Khulda - خلدة: Memory of Khulda

In 1968 I lived for some months at Kibbutz Mishmar David, which was built on the land of Khulda. At the time, I didn't know the name of Khulda. Wandering out of Mishmar David and across a small valley I saw that the land was covered with grape vines grown to the size of trees (and still bearing grapes), edible cactus, olive trees, carob trees and had clearly once been cared for and cultivated. At the top of the ridge across that valley, I saw the remains of stone houses. I realised then that what we had been taught in the Zionist youth movement about "a land without a people for a people without a land" was a lie.

Some months later, a German "volunteer", seeking to purge his guilt about his family's Nazi history by helping Israel, came to stay at Mishmar David. Before accepting a German volunteer, there was a meeting and the kibbutzniks voted in favour. One of the members who disagreed with this went to camp out for a week in the ruins of Khulda. How strange that he could not see the irony of his action!

I left Israel in 1976 and have never been back. I was a founder member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London and now that I live in France, I am a member of a local Palestine support group. Seeing the ruins of Khulda was my first step in becoming aware of the criminal dispossession of the Palestinians. I believe that Israel has since gone to great lengths to destroy this sort of evidence. That is why this website is so important.