Samaritans, the Foehn effect, and Ukrainian brides – Or a tale of insidious tribalism

The Israeli/Palestinian issue is back in the spotlight. We had been overdue a new instalment of the cyclic “stone-throwing>police clamping down>rocket-launching>airstrike to destroyed pre-determined targets that had been accumulating in the Israeli secret services list since last time…” escalation, and I guess the geopolitical situation is ripe. One side wants to test how far they can push Biden, the other wants to purge their list of targets to keep Hamas down and detract attention from corruption scandals involving their elected leader. A convenient dispute over rent in a couple of Jewish owned houses, inhabited by Israeli Arabs in, supposedly, Palestinian East Jerusalem, provided the excuse to ignite hatreds that have been put in the stove to brew for a time such as this… when the need for mobs to cause distractions arises. Pawns in a chess game … or better still… puppets on a tribal instinct manipulation string.

This reminds me of 2017. In November that year I thought it would be a good idea to spend a couple of weeks hiking in the West Bank (a.k.a. Palestine, a.k.a Cisjordan). After more than a week going up and down rocky hills sparsely covered with olive trees, listening to our archaeologist guide lecture us about both antient and recent regional conflicts… and enduring my fellow hikers’ complaints about Brexit and Trump… without ever laying eyes on a glass of wine to wash it down… I was receptive to the idea of delaying our trip for a couple of hours to visit this… Samaritan enclave where, allegedly, alcoholic beverages could be legally procured.

Turns out this community has nothing to do with the homonymous charitable organization, but rather they are the last of the actual people that goes by that name, and whose only claim to fame is through the biblical parable of the “Good Samaritan”. They live in an enclosed community at the top of this supposedly sacred mount, overlooking one of the biggest and most troubled cities in Palestine, Nablus - where they practice an early spin-off version of Judaism which, of course, they claim to be the most pure and true form of the religion. I became sceptical about the possibility of acquiring a nice bottle of wine at that point!!

After the necessary formalities of meeting the head of their religious community, visit their museum and pretend to pay attention to his recount of the noble and unique lineage of his people, I set out to the local shop, accompanied by the Palestinian guide, whilst my fellow travellers went to visit the holy sites where the Samaritans slaughter hundreds of lambs during Passover festivities. Once my main mission had been completed, and the wine was safely stored in my backpack, I then started to notice something strange… all the Samaritans looked remarkably similar… and everyone I encountered presented some sort of physical deformity. This was statistically unlikely...

I then enquired the guide for more information. Now numbering in only just less than 2000, apparently the Samaritans had been trying to maintain the purity of their lineage for millennia. Obliged to remain in sight of their holy mount, they had to persist in that troubled part of the world… and the self-imposed genetic isolation, war, conflict, forced conversions and exodus, all conspired to a dramatical decrease in their genetic pool.

Despite being a well-educated people, even after the advent of genetics and the understanding of their conundrum, they persisted in their strict ideology of no inter-mixing with either their Jewish or Arab neighbours. After knowingly condemning generations of their people to live with serious health issues, now... facing extinction, they had resorted to the procurement of Ukrainian wives for their young man of age… about 10 of them at the time of my visit… I suspected it was not going to be enough, but remained silent, as I had remained just a few moments before, when the religious cleric explained why that mount, Mount Gerizim, was sacred…indeed the most sacred of all… the chosen place to worship God, not the Temple Mount in Jerusalem like the Jews believe.

It would appear their claim to topographic holiness resided solely on the comparative greater greenness and fertility of that mount when contrasted with the one on the other side of the valley to the east…or indeed the ones that extend further inland and all the way to the valley of the river Jordan. Having seen the maps of the region and analysed the topography of our hike, and knowing we were at the highest point between us and the Mediterranean Sea, just a few kilometres to the west, what he was saying sounded like the logical consequence of a well-known meteorological phenomena… the Foehn effect: where the moist filled air coming from the sea is forced to higher altitudes by the topography which, therefore, results in frequent condensation of the moisture and precipitation on the sea facing side of a mountain, whilst on the other side, such life-giving phenomena is less frequent.

Although I was thankful for this bottle of another life-giving liquid in my backpack, I was now left a bit unsettled and angry at my Mediterranean brethren… I know we all like to feel a sense of belonging, a feeling of community and identity… moreover, we like to feel that our tribe is special in some way… and once we subscribe to that group, many of us would fight, cheat, lie and deceive for it…turn a blind eye to its flaws, and ignore logic. But in this case, it was self-destructive. What strong tribal instinct had possessed them to distinguish and separate themselves from all others in such an extreme way? Even our Palaeolithic tribal ancestors knew better… even before knowing anything about genes and DNA, they frequently exchanged people amongst different tribes, and held annual gatherings with several other clans, precisely to avoid this sort of issues.

And for what? A misattribution of sacred meaning to a natural meteorological phenomenon?

I, of course, remained silent. Maybe the foehn effect was a literal God send in their view, maybe the mount was now sacred on account of the thousands of their ancestors buried there, maybe it didn’t matter…maybe believing in that mount and not any other mount was something that provided them a special identity… as believing on the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock or the Calvary…maybe it is better that, at least the Samaritans, don’t compete for Jerusalem’s hills for the purpose.

Wouldn’t it be better thou, if we were all aware of these tendencies and instincts of ours? So that we would not stumble on these common pitfalls of human behaviour and not fall prey of those holding more earthly, cynical interests…like say…someone looking to extend their political or religious influence, perhaps gather some financial advantage, or someone looking to divert attention and win an election?