One Final Palestinian Adventure: The Trip Home

I know I have joked a lot in this blog about my adventures, but the truth is that they are only adventures because I choose (and have the privilege) to see them this way. In a two-week trip, it is easy to think of difficulties as the challenges on the path to excitement as opposed to daily frustrations that should not be. I have taken many trips to many places (I've been to at least 23 countries) in my life, and when I encounter challenges like poor roads, slow transportation, long lines, interesting non-Western foods, or languages I don't comprehend I try to think of those things as the hilarious little bumps that come with the territory of being in a new place, especially in the era of post-colonialism. But what I have encountered in Palestine is not the normal minutia of the traveler's day: checkpoints, searches, having to fight for and with Palestinian friends just to guarantee passage through what is not even a border, limitations on where and when my friends and I can travel within and between cities, long waits for routine shipments to be allowed in, having to switch cars just to get from one place to another in the same country, etc. Rather, these obstacles represent my brief brushes with the systematic oppression of a people. So here and everywhere in my blog I use the word "adventure" facetiously.

On my way home, it was clear that the Israelis wanted to send me off with a bang. Maybe this is just the Israeli version of a goodbye party for Palestinian sympathizers. Except if they really knew I was a Palestinian sympathizer, I would have been in for much more...

It started when Karam and a friend of her family (I will not mention his name here) drove me to the airport in his "service" van. We drove the hour or so from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, and we began to see signs for the airport around 1:10 PM. I thought, "Great, my flight isn't until 4:35, so I'm right on time."

Not so.

There is a checkpoint placed right before the airport, and almost every car that passes through it gets passed through without stopping for more than a few seconds. Oops, correction: I should say every car with non-Arabs in it. Apparently, we were much more suspicious than most of the cars coming our way, because the soldiers took one look at Karam's and the driver's passports (as well as mine) and told us to pull over and step out of the car. Once we were out of the car, he opened the trunk and asked whose bags those were. They were all mine, and we told him so. Paging through my passport, he asked me why I was in Palestine. I told him I was a visitor, a tourist. He asked if I had family here. I told him no. He asked how I knew Karam and the driver. I told him Karam is the cousin of a friend of mine and the driver is just driving me to the airport. He looked at me suspiciously. Then he told us to take all the bags out of the car and place them on the sidewalk. We took all our (mostly my) belongings out and put them in a big pile on the sidewalk. Then he asked us for all of our cell phones. Now, there is a funny thing with cell phones in Palestine. So many Palestinians I know have more than one cell phone, as many of them have one for work and one for personal use or something like that. The driver had 3 cell phones, and Karam had 2. I only gave the soldier my Israeli cell phone and figured that if he found my American one I could just tell him I didn't even think of giving it to him because I don't use it as a phone here. (Luckily, I realized, I had spent much of the ride to the airport deleting the phone numbers of the people I had been with in Palestine, so there were no numbers actually saved on the phone. Whew!) Of course, the soldier unapologetically dropped one of the driver's phones as he walked away.

So we stood on the sidewalk next to a mound of my luggage while the soldier called us into an office, one at a time. At the same time, another soldier searched the entire van, using one of those plastic wands with the nitrates-sensing cotton swabs at the end to sweep every possible surface of the vehicle. In one hand he held the wand, in the other his gun.

Once the first soldier had worked on the driver and then Karam, he told me to bring my things and come with him. I couldn't carry everything at once, so I had to bring my bags in in two trips. Of course, he didn't lift a finger to help me. When I got in, he made me place each bag on a table while he searched it. I had packed my big hiking backpack as my checked luggage and my regular backpack, my purse, and a laptop case full of tiles and other fragile souvenirs as carry-ons. He unpacked all of the carry-ons, going through everything and even x-raying my backpack, and then he went through much of my hiking backpack as well. He used the nitrates-sensing wand on the whole shebang. Then, of course, he made me pack everything up again. I acted grumpy towards him the whole time, especially when I had to replace everything in my previously carefully-packed hiking backpack.

I was sent outside with my stuff once more (once more he did not help me with any of it) and told that I could put it all back in the van and that all of us needed to go in the van and stay there. At one point, I wanted to take a picture of Karam in the car, and I started to jump out of the vehicle to do so, but she and the driver quickly told me to stay in the van because the soldiers did not want us outside. They did sound a little worried, and, in retrospect, they were correct. Finally, the soldiers came back with our phones and IDs and sent us along our merry way, about 30 minutes after we had originally arrived.

Ok, so I still had a little less than 3 hours to check in, go through security, and get to my gate to wait for boarding. That didn't seem so bad. Boy, was I wrong!

They dropped me off at the airport, I paid the driver, and I loaded everything onto a luggage cart for easy movement. Karam and I said a sad goodbye and gave each other big hugs. I'll miss her a lot! Then I went into the check-in area. After about 10 minutes, I figured out exactly where I was supposed to check in (there is a miserable lack of signs in Ben Gurion airport), and it turned out I needed to wait in a long security line prior to checking in for my flight. So I called Samer and used up the remaining minutes on my rental phone, which I would have to return once I entered the area with the departure gates. As I waited in the security lines, I watched an aiport employee walking around from person to person in the line, asking questions, looking at their passports, and making determinations about who got checked by the security personnel. It was clear that most of the people were allowed to walk right through and check in without any additional security procedures and some of the people had to put their bags through an x-ray machine and then have them searched by a group of security officers to my left prior to checking in for their flights. I hoped that, against all the odds, I would be allowed through. Mostly, I was concerned about what they would find in my luggage. Besides having bought a bunch of kafias (sp?) from Jerusalem, I had a stack of books about Palestinian refugees (in Arabic and English) that I the folks at BADIL had given me. And I knew that if they found those books (the last guy hadn't found them) I'd be taken into a room for questioning and could miss my flight. In retrospect, it was pretty stupid of me not to just mail all of that stuff from Jerusalem to the U.S., but for a bunch of crazy reasons I didn't have time at the end of my trip to do this.

When the woman finally made it to me, she took my passport and asked me why I was in Israel. I told her I was visiting. She took up a very conversational tone, asking me if I had any family here. I told her no. She asked if I spoke Hebrew, and, again, I told her no. It was clear at this point that she was trying to get me talking, and the whole experience felt very different than the kinds of security questions that get asked in other countries, as this woman was almost sly and conniving in the way that she was talking to me. I was in an awkward position. Clearly, I couldn't go into all the people I knew and the work I was there for, but I also couldn't outright lie to her, as this would put me in a very bad position if I was found out (which was quite possible, given the existence of this blog). Even though I hadn't done anything wrong or illegal, just having visited Palestinians would have made me suspicious to the airport security personnel, and working to build playgrounds for Palestinian children would seem even worse to them. I settled on being intentionally vague and only answering the questions I was asked. For instance, when she asked me where I had been, I told her I had stayed mostly in and around Jerusalem (which, by my standards, was true, since Ramallah is really only about 20 minutes from Jerusalem, just like a brief ride from Philly to the suburbs). At one point, she asked if anyone had given me anything while I was there, and I told her about two olive wood boxes that Kathy had given me, as well as some books. Why I mentioned the books I'll never know. What a mistake. I guess I thought that books sound very non-explosive. Somehow, this led to her asking who I received things from and who I had visited or met in Israel. I only invoked the two most American sounding friends I could think of, Kathy and Susie. I told her that while I was there I saw my friends Susie and Kathy and met some of their friends. Again, this was true. She asked to see the boxes, and I took them out (they were in one of my carry-ons). I told her my stuff had already been searched and x-rayed by the guys at the checkpoint and that she could see the inspection stickers they had left on each of my bags, but she insisted that I take out the boxes and open them for her. She even asked me if there was anything in the boxes, to which I responded that there wasn't. She would not touch them until I opened them for her. I don't remember how it came up, but I also mentioned something about NGOs in all of my vagueness and she pressed on about this as well. We resolved that issue when I said that the person who gave me the boxes was working with the Quakers, and then I had to explain who the Quakers were. In the end, it was a very complicated conversation and I did my best not to get myself into too much of a knot. The woman took my passport and the notes she had been writing the whole time we were talking, and she walked away from me. A few minutes later, a male security guy came over to me and told me to follow him, saying, "this will get you through more quickly," which was apparently code for "now we will search everything you own."

This man had me put all my bags through an x-ray machine and then led me over to an area where a number of security personnel were searching through the luggage of about 9 passengers simultaneously. He directed me to one pair of women, who proceeded to go through almost every inch of each of my bags, one at a time. I was not happy, and I grumbled that this had already been done to me and that now I would have to repack my bags once more. One of the women said to me that this was for my own safety and that I could choose to go through this with a smile or with a frown. I told her that I will not smile through this and that it was not for my own safety, but if she wanted to let herself believe that, then this was her choice. They unpacked everything, putting my belongings into a tub on the countertop for all the world to see. I think they got a little grossed out when they came to my dirty underwear and socks, and, miraculously, they left the books from BADIL in my bag, untouched. Again, I had to repack everything before going to check in for my flight.

They sent me right to the check-in counter, where I had my bag checked in to be sent to Frankfort (I had planned to stay overnight in Germany with my friend Mattias). Then I went through to the next level of security. My ticket had clearly been marked with some sign for the security people, so I was doomed from the start. I arrived at the entrance to the gates and gave my passport and ticket to the woman in front of the area where they do the x-rays and security checks as people pass on to the gates. In front of me, there were about 16 (maybe more?) potential security lines, roughly 8 on each side. On the right side, the lines were significantly quicker. On the left side, most people were getting thoroughly searched. I, of course, was sent to the left side. After waiting and waiting for the people in front of me to get searched, I was put through the machines. I refused to take off my sweatshirt, since I had a relatively see-through white shirt underneath it, so they made me show them that my pockets were empty and they checked my hood before letting me through the metal detector. Then the metal detector rang as I went through, so they made me take off my shoes and walk back through it. Once they were sure that I was not carrying anything awful on my person, they sent me to the end of the x-ray machine, where I followed a male security officer to some tables so that he too could go through every inch of my bags, taking out all of my electronic devices (and everything else), x-raying everything multiple times, and, of course, making me repack everything once more. He too said it was for my own safety. They must feed this line to these idiots every day.

By the time I got out of security, I had to run through to the gates, quickly stopping by the cell phone rental desk to return my phone along the way. Though I had initially arrived at the airport almost 3 1/2 hours in advance of my flight, I only got to the gate with enough time to quickly buy a sandwich, have them wrap it up for me, and stand in line to board the plane. Most of the passengers on my flight were happily sitting in the waiting area, talking, reading, working on computers, or eating, because they had been at the gate for quite some time now.

The flight was relatively uneventful, and I got to Frankfurt and through the airport in enough time to make it on an earlier train to Stuttgart, where Mattias picked me up. I even got some free chocolates at the Frankfurt airport - you gotta love those Germans. Mattias and I had a fun evening. He put together a yummy but perfectly light dinner for us, and we just hung out and talked for a few hours before I crashed on the most comfortable couch I've ever slept on. We woke up 5 hours later, and I was off again for another 1 1/2 hour train ride back to the Frankfurt airport. Somehow, we left a few minutes too late, and I missed the train (I literally made it to the platform as the doors were closing), so I had to wait another 40 minutes for the next one to leave. By the time I got to the airport, I was running to the check-in, running to the security lines (which were surprisingly efficient, though long), and running to my gate. Again, I just made it to the gate a few minutes before boarding, but this time it was completely my fault.

Mattias and me in a last minute picture taken with his long arms (he never smiles in pictures):


My flight was from Frankfurt to Toronto, and I had about a 5 hour layover in Toronto. Unfortunately for me, my Toronto-Philadelphia flight was late, so I ended up waiting in Toronto for about 6 1/2 hours. I met a few really interesting people (Ute, I hope you're reading this!), but most of my time was just spent waiting and wandering. I almost missed the boarding of the flight, because I was so exhausted that I fell asleep sitting up at the gate.

When I got home, I spent a fabulous evening with Samer, my parents, and his parents. We ate take-out Chinese food and I told stories about my travels. It was loud and fun and just what I needed after a long trip. Then I just slept and slept.

Arrived Home Safely

I am writing a quick post to let you know that I arrived home safely after a tiresome and frustrating travel experience. I will write more about my last few days in Palestine and my trip home in the coming days. Also, I will continue the blog for a little longer so that I can share more reflections that I didn't have time to write while I was away.

Again, thank you all for sticking with me during my trip. I am looking forward to many interesting conversations with all of you in the coming days/weeks/months!

Playgrounds Approved for Importation into the West Bank!!!

I forgot the most important post of all today...

I received a call from L this afternoon while I was in the Old City, and she told me that we have received approval from the Israeli authorities to bring the playgrounds into the West Bank and install them at the two sites. They will be released from the port within the next few days and should arrive at the ANERA warehouse and be distributed to the their respective sites by the beginning of next week.

I am so relieved that this issue has been taken care of, even though I am still disappointed that I was not able to be here for the actual installation.

Thank you to L from ANERA for being so persistant with the authorities!

Souk, Take Two

Today I went to the Arab quarter of the Old City with the intention of visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque. But the best laid plans...

I have a little problem. Call it massive ADD. Call it an inability to stay on track. I tend to, uh, drift.

I took the bus from Mount of Olives to the closest gate to enter the Old City and wandered around for a bit. I stopped in a few shops, since there were some souvenirs I still needed to buy for people, but I didn't buy anything. Then I found my way to Al-Aqsa, only to be told that it was closed for prayer until 1:30 and that I couldn't go through if I wasn't Muslim. I could probably have told them I was Muslim, but I wasn't dressed properly anyway, so I just left, thinking I would wander around until 1:30 and then be able to come back and take some pictures at that time.

As I walked back past a shop I had already stopped in, the elderly shop owner talked to me, asking if I was Arab. I told him I was Moroccan but had grown up in the U.S. and I explained what I was doing here, and this sparked a whole conversation. He invited me in for coffee, and I accepted. And then we couldn't stop talking. We talked for a few hours as tourist after tourist passed by, occasionally buying some small item from the front of the shop. He told me many interesting stories about what it was like to be a shop owner there. For instance, he said that sometimes tourists will come to buy a lot of stuff from him, but the second he offers them coffee and explains that this is Arab hospitality, they leave the shop without buying a thing because they have been warned by their guides or their friends not to buy from Arabs. He spent a long time showing me all kinds of antiques and explaining their origins (he know a lot about antiques from the area). It was incredible to hold in my hand an object that had been held by another person 2000 years ago! In the end, I bought some of what I needed to bring home to people from his shop, but the best part about it was being able to connect with this interesting person.

By the time I left, it was way too late to go to the mosque, since it closes to outsiders again at 3PM. I did, however, convince the guys at the entrance to let me just pop in, take a quick picture, and leave. They were very kind in letting me do so. (I'll upload the picture tomorrow.)

Then I walked down Via Dolorosa (sp?), again meaning to just leave the Old City and return to my hotel for a few hours of rest before heading off to see Adel, Susie's cousin, and his wife Laila. As I passed by one shop, however, rows of good quality pottery caught my eye, and I went inside. I spent the next while looking at pottery and picking out pieces, at the same time talking with one of the shop owners about Zionism and world politics. We had a lot in common in our perspectives, and we ended up talking for a few hours. I didn't leave his shop until after 7PM. To put this into perspective, I had picked out all I was going to buy by about 5PM. So two hours was spent talking (again over coffee) and getting deep into the politics of Zionism.

By the time I left, I was in a real rush to get back to Mount of Olives. I got to have a nice conversation with my mother on the way back, a quick conversation with Samer when I reached the hotel, and then I ran out to see Adel and Laila and their kids.

I had a really great time with them tonight. When I arrived, the other kids were asleep, but their youngest son Muhammed was still awake. He is probably the most adorable thing you've ever seen. He has serious spunk for a 5-year-old and is thoroughly fun and huggable. I made it home with sleepy eyes, and, after a few hours on the computer trying to update this blog and upload pictures, I'm wiped out.

I will try to post something tomorrow, but it is my last day here (I'm spending it in Ramallah) and I don't know how late I will be arriving back at the hotel. So check back late tomorrow. If I don't post anything tomorrow, I may not be able to write anything until Friday night or Saturday, when I arrive back in the States. So please don't be alarmed if you don't hear from me for a few days.

I do plan on continuing my blog for a while even after I return, as there are many things I've wanted to write but didn't for lack of time. So if you're still interested, I'm still writing!

I am really sad to leave here, but I can't wait to see Samer, my parents, and his parents on Friday! Also, I will be spending Thursday night with our friend Matthias in Stuttgart, Germany, as I have an overnight layover in Frankfurt. I haven't seen Matthias for a really long time, and it'll be great to catch up. (I know he's reading this blog, too, so he is up to speed with my trip as well.)

Great Palestinian Political Cartoons

When I was at the Arab American University, I met a guy who does political cartoons and has a great website. Check it out: http://jffra.com/

Most of the cartoons are in Arabic, but you can get the gist of the message.

Here's a great one about Gaza:

And another one (the Arabic writing says "Gaza"):

And another (again, the Arabic writing on the guillotine says "Gaza"):

And a more general one (the Arabic writing next to one straw reads "Hamas" and next to the other reads "Fatah", two opposing Palestinian political parties):

The Privilege of Being American

I wanted to write a short post about what it means to be an American here, as I felt it was important to communicate to all of you the kind of privilege I've enjoyed while travelling through the West Bank and Jerusalem. Mostly, I want you all to see that my experience here doesn't hold a candle to what Palestinians live through every day.

My identity here is interesting, and I it proffers me many layers of privilege. Every time I pass through a checkpoint, I have the privilege of handing the soldiers an American passport. And even when I'm just walking around, anywhere I go, I can know that as an American I am much safer than the average Palestinian, since if I get stopped for some reason my American passport may be able to get me off the hook (or at least prevent the authorities from doing the worst possible things to me).

When the soldiers open my passport, they read an obviously Jewish last name, and this offers me another very important layer of privilege. I have invoked my Jewishness at checkpoints a number of times already, though I do this only when I think it may make it easier to get my Palestinian friends through, as I don't want to play into the "the land of Israel is for all Jews" propaganda. I certainly do not feel that I have any birthright to this place.

Because of my unplaceable physical appearance, I can pass for many ethnicities. For the most part, when people look at me they see what they want to see. They try to see in me a reflection of their own identities, and this tends to work in my favor. Jews look at me and see a Jew. Arabs look at me and see an Arab (there are some exceptions to this rule, which I will explain later in my post). In Israel and Palestine I am clearly a foreign outsider to both groups, but my experience has typically been that all of these semitic people think of me as a distant mirror of their own ethnicity. I think people generally want to be around people like themselves, and most folks would prefer to think of themselves as similar to, rather than different from, those around them.

However, I am both an American Jew and an Arab Muslim, and I have the wonderful privilege of switching back and forth, depending on what the situation calls for. So when I encounter Arabs, I am quick to indicate that I too am Arab. At that point, they usually say to me, "Yes, you look like an Arab - it's your face" or something to that extent. When I am around Jews, I prefer not to identify with them, except in extenuating circumstances. This is mostly because most of these interactions are so superficial that, for me, identifying as a Jew in Israel would feel like I am communicating a complicity with Zionism. I can't really indicate to these people that I am against Zionism while in public, since this could put me or the people I am with in danger (or just make things more difficult for us in that moment).

As an American, I get better treatment at the checkpoints than any Palestinian can expect, and I have a lot more leeway to resist the demeaning behavior of many soldiers. When I am with a Palestinian, my privilege sometimes gives them a wider margin of error, and there have been a number of times when just showing my American passport got my campanions off the hook (this is only when we're in the car, not on foot). Occasionally, I've noticed that seeing an American travelling with a Palestinian has elicited a resentful response from soldiers at checkpoints, but for the most part it has worked in our favor.

For most of my trip, I have also been travelling in a rental car with Jerusalem license plates. As the driver of that car, I look Israeli. Police are less likely to stop me in that car, and soldiers are more likely to be lenient to me in that car. And it is infinitely easier to get around in a car here than it is to have to take one bus from the hotel to the bus station, another bus from the bus station to the checkpoint, and another bus from the checkpoint to whatever is my final destination. And remember, that also means going through the checkpoint on foot and likely waiting in long lines, possibly in inclement weather. But I just get to drive through checkpoints, sitting in the comfort of my car as I wait in line. Also, buses and services (pronounced "ser-veeces) stop running at a certain hour, so having a car means I have a lot more flexibility in terms of when I have to leave wherever I am.

Finally, as an American working with an NGO, I have the privilege of mentioning my NGO affiliation in interactions with IDF soldiers and Palestinians, and it seems to work equally well with both groups. For the soldiers, my affiliation with an NGO means that I am allowed to pass through what they call "humanitarian" checkpoints or "humanitarian lines" at regular checkpoints. This kind of organizational affiliation is also often sufficient explanation for why an American is in the West Bank. For Palestinians, as soon as I tell them I'm with an NGO (and give a one-sentence description of our work) they are put at ease that I am on their side, so to speak. In the West Bank, NGO is a little bit like code for "I'm here to help, not hurt, your community." (There may be exceptions to this point, but this has been my experience to date.) In Jerusalem, it also indicates that I am not merely an annoying tourist, and it has opened up many opportunities for interesting conversations. Maybe too being affiliated with an NGO gives Palestinians a sense that if they tell me their stories I am likely to share their suffering with the rest of the world in some way... I could be wrong about this, but it's a thought.

Some of these markers of identity can work against me as well. Often, I don't want to be mistaken as an Israeli, and I do everything in my power for that not to happen when I am around Arabs (which is most of the time). In a car, this is difficult. I have certainly encountered looks of resentment at times when I'm not on my best behavior. I am trying to be just a little bit deferential to Palestinians, as this offers a real contradiction to the way most Israelis and foreigners treat them, but there are times when I am tired or sick or both (like right now) and it is hard not to fall into the trap of resting on my privilege. I too can be an ugly American, though I try my darndest not to be.

So as you read about my experiences, I hope you'll remember that what I am seeing and living is nothing in comparison to what happens all the time to most Palestinians here. Don't look at my stories and draw the conclusion that the occupation is merely a minor nuisance and life here clearly isn't all that bad. It IS that bad. Really.

Lost My Pictures...

I took a bunch of pictures of the Al-Phoenix Center Association yesterday, but, due to my own stupidity, I've lost every picture I took yesterday. Argh! Sorry about that. I really wanted to share them with you all so that you could see what a great place it is!

Every Family Has a Nakba Story

There are two posts I wanted to write today. One is about the playgrounds, as I have a number of updates for you all. I continue to feel sad about the ongoing delays with these playgrounds, delays that are completely out of our control. I will write that post later, though, maybe tomorrow. The other post I wanted to write today is about all the Nakba stories I hear, literally on a daily basis.

Briefly and in the broadest strokes possible, Al-Nakba means "the catastrophe", and it refers to the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from their land by the state of Israel. There were two major waves of this expulsion, the first around 1948 at the time the state of Israel was established and the second in 1967 when, in a brief war with disastrous consequences, Israel took over even more land and began an even harsher military occupation of the little land that Palestinians had left. When you talk to or about Palestinian refugees, you will commonly hear them referred to as either 1948 refugees or 1967 refugees, meaning that they or their ancestors were displaced in either '48 or '67 (or, for some, both). However, those are not the only moments at which Palestinians have been driven from their land, as Israel continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land even today. But those are the two big dates to remember (and this description is about as simplified as I could possibly get).

The situation for Palestinian refugees is incredibly complex, and I don't profess to be any kind of expert on it. I don't remember the exact number of refugees that have been counted to date, but it's in the millions, as we are now into the 4th and 5th generations of descendents who have been living away from their families' land. There are Palestinian refugees in all of the surrounding countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, among others. There are also a lot of refugees still living within the West Bank and Gaza (but obviously not on their original land, since, by definition, they have been displaced). Refugees may live in refugee camps or they may live among the general population. They are treated very differently depending on where they are located, but they have few rights in most countries and most refugee camps tend to be underresourced, overcrowded places that offer substandard living conditions and house impoverished populations. Remember that these "camps" were originally meant to be temporary residences for refugees while they waited to be able to go home, just as should be the case with any other refugee group. They were certainly not laid out with any kind of permanence in mind.

This May will mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba. That's 60 years that millions of people have been living as refugees, separated from their homes and land and suffering the material realities of poverty and the indignity of dehumanization at the hands of Israel and other states. As I said before, this population continues to multiply, and the original refugees now have grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, none of whom have been allowed to reclaim (or even, in most cases, physically return to visit) the land that is rightfully theirs. Israel celebrates May 15th as its "Independence Day" (I always ask myself, independence from what exactly? But that's another story). This is akin to stating that Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas paved the way for a future of humanitarianism and progress. What does it mean, then, to celebrate a genocide by calling it a moment of "independence"? However you want to frame the issue, Israel's past and continuing policies regarding refugees are not legal according to international law, as the state of Israel does not acknowledge the refugees' right of return.

There is so much more to say about this issue, and I encourage you to read more about it (try http://www.badil.org/Refugees/refugees.htm) and to participate in Nakba commemoration events this coming spring (for Philadelphia area events, go to http://www.phillyalnakba.org/).

I say all this just to give you some historical context for the stories I have been hearing. Every family I have spent time with has a Nakba story. Families have been ripped apart by the Nakba. Just tonight, I talked to a woman who lives in Jordan as a result of being displaced in 1967. Though her daughter and grandchildren live in Jerusalem, she does not have the right to move back to Palestine, so she can only visit for brief periods. This story is not one of the extreme ones. In fact, it is rather mundane for a refugee story. But what struck me in hearing it is how often I have heard that same sort of story. The person who had to grow up in Jordan, even though his family's land was here. The person who has aunts, uncles, or cousins in Syria who cannot move back to the West Bank. The person who has never met his relatives in a camp in Lebanon. Every family has these stories, it seems.

I think most Westerners don't see that Palestinian society is very interconnected and very collectivist. Homes and land are passed down through generations, and they can represent the long-term economic sustainability of a family. Families are close-knit. Even family members that rarely, if ever, see each other may see pictures and hear stories about each other over the course of their lives until each knows the other intimately. I am not trying to essentialize a whole people here, but I think it's important to understand something of the centrality of family and community in Palestine in order to grasp the significance of these Nakba stories.

A key strategy that Zionism has used to destroy Palestinian society in order to permanently get Palestinians off of what it claims is "Jewish land" is to fracture communities, making the social and economic support systems disappear and implicitly encouraging the members of those communities to start looking elsewhere for better living situations. Splitting up families is an ingenius way to accomplish this. It's pretty amazing to watch how close those families have remained, despite such difficult obstacles.

And it's painful to hear all of their Nakba stories.

Frustrated by the Playground Delays

Just to remind you all, when we originally shipped the playgrounds to Israel, we had already gotten permission from the Israeli government to bring them in. It was not until after they arrived that we were told that we didn't actually have authorization. This was when they demanded we show them proof that the poles of the playgrounds will not be used to launch rockets. We gave them everything they asked for. And we are still waiting for that approval as PfP is forced to pay storage fees that accumulate every day that our shipping container is left in port.

Today I talked with the person who is acting as our liason with the Israeli shipping authorities, and she said that we haven't actually received any approval yet. In a previous post, I think I may have said that we got approval and are waiting for the playgrounds to arrive at the storage facility. I was clearly wrong about that. At this rate, I doubt they will arrive before I leave the country on Thursday. I am very sad about this...

However, I have great confidence in the competence of the people in charge of the installations at the two sites. Both of them really know what they are doing and they both care a great deal about how these playgrounds turn out.

This was a day of playground updates. Not only did I talk with our contacts at ANERA about the shipping problem, but I was able to get in touch with the people at Beit Anan and visit the site for the Bethlehem playground (finally!). In Beit Anan, they have finished digging 25 of the 32 holes total. They have also acquired the proper equipment to make sure the holes match the width specified in the installation manual. I am hoping they will be able to finish digging these holes in the next day or so.

Also, while in Bethlehem with Muhammed and Karam, I got to visit the site for our playground in D'heisha camp. Just in case you did not get the chance to read Susie's blog, I will give you a sense of this site, which is located in the Al-Phoenix Center (think about the notion of beings that rise from the ashes and are reborn) in the D'heisha refugee camp in Bethlehem. This center was established in 2000 and fosters community and growth among residents of the D'heisha camp (this may or may not be exactly what their mission statement says, but it's what I gleaned from my conversations with a few people there). They run some amazing programs. They have arts programs (including internationally renowned youth and adult theater troupes), educational programs for young people of all ages, programs for older residents, and programs that invest in the creation and sales of women's handicrafts, among other services to the community. It is clear to me that the playground we are donating will be well-used by the children in this 12,000-resident camp, and I know it will be well-cared for by the organization as well. I felt so optimistic after my tour of their newly constructed facilities (including a library named after Edward Said - good for them!). I took a few pictures as well...

Later, I went back to Jerusalem with Karam, and she invited me for dinner with her family. It was delicious (I'm spacing out on the name of the dish, but it was basically goat's meat mixed with rice and cooked in the cleaned out stomachs of the goats), Mostly, I really enjoyed being with her family. I feel right at home with them. Karam also beat me at about 5 games of cards!

I am soooo tired right now. I've been coming down with some kind of cold in the last few days, and I spent all day with a sneezy, runny nose. Tonight I'm just going to sleep until I wake up naturally at some point tomorrow late morning or early afternoon. Wish me luck... :)

Mundane Days in the Madness of Occupation

Yesterday was a little mundane. Thank God for that.

I hung out for most of the day on my own, and then Muhammed and I walked around Ramallah a bit to look for an Arabic cell phone for Samer. I found him a good one - thanks for your help, Muhammed! I miss Samer so much, so it is with bittersweet feelings that I think of leaving this place in a few days. I am sad to go, especially before the playgrounds get installed. But I am also so excited to finally see him on Friday! It still feels like too far away...

After buying the cell phone, Muhammed and I headed over for a delicious dinner with Kathy and her friend Raja, who we had met last Wednesday. Kathy is an awesome cook and an interesting companion. We talked for hours about the politics of Zionism and strategies for resisting it. I had a lot of fun with them!

One thing we talked about was what constitutes resistance. We all agreed that when Palestinians choose to stay here this choice is, in itself, an act of resistance against Zionism, since Zionism explicitly aims to push the Palestinians off of this land so that the land will be for Jews only. That said, I have been thinking a lot about what kinds of choices I would make if I were a Palestinian living in the West Bank, as it is a hard life here. In the 10 days I have been here, I have encountered numerous Palestinians who have expressed a desire to leave. Just the other day, Muhammed and I were hanging out and, out of nowhere, he sighed and said, "Oh, I wish I could leave this prison." And I have been approached by friends of friends here about helping them to go study in or immigrate to the U.S. One friend of Shaher's asked me if I could offer him an acceptance to a university in the U.S. He didn't know which one, and he didn't care. I felt so awful to have to tell him that I had no power to accept him to any university, but I did try to give him some tips on how to start finding an appropriate university and putting together an application. Many people here want to leave, and I can't blame them. But I wish it was different. I wish life wasn't so hard, and I wish Zionism wasn't so successful. I can't expect Palestinians to want to stick it out here, to want to resist by staying and coordinating anti-Zionist movements, but I hope for the sake of what's left of Palestine that enough people will continue to do so.

It is so strange to be here in the West Bank, just a few hours' drive from Gaza, and to know the terribleness of what is happening there. I just read this article in the Toronto Star (which, I believe, is typically a pretty Zionist newspaper - Canadians, help me out here): http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/326309

In it, there is a quote:

James Reilly, professor of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the U of T [University of Toronto], sums it up this way:

"The operative assumption on the part of Palestinians is that the Israelis have inflicted so much pain on us that they deserve whatever violence we can inflict on them.

"The operative assumption on the part of Israelis is that if we hit the Palestinians hard enough and often enough, they will agree to peace on our terms."

How true this is. And peace on Israeli terms means a continued occupation of Palestinian lands and the continued oppression of Palestinian people.

In this vein, I want to share with you all that I was reading one comment in particular on a blog post from a few days ago, and I was very upset, so upset that I was ready to throw this poor computer through the window of this internet cafe. I have struggled with how to deal with this, because it was written by one of my family members (from the Jewish side of my family). I found it outright hateful and racist - it was essentially a justification for the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. I have trouble understanding how people can convince themselves that Israel is acting in self-defense and with restraint. And then I go back to slavery in the U.S., colonialism in Africa and North and South America, the Holocaust in Europe, apartheid in South Africa, and every other example of the racist domination of one group by another since the advent of race and capitalism. In every one of these examples, members of the dominant group were somehow able to convince themselves that what they were doing was right and "Godly", that any loss of life or abdication of freedom on the part of the oppressed group was merely necessary in order to maintain the natural order of things. And somebody will have to sacrifice, right? I held myself back from saying this a few days ago, because I felt worried about alienating people I know. Now I will say it. People who think of themselves as progressive, as anti-racist, as humanitarian and humane, are tricking themselves the second they support Zionism. How can the world take seriously their desire to fight against the oppression of, say, Black people if they cannot extend the same analysis to all examples of racist oppression?

I think that's enough for today. I'm starting to get all worked up. Now I'm off to Jerusalem, where I plan to do a bit of tourism and try to pick up some books for Susie. Tomorrow it's Bethlehem in the morning, and possibly Haifa in the afternoon/evening. I plan to be back in Ramallah by Wednesday, though, because I really want to attend a lecture about parallels between South Africa and Palestine at the Friends Center that night.

Cannot Add Pictures from Here

I can't seem to add pictures from this internet cafe, so I'll try to add pictures from somewhere else. But please keep checking back to the blog entries you have already read for pictures to appear... I have some good ones of checkpoints, soldiers shooting, stone throwing, the Beit Anan playground site, and the Dead Sea, among others.

Another Playground Delay Update

I meant to write in my last post that, because of the newest round of closures between Israel and the West Bank, I am starting to doubt that we will receive the playground shipment anytime soon.

To recap, we had initially sought permission to build two playgrounds in the West Bank this month, one in a small town called Doma and one for disabled and orphaned children in Silwad (with Maysoon's Kids). We got word that we could not get security clearance for the playground in Doma, so we chose the alternate site of Beit Anan. We thought we had clearance for playgrounds, so we shipped them and they arrived in port in Israel. However, when Susie got here, she found out that we did not have clearance for the site at Silwad, so she quickly named a new site in Bethlehem. We thought all was well, but then the Israeli authorities told her that PfP would have to prove that the poles of the playground were not going to be used as rocket launchers. So she coordinated a barrage of faxes and e-mails from the U.S. showing the specs and designs of the poles, and we finally received clearance to send the playground from the port to the ANERA storage facility in the West Bank. In the meantime, PfP incurred almost a month's worth of port storage fees. The playgrounds were sent from port about a week and a half ago, I think.

We are still waiting for them to arrive. Muhammed told me that when they cross the Green Line into the West Bank, H will get a phone call about them, and he has not yet received that call. So up until now, it seems that they are still in Israel. Unfortunately, due to the checkpoint closures and backups in the last two days, we will likely have to wait even longer than we had anticipated for the playgrounds to arrive. I just hope they will arrive before I leave this coming Thursday!

Checkpoints Rule Life in the West Bank

Thursday and Friday...

This Thursday was one of the most bizarre days yet, and I think it really typified what it's like here when things heat up politically. Muhammed and I had plans to go to a few clinics - in a small Ramallah town called Aroura and in Jericho - together, as his job for ANERA entails going to medical clinics to check that they are properly storing and using the medicine donated to them by ANERA. He has a background as a pharmacist, which gives him the power to prescribe medication in Palestine, so he knows his stuff when it comes to meds.

We started out late in the morning to Aroura and arrived at a newly constructed clinic that serves 7 different villages in the area (about 30,000 people). We met with the doctor there (yes, just one doctor for 30,000 people, though specialists come in once or twice a week as well), and, after having Muhammed inspect the medicines, he took us on a tour of the clinic. They are in the process of adding an x-ray room, a lab, and an emergency room, as well as acquiring an ambulance, and these additions will make a big difference for residents in the area, who don't live very close to a hospital. As happens everywhere you go in Palestine, we sat down with the doctor for some delicious Arabic coffee. (I swear, between the coffee and the tea, I have consumed more caffeine in a week here than I do in a typical month in Philly!) We had a really interesting conversation, and he told us more about his work at the clinic. He said that most of the cases he treats are geriatric and that, because of patients' lack of access to more specialists, he often has to diagnose more serious problems such as cancer. In those cases, he sends them to hospitals for more specific diagnoses and treatment.

We also talked about citizenship here in Palestine and in Israel, and the doctor and Muhammed clarified some points for me. We discussed the various classes of citizenship here. First, there are the Jewish Israelis, who have the most rights and privileges. Second, there are the Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship. Third, there are the Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs. Fourth are the Palestinians with West Bank IDs. And lowest on the totem pole, with the most problems and the least rights are the Palestinians in Gaza. I will not get into this in more detail right now, but I will say that I always find it interesting to hear Israel revel in its status as a democracy (as I heard an Israeli government representative do in a television interview the other night) even as it fails to recognize that not everyone in this so-called "democracy" has equal rights.

As we left Aroura, we called Karam to see if she wanted to come with us to Jericho. Since she was getting off of work at 2, we just waited for her to meet us in Ramallah so that the three of us could head off to Jericho together. Once we got together, we decided to go to the Dead Sea first so that I could finally see it (this was the one tourist thing I have been dying to do while I'm here - in fact, I think it was my friend David Miller who told me years ago how cool the Dead Sea was because you could float in it due to the high salt content, and ever since then I have wanted to see it, so thanks, Dave). The Dead Sea is not really all that far from Ramallah, and usually it should take maybe an hour to get there. However, just as we were passing Jerusalem, we ran into an insane line of traffic that reminded me of the worst of Philly rush hours. We thought maybe the traffic was because of an accident, but it turned out to be just your average checkpoint. Oh well. This delayed us about 45 minutes to an hour, and by the time we got to the Dead Sea the sun was already setting. Still, it was a beautiful sight. The Dead Sea is something like 400+ meters below sea level, and all along the way there are markings on the sides of the mountains to show you how much below sea level you are. It's pretty wierd to be below sea level. I think this is the first time I've ever actually been in a place like this. The Dead Sea is the lowest point in the world. Wow. The other really amazing thing about it is that the landscape changes drastically along the way. Suddenly, I found myself in the midst of desert. The mountains were bare rock with no green at all. The only green around was in the palm trees that grew near the sea. It was so warm there too - I did not wear a jacket at all on Thursday, even as night fell.

On our way in, we were worried that we would not be allowed to pass the checkpoints (we had to go through about 3 or 4 of them) because Muhammed does not have permission to enter Israel. If you are thinking, "But I thought the Dead Sea was in the West Bank, on the border between Palestine and Jordan", you are correct. However, Israel controls it. I guess it was just too valuable to let the Palestinians have. Luckily, the soldiers at these checkpoints did not check Muhammed's ID even once. Remember how I said all of this "security" is arbitrary? Well, case in point.

When we finally reached the place where people are allowed to enter the sea (there is a long, winding road to get there), we got out and made the trek to the water's edge. I have never seen anything like this! Salt coated the rocks near the water, forming a hard, thick crust on them. I broke off some of this salt to take home with me. The salt also gathered in the water and billowed like small clouds in front of us. I watched some people swimming, and they floated effortlessly on the sea's surface. I even dipped my fingers in the water and licked them just to taste the bitter saltiness beyond any other saltiness. Nothing can live in this sea. The salt smothers everything.

We left the Dead Sea and headed for Jericho. We were starving, as Muhammed and I had had nothing to eat all day but some kaak (sp?) in the morning and Karam hadn't eaten for a while either. All we could talk about was what we would eat when we arrived at a restaurant in Jericho. As we approached the checkpoint into Jericho, though, our hopes of eating anytime soon were completely dashed. The line of cars leading up to the checkpoint was barely moving. As we inched along, we saw one family park its car to the side of the road and get out to pray together (it was the time for evening prayer). It took us about 30 minutes just to get to the front of the line, at which point I handed our three IDs to the soldier and he told us to pull our car over to the side and wait for him. I did as instructed, then the soldier called me over to him. He told me that, as an American, I needed special authorization to go into Jericho. At first, I thought maybe this was that Jewish rule again, but I acted stupid and asked why. He said that it was for my safety. I almost laughed right there and then. Here I was, at the complete mercy of a guy with a gun, knowing that if I just said or did the wrong thing in front of him I could be detained, imprisoned, or worse, and he was telling me that going into a Palestinian city might be dangerous? What? I told him that nobody ever mentioned to me that I needed special permission to go into any city and, besides, I did not feel at all unsafe going into Jericho. I asked if he could please just give me the necessary permission here and let me pass. He said he would check. As we waited another 10 minutes or so, I heard F-16s pass overhead. Maybe this was the danger of which he was speaking - was it the IDF I should be afraid of? I also saw a rocket in the distance. This is the IDF's way of shedding light on areas they can't see in the dark. The soldier eventually came back out, gave us back our IDs, and let us pass, but the entire time we were in Jericho the sky was filled with the sound and tiny lights of F-16s crisscrossing above us.

Jericho was a happenin' place. We had a delicious dinner at a place called the Spanish Gardens, a mix of children's amusement park and outdoor restaurant. I stuffed myself with goat meat, hummus, fries, and salads. I am salivating right now just remembering this meal! (For those of you who are reading this blog mainly for political reasons, I am sorry to devote so much time to food, but if you could just taste the food here you would understand why I am obsessed.)

Yummy dinner (note the expression of starvation on Muhammed's face):

Now came the difficult part. I had to drop off Karam in Jerusalem, but since Muhammed doesn't have permission to go into Jerusalem I had to drop him off in Ramallah first, drive Karam to Jerusalem, and then go back alone to my hotel in Ramallah. On our way, Karam got a call from her mother that there had been an attack in Jerusalem and that she needed to get back into the city as soon as possible. They invited me to come stay with them, but I really couldn't, as all my stuff was in Ramallah and I had a lot of things to do the next day (mainly to update my blog). We were worried that I would not be able to get back into Ramallah, because typically after any attack on Israelis the IDF closes off the city where it happened. However, I was more likely to be able to get back in that night than the next day.

We dropped off Muhammed and headed off to Jerusalem. We waited in line at the checkpoint for about 20-25 minutes, and when we got to the front the soldiers made me step out of the car and open my trunk. I asked the soldiers if I would be allowed to return back to Ramallah tonight, and they said there would be no problem with that. Once we were inspected and allowed to pass, we encountered ridiculous traffic jams on the way to Jerusalem. There were police and soldiers everywhere, too, even in Ramallah (usually there aren't random IDF soldiers hanging out in Ramallah). Finally, I dropped off Karam at her house, turned down yet another very kind invitation from her mother to stay there, and headed back to Ramallah. And here was my mistake.

It was about 11 or 11:30 at that point, and I started not to trust my instincts about how to get back, so I pulled up next to an Israeli "service" (pronounced ser-veece - it's kind of like a group taxi service) and asked if this was the right way to go to Ramallah. The driver said yes, and I asked where I should turn next. He told me to follow him. I followed him all over, from Jewish neighborhood to Jewish neighborhood. Soon, I started to get nervous. Maybe this was some nutjob who, angry about the attack, was going to lead me into a neighborhood where I would be shot by extremists. So when we were in a public drop-off location, I pulled up next to him again and asked if this was the right direction. He hit his forehead with his palm and said that he had forgotten that I was following him. He said, "You want to go to (insert name of Jewish neighborhood that sounds like "Ramallah" here), right?" I said, "No, I want to go to Ramallah." He looked at me funny and said, "But that's an Arab place." Not wanting to be too confrontational, I just looked at him with firm eyes and said, "Yes." He said, "You want to go THERE?" And I said, "I want to go to the West Bank. To Ramallah. Can you just tell me how to go towards Bethlehem?" At that point, I figured that he'd be little help, and I didn't want to antagonize him, since I didn't feel like I could trust that he wouldn't do something bad to me in the wake of the attack that night. Finally, he just told me to follow him and turn right when he turned left. I was back on track. From then on, I only asked directions from Arabs.

I eventually got to Ramallah and called Karam and Muhammed to tell them that I was ok. I got a little lost in Ramallah, but I knew I could just ask directions back to the Manara (a circle in the center of the city) because my hotel was right up the block from there. By chance, I happened by Arafat's compound and asked directions from the Palestinian Authority (PA) soldiers in front of it. I didn't even realize where I was at first, I just saw some people who could help me. It was not until I had already rolled down my window and gotten their attention that I realized who they were. I could tell they were suspicious of me, a woman alone in Ramallah in a Jerusalem car. Who was I? Why was I there so late at night? And I could tell there were more than the usual number of PA soldiers outside of the compound. I too felt a little nervous about what Israel had planned for the West Bank... I got back to my hotel just fine, though, and I made sure everyone knew I was ok.

That night I watched Al-Jazeera's English language coverage of the attack. It was excellent. I also watched France 24's coverage, which was good but not as thorough. Before getting back to the hotel, I knew few details about what had happened in Jerusalem. But as I watched the news coverage, I started to cry. This attack will be very bad for Palestinians. When even one Israeli dies, thousands of Palestinians must pay for it. By no means do I think the attack on the seminary was a good thing, and, of course, I don't support it. However, it really scared me to see how Israeli officials talked about it. One government representative said, "This is what these people do," completely ignoring the fact that this man acted alone and not in coordination with others. He talked about how Israel is a democracy defending itself in Gaza, even when he was confronted by the interviewer with the fact that most of the roughly 150 Gazans who have been killed in the last week were civilians. As I watched this coverage, all I could think was that this situation is hopeless. How can the world expect that Israel can pound Gaza and then not think that people will want to fight back or exact revenge? It saddened me to see Palestinians celebrating this attack, but I understand why they want Israelis to see what it is like to live like them, even if on a much smaller scale. And it saddened me even more to watch the footage of Israelis calling for death to Arabs, for revenge on all Arabs for this one incident. Of course, the Israelis have closed off Jerusalem (from the West Bank) since then and are not expected to reopen the checkpoints until late tonight. And they bulldozed two houses in Bethlehem yesterday morning. And they have made checkpoints all over the West Bank even more of a nightmare. And God knows what else they've done that I haven't heard about yet...

On Friday I slept late and spent the day lazing around with Muhammed and his roommate, Muhammed (there are three Muhammeds in that apartment). I updated my blog and finally responded to e-mails, and they made a delicious m'jadara. Again, I happily ate way too much. At one point, we were looking at a photograph of Muhammed's family's land on Susie's blog, and Muhammed said to me, "All that land belongs to my family, but we can't build anything on it." I asked him why, and he explained to me that there is an Israeli settlement nearby and that the road that goes to the settlement (which is only for Israelis) runs past his land. He pointed it out in the picture. The law makes it so that they can't build anything on the land next to this road - not a house, not a tent, not even a short wall around a field.

The checkpoints, the settlements, the laws governing the use of Palestinian land... All of it reminds me of an interview I heard on the radio years ago. The person being interviewed was talking about the fallacy of the "peace" process in Israel/Palestine. In response to a question about who has control of the land since Palestinians actually inhabit most of the Occupied Territories, he said that a good metaphor for the occupation would be to think of the West Bank and Gaza as a prison. In a prison, most of the space is allotted for the prisoners, and they take up most of the space, including the cells, the cafeteria, the recreational areas, etc. The guards take up almost no space at all. The prisoners also outnumber the guards at least a few hundred to one. But who has the power, who has control of the prison? It is not the prisoners. In the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis ultimately have all the control.

Last night I had a fitful sleep. I dreamt of checkpoints, of going back and forth across the West Bank and being refused entry everywhere I went. And the whole dream was characterized by a sense of not knowing what would happen to me. I tossed and turned, shifting positions so many times in bed, because something in me didn't feel secure. I think, though, that the dream was not really about me, it was about Palestine. Who knows what will happen here in the coming weeks and months? Who knows what Palestinians will be forced to suffer at the hands of the state of Israel in the name of "self-defense"?

Stories Galore

Tuesday...

Shaher and some of his family:

After an awesome breakfast of falafel, hummus, labaneh, zaatar, olive oil, and tea at Shaher's house, Shaher and I headed out to the Arab American University. Shaher dropped me off for a meeting with the PR people there while he went to a job interview (his position at CIDA is done at the end of the month because the project is being discontinued) in Jenin. I talked for a while with the AAU staff, and they gave me a lot of information about the university. For instance, when I asked about makeup of the student population, they said that almost all their students come from the West Bank, since it is too difficult to come from inside the Green Line (Israel). Just to put this into perspective, Jenin is literally only about 5 minutes from the Green Line, and you can actually see parts of the Wall from nearby villages. So, even though AAU might be the closest university for some students, it would take too much time and be too difficult for many of them to actually go there.

When I told the people in the AAU PR office why I was in Palestine, three of them asked me if PfP could build a playground in their respective villages. Yes, three people in the space of just an hour or so. And this has happened to me many times in the week that I have been here. Hearing these requests reminded me how important it is to do this work. I hope all our supporters around the world will note that people here really do appreciate that PfP can bring playgrounds into the lives of Palestinian children. Later that day, Shaher and I were driving through another village near Jenin and I saw a little girl swinging on a homemade swing made of two thin, black ropes and a dirty rag (the seat) tied to the roof of a broken down cinderblock structure. Imagine if that girl were swinging on a safe, sturdy plastic swing hanging from the solid frame of one of our playgrounds instead...

Back to AAU, though. When Shaher returned, we found Adel, a friend of his who teaches in the Physical Therapy program at AAU. He brought us to see a blood donation drive that had been put together at 2AM in response to the crisis in Gaza. We just happened to come in at the same time as the Governor of Jenin and the President of AAU were giving blood, and I got to meet them. I was very impressed about the turnout for such a last-minute event. The group that organized the drive got more than 120 pints of blood and was only limited by time, as the doctors had to clean up and go at a certain point. Blood drives like this have been happening all over the West Bank as Palestinians here stand in solidarity with Gazans. I hope the rest of the world can follow suit...

After the blood drive ended, we sat and talked with Adel for a while. Adel is a practicing physical therapist as well as an instructor at AAU, and he had many stories to tell me about his experiences doing physical therapy in Ramallah. I asked him what kinds of injuries he sees in his work, and he said that, by far, most of his patients are recovering from gunshot wounds. This has been a big problem in the West Bank ever since the beginning of the second intifada. I too have noticed that there are many disabled people here. Everywhere I go, I see people in wheelchairs, using walkers, or limping. And those are just the visible injuries - this does not include people with injuries to the upper body that may not be as obvious to a passer-by.

Adel also gave us a tour of AAU. This university is new - it was built only about 8 years ago - and the buildings and landscaping are really gorgeous. Like almost everything in the West Bank, it sits atop a mountain and offers a breathtaking view of the surrounding area. In almost all the parts of the West Bank that I've visited so far, the mountains are green and rocky. There are yellowish stones of all sizes everywhere, even in the agricultural fields. I've never seen such a stoney landscape in all my travels. As I look at the stones, I think how obvious it is that stones are the main weapon that Palestinians have as they fight against an occupation. There are not millions of guns or millions of dollars here, but there are millions of stones. Unfortunately, it's not such a fair fight when it's a stone against a tank or a stone against a missile launcher, is it? I don't mean to simplify the issue, as I know that Palestinian resistance movements have been able to acquire some weaponry (and I know this paragraph will trigger more antagonistic comments from my Zionist readers), but for the most part violent resistance here happens with stone in hand.

After AAU, Shaher and I went into Jenin, a small but bustling city located at the very north of the West Bank. We went into a cafe and, again, by total chance happened upon more of Shaher's friends. This time, it was three social workers, one from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and two from another local agency. I only had to ask them one or two questions about their work to start them going on story after story about the occupation. The PRCS social worker told me of a recent story in Gaza about a PRCS paramedic who was carrying an injured man on a stretcher. An IDF soldier shot the injured man through the head, and the bullet passed through and went into the paramedic's stomach. This story triggered another one about two women, who were carrying an injured man to safety. An IDF soldier shot the injured man 3 times to kill him off. And this is policy, it's not just two rogue soldiers going crazy. One of the other social workers told me that a common practice that he's seen is when an IDF soldier will point a gun at a Palestinian and pretend to shoot him. Behind that soldier will be one of his friends, who will shoot his gun into the air at the same time as the first soldier pretends to shoot. This is really scary for the Palestinian on the other end of the gun, who thinks he's been shot.

When I asked more about the children that these men work with in the course of their jobs as social workers, they told me that children in this area face many problems because of the occupation. First, of course, there's poverty. Many children also suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which manifests in problems at school and at home, nightmares, and more. Many of them have seen people killed. One example of this was when a girl in a nearby village was shot in the head by an IDF bullet while sitting in class, right in front of all her classmates. They also talked about how children may drop out of school because it is too difficult to get there each day. One village in the area was actually split in half by the Wall, and a number of children lived on the side away from the school. Every day those children would have to cross through a checkpoint just to get to school, and for some this obstacle became a reason to drop out. These circumstances are not uncommon here.

I really admire the work these people do. When I hear these kinds of stories I want to cry, and I have to stop myself from tearing up right in front of the people who tell them. Sometimes I get back to my hotel room at night and just cry by myself for what I am seeing and hearing here. Why must a people suffer like this? I don't care what excuses anyone uses for Zionism, I don't care how someone may justify this occupation and the military offensive of Israel so that they may feel more comfortable killing Palestinians... This conflict is assymetrical. I know that Israelis do not feel safe, and I can sympathize with that feeling of insecurity, but Palestinians are daily dehumanized and killed by a state and by the people who support that state. The oppression of Palestinians is systematic and its causes systemic. This issue may not be black and white, but it is not an even fight either. I am consumed by such great sadness in this place, and I have trouble locating enough hope...

Shaher also took me to see a PRCS youth recreation center, where his friend is the director. It is always nice to see the happier places here. I have met so many committed people doing such great things for the health of Palestine and its people. I feel completely humbled.

Later that day, I proposed going back to Jerusalem instead of returning to Nablus, but Shaher cannot do so because his permission to go into Jerusalem (much like his car's permission to go through the Hawara checkpoint) expires at 7PM. This means that he can only be in the city of Jerusalem between 5AM and 7PM on any given day. So, after saying goodbye to his family, we went back to Nablus. Just as we were leaving Jenin, though, Shaher's car broke down. Luckily, we were right next to a gas station. The guys at the station told us the timing belt needed to be fixed, so we called a tow truck and rode in the cab of the truck all the way back to Nablus. Shaher dropped me off at his friend's sister's apartment and went back to his own apartment.

This apartment was a big surprise for me. I had expected to stay with two or three women. Instead, I encountered nine college-aged women, all but one of whom are students at Al-Najeh University (the other one doesn't actually live there, she was just visiting). We spend a fun evening giggling and talking. I fielded about a million questions about life in the U.S. and about my own experiences. I felt like a movie star - they even asked me to write them messages in their notebooks at the end of the evening. They were a wonderful bunch of young women, and what terrific hosts! I felt so welcomed and loved, and I had a great night with them. They all promised to add me to their Facebook friends. (Don't forget, girls!)

Again, I'll add pics when I get more time. For now, I'm just going to try to tackle yet another post. What am I on now, Wednesday?

Every Day Is an Adventure for an American in Palestine

Every day is an adventure in Palestine, at least if you are an American. If you are a Palestinian, every day necessitates finding really creative solutions to really awful problems. The last 5 days have been intense, and it took me about an hour just to write out some notes about what I want to share with you in my upcoming blog entries. There is so much to say about the things I see here - it is surreal. I have decided to write entries for each day in the order that they happened, but this probably means that I will continue to be behind by a few days until after I return to Philly.

Sunday night after I finished updating my blog, I ran out to get something to eat. All I wanted was a little falafel or something light, but I ran into a guy who showed me his restaurant, and this meant a brief sit-down dinner. I started talking to all the guys in the restaurant, telling them about PfP and my trip. Soon, I was deep in conversation with the whole staff. I sat down with the owner, nicknamed Kojak, and he told me stories of his work as the only Palestinian paramedic at the beginning of the first intifada. He talked about how he transformed his car into an ambulance by putting in oxygen and IVs and how he would pick up injured Palestinians from everywhere to get them proper medical care. Eventually, he was able to train a number of other paramedics. We talked for a few hours about politics, and finally I excused myself to leave so I could have a phone conversation with Samer (my husband), who I am missing SO much!

On Monday morning, Susie left to fly out of Jordan and handed the rental car over to me. I checked out of my hotel in Mount of Olives because I was going to spend the next few days with Shaher up north, in Nablus and Jenin. I had plans to go to Bethlehem with Karam, as I had scheduled a meeting with a guy named Fares, who is interested in working for PfP. Karam and I left Jerusalem and got to the Bethlehem checkpoint (that fancy one I told you all about a few days ago). We thought we weren't allowed to bring the car in because it has Jerusalem license plates, so we parked it in the lot, got out, and walked into the pedestrian passageway. There weren't long lines that morning, and people were going through two different turnstiles. It looked like it would be a quick process. I showed my passport to the soldier in one of the lines, and he let me pass through. Then Karam showed him her Jerusalem ID, and he said she could not pass into Bethlehem. No?, we asked. Why? Well, as it turned out, Karam was not allowed through because she does not work in Bethlehem. I explained to the soldier that she had come into Bethlehem just two days before and it did not seem to matter then, but he would not budge. He said, "You can say whatever you want, but she is not going to pass to Bethlehem." We argued and argued with him and another soldier, and finally we dropped it and walked to the other turnstile, where we were promptly turned down again because one of the guys we had just been arguing with told this soldier not to let Karam through.

Resigned to our defeat, we walked outside, intending to go to the car so I could drive Karam back to Jerusalem and return alone for my meeting with Fares. On our way to the parking lot, though, we ran into another soldier, a man who we had asked directions from on the way in. He asked us why we were not passing through, and Karam explained what had happened. He told us to come through with the car and said he would make sure we got through. So we did exactly as he said and made it into Bethlehem! This is such a great illustration of how arbitrary all of these so-called "rules" are at the checkpoints. So much of what happens to people as they go through checkpoints is up to individual soldiers, and, though soldiers tend to talk about rules as if they are set in stone and have always been the same, in reality the rules change daily and even hourly. I think this particular "rule" about Jerusalem residents not being able to cross into Bethlehem if they don't work there came about only because of all the protests about Gaza that had been taking place around Jerusalem and the West Bank the day before.

My meeting with Fares was good, and I look forward to talking with him again. Fares works for BADIL, a refugee rights organization that was established in 1998 and whose mission it is to protect the rights of refugees by advocating for refugee communities and informing people about issues that affect Palestinian refugees. One really big piece of what they do is to defend the right of return for ALL Palestinian refugees everywhere. Hassan, another employee at BADIL, told me about youth programs that BADIL does with youth from many refugee camps in multiple countries. This summer, they will be running a youth camp in Damascus. Fares and Hassan gave me a number of excellent BADIL publications to take home with me. I think Samer may find them useful as well.

As we drove to my meeting with Fares, we had passed by an IDF tank that had stopped and blocked off one direction of a major road. When we went back towards the checkpoints after the meeting, we had to go around this road because soldiers were shooting at young Palestinian children who were throwing stones at the tank. I will never forget that image of the tank, the soldiers with their guns, and the sea of stones in a big pile right in front of them. I hope nobody got hurt.

The tank, the stones, and the stone-throwers:

On our way back into Jerusalem, Karam and I went through the checkpoint in the car once more. It was just our luck that the same soldiers who initially told us no on the way in just happened to be the ones checking our IDs on the way out! We were a little afraid that Karam would encounter some problems, but in the end it was ok. They just looked at us quizzically and asked how we made it in (they recognized us from before). They did tell Karam to go through the checkpoint as a pedestrian, but then the guy who had let us in talked with them and they let us both stay in the car and pass through.

Graffitti on the Bethlehem side of the Wall, leading up to the checkpoint:

Karam and I had to go up to Ramallah to meet with Shaher and Muhammed, since Shaher was planning on taking us to Birzeit University that day. We drove up to Ramallah without incident, but as soon as we passed through the Kalandia checkpoint at the entrance to Ramallah, we freaked out. After the checkpoint is a circle (a turn around for cars), and right in front of us were soldiers crouched behind the doors of their Jeeps, shooting at Palestinians in the distance (pictures to the left and below). We pulled up to the parking lot nearby and called Shaher to ask him what we should do, since it did not look like a good idea to drive through the shooting. But, in the typical fashion of a Palestinian who has experienced years and years of occupation, Shaher just told us that this was normal and that we should drive right by it. He said that they don't shoot at cars, just at people. How comforting. So we drove by, and everything was fine, but I have to admit that I was scared out of my mind.

That afternoon, we went to Birzeit University with Shaher and, by chance, met up with a student who knows Shaher and gave us a great tour of the campus. Birzeit is one of the top universities in Palestine, and it has very high academic standards. Students have to be at the top of their class in order to be accepted. The student we talked to said he goes there for free because his father is a political prisoner in an Israeli jail. Birzeit was beautiful, and I was quite impressed by our tourguide!

After seeing Birzeit, Shaher and I had to drive Karam back to Jerusalem in my rental car. We planned to drop her off, drop off my car at Shaher's friend's house, and then get to the Hawara checkpoint at the entrance of Nablus by 7. Why such a tight schedule, you ask? This is an important question when you're in the West Bank. Shaher's car is registered under the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Nablus. CIDA got a permit for him to take the car through the Hawara checkpoint any day between 5AM and 7PM. On the other hand, because my car has Jerusalem plates, I cannot bring it through the Hawara checkpoint, which means that I can't take it to Nablus or Jenin. So we had to park it in Shaher's friend's garage and go into Nablus in Shaher's car before 7PM or we would turn into pumpkins. Not really pumpkins, I guess, but we wouldn't be able to to get into Nablus. Luckily, we made it to the checkpoint just in time (literally at 7 on the dot), and we met Shaher's friends for some of those amazing Nablus sweets before heading off to Taybeh, Shaher's village, where we stayed with his family.

Shaher's family was so great. His mother was sweeter than all the k'nefe in Nablus, and I felt so welcomed in their house. She also made a really awesome dinner and breakfast, and you all know how much I love to eat! Even though I am definitely not drinking enough water here, I have been eating so well, because Palestinian food is incredibly healthy. I eat a lot of veggies and grains and not a lot of sweets (except, of course, when I'm in Nablus). Yum.

I will try to post pictures later, but for now I'm just going to try to get another blog entry done...

Beit Anan Playground Site and Friends Center Potluck

Wednesday...

On Wednesday morning Shaher and I left Nablus through the Hawara checkpoint, picked up my rental car from his friend's house, and sat with his friend to have some coffee and tea. Again, his friend expressed interest in having PfP build a playground in their village. We left to drop off Shaher at the Kalandia checkpoint and meet Muhammed in Ramallah so that Muhammed and I could visit the site at Beit Anan.

The drive to Beit Anan was a long one, not because of the distance (it is only 12 kilometers from Ramallah), but because of the poor roads along the way. Muhammed told me that these roads were built in the 1950's by the Jordanian authorities when the West Bank was controlled by Jordan (before the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation of that area began). We reached Beit Anan in the early afternoon and met with Naji, an official in the municipality. We spent some time discussing the depth of the holes, and then he led us to the site.

The site for this playground is absolutely gorgeous, as it sits connected to a school and overlooks the neighboring mountains and valleys. This space is large, and the municipality has plans to make it part of an even bigger park, with tables, chairs, trees, and a cafeteria. They also want to allow the girls from the school next door to use this playground and park area in the afterschool hours. Though I am very pleased with the location for the playground and the plans for the space surrounding it, I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of preparation thus far. The municipality had only dug 10 of the 32 holes that need to be completed before we can even begin installation of the equipment, and the ground still is not level. Thank God Muhammed was there with me, because he translated my concerns and talked with them about how to remedy some of this situation. They promised to have all the holes dug by Sunday, inshallah, but I still have my doubts. It might not matter much, given that we are still waiting for the playgrounds to arrive at the ANERA storage sites and can't do anything until they do...

A grove of olive trees that we saw on the way back from Beit Anan:

Earlier in the day, I had talked with Kathy Bergen from the Ramallah Friends Center, and she invited us to a potluck at the Friends Center that evening. Apparently, the Center holds weekly potluck dinners that promote connection and discussion between Palestinians and internationals who do work here. After returning from Beit Anan, we hung out for a few hours in Ramallah before going to the potluck then walked down to the Friends Center.

The potluck was great! There were about 14 people there, and everyone there was doing different kind of work in the West Bank, mostly with various NGOs. After the dinner, we all sat around and talked about Gaza, sharing our experiences, thoughts, and feelings about it. One man, a representative of Save the Children UK, talked about how hard it is for NGOs to operate in Gaza right now. He said that Save the Children essentially can't function there because there is no gas for their cars, not enough electricity and water, etc. He talked about a report that British aid organizations were going to release (it has since been released) about this crisis because this is the worst it's ever been in Gaza. Kathy talked about how powerless she feels because she can't do anything for the people she knows there. In response to this, a couple who had lived in Gaza for years and had suffered through some difficult times there told us all that anything we can do to express our solidarity with people there helps, even if it just means communicating that we are thinking about them as they are cut off from the rest of the world. That said, of course, we all felt that real action to force the international community to take note of the situation is ultimately the most important piece of the puzzle. In the course of this very substantive discussion, someone said that she had heard a quote recently that went something like, "The Nakba of 1948 is continuing at a pace that the world can tolerate."

One of the teachers from the Ramallah Friends School talked about her experience discussing the Gaza issue with the primary school students. She told us that one young child said, "What would happen to me if my mother and father died?" This expression of fear and insecurity, of not knowing what could be next, seems so prevalent here. I held back tears as she talked... Another child, a 5th grader, said, "The more I see dead bodies on TV, the less human they seem. They seem like toys." And again, I held back tears. Sometimes children are able to cut to the chase and offer such nuanced analyses, even in the face of such complex situations. I wish we all could take on the eyes of children periodically. Maybe it would make us more humane.