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The right to hike By Zafrir Rinat Tags: PA, Raja Shehadeh Until now it has been difficult for an Israeli to imagine what a Palestinian feels as he walks the land, and isn't busy musing about its political or nationalist nature. Writer and author Raja Shehadeh has written a book called "Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape." The book, published last year in English by Profile Books, entranced a BBC correspondent who recently described how he set out one broiling-hot summer's day for a walk along one of the routes Shehadeh describes. The six routes - or, more precisely, rambles - that Shehadeh documents in the book cover several decades. The walks are short, because the landscape he holds dearest is the hills surrounding his city, Ramallah. The land is shrinking as the Israeli occupation expands Jewish settlements, builds higher walls and erects more barriers, and as the violent struggle between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis transforms every innocent stroll along a streambed or a cliff into a potential threat to one of the sides. Shehadeh manages to hike in the Arava a bit, on the hills that overlook the area of Modi'in; he gets as far as the Dead Sea and the town of Jericho to the east. His big dream is to walk from Ramallah to Jaffa. This is not a matter of the right of return, but rather the right to hike. A lawyer by profession, Shehadeh has been active in opposing the occupation of the West Bank for many years. In the book he admits his failure and wonders whether his life's work has been in vain. His only real consolation lies in writing - and even this does not always do the trick. "Ever since I learned of the plans by successive Israeli governments to transform our hills, I have felt as though I am being told that I have contracted a terminal disease," he writes. Advertisement Different reality From the perspective of the Jewish settlers, the reality of course looks entirely different. This is how the head of the Jordan Valley regional council, Dubi Tal, described that area in a booklet of hiking routes a year and a half ago: "The Jordan Valley - the cradle of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel in the time of [Moses' successor] Yehoshua bin Nun - with its historical and archaeological sites, its primordial landscapes and its gurgling springs, was abandoned for many hundreds of years until its sons and daughters returned to it after the Six-Day War, plowed its soil, dug its wells, and planted vineyards and date palms." "How unaware many trekkers around the world are of what a luxury it is to be able to walk in the land they love without anger, fear or insecurity, just to be able to walk without political arguments running obsessively through their heads," writes Shehadeh. "Simply to walk and savor what nature has to offer as I was once able to do." But he is not prepared to give up the hiking, even during times of distress like the start of the second intifada. "As soon as we left the taxi that brought us down close to Wadi Kelt [Nahal Prat] we found ourselves almost running over the hills, which were like a brown tapestry," he relates following an outing with friends. "Being stuck in Ramallah, surrounded as it was with checkpoints at every exit, the experience of open space with no walls, no barriers and a wide open sky made us giddy with joy." Shehadeh writes that despite his opposition to Israel's military regime, he does appreciate Israeli efforts to designate some West Bank lands, such as Wadi Kelt, as nature reserves. His society is one lacking any concept of nature preservation in the modern sense of the term, and nature and landscape are usually subject to unrestrained exploitation. Within and at the edges of the village and the agricultural landscape, over-grazing, tree-felling and the systematic hunting of wild animals have continued and have even increased - the results of population growth and the use of live ammunition. Shehadeh hopes that the nature reserves the army has designated will prevent the paving of roads and construction, and will protect the flora and fauna. But the reserves are not really intended for both peoples. There are severe restrictions on entering them in the areas that are under Israeli military control, which means most of the land in question. In many places, roads have been paved nearby the reserves or inside them, in order to allow Jewish visitors to move about more freely or to improve access to a settlement or an outpost by bypassing Palestinian villages. Shehadeh's roaming in the hills culminates in an encounter that contradicts the line by singer-songwriter Meir Ariel to the effect that "at the end of every sentence you say in Hebrew, sits an Arab with a water pipe." This time, at the end of the sentence sits a Jewish settler with a hookah full of hashish, whom Shehadeh encounters in one of the wadis west of Ramallah. The Palestinian hiker finds it hard to refuse the young settler's offer to share a little smoke with him and thus the two pleasantly push reality away. And this happens after the settler explains that for the sake of progress, it is a good thing to build and pave roads the way Israel is doing. Shehadeh replies: "The way it's going, we'll end up with a land that is crisscrossed with roads. I have a vision of all of us going around in circles. Whether we call it Israel or Palestine, this land will become one big concrete maze." Despite having enjoyed the hashish, Shehadeh is disturbed by the fraught encounter: "I began to feel guilty at what I was doing, willingly sharing these hills with this settler. But then I thought - these are still my hills despite how things are turning out. But they also belong to whoever can appreciate them." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Banning Beijing boycott Israel's Olympic panel warns against mixing sports and politics. 20,000 strong A study released by an Israeli think tank shows Hamas' military buildup in Gaza is at its peak.   1.   How many Palestinians murdered while hiking? 11:39  |  Ilan 06/04/08

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