Palestine: Waiting for the settlers to come.

Settler pollution in Yatma

Have spent the last few days based in Nablus, travelling around the villages in the area, hearing story after story of the Occupation. For example.......

Yatma village - where the spring which had previously provided free water to the village was stolen by the army for a nearby settlement. Now the settlement get priority and as much water as they need, while the village has to buy back the water from their own occupiers, still going about half the week with none.

Burin village - where we came across a team building a wall next to the school because of the hassle that the kids get from soldiers, even though they know that the wall (along with the school) will most likely be demolished (AGAIN) because the area is officially under Israeli control and Palestinians are not allowed to build anything without permission (which they never get). Land is regularly grabbed for settlements - a big chunk had been taken the day before. As an added extra, they also have regular attacks from craaaaaaazy Zionist settlers. But don't worry, the army will come for protection.....oh wait, protection for the attackers, not the villagers.

Israeli forces invading Kufr Qaddoum

Kufr Qaddoum - where we joined their regular Friday demonstration, against the roadblocks which double the length of the journey to the nearest city of Nablus. We arrived along the majorly bumpy backroads, because there was a 'flying checkpoint' blocking the road which is now used as a replacement for the main road. When we got there, there were ALREADY soldiers invading the village - pre-empting any demonstration. They were blocking people from going to mosque, and shot tear gas into completely civilian areas before the procession even started, at head height. Great. Several confrontations and many burnt tyres later (to stop the army invading any further), we headed home.


Aska refugee camp - where there are refugees from Palestine, inside Palestine. The land and houses that they lived in were taken during the Nakba in 1948, and although they still have keys and ownership papers, they now cannot return - the guy we spoke said that he knows that a Russian family live in his house in Jaffa. Instead, the refugees now live in half a kilometre squared - from which they are not allowed to expand, except upwards. The result is a claustrophobic mish-mash of tiny streets, towered over by tottering homes. Three or four times a week, the settlers nearby want to take a pilgrimage to Joseph's tomb. Unfortunately Aska Camp is, oh so inconveniently for the settlers, inbetween the settlement and Joseph's tomb (fun fact, Joseph himself actually apparently has tombs around the West Bank, and Egypt...and a lot of people say that this particular tomb actually resembles an Islamic burial site, what with the grave pointing at Mecca and all...so they may be all pilgrimaging for nothing.) This means that around three times a week, people from the camp are not allowed to use the road - the army come and close it down for about 7 hours on each day, limiting movement and essentially creating a curfew, so that the busloads of settlers can travel through on their daytrip.

Aska refugee camp

Then last night we spent the night at Khan al Liban. This is the home of 17 year old Jalaal, his little brothers and his mum and dad. However, although they had all the hassle of buying a new home, buying furniture for it and doing the move, the family have never lived in their new house. This is because when they tried, they were attacked by their neighbours up the road - the settlement of Ma'ale Levone. The mother and two of the kids were beaten by 30 men - the kids, who are 13 and 9 had to be hospitalised afterwards. “Nour was thrown at the wall by one of the big settlers, and they were laughing” said Mu'min about his little brother being attacked. Their furniture and car were also trashed and burned.

Jalaal, who had been trying to fend off the attackers, grabbed an axe and hit one of the settlers. As soon as the army arrived, he was arrested and branded a terrorist. The settlers were not arrested. They were not charged. They have total impunity. Jalaal has only just had his bail paid, with money raised through ISM donations and has now come home, awaiting trial.

We went to visit, welcome Jalaal home and stay the night at the now empty house to deter more settler damage (the family are staying at their old house in the nearby village of Liban.)

Nour with some of his artwork

It was a beautiful evening of freshly picked figs, almonds and walnuts from their garden, and more tea and fresh pomegranate juice than you could possibly drink. The family were so welcoming, and after a shy start, we had a lot of fun with the kids, with them drawing portraits of us all and also serenading us with some excellent beatboxing. You wouldn't believe that these were the same kids that someone had attacked just over two weeks ago.

We four internationals went to stay in the empty house, waiting for the settlers to come. Having just spent 5 weeks camping, I'm used to hearing noises outside a tent and assuming that they're nothing dangerous - like the snuffling noise that you can hear? That's probs a rabbit rather than a bear. However, this was the reverse. That rustling? Could be a settler sneaking up to attack. Luckily it wasn't, and the worst injuries that we sustained were some mosquito bites. But that was just one night - we don't live there, and nor can the family as the attacks are completely unpredictable.

Finally, last night we also heard that a farmer, Akram, had been attacked on his land by some settlers - we went to visit him in hospital and found him with a broken arm and a broken face. The three men who had beaten him with sticks and rocks had literally left him for dead.

A lot of families here spend their time waiting for the settlers to come, afraid and alone. It sounds like a horror film, but it's real life

Palestine: The kids aren't alright. 

Soldiers invading the old city

So. Hebron on Monday the 10th of September was a little crazy. At around 5am, a couple of Palestinians apparently tried and failed to burn down Israeli Checkpoint 56 (there are 113 Israeli roadblocks, closures and checkpoints in the city of Hebron. And it's reaaaally not very big.)

I am self-plagiarising now from my previous visit to Hebron for a bit of background (feel free to read the whole thing, with more detail here):

Hebron does NOT feel like a safe place. The settlers here are some of the most fanatical in the West Bank, and have been known to regularly attack Palestinians and internationals. In the 1960s, the first extremist settler group arrived in Hebron, barricaded themselves in a hotel, posing as Swiss tourists and refused to leave, eventually prompting the Israeli government to legitimise their actions and reward them with land on the outskirts of the city, which was named Kiryat Arba (this was unfortunate for the Palestinians also living in the area, who have since faced attacks and regular harassment.) Then another illegal settlement was founded right in the centre of Hebron, prompting the government to cave to their demands and make it possible extremists to settle in the centre of Hebron as they wished. Apparently it’s possible that more houses in central Hebron are being purchased currently. All of this has led to some of the most blatant and extreme examples of discrimination and apartheid policies that I’ve experienced since being in the West Bank.

There are around 500 settlers now living in the central area of Hebron, compared to 30,000 (although swiftly lessening) Palestinians. This area is now totally run by Israel (unlike the suburbs, which are run by the Palestinian authority), in order to protect the Zionists who have chosen to live there illegally. There are around 2000 soldiers stationed in Hebron at all times – four for each settler. The number of checkpoints is staggering and really impedes movement into, out of and around the Old City.

Checkpoint 56 is one of the most problematic for Palestinians, who are often detained there for long periods and face constant harassment by the soldiers (which we internationals received a taster of...more on this later), so I must say I'm not surprised that they tried to attack it. In the morning, there was no visible damage to the checkpoint, but there was to one of the Palestinian men, who was shot with live ammunition in the leg and taken to hospital in Israel (the soldiers wouldn't let a Palestinian ambulance, which arrived earlier on the scene, treat him). He will probably now spend many years in prison.

Kullu is not kwayyis. 

So because of this, later in the day there was a great deal of tension in the air (this is as well as demonstrations going on against the Palestinian Authority, in another part of the city, VERY confusing), and there was an increased Israeli army presence in the city. We were wandering in the old market when we bumped into a group of six soldiers, pointing their guns into Palestinian homes and at Palestinian children. A little boy ran around the corner right into the soldiers, laughing and calling to his friends - I don't think I'll ever forget how his face changed from laughter to terror in that split second, as he turned and ran. This little girl in pink was also terrified, and there's only so much you can say 'kullu kwayyis' ('everything's alright') to a kid to calm them down. Because really, everything is not alright.

We followed the soldiers around, asking them what they were doing. The guy at the front of the picture spoke perfect English. With a British accent. Turned out he was from North London. I don't know how someone could choose to come here and do this - he said that they were there to protect the settlers - the fact that the area that we were in is off-limits to settlers didn't seem relevant to them. They eventually went through a door which we were not allowed to pass through and we lost them, but asserting an international presence is important to keep them in check.....

Because, the Israeli Army is possibly the most unprofessional army EVER. Imagine taking a bunch of teenagers, filling them with bile and hatred for another group of people and handing them guns and what is essentially a license to do whatever they want (convictions and punishment for crimes by the Israeli army is notoriously low). Must be a dream come true for video-game lovers. This is a taster of what I experienced from the 'Israeli Defence Forces' in these couple of days in Hebron:

• Being spat on by five or six soldiers from a rooftop
• Debris being kicked down from the same rooftop
• Being called alternately 'beauuuutiful' and 'ugggggly', as well as receiving generally high levels of sexual harassment
• Being told 'oh, you're so annoying' (not a big deal, but seriously guys, do things properly)
• Soldiers leaning into my face and literally screeching at me
• Being shut outside the checkpoint and told that it was closed for 20 minutes - except when we walked through anyway, they just ignored us
• Being filmed on mobile phones and told that the videos would be uploaded to www.fuckthearabs.com

Yeah, professional right?

Soldiers entering the new city

At this point we were heading back to the ISM flat, and got half way up the hill when we bumped into another group of six soldiers running down the hill - one when he saw us crowed 'now, we go to save the daaaaay'. They truly treat this as a sort of game, as if the Palestinians are not real people with real lives and real feelings. We followed them (back down the hill, aieee), only to find them entering the new city, which is under Palestinian control, meaning that the Israeli army should NOT be there (well naturally it shouldn't be anywhere in Palestine, but this is their OWN laws that they're breaking, not just everybody else's). Despite this, they ran in, started pointing guns at everyone and everything and dashing about while people were trying to get on with their day - we asked them what they were doing. They said they had heard an explosion, but no one else seemed to have noticed it, oddly enough. It was after this that the soldier made the rather threatening statement - 'you were in our line of fire, you really could get hurt here, you know' - his bloody 'line of fire' should not have been there. It's like saying 'oh, sorry I shot you, but really you shouldn't get in the way of my bullets'.

Some of the soldiers on the rooftop

A little later it really started kicking off at Checkpoint 56. We passed through to the Palestinian side and saw about 15 or so soldiers on the roof of a house (this is when the spitting happened. Lovely.) overlooking the checkpoint. The shabab were throwing stones and the army were shooting sound bombs (bloody loud, but don't do much damage unless you're very close) and tear gas at them. Little kids walking past were caught in the gas (school was out because there was a strike), and I had to almost carry one little girl out of the gas - she was choking and crying, unable to see or understand what was going on. Hard to explain to a kid not to touch their eyes because it'll make the tear gas 100 times worse, when you don't have a language in common and she's panicking that she can't see.

Then, whilst standing with a small group of internationals and a Palestinian camera-woman, two tear gas canisters were shot directly at us. The Palestinian woman was hit in the stomach, immediately doubling her over. A second canister narrowly missed her foot and she was helped to the side of the road and then rushed away in an ambulance. Imagine if she had been pregnant. Or if it hit an internal organ at the wrong angle.

It was after this that we decided to head home, as we were absolutely exhausted, tear-gassed out, and rather freaked out by this point. However, more problems were to follow. There was rubble and destruction throughout the market - Palestinians were putting out fires behind some of the roadblocks, which were apparently lit there by the army to ensure that the shabab wouldn't be able to escape. Then the checkpoint at the end of the market was closed, trapping us inside. Luckily we were invited to tea at about 5 different places, giving us the chance to have a nice sit down, and to chat to the owner of one shop, who it turns out studied in the UK, and uses phrases like 'it's always pissing it down in Manchester!' Excellent.

In the end, I can't stop thinking about all the children I saw throughout the day - from terrified Palestinian kids to teen-aged Israeli soldiers. Everything about this situation is wrong and none of the kids are alright.

Palestine: A Short Walk to Freedom (ish.)

Palestinian shops on settler roads in Hebron are soldered shut

Feeling a bit restless, the ISMers decided to have a walk. "But where oh where should we go?" we wondered. "Hmmm, I bet Hashem in Hebron will know a nice place for a walk" we decided. 

Hashem lives in the Tel Rumeida area of Al Khalil - aka Hebron. He has a small moshkilla ('problem' in Arabic*) - nasty neighbours. Although this is rather past the scale of hearing babies crying through the walls at all hours, the music being a little loud for past 11pm or  them putting the bins out on the wrong day. No, no, no, Hashem's neighbours happen to be extremist Zionist settlers, meaning a slightly more radical version of the above**. Imagine:

1. The road outside your house being shut down - so, no more access for anyone except Jewish settlers. Instead, you can feel free to scramble around the rocks and dirt tracks behind your house.
2. HUNDREDS of settlers coming into your house and smashing up all your stuff.
3. Your nephew having his teeth knocked out with stones by settlers.
4. Your wife miscarrying following settler attacks.
5. Your wife miscarrying AGAIN following settler attacks. 
6. Not being allowed to access your land with olive trees on it - except once when the Israeli Supreme Court ordered that you should be able to harvest for two hours on one day.
7. Happily going to harvest these olives, only to find that they have already been harvested and stolen by settlers.
8. Your grapes, pomegranates and other fruit trees being hacked down and poisoned.
9. Your water supply being poisoned and then your new water tank having holes shot in it. 
10. Your four children living in fear of leaving the house. 

Get the gist? When we went to visit Hashem, he told us all about this and showed us videos and evidence of the attacks. Then he surprised me. "I want an adventure," he said "let's go down the settler road from my front door." This is the aforementioned closed street, along which no Palestinians or internationals are permitted to walk. There is a soldier stationed at the entrance to the road, stopping anyone 'unsavoury' from entering. (*cough* apartheid *cough*)

So, feeling a little concerned, but proud to be able to go on this 'adventure' with Hashem, GB and I, with the rest of the ISM Hebron team followed him up a path leading onto the road. 

As we walked, I asked him how long it had been since he'd walked there - "Oh, a long, long time." he said. "A year?" I asked. "Or more?" - "Yes, definitely more, much more."

The walk was only around 200 metres or so to the checkpoint, where the soldier stared at us in amazement and confusion - 'does not compute' -  before rushing to the radio and calling his mates. Unfortunately, we dispersed speedily to avail ourselves of falafel, before he could introduce us to his friends - who I imagine may have invited us to tea. In prison. Minus the tea.

Hashem will continue to fight the occupation, and I hope one day he will have a happier neighbourhood. I feel like we did a little but important thing today. 

Who knew how big a small walk could make you feel.

P.S. You can watch a video of our walk here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyURJ33qQ2Q&feature=youtu.be



* easy to remember because mosh pits can totally kill - far too much headbanging!!
** his nearest neighbour is in fact Baruch Marzel, king of extremism and leader of the Jewish National Front 

Palestine: Kicking kids

Face-off

Saturday was a chance to have a nice chat with some Israeli soldiers...

Imagine the scene. Around 45 of them and 20 of us. They were armed with riot shields and several guns per person. We were armed with chants ("1234 occupation no more!") and words. Scary, scary words. Proportional response, eh?

Our little tête-à-tête was at the regular Saturday demonstration in Beit Ummar  - a village whose land has been stolen for an illegal settlement (when is Israel going to stop being so predictable eh? Why not steal land for something more interesting, like a theme park?). GB, some other ISMers and I were leaning nonchalantly against their shields (by nonchalantly leaning, I mean "standing on Palestinian land while they shoved us with their riot shields".)

Our conversation went a bit like this:

Us: "Why are you here on Palestinian land?" 
Soldiers: "Errrrr..." 
Us: "Are you so scared of us walking and chanting that you have to come here with your guns and shields to stop us?" 
Soldiers: *all puff up in show of bravado* "NO. 'Course not." 
Us: "Maybe you should find out a bit more about the occupation and why you're here." 
Soldiers: "Errr...Where are you from?" 
Us: "From Britain." 
Soldiers: "HAH. Britain occupied Ireland for so many years - you should sort out your own occupations not look at ours" - (they are past even denying that this is an occupation, yeesh) 
Us: "But we are ashamed of this. We don't act on behalf of our State to occupy anywhere, and we try to improve things by being here. You should stop acting on behalf of your State if you believe occupation is wrong." 
Soldiers: "Errrr.... but how much are you paid to be here?" 
Us: *eye roll* "Some people have no understanding of solidarity." 

The boy who was kicked

Then they carried on shoving us. 

It was shortly after this pleasant exchange that the demonstration was called to an end. We all started to wander back down the hill, away from the fence which separates the Palestinians from their land (which has now become the settlement of Kharme Sur.) And it was shortly after this that a soldier kicked a 12 year old Palestinian kid in the leg, knocking him to the ground.

Immediately the soldiers reacted, tightening their line around us, shoving us with riot shields in the process and effectively stopping us from leaving (which I was under the impression was what they WANTED. Stop changing your damn minds, army.)

The boy wasn't badly hurt - physically at least. But really, who knows the psychological impact of this occupation on the children of Palestine. 

Palestine: Thank God it's Friday?

Weekends - made for waking up slow, taking it easy, going on day-trips - generally relaaaaaxing. Right?

Tell that to a Palestinian. Every Friday ('cause weekends here are Friday and Saturday), there's a rather more serious way to spend the day. Across the West Bank, there is a demonstration in towns and villages particularly affected by Israel (e.g. land being stolen by illegal settlers). And this is NOT your typical, reasonably civilised, UK demo (kettling aside...) - rather, the Israeli military will be out in force, and using force willy-nilly against peaceful protesters.

And for this, you're not gonna wanna be feeling a bit woozy after a heavy night, ready for a lie-in (not that there's booze here...but I'm running with this weekend comparison so just go with it) - because people are regularly tear-gassed, soaked with stinking 'skunk water' and shot at with live ammunition - or delightfully euphemistically named 'rubber bullets' (maybe the correct definition of 'rubber' hasn't got to Israel? These bullets seem rather more like a ball of steel covered in a millilitre of hard plastic. Update your dictionary Israel!!)

This Friday, in solidarity with the Palestinians who, incredibly, spend their EVERY weekend like this, we went to Nil'in, a village of around 5,000 people near Ramallah. Having convened in an olive grove, the protesters aimed to have a nice weekend amble through their land. However, they were hindered by some inconsiderate human rights abusing state having put a great whopping 10 metre wall slap bang in the middle of their land. 

 

This Wall (*cough* illegal under International Law *cough*) is an excellent way for Israel to grab a bit more land for their settlements (*cough*   illegal under International Law *cough*), which is exactly what has happened in Nil'in - now surrounded by five of these settlements on well over half of the village's original land. When the Wall was first proposed by Israel, the village mobilised immediately - soon they were lying in the way of bulldozers, collectively breaking  Israeli imposed curfew, all camping out on the land for months to stop progress and demonstrating regularly (at some points, every day - not just as a weekend treat). 

 Whilst they have had some success - e.g. stopping the Wall being built between 2004 and 2008, they have also had hardships - 350 people, mostly children*, have been arrested in the last 4 years, homes have been burned down, pregnant women have miscarried after inhaling new types of tear gas (this list goes on with more horrible details ad nauseum). Five villagers have died at the hands of the army, during demonstrations in Nil'in. The youngest was ten years old. I'll repeat that. Ten. Years. Old. The boy, Ahmed Mousa, was shot in the head at close range while villagers were trying to remove Israeli razor wire from their own land.

Today, no one died, no one was injured, no one managed to pull down part of the Wall (as they did on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall). The soldiers stayed on their side of the Wall and we stayed on ours. They shot tear-gas (with the wind blowing in their direction so it didn't ever really reach us, idiots.) and threw a couple of sound-bombs. Some villagers shouted slogans, some threw stones and some set car-tyres alight at the base of the Wall, throwing cold water on it afterwards to damage the concrete and hopefully eventually break through.

After the demonstration wrapped up, we spoke with Saeed, who is part of organising the village's ongoing resistance. He bought us ice lollies (MUCH appreciated in 30deg plus heat) and told us all about the history of the village, and also about his own work bringing the occupation to the attention of the world. He compared Israel's aims in ending Palestinian resistance to cooking frogs - put 'em in cold water and boil slowly so they don't even notice they've been cooked - with the key difference being that these Palestinian frogs know damn well they're being cooked and they're hopping right out of the pan. Or they're staying in the pan, but they're gonna get the sides of the pan removed. Or something else that makes this similie work (the bit that I added, not Saeed's bit which wasn't actually nonsensical at all). 

He pointed out that "there is something of the occupation in every single thing in our life" - the drudgery of checkpoints, not being able to travel freely, the feeling of tear gas on your skin for hours afterwards. During his travels around the world to tell people about Nil'in, Saeed found himself shell-shocked by the freedom that we have in Europe - "we were born under Occupation. We don't know what freedom means or tastes like" - apparently freedom tastes of vegan food (which he hated) and a trip to a vet (which was better equipped than the hospital in Ramallah) with a friend's sick dog, which had health insurance (which Palestinians wouldn't be eligible for). Feeling guilty yet? 

However, his favourite things about being outside of Palestine were:

1. Being able to sleep at night without being afraid that the army will do a night raid and arrest him whenever they feel like it. Here he doesn't sleep until 4am as that's typically when the army will stop invading villages to do this. Saeed doesn't fancy prison again.
2. Being able to move freely around and between countries - no checkpoints or whopping great Walls in the way!

Ah well, maybe it helps that actually in Nil'in (and in many areas across the West Bank) the concept of "week-end" doesn't actually strictly apply, because (as luck would have it), unemployment is at around 75%. Those lazy Palestinian farmers not farming their land.....oh, wait, where'd it go? Under a settlement, natch. Hard to farm without any land. But I gotta say, how considerate of Israel to obligingly remove it from them (and put a massive squeeze on the economy in general) so the Palestinians wouldn't be too tired to protest about it on their weekends, eh?

Well. Thank God Friday's over, I say. Time tomorrow for a lie-in and maybe a roast dinner...what's that?...oh. Turns out Palestine demonstrates on Saturday as well. Looking forward to more weekend activities at the Beit Omar demonstration (against the ever-increasing settlement on their land) tomorrow then. 

*Israeli policy-makers appear not to be able to count. They seem to think that although Israeli children are officially 'children' until they reach 18, Palestinian children are only 'children' until they're 12. And despite this , they CONTINUE to break their own (made-up) rules, arresting Palestinian children UNDER the age of 12 under adult conditions.

Palestine: The Return

Last winter I spent 5 weeks in the occupied West Bank, monitoring and reporting on human rights abuses, accompanying farmers picking their olives (and picking some myself!), attending demonstrations and learning more about what life is like under an occupation. Oh, and learning some VERY useful Arabic along the way (e.g. "mish moshqilla, ankaboot" - "no worries, spider"). I found it...captivating. Unfortunately, Palestinians find it literally captivating and while I was free to leave after five weeks, they remained under Israeli Occupation. 

Because of this, it seems that the five weeks merely whetted my appetite to learn more (about human rights and occupation, not JUST slightly useless Arabic) and to try to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I therefore find myself at this moment full of falafel, listening to the the call-to-prayer from a Mosque nearby and feeling the rather sweltering heat of Ramallah in the summer-time. 

I will be here for three months - during the first, I have the excellent company of GB*. We will be spending this time with the International Solidarity Movement. ISM is a non-violent Palestine solidarity activist group, led by Palestinians, working in areas like Hebron and Nablus. After this month, GB will continue his travels outside of Palestine, and I will continue mine here in the West Bank - up to Deir Istiya to volunteer again with the excellent International Women's Peace Service. I'll be blogging along the way.

I'm not going to write a whole history of the Occupation here, so if you want some background information on the situation, you can have a look at the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions page here, and Amnesty International's human rights reports on Palestine here for starters. Rest assured that (unfortunately) I'm preeeeeetty sure I'll be talking about specific examples of abuses, the history and the Occupation in future blogs.

So - experiences on the journey so far. On Monday, we flew into Ben Gurion airport and got through border control with no trouble except some rather scathing looks ("yeaaaah, we're really looking forward to the beaches. Yeaaaah." - seriously, we are excellent dumb tourists.) Israel has a policy of interrogating and deporting anyone they suspect of being a Palestine solidarity activist, so we were quite lucky with this.  

Stayed one night in Tel Aviv. The hostel was full of tourists who seemed to be totally ignorant to the fact that they are visiting a place which has been compared to visiting South Africa during Apartheid (maybe they have also invented time machines and this is next on the hols list??). I find this particularly hard to deal with, but with a major lack of accurate, unbiased and from-the-ground reporting on Palestine, the Pro-Israeli stance that many news outlets take, and Israel's own propaganda machine, it's actually hardly surprising that some people think that partying in Tel Aviv is an acceptable way to spend their summer.

Next had an amble about Jerusalem. Palestinians from the West Bank need an Israeli permit to visit the city and the Muslim holy site there, Al-Aqsa mosque - however, these are rarely granted by the Israeli government, and when they are, it seems to be kind of at random. Being an International here makes me realise again and again my privileges and freedoms - I remember speaking to a Palestinian man last time I was in the West Bank - he told me that he had been granted permission to go to Jerusalem once, many years before, and had never allowed to visit since. He told me that instead, he would purposefully drive down a particular road in the West Bank and get out of his car at a particular point where he knew he could catch a glimpse of Jerusalem in the distance. A rather poor replacement.

Then on to Ramallah, for the ISM training to prepare us for the month ahead, as well as much falafel. I have also FINALLY learned the numbers 11-20 in Arabic (thanks GB) and therefore will no longer have to only purchase things which cost less than 10 shekels. EXCELLENT. Tomorrow we plan to go to the regular Friday demonstration of the village of Nil'in - in solidarity with their struggle against The Wall cutting into their land, and to document any human rights abuses. 

So, to bed for me, and over and out for now. 

*For the purposes of not being caught by Mossad, 'GB' shall be known by this very sneaky nickname.