Desert Flowers at Night
On a visit with old friends in what was once a barren stretch of southern Israel, we stumbled upon something unexpected: a vast field carpeted in desert flowers, blooming with defiant beauty. Years ago, only the Bedouins roamed this land, their tents scattered across the arid expanse. Today, it’s planted, paved, and populated. Still, the spirit of the place—and of its original desert dwellers—lingers.
This reflection is part of a larger essay I’m writing called The Desert and Me, where I explore the landscapes that shaped me and the people I met along the way. Among them, none have left a deeper impression than the Bedouins.
The Bedouins
When I think of the desert, one of my first associations is with the Bedouins—the nomadic tribes who for centuries moved across the Middle East’s vast deserts, raising camels, goats, and sheep, following the water and the grass. Camel herders roamed the great stretches of the Sahara, Syrian, and Arabian deserts. Sheep and goat herders stayed closer to the cultivated regions of Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Some families, especially in South Arabia and Sudan, raised cattle. Bedouins also earned a living by guarding trade caravans—or, just as often, raiding them. But times have changed. As rainfall grows scarcer and modernization edges deeper into the desert, many young Bedouins leave their tribal lands in search of jobs, education, and opportunity.
My encounters with the Bedouins have always been with men. In this conservative, patriarchal society, Bedouin women remain largely out of sight. Still, the men I met—stoic, grounded, alert—carried something timeless. My first real encounter came during my army service.
Each dawn, we patrolled the border fence, checking for signs of infiltration. At the head of our unit was always the tracker—the gashash—a Bedouin soldier enlisted in the IDF’s specialized tracking unit. These men are masters at reading the desert floor. A slight shift in the sand, a footprint barely visible to the untrained eye, a stone that doesn’t belong—all speak volumes to them. From one glance, a tracker might tell you when someone passed, whether they were carrying weight, whether they were limping, and in which direction they were headed. They could even detect hidden explosives by noticing a displaced rock or the pattern of disturbed soil.
The word gashash comes from the Hebrew root meaning “to grope,” to feel one’s way forward without sight. These days, the word carries different—and often uncomfortable—connotations. But in this original sense, it describes someone moving carefully through darkness, listening, sensing. The language we use shapes the world we see—but that’s a subject for another essay.
Trackers are often up against smugglers or infiltrators who try to conceal their tracks—using branches, sponges, or sheepskin. But rarely do they succeed. One story stands out clearly in my memory. We were on patrol near the Egyptian border—an area known for smuggling and infiltrations. Within moments, our tracker said, “This is no smuggler. This is a terrorist.” I asked how he could know. The answer was precise. “The shoe size is wrong—not that of a local Bedouin man. And he’s walking on the hilltops, looking for lights. A man who knows this land would stay low. He wouldn’t need to look for anything—he’d already know where he’s going.”
That call set off a rapid response. Within an hour, we had the man in custody.
I once asked a tracker, “What’s your secret? What do you see that I don’t?”
He smiled and said, “There’s no secret. Just experience. When I was six, my mother sent me to bring food to my older brother, who went out early to herd the goats. I had to follow his footprints to find him. Life in the desert taught me to pay attention.”
Even today, with satellites and surveillance drones watching from above, there’s no replacement for the eyes of a Bedouin tracker and the intuition shaped by sand, sun, and silence.
Night in Sinai
My second close encounter came during my time working as a medic on hiking and camel expeditions in the Sinai Desert. The highlight of these trips was often a visit to the ancient Greek Orthodox monastery of Saint Catherine, nestled beneath the foot of Mt. Sinai. For centuries, the local Bedouins have protected the monastery, receiving food and goods from the monks in return.
On one of those trips, I found myself alone with a Bedouin man and two camels. We camped beside a small fire. He had the weathered skin and dignified quiet I’d come to associate with Bedouin men. We barely spoke—his Hebrew was better than my Arabic, but neither of us had much to say. Still, there was a calm between us.
I watched as he pulled flour from a cloth sack, mixed it with water and a bit of salt, then shaped it into a large disc of dough. He flattened it with steady hands, then left it to rest. Later, he raked away hot coals from the sand, placed the dough in the warm bed beneath, covered it again with coals, and waited. When he finally removed it, brushing off the excess sand, he broke the bread and shared it with me. We dipped it into canned tomato sauce.
