the gorge across to the other side and down into the valley to the east. Now a more recent channel diverts the stream and carries it across the gorge and along the side of the gorge past the monastery.

Returning to our vans and driving a little further east, we came to the road that sharply twists down the side of the gorge to a bridge leading to the other side and the path up to the Monastery of St. George of Koziba. Some members of our party were shocked to discover that we would have to walk down this road, rather than drive in our vans. But the distance down was not great, and soon we arrived at the doorway to the monastery.

The Monastery of St. George of Koziba dates back to the early fourth century. Looking up above the monastery we could see caves, where monks had over the centuries retired to live an even more austere life than the monastic order imposed on the men in the monastery. One open cave contained two wooden ladders, which would allow a person to climb almost twenty feet up into a smaller cave enclosed by a wall constructed across its mouth. And other isolated caves in the gorge suggested that more than one of the monks had become a hermit.

The monastery takes its name from the monk who came here from Cyprus and led the order in the sixth century. Legend says that the prophet Elijah stayed in the cave that now is within the monastery, when he was traveling to the Sinai desert, and we were able to step into the small cave in which pilgrims remember Elijah’s visit to this day. According to tradition ravens fed Elijah for the more than three years that he stayed here. (1 Kings 17:3)

The monastery declined after conquering Persians swept through the land in 614, but a century later had revived and was receiving pilgrims. It was restored in 1179 by the emperor Manuel I Commenus, but three centuries later a visitor to the gorge saw only ruins. The modern effort to reconstruct the monastery began in 1878 and was completed in 1901.

A few Greek Orthodox priests live at the Monastery of St. George of Koziba, and two of them, who were no more than thirty years old, greeted us and offered refreshments of tea, juice, cookies, and fresh water. The reception area was filled with ikons and also framed paintings, several of which contained representations of death. We were able to enter the old chapel, which was dark and even more decorated with Orthodox images and artwork than the reception area. It was as if we had stepped back centuries in time.

Outside on the terrace of the monastery were a few tools for gardening and also flowering bushes set in large urns. A small grove of olive trees was located just outside the monastery near a burial ground with a couple of recent gravesites. The view down the gorge was magnificent, and the sound of water running through the desert all around us was almost as refreshing as the drinks we were given in the monastery.

Most monasteries do not allow women to visit, but this is not the case at the Monastery of St. George of Koziba. It is said that a wealthy Byzantine noblewoman, who was ill, came to the Judean desert to seek healing. She visited monasteries, offered gifts, and asked for prayers. She was received, but not allowed into a monastery, until she had a vision of Mary, who not only directed her to St. George’s monastery, but also told her to enter despite the ban against women.

When she arrived the monks were at prayer, so she had those carrying her litter take her into the inner courtyard of the monastery. When the monks discovered her, they were at first angry. But after she explained to the monks that the Virgin Mary had told her to come, they let her stay in the sacristy. And there, legend says, she was completely healed.

One member of our party needed another miracle to ascend the steep road leading back to our vans, but in this case a donkey and two Palestinian men provide the necessary intervention. As one pulled the donkey up the incline, the other held the very tired and somewhat ample woman on the donkey's back. This "miracle" was not freely given, but cost the lady 100 Shekels.

It was a short trip from above the monastery to the floor of the valley and the town of Jericho, which some guidebooks say is the oldest town on earth. The powerful perennial spring in the area offers 4,500 liters of water per minute, which for centuries has been distributed by a complex gravity-flow irrigation system. The earliest massive wall erected for defense around the settlement and its spring was constructed about 10,000 years ago.

In the Bible story of Joshua, the town of Jericho was captured by the Israelites after they crossed the River Jordan (c.1200 BCE). It was occupied by Israelites until the Babylonian invasion and exile in 568 BCE. Under Persian rule in the late sixth century BCE, Jericho was surrounded by rich plantations, and during the time of Alexander the Great (336-323 BCE) the oasis was the private estate of the ruler.

In the second century BCE a Syrian general at war with the Maccabees built three forts on the hillside to the west of the town, and one of these was strengthened and used by Herod the Great (37-4 BCE). Herod first leased the oasis from Cleopatra, who had been given it by her lover Mark Anthony. After their joint suicide in 30 BCE, the new Roman emperor, Octavian, gave it to Herod, who built new aqueducts, a winter palace, and a Roman theater.

Jericho was pillaged by the Roman army that conquered Jerusalem in 70 CE, but was rebuilt and heavily populated throughout the Byzantine period. In the eighth century CE the Umayyad Mulim leaders, who controlled the entire region, constructed a magnificent hunting palace near Jericho, and when the Crusaders took over they grew sugar cane in the irrigated fields.

After Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1187, Bedouins looted the town. For the next six centuries its canals fell into disrepair, and its water drained away into the desert. The first World War led to the renewal of Jericho, and today it is the hub of an industrious agricultural area.

As we drove toward the town, however, we saw the large intercontinental hotel and the Oasis casino outside the city, which were constructed during the Oslo period when there were high expectations of economic growth and development. The building remains in good shape, but is not operating today. The Israeli government, however, has given back control over Jericho to the Palestinian Authority. If nothing else, this means that entering Jericho now requires going through an Israeli army checkpoint and then a Palestinian army checkpoint.

The town itself is uninspiring, and after a short stop we took some food out of town and drove north and then west to reach the place where a stream from the hills has been backed up a little by debris, forming a small pool. There were a few trees here offering a little shade, and the children of the Palestinian family traveling with us were quick to get into the cold water. A little upstream, our drivers stripped to their shorts in order to wade in the stream, and we rested as we ate lunch beside this flowing river in the desert.

I was fascinated by the goatherds on the steep hillside across the stream, and watched as the goats wandered higher and higher up the rocks. The young Palestinian watching the herds seemed unconcerned, as he sat and played his flute or talked quietly with a friend, who came across the hillside on a donkey to visit.

Later the herder sent his three dogs out to move the sheep down the hillside toward the stream, and I watched as he walked behind them, throwing stones to the left and the right behind the herd to keep the goats moving along. When he came to the stream, the goat herder jumped onto his donkey and crossed. Then he came to me and asked if, with hand motions and a few English words, if I wanted to ride the donkey up the hill. I declined, know both that I didn’t want to do attempt it, and that doing so would involve haggling over the price. Instead, I took his picture.

Driving back home meant going through five checkpoints. We encountered two Israeli checkpoints as well as the Palestinian checkpoint on the way back into Jericho, and one Palestinian and one Israeli checkpoint leaving the town. Those of us returning to Jerusalem decided to get out of the van at Abu Dis, near the Abawabe checkpoint along the Separation Barrier. The driver kindly drove us up a steep hill in Abu Dis, and then we walked past three Israeli soldiers who were checking all those leaving Abu Dis for Jerusalem.

There isn’t a "real checkpoint" here, as in Bethlehem or outside Ramallah, because after passing by the soldiers we walked through the property of a monastery and out its front door, to reach a street on the other side of the Separation Barrier. Once on the other side, several in our party choose to walk down the hill to where they would be able to take a servees back to the Old City. I walked up the hill on the backside of the Mount of Olives, past the Church at Bethphage, and then up the hill to the top of the Mount and along the street for two more blocks to Mount Scopus and the Augusta Victoria guesthouse. It took me about twenty minutes.

Looking back before I went over the crest of the hill, I could see that the Separation Wall standing over 8 meters high as it runs through Abu Dis had been extended further into the metropolitan area on this eastern side of Jerusalem. It presently separates neighbor from neighbor, patients from hospitals, children from schools, and wives and husbands (if one has a Jerusalem ID, but the other has only a West Bank ID).

It also separates Palestinians from the water that is so precious in this land, which is largely a desert and semi-arid environment. Water that for centuries has run in streams from the gorges and bubbled up from underground springs in the desert. Water that can be used to grow olives grapes, and bananas as well as flowers. Water that can be taken from others, or shared. Water that means poverty or wealth, death or life, despair or hope.

I am writing as a participant in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, which is sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The views expressed above are my own and do not necessarily represent the World Council of Churches. If you wish to publish or disseminate this letter beyond personal friends, please contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission to do so. Thank you.

Bob Traer, 21 April 2005

For other Letters from Jerusalem, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/lj.letters.2005.htm.

For photos from the desert and Jericho, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/photos.jericho.htm. 

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