Are Bedouins being squeezed out of Maale Adumim?
In the hills east of Jerusalem, a Palestinian Bedouin tribe lives in tents and ramshackle huts, wedged in between two expanding Jewish settlements. Unable to bus their children to nearby schools, they invited an Italian aid group to help them build a school on a Bedouin budget: four small buildings made of used tires and mud. But Israeli authorities have slated the primitive buildings in the disputed West Bank territory for demolition. The Palestinian enclave is practically invisible to the cars and trucks whizzing up and down the steep road from Jerusalem to Jericho and the Dead Sea: small clusters of Bedouin tents, housing families of shepherds, the occasional camel and plenty of children. On a recent day, a knot of boys and girls churns up the dust with an impromptu soccer game as the summer sun bakes the red clay soil. On the hill to the southwest is the leading edge of the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, with its gleaming white stone apartment buildings, landscaped yards and co
