Fast of the 17th of Tammuz and One of the Hottest Days of the Year

There was a heat wave throughout Israel for this fast day, the Fast of the 17th of Tammuz. In Mitzpe Ramon at 2:30PM the temperature was 96F. In Be'er Sheva, which we also visited today, the temperature was 102F at 3:45PM, with an oppressively hot desert wind just making it feel worse. Eilat had a high of 109F today!

By sunset in Mitzpe Ramon the temperature had been brought down to 81F at the Har Gamal Lookout, with humidity of 38% and a strong westerly wind at the crater's rim of 30mph. At least the wind was cool, unlike the hot blast we experienced in Be'er Sheva.

Given the heat, and the fact also that it was a fast day, there were very few people out and about in Be'er Sheva, and traffic in the city was at a minimum. It was a good day to be inside with air conditioning, contemplating the history of the Jewish people, or just waiting out the Fast Day.

We spent it getting a chest x-ray for Pam which is a routine study required before her knee surgery. We accomplished our mission in record time, perhaps because everyone was reluctant to go out. The only other time I have seen Be'er Sheva with fewer people and less traffic was on a Friday afternoon when the streets were almost completely empty. You might want to bear this in mind, if you're looking for a time to get things done in a hurry in Be'er Sheva.

The heat gets the better of an ice cream cone in Be'er Sheva today.

  

Colt, Mare and Camels

On the way to Be'er-Sheva there is now a charming sight of a colt, mare and camels lazing about a field. The colt was just born a few weeks ago. When first we saw it, it was kicking up its heels and madly dancing across the field, as colts do, with its mother not far behind. Sometimes we saw the colt laying down in the middle of the day with the mother standing astride or sometimes just nearby.

The camels look a bit bedraggled but sit motionless in the field, except for their heads which turn to meet you where ever you may go. It is good to be so close to nature here in the desert.

Colt, mare and camels in a Bedouin field near Be'er-Sheva. (Click for full size image.)

  

The Jawa Stole My Balls

Art imitates life. Then life imitates art. Or life becomes infused with the images of art mixing the two up so we can't tell where one begins and the other leaves off. 

Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation. -- Aristotle, Poetics

I am sure that  Dune imitates the life of the Nabateans, for whom the Spice Road, connecting Baghdad with the port city of Jaffa,  was their means of livelihood. I am sure that the Jawa of Star Wars, strange little dark robbed creatures with shining coals for eyes, for whom stealing scrap metal (and droids) was their livelihood, imitate the Bedouin of the Negev.

Every time I drive into Beer-Sheva this view of the city from Route 40 imitates the first view we get of Mos Eisley, the space port town of Tatooine, the planet where Luke Skywalker grew up.

Mos Eisley, Tatooine

Beer-Sheva, Israel

Beer-Sheva toward the south is surrounded by Bedouin shanty towns whose shacks are built from corrugated metal. Some have high tech satellite dishes or solar-powered arrays on their roofs. Most are just poor, shabby shacks. The encampments run along the highway in the shadow of the power lines and desert industrial complexes that rim the city of Beer-Sheva.

Bedouin shanty town house with solar array

Bedouin shanty with satellite dish

Stealing scrap metal and selling it on the black market is a way of life for the Bedouin, as it was for the Jawa. Some of you may remember my post, The Bedouin Stole my Internet, wherein some Bedouin tried to steal optical cable from Bezeq but got it wrong and stole a useless (to them) optical router instead, bringing down Mitzpe Ramon's Internet and telephone service for a number of days.

Well, the Bedouin have been at it again, but this time they stole a large public art installation from the crater's rim, not far from our home. These were two very large metal-clad balls, one much larger than the other, that were tethered to the side of the crater by heavy metal links for security. These balls were always very odd to me, and quite a surprise to come upon, but that was, I think, the intent of the artist. I finally decided they looked like a pair of buttons designed to hold the crater in place.

Public art balls by the side of Machtesh Ramon

Public art "buttons" secure the side of the crater to Mitzpe Ramon.

Over the week of Yom Haazmaut the tethers holding the balls to the side of the Machtesh were cut. The large ball was rolled to the crater's rim, making us think it was some kind of prank with the intention of pushing the large ball down the side of the crater. But then a few days later both balls were gone, leading to the conclusion that they were stolen for their scrap metal value.

The large ball, with its tether tail, pushed to the rim of the crater by vandal-thieves.

As of this writing we have no more information on the thefts. The balls have certainly been cut up and sold for scrap metal by now. We have reported the theft and vandalism to the authorities but sad to say they are irreplaceable and will probably never be replaced. We have no idea who commissioned the art or who the artist is. I hope the Machtesh doesn't fall without its buttons to hold it in place.

   

The Charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade

How 800 Australian and New Zeland (ANZAC) Light Horse Infantry won the Battle of Beer-Sheva and began the modern State of Israel, account by Col. Stringer, possibly plagiarized from Peter Hogan:

Jerusalem and indeed all Palestine had been under Moslem domination since 637 AD. In 1077 the Seljuk Turks had become masters of Palestine. At this time the condition of the Christians became unbearable. The Turks forbade Christian services, devastated churches, murdered pilgrims. In 1095 Pope Urban 11 delivered an address that started the Crusades. He declared "Jerusalem is Umbilicus Mundi" the navel of the world. "This royal city...is in subjection to those who do not know God, to worship of the heathen. Therefore, she seeks and desires to be liberated and does not cease to implore you to come to her aid."

Early Crusaders. In 1099 Godfrey of Bouillon and his knights conquered Jerusalem, following a five week siege. There followed wholesale slaughter of the city's inhabitants, including all of its Jewish citizens, many burned alive in their synagogues. A terrible indictment on Christendom. In 1187 Saladin defeated the Crusaders, re-entered Jerusalem, stripped the cross from the Dome of the Rock, plundered churches and convents, restored all the buildings that had been mosques (notably the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque), while turning other churches into stables or granaries. Thousands of following Crusaders paid the ultimate price with their bones bleaching the barren rocky hills but Jerusalem was to remain firmly in the hands of the Turks right up until this century when 800 Aussie Light Horsemen rode into history and opened the gateway to Jerusalem.

Medieval Jerusalem

Beersheba - Well Of The Oath. The key to the battle were the Gaza-Beersheba fortifications. Beersheba, meaning "well of the oath", so named by Abraham in the book of Genesis. The well had provided water not only to Abraham, but to Moses and David. Any army approaching its life-giving wells has to march for days through the waterless Sinai desert. All the Turks had to do was hold off an attack for one day and the merciless desert sun would do the rest. Despite constant assaults by the combined forces of the British and Australian armies, the place could not be taken. Then came the fateful day of October 31 1917. The generals were desperate, 50,000 British infantry with tank support had been driven back into the desert. With the sun about to set and with no water for many miles, disaster stared them squarely in the face. The Australian Light Horse Commander Chauvel's orders were to storm Beersheba, it had to be won before nightfall at all costs. The situation was becoming grave as they were in urgent need of 400,000 gallons of water for men and horses.

 Australian Light Horse Brigade departs for the Middle East, WWI.

Chauvel concocted a crazy plan. Why not let his 800 horsemen charge the Turkish artillery? A cavalry charge across 6000 yards of open terrain straight into the face of the massed Turkish guns. It sounded like a recipe for disaster. No wonder the German Officer commanding the Turkish defences described the Aussie Light Horsemen as "madmen!" For a start the Light Horse were not cavalry, they were mounted infantry. They had no swords or lancers but were equipped with rifles and bayonets designed for infantry warfare. But left with virtually no alternative the desperate General gave the order for the last great cavalry charge in history! The 800 young men mounted their magnificent Walers (horses) and lined up to face the Turkish guns, their young faces bronzed and tanned from the desert sun, their emu plumes swaying in the breeze from their famous slouch hats, rifles swung across their backs and bayonets in hand. History was about to be written. These 800 young men were about to open the doorway to the liberation of Jerusalem!

 Uniform of the Australian Light Horse Brigade

Slouch hat with emu plume

The Light Horsemen charged magnificently across the dusty plains, so fast that the Turkish artillery could not keep pace with them and the "mad" horsemen were able to slip under their guns. As they leapt the trenches laced with machine gun bullets, a magnificent cheer went up from the British ranks, even some of the Turks stood and applauded, such was the magnificence of the feat. Although hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned they charged on. Beersheba - the gateway to Jerusalem, fell that day, not to the Crusaders, not to the British, German or US Armies - but to the Australian Light Horsemen!

 Australian Light Horse in the Middle East during WWI

Australian Light Horse "at Beersheba" in October 1917

Let me quote from the book "True Australian War Tales" by Alec Hepburn. "...the British swept towards Gaza. They stormed the city on 26 March but were thrown back by determined enemy resistance. A second attempt on 17 April also ended in failure. The Turks, with German and Austrians of the crack Asia Corps, stood firm along a fortified line from Gaza on the coast, to Beersheba, near the Judean Hills. The key to victory was Beersheba. Many nations claim to have mounted the last cavalry charge in history, but most of these actions were minor skirmishes of no real significance towards the outcome of the war in which they fought. The Australian Light Horse attack on Beersheba was the last important cavalry charge in history and the last to win a resounding victory that altered the course of a war." (And the course of a nation - Israel).

Turkish troops dug in to trenches at Beer-Sheva, WWI

"The late afternoon sunlight flashing from their bayonets, Australian troopers of the 4th Light Horse Brigade made a proud sight as they spread in a khaki flood over the stony Palestine plain. The thundering hoof beats of their mounts rolled over the arid land ahead like some macabre overture . ... Wearing their distinctive feather-plumed slouch hats at a variety of jaunty angles the troopers seemed nonchalant in the face of death.... Topping the last rise Beersheba suddenly came into sight, the graceful minaret on its Mosque pointing the way to glory, in what was to be the last important cavalry charge in history. Almost as one the big, brown warhorses surged forward in a mad gallop, their hoofs striking thunder from the hard sun-baked earth."

Remnant of Turkish trenches in Beer-Sheva today (Source)

"Then from somewhere within the barbed-wire-encircled town, heavy artillery began firing. The first shells roared overhead, exploding in fiery geysers amid the charging ranks. Yelling men and bellowing horses went down in tangled heaps, their screams filling the choking smoke clouds that swirled everywhere, But not even shrapnel could halt their fierce onslaught. Leaping their mounts over fallen comrades, the horsemen swept towards the Turkish line. Soon the shells were falling harmlessly behind the advancing ranks. With the first gauntlet behind them the Australian horsemen raced into the next. From the flanks Turkish machine-guns took over the defence. Many more men and horses went down, but still they came on. The tough Turkish infantry had been unnerved by the seemingly invincible horde bearing down on them. Wild with fear, for they knew their foe by reputation, the Turks put up a formidable rifle barrage in a frantic effort to stop the mounted madmen. Troopers pitched from the saddle; others had their mounts shot from under them: and yet the suicidal charge swept on. As the Light Horse galloped nearer the excited Turks forgot to lower their sights and found themselves firing high. With bullets now buzzing harmlessly overhead the leading squadrons thundered in line across the last kilometre then jumped their mighty Walers over the trenches."

 Charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade at Beer-Sheva, October 31, 1917

The rest is history. "Beersheba - well of the oath, was in Australian hands by the time the last rays of fading daylight had gone from the desert sky. This deed would live on as the proudest achievement in the colourful story of the legendary Light Horse, the force that was probably the most uniquely Australian fighting unit ever raised. The Light Horseman was the best mounted soldier in history, finer even than the Cossack or the American Plains Indian."

In fact the British General Allenby rated the Cavalry charge as one of, if not the most magnificent in history. Eight hundred Aussie Light horsemen had achieved what 50,000 British troops with tanks could not do, what even the Crusaders or Napoleon could not do! They had opened the doorway to Jerusalem against seemingly insurmountable odds. Imagine how I felt when I discovered recently that my forefathers were part of that great battle that changed history forever. They were magnificent Light Horsemen! My Grandfather Fred was a horsebreaker for the Light Horse while his three brothers were part of the famous 3rd Light Horse Regiment that took part that day in the great battle for the liberation of Beersheba.

Park of the Australian Soldier, Beer-Sheva, Israel

I am in no way attempting to glorify war, it is terrible. But I believe we need "to give honour where honour is due." Many of the Light Horsemen were visibly moved when they realised they had opened the gateway to the Holy Land, a doorway which had been firmly shut for centuries. One writer put it this way "Without the ANZAC involvement the modern state of Israel would not have come into existence!" On December 11th 1917 the Australian Light Horsemen rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, so far from their homes, their emu feathers proudly fluttering in the breeze, to be greeted with a hysterical welcome by Jews and Christians. A far cry from the scenario when Godfrey of Bouillon and his bloodthirsty Crusaders had entered the city in 1099. Centuries of Moslem rule was over. As the triumphant British General Allenby entered the city through the Jaffa gate, his honour guard was made up of slouch hatted Aussies. Opposite him as he stood on the steps of the Citadel of David he was encircled by another honour guard of proud ANZAC Light Horsemen! Their magnificent effort was being honoured by the world!

 General Allenby enters Jerusalem on Dec. 11, 1917 at the Jaffa Gate, on foot out of respect for the Holy City. (Source: Wikipedia)

History has not been kind to these magnificent mounted Aussies. Not only is this magnificent and historical feat not known by the world but even most Australians are unfamiliar with what their forefathers achieved. Even the capture of Damascus was accredited to Lawrence of Arabia and his Arab army, but the truth is the Aussie Light Horsemen had taken the city one week earlier but had to hide out of sight while Lawrence's ego was appeased, allowing him to parade into the city!

--"How 800 Australian and New Zeland (ANZAC) Light Horse Infantry won the Battle of Beer-Sheva and began the modern State of Israel", account by Col. Stringer, possibly plagiarized from Peter Hogan

See also, http://lifeinmitzperamon.blogspot.com/2010/05/in-hearts-at-peace-under-english-heaven.html

In Hearts at Peace Under an English Heaven

There is some corner of a field in Beer-Sheva that is forever England. I had been thinking of going there for a while, wandering the Old City looking for it. I came suddenly upon it. Not a shabby, haphazard collection but 1,239 dead soldiers in their graves, their headstones standing at attention, row by row in military order, each lovingly cared for with flowers and greens growing along side, intertwining the stones all in honor of their having given their all "for King and Country".

British WWI Military Cemetery, Beer-Sheva (click for full size image)

This was the WWI British Military Cemetery just outside the Old City of Beer-Sheva where these soldiers had fallen, most during October 31 and November 7 of 1917, during General Allenby's flanking attack of the Turkish Ottoman forces in Beer-Sheva -- a daring, heroic and victorious cavalry charge during WWI, the final cavalry charge in a major war in military history. The horse would soon be retired in favor of more mechanized forms of warfare.

It was the beginning of the end of 400 years of Ottoman Turkish rule in the Holy Land, and truly the very first physical beginnings of the modern State Of Israel, the Third Commonwealth. Two days after the defeat of the Ottoman forces, on Nov. 2, 1917 the Balfour Declaration would be signed, stating that "His Majesty's government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people..."

Beer-Sheva 1917 (Source: Wikipedia)

Turkish trenches, Beer-Sheva, 1917

A special air of peace and quality of tranquility permeates the large square city block that holds the cemetery. Although almost no one comes here, it is a locus that represents "the modesty of history", as Jorge Luis Borges puts it, the unnoticed but truly monumental happenings of history.

"He added a second actor," Artistotle says in passing of the Greek playwright Aeschylus in his Poetics, and with it the possibility of all future dialogues to come. Did anyone watching that play 2500 years ago in the Greek theater realize what had just changed forever? Did anyone realize what had changed with Allenby's victory at Beer-Sheva? The Land of Israel, from which the Jewish nation had been exiled for 2000 years, would be returned to them 31 years later. And so, as Joseph says to his brothers, "And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither [to Egypt]...So now it was not you that sent me hither, but G-d..." In the great arc of history each person and nation acts according to its own interests and reasons, but "there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will."

It is hard to stand in this sacred place without seeing the great WWI poetry of the British people come to life:


The Soldier - by Rupert Brooke

IF I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

"F.N. Green; City of London Yeomanry; 27th October 1917; Age 24 

Peace Perfect Peace with Loved Ones Far Away"

"V.W. Ashworth; 4th Anzac Battalion; Imperial Camel Corps; 7th November 1917;

Dear Lad To Live In Hearts Left Behind Is Not To Die

W.G. Trustham; London Scottish; 31st October 1917; Age 23

Not Far Away For Unbroken Is The Golden Chain Of Love

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

E.A.H. Burn; London Scottish; 31st October 1917; Age 20

Dear Eddie Cool And Courageous Ever Ready

John Jules Hurst; 22nd BN London Regiment; 31st October 1917; Age 22

Life Man Holds Dear But The Brave Man Holds Honour Far More Precious

A Soldier of the Great War

Thomas W. Wright; Welch Regiment; 3rd November 1917

Gave His Life For King And Country Love From Father and Mother

And then there are those that do give rise to thoughts too deep for tears...

Sidney Healey; Welsh Regiment; 3rd November 1917; Age 33

In Loving Memory Of My Dear Husband If Only To Have Clasped Your Hand To Say Goodbye

R.M. Ashton DCM; Loyal North Lancs. Regt.; 7th November 1917 Age 33

Ever In Our Thoughts Dearest; Maude

David Michael; Royal Welsh Fusiliers; 7th November 1917; Age 22

Er in hir estron

nid an anghof

fan fechan ei fedd

gan ei rieni

Far away in a foreign land

There is a ne'er forgotten

Little grave.

--by his parents

Finally, there stands a lone Jewish tombstone to Captain S.J.H. Van Den Bergh, Middlesex Yeomanry, 27th October, 1917, Age 27. Remembered still by the token of small rocks left on his monument, as is the Jewish custom.

Pro Aris et Focis, motto of the Middlesex Yeomanry, "For G-d and Country"

Son of Henriette Van Den Bergh

So Far From Home Yet So Near To Those Who Love Him

(Source)

The Balfour declaration notwithstanding, the British were never the best friends of the Jews, expelling them from England under King Edward I in 1290, not to return for 350 years; the massacre at York in 1190; and the notorious refusal of the British to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust by refusing them entry into Palestine. For those Jewish readers who like to imagine themselves attending Shakespeare plays in the Globe Theater of Queen Elizabeth I, you couldn't have done it; you weren't there. 


Still, history is history and in the final analysis the land that the British won from the Ottoman Caliphate was finally ceded to the Jews in 1948. The British just walked away. And just as Shakespeare had to imagine his Jews in the Merchant of Venice, never having met any, we can imagine a better England, that lives up to its storied imaginings and its glorious past:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

William Shakespeare, "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1 (1564 - 1616)

Hearts at Peace Under a British Heaven

   

See also, http://lifeinmitzperamon.blogspot.com/2010/05/charge-of-australian-light-brigade.html

You might also be interested in the timely and newly published "Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England" by Anthony Julius
    
   

Fellini in Beer Sheva's Old City

Beer Sheva is a biblically ancient site -- the place where Avraham made Avimelech swear to acknowledge his having dug his wells (hence the name "Beer Sheva", the Well of the Oath); the place where Isaac dug seven wells (hence, perhaps, the Well of Seven). The current Old City, established in 1900, is the only city planned and built entirely by the Ottoman Turks in the 400 years of their Caliphate. The plan for the Old City was originally designed by a German and a Swiss architect, calling for a grid pattern, which is still quite evident today.

The original grid pattern of the Old City is still in place today.

It has been dressed-up and gentrified by the new city which has grown around it, but it still looks to me like an ugly dowager wearing too much makeup. New Beer Sheva, on the other hand, I find quite interesting and attractive, a bustling center of commerce, medicine, culture, the arts and education, Israel's 4th largest and the administrative center of all things in the Negev.

We were wandering in the Old City streets of Beer Sheva, an unlovely place if there ever was one. The streets are narrow and seem to close in on you, even though most of the buildings are just a squat one story high. There is an oppressive and suffocating atmosphere, despite the attempts of the new city to modernize and gentrify the neighborhood with trendy shops and boutiques. The many bridal and wedding planning shops combine with the tawdry tourist, tchatshke and food vendors to make for a Felliniesque atmosphere.

A felliniesque bridal gown on the side show streets of the Old City of Beer Sheva

  

  This photo does not do justice to the oppressive feeling induced by the sight of the building.

Together with the newer buildings, many old buildings from the days of Ottoman rule remain. They are badly built, ugly and generally have ungainly proportions, coming as a surprise if you are used to the antique buildings of Jaffa or Jerusalem's Old City and walls.
 

A wall remaining from the Ottoman days of the Old City of Beer Sheva

Near the center of the Old City lies a reconstruction of Abraham's Well, together with another well of much later date. The reconstruction uses a system of lifts that raise the water to an aqueduct that runs the length of the Old City's central town square, returning it to the well in a closed loop.

 A reconstruction of Abraham's Well in the town square of Beer Sheva's Old City

Aqueduct carrying water in Beer Sheva's Old City town square

The Old City's town square has also been provided with fountains adjacent to the aqueduct. The whole thing seems too tschatchkafied and artificial in a place that is steeped in so much real history, but it is  still a big improvement on what the Ottoman Turks left behind to work with.

Modern fountains recall Beer Sheva's watery past.

Perhaps one of the creepiest aspects of the Old City is the old Muslim cemetery, a huge plot of land surrounded by fences with warnings to keep out. The upheaved old tombs and graves make it look like a real Night of the Living Dead took place there. It appears that this is another disputed piece of real estate in the battle between the Jews and Muslims to control the Holy Land.

Muslim cemetery in Beer Sheva's Old City

  

 "Muslim Cemetery - Keep Out by Order of the Municipality of Beer Sheva and the Committee for the Advancement of Bedouins in the Negev"

Don't let my comments put you off visiting the Old City. It is certainly interesting in a freakish kind of way to me. And I will also note that my opinion of the Old City is a minority one, since most of the people I have spoken to like it quite a bit and seem to think the modernization is a success and a big improvement over the Arab slum that used to be there. And there are always interesting sights with great people watching. A big plus -- the Old City is quite safe any time, day or night.
  
 

Interesting sights abound in Beer Sheva's Old City -- A bride prepares for her wedding.

   

Why Did the Camel Cross the Road?

Some in the Middle East say it was a Zionist plot. Others that, like the chicken, it was to get to the other side. On one of our too many trips to Be'er Sheva to get medical care we were stopped just outside of town by a herd of camels that were being driven across Route 40 to the other side of the road.

 

Camels cross Route 40 just outside Be'er Sheva

All along Route 40 between Be'er Sheva and Mitzpe Ramon are signs that say "Beware of Camels by the Road".  Despite having driven this route many times, I have never seen a camel by the road before. 

  "Beware of Camels Near the Road"

 The one exception was on our taxi ride to Mitzpe Ramon from Ben Gurion when we made Aliyah. On that occasion I saw two Bedouin racing their camels by the side of Route 40.

Hobbled camels on Route 40

There are Bedouin shanty towns that line Route 40 outside of Be'er Sheva toward Mitzpe Ramon for some distance, and they do have livestock plus the occasional camel. But these camels are usually far from the road, usually just an isolated one or two, and standing so stock still that they might be environmental art.

So, it was quite a surprise to see so many camels making a huge commotion as they were driven across the road. The front legs of the camels are hobbled with ties to keep them from running away. Despite this attempt at control, the occasional camel does try to escape. This big boy first tried running toward Be'er Sheva until he was beaten back with big sticks by the Bedouin. He then tried running in the opposite direction toward Miztpe Ramon, until they beat him back into the herd. 

A big camel tries to make his escape from the Bedouin

The herd of camels made quite a hew and cry, sounding like something out of the Silence of the Lambs. Once they got to the other side of the road things quieted down and we continued on our way.

Cries like something out of the Silence of the Lambs