Coming home

my time here is almost done. The weather took a turn for the worse or
better, whichever way you look at it - 3 days of rain! Not enough for
the farmers here, but better than nothing. Now the sun is out again
and it is pleasantly warm. Yesterday we had a day of treats, at least
the women of our team. We went to the hammam - Turkish Bath - in
Nablus, a beautiful old building in classic middle eastern style. We
sat among the beautiful red drapes and multi-coloured water pipes,
drinking mint tea and watching the women enjoying each other's
company. After our visit there we met out male colleagues and walked
up to the University to meet Ala Abu Dheer, head of Public Relations
there. He invited us for lunch to thank us for the work we have done
with students there in English. Many of these students have befriended
me on facebook and are very interesting young people. We ask Ala if he
is well. He tells us that as long as he can sleep in his bed without
soldiers in his room and there is no curfew, he counts his blessings.
Ala himself loves to talk. Today he entertains us with a wonderful
narrative about how he and one colleague stood up against a whole mob
who wanted to burn down the French cultural centre in Nablus,
following the publication of the notorious Danish cartoons in a French
newspaper. He has written a book of oral history, interviewing
refugees in the city who fled from Jaffa and other places of pre-1948
Palestine. It is very moving and reveals a range of different stances
towards what is now Israel.

We return to Yanoun carrying bagfulls of gifts for the 7 families of
Upper Yanoun, amongst whom we have lived so happily for almost three
months. All the men of the village are gathered round a lit brazier.
The only thing that is missing is the beer! Of course that is "haram"
- forbidden by Allah. Rashed, our mayor, has broken his foot, slipping
over on uneven ground. So he is sitting outside his house a lot with
various visitors. Otherwise things continue much the same. The sheep are taken out to graze on the lean pickings available. The chickens
peck happily in the newly damp ground. The children gather for the 7am
bus to school. An old team of internationals leave, a new one arrives
- new strange names to learn, stories to be told and retold.

There is so much I will miss. Adjusting to life back home might take
time, although one of my first pleasures will be a slice of cheese on
toast! Cooking cheese, sliced bread and grills are uncommon here. I
have learned so much from these people. They struggle day by day to
survive. The occupation provides a constant backdrop and its effects
are always visible in the people. Every morning they watch the skyline
for activities on the hill where the illegal Israeli settlements are.
We have had a couple of visits from Itamar security in the last week
or so - 20 year olds, not in uniform, carrying large guns, walking
past people's houses, frightening the children. There are some
children here that still cannot look us in the eye or smile, because
they remember negatively their encounters with "foreigners", seeing
their fathers beaten and guns being pointed at them. Movement is
restricted. It is rare for anyone here to go further than Nablus - 20
kilometres away. It's as if the whole place collectively holds in its
breath.

The rain has made the olive trees glossy and green. As the weather
brightens some of us take an envigorating walk towards the jordan
Valley. The hills of Jordan are visible in front of us. This place is
utterly beautiful, a landscape barely changed since biblical times -
apart from the incongruous red roofed boxes on the hill tops.

I am determined to do whatever I can when I return to Britain to end
the madness which is this occupation and work for a just peace for all
the people I have met.

They only come here to demolish our village

From Yanoun you used to be able to walk over the mountain for about 15
minutes to reach Khirbet Tana and from there an easy step to the
Jordan Valley. Khirbet is Arabic for a tiny hamlet, and indeed Tana is
tiny. It's where shepherds take their flocks for the winter. There are
three springs there. They can grow fodder for their sheep. And it is
idyllic. The people had built a little school for their 20 children to
attend whilst they live in this remote place for the winter. They
built structures to house the sheep during lambing, to protect the
small, vulnerable lambs from the cold and rain. They live in caves,
but also had erected tents for their growing families.
On Wednesday morning we received a message that Israeli soldiers had
ransacked the place, demolishing tents, animal shelters and the
school. Because there is an illegal Israeli settlement on the hill
between us and Tana it takes us over an hour, driving around to the
Nablus road, past Huwarra checkpoint, through Beit Furik and down 8
kilometres of unmade dirt road. The scene when we arrive is so
depressing. The headmaster stands beside the ruins of the school, next
to the 300 year old mosque, which, thank heavens, remains intact. An
old man sits with his head in his hands. People are in shock, even
though, we discover, this is the third time in two years this has
happened. Last January the school was demolished and it took them four
months to rebuild. The children were due to start school next month,
and now this. They will now have to do the 8k dirt road there and back
to Beit Furik every day.
The army inform the people that this is a military area, needed for
training. News to them, as they have used this land for over 100 years
and have the Turkish papers from Ottoman days to prove it. One man
says,"We never see the army here unless it is to demolish our houses!"
He is probably in his late 60s and he says his grandfather was killed
by a Turkish soldier during that occupation. Plus ca change.
During the winter 180 people live here with their 7000 sheep. There is
nowhere else they can live with so many animals.
The soldiers did their work between 6 and 7 in the morning. It is now
midday and already people have re-erected shelters and started
bringing in what supplies they can to rebuild. The grim determination
and stalwart nature of these people is inspiring. We sit and drink tea
with one family of three generations. Beside us is one destoryed tent,
together with the ruins of their corrugated iron toilet. We ask if
there will be help from the Palestinian Authority. One man says, "We
are waiting for the PA, just like we are waiting for the rain." They
laugh, it hasn't rained properly for almost 8 months.
I feel tired by now. We had a disturbed night. Security from nearby
Itamar settlement came by our house at midnight the night before and
we were treated to a rant by a 22 year old man with a large machine
gun about Arabs having 22 other countries and this land being Jewish
land and how Jews were being killed in Europe.
Usually the sight of these beautiful deserted hills, red-brown and
laced with limestone, would fill my heart with joy. But somehow I
can't find it in myself to feel this right now.

heaven and hell

“A country is not just what is does – it is also what it tolerates...” Kurt Tucholsky, German Jewish Essayist.
This quote is near the beginning of the exhibition in Yad Veshem, the
holocaust memorial museum. A day after I saw this I went on the
“Breaking the Silence” tour of Hebron. Breaking the Silence is a group
of ex-soldiers who served in the West Bank, and especially Hebron, who now speak out about what they witnessed and experienced there. Our guide Eyal said that he does not blame the settlers or the army for what is happening in Hebron. He blames his parents and thousands of ordinary Israelis like them who let this happen. One of the Israeli women who runs Machsom Watch, that monitors checkpoints in the West bank, once commented “if you think you are going to hell and want practice then go to Hebron”. Jews have lived in Hebron since ancient times, and in 1929, during general unrest throughout Palestine, many Jewish men, women and children in Hebron were massacred. All surviving Jews left Hebron. The families and descendants of these Jews have no wish to return. But a group of zealous religious Jews went to
celebrate Passover in Hebron several years ago, and against the will
of the government of Israel, stayed and began to settle there. The
actual 1929 group of Jews have since condemned what they are doing and
have fought against their occupation of property in the courts. Owing
to the settlements now right in the middle of the town, whole streets
are closed and shops shut. People living on those streets have to
climb to their roofs and across neighbours’ houses in order to come
and go. They have bars on the doors and windows to avoid the stones
thrown at them. Their children have to be accompanied to school to
avoid settler children and their mothers harassing and throwing stones
at them. A once thriving old city is a ghost town. The tomb of the
patriarchs is next to the old city, supposedly the burial place of
Abraham, who is holy to both Jews and Muslims. A mosque and synagogue
share one building, with separate entrances.
In contrast to this madness, I visited the most inspiring place in
Palestine. If you come here and only have one day to visit, then this
is the place to come. Near Bethlehem is The Tent of Nations. The
brothers Daoud and Daher run it on land bought by their grandfather in
1916. Here they run summer camps for children from refugee camps and
local villages. They plant trees. Internationals come to support and
work. It is part of the network for Working on Organic Farms. There
are 400 dunums of land tucked in between a block of Israeli
settlements known as Gush Etzion. When their grandfather came here he
dug caves for the family to live in. International visitors can still
stay in one of the caves. In 1991 the nightmare started. Israel
claimed the land was state land and wanted to evict them. Fortunately,
the brothers had all the papers going back through the various
occupations of Palestine, from the Ottoman period, the British Mandate
and the Jordanian period. They went to court to prove the land was
theirs. The court wanted maps, they made maps. The court wanted aerial
photos, they had them taken at great expense. The court wanted
testimonies from 40 people in the nearby village – they brought the
people to the court, who were subsequently made to wait hours in the
sun until hearing the session was postponed. They have spent nearly 20
years fighting this case. Whatever it costs, they keep fighting on.
They lost 250 of their trees to road building for the settlements.
Settlers have come to break into the land, trying to establish
caravans and new outposts there. More and more internationals started
to gather to protest and send the settlers away. Settlers came with
guns whilst one of the children’s summer schools was running. Daher
said, “Put down your guns and come in to drink tea”,but the setterls
broke in with their guns instead. The road to their property has been
blocked with large boulders to prevent them bringing produce in and
out. He took a bulldozer to clear the road and was arrested. There
have been demolition orders on their tents, fences, even their caves!
The court came to the land with settlers and the brothers showed all
their papers. The settlers showed a tiny piece of paper with a verse
from the Old Testament.
They have been offered money, but still they will not go. For the last
13 years The Tent of Nations has become a centre for peace,
understanding and bridging between people. Many Israelis have come and
helped. Even a woman from the settlement came, and was shocked at what
she heard and saw. She brought her husband and others who helped build
composting toilets there. These people since left the settlement for
Jerusalem. Jewish children came to play with Palestinian children.
Soldiers came in a jeep to check on what was happening, but left when
they saw all was peaceful. One time an army jeep got stuck on the road
block they had created, and Palestinian children came down to help
lift the jeep free.
Daher said “When you make a problem, I try to make good, because I
want to make change”.
We planted five trees whilst we were there and bought certificates of
solidarity. As we approach the Christmas season, and Bethlehem is in
people’s minds, what better way of expressing the Christmas message
than this inspiring project, outside a city wall, trying to build bridges and create peace.

This week in the Jordan Valley

We received a phone call from a contact in the Jordan Valley that the
Israeli army were demolishing a Bedouin village near Jiftlik called
Abu Alajaj.The soldiers from the Israeli Army came in 20 jeeps and 2
bulldozers around 6 in the morning and bulldozed three sheep sheds and
one living unit housing a family of 11 members. 3 people who were
trying to get the animals out of the shed before the demolition, were
arrested. Most of the sheep escaped; however, the villagers were
still pulling out wounded lambs from the remains of the sheds when the
team arrived. We were told that altogether 200 lambs were in the
sheds and that some may still be stuck under the residue. The
villagers were still looking for the sheep that managed to escape
before the shed fell over them.
The village's crime is that they are 25 metres from vineyards of
illegal Israeli settlement of Massu'a – and the settlers want to take
over all the land from the settlement to the road on the other side of
the village. Massu'a is on the site of a refugee camp that housed
Palestinians fleeing from Israel after 1948.
The team spoke with, Sadie Adnan, the mother of the family, that had
their house bulldozed. She has a husband and 9 children. She told us
that when the soldiers came they just said that they are coming to
demolish their house and commanded them to get outside. The soldiers
did not let their neighbours help them carry out their belongings so
the family just managed to save some of their personal belongings
before they bulldozed the house. The neighbours who tried to help were
beaten and arrested. The electricity was cut and several of their
water barrels were also run over.
“And now we do not have any water. We told the soldiers that this is
water for us and our animals, but they did not care”, she said. Around
50 sheep and 60 – 70 lambs were in their shelter when it was
demolished.
They got the demolition order a month ago. Her family has lived here
for many years; all her 9 children were born here. “I will stay here,
I will die here”, she said and added that they will immediately start
to rebuild their units and stay with neighbours in the meantime.
Around 150 people live in this village and altogether they own around
10,000 sheep. On the question why the houses of exactly these two
families were demolished, the mayor of Jiftlik said that these
families were just picked at random, next time some other families’
units will be demolished, and they do not give them any warning, they
are just turning up with their bulldozers. The soldiers had said this
is Israeli land and that the Palestinians must leave.
“The Palestinians who live here have no documentation of their
ownership of the land. The land belongs to Jiftlik. All the people in
this community belong to the same family, the Idaes family. The family
is originally from Hebron, but moved here in 1979 as it is not
possible to live in Hebron with 10,000 sheep.” The mayor said that
“before 1980 we were in good terms with the settlers living in Massu'a
settlement, we were good neighbours and were visiting each other.
However, with the new generation of settlers everything has changed –
now they are not friendly anymore, they want to take our land in order
to expand their settlement. They took this land only 7 years ago”, he
said as he pointed at the vineyard only a few meters away. He further
explained that not many settlers are actually living in the
settlement; “it is just that they want our land as if to prepare for
more Israelis to come and live here.” The Israelis claim that this is
their land and that the villagers have built their units without
permission. “In this village the imam is not calling out for prayers
for fear that the Israeli Army will destroy their mosque”, he said.
And the next day, this is exactly what happened in neighbouring
community of Khirbet Yarza. When we arrived men were praying in what was left of their small mosque, just a carpet and prayer mats spread out between the mangled piles of stone and iron work. Eleven families live there now, whereas 10 years ago there were 50 families. Many people moved to larger villages of Jiftlik and Berdala. We spoke to Khaled Mohamed Darawma. He told us that at 6.30 the mosque, 7 animal shelters and one house were demolished. People have been living here for generations. Shots were fired by the soldiers and some people were sheltering in nearby caves.

These are not isolated incidents. There has been a concerted week of
demolitions around the West Bank, raids by soldiers on Nablus during
the night and even soldiers entering Ramallah during the day.

Nobody is very sure why this is happening, but my friend Saleh, who teaches
political science at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah thinks that the
Israelis are trying to provoke a reaction from Palestinians so that
they can take moral highground whilst demanding more from the "Peace"
talks or perhaps walking away from them. The Jordan Valley is a
particularly vulnerable area for Palestinians, being close to the
border with Jordan and of strategic importance to Israel, being where
the main water resources for Israel are located, and housing many
illegal Israeli settlements with valuabe, productive agriculture. Our
team is sending three people to stay overnight tomorrow in Abu Alajaj
in case of further incursions after the sabbath.

So it goes.

At school in Tawayel

I visited the school in Tawayel, near Aqraba, today. There are 24 children
there from 6 -12. Most of the children live in the village of Tawayel, many
in tin shacks and even in caves. They come to school immaculately turned
out. The school is in Area B, mixed control by the PA and Israel. The
village is in Area C, complete control by Israel. You can see this very
clearly because the local people were allowed to build a road from Aqraba as
far as the school and after that, to the village, is only a stony dirt
track. When I was there this morning a tractor was making its way back up
the hill to Aqraba, having been turned back by Israeli soldiers on threat of
arrest. His "crime" was to go to help people do some work on their well when
there was no permission.

On a happier note, one class of children, 11 years olds, wrote letters and
did drawings to send to children in England. What I would like is somone who
teaches a class of 11 year olds somewhere in the UK to receive these and get
their children to write back. This won't be a simple matter as there is no
internet and no post office.

The text of the Palestinian children's letter goes:
Dear Friends
My name is...... I live in Tawayel in Palestine. Please write to me about
your life in England. Life here for me is difficult. Tawayel is very
beautiful in the spring. We don't have many things to play with.

The children's names are:
Ayman, Najed, Osama, Yamama, Ala, Mona, Dnuia, Othman, Salma and Jasser.

Don't know how Eid was in England but it's quite something
here. Vegetarians might want to avert their eyes! In Nablus today we had to
literally negotiate a river of blood and sheeps' carcasses were lying about.
Our butcher was really busy helping people slaughter their animals and piles
of remains were in the street outside. Still, for meat eaters it is more
honest than everything being sanitised and hidden away in anonymous
abatoires.

We enjoyed the hospitality of Myassar and her family in the suburb of
Rafidiya. Myassar has given her life to the struggle for the freedom of
Palestine and is unmarried. She serves us a delicious dish of goat meat. It
is the first time she has cooked for Eid because normally her 80 year old
mother does not trust her to cook. But today she seems to approve. As we
walk around the area everyone stops and talks. It is a suburb with a mixture
of muslims and christians and relations seem cordial. We are invited into a
household of a Christian family, Saeed is a catholic and his wife, from
Jordan, orthodox, but now worshipping in her husband's church.
Inter-marriage between the two communities is rare, but does happen. The
catholic family seem less concerned about marriage to muslims than they do
about protestants, whom they think little of. They don't like the fact that
protestants don't worship the virgin Mary and they seem to suggest that all
protestants are aligned with Zionist Christians in the United States. One of
them asks what denomination we are. Rosmarie is a lapsed catholic, Wenche
from a protestant background. I hesitate for a moment and then tell them I
am Jewish. You can hear a pin drop and there is a momentary panic. "Are you
Israeli?" someone asks. I explain my credentials and the tension eases.

Continuing our peregrinations we visit the catholic church in Rafidiya and
meet Carmela. She talks in a semi-whisper. She feels less amiable toward her muslim neighbours and is concerned that Christians are now a minority and face discrimination, in her view. She lived in Wales for five years and her brother lives in Canada and constantly tries to persuade her to leave. But she wants to stay in Nablus. The more people you talk to in this region, the more complex and multi-layered it all seems.

When we take our leave of Myassar I ask her if she ever works with Israeli peace activists. She gives a resounding no. She won't work with them, won't have them pick olives with her and does not trust them. Yet she says she wants one state in which Palestinians, muslims, christians and jews can all live. But I guess there would have to be an end to the idea of a Jewish state, and some of the Israelis I have met would not mourn its passing either.

I think particularly of my friend Dan who I have just spent the weekend with in Tel Aviv. His is on the surface the epitome of an Israeli family. His mother immigrated to Haifa in 1925 from Ukraine, studied piano in Vienna in the 1930s and at 94 still lvoes her country, although she is insensed at the treatment of the poor and the lack of concern for Israel's amnyh social problems. Dan's father came in 1935 having come via South Africa from Lithuania. He was a district judge. His oldest sister won the opportunity to represent Israel at a prestigious international youth
festival in 1957 and later married one of Israel's foremost basket ball
players of the 1960s. His oldest daughter served in the army and now studies
at university. His oldest son will soon have his turn. His wife hates her
children going into the army but does not interfere with their choices. Dan himself is an academic and environmental activist. His PHD thesis is on mixed Arab and Jewish towns in Israel. It was this work, mainly in Nazareth, that led him to change his view of his country, and now he counts amongst his friends and allies foremost critics of Israel such as Ilan Pappe and Raja Shahadeh. In his family you can find almost every shade of political opinion. I am invited to his sister's 70th birthday party, which is held in a town in Galilee very close to Nahalal, which is a collective farm established in the 1950s. Its shape is a perfect circle and there is a famous arial photo of it. Its cemetery boasts the resting places of some of the luminaries of Zionism, including Jabotinsky and Moshe Dayan.

As secular jews the family still keeps up some of the traditions, including the Shabbat meal on Friday night, which I am priveleged to join. So this week I have celebrated the Jewish sabbath and eid al adha. Is there still hope that people will be able to do this together in one land?

An audience with Father Ibrahim Nairouz

We found Father Ibrahim at St. Philips Church, right next to the
mosque. Beside the Church is the school run by the church for both
Christian and Moslem children. Whilst we settle into our conversation
with him, a child is brought in, who sits on his knee and whispers in
his ear. He explains that she has just come from America this week and
speaks only English. He has to be enlisted to find out what she needs.
Father Ibrahim is the minister for the Anglican churches in Nablus,
the old church, here at St. Philips and the new church in Rafidiya,
the Church of the Good Shepherd.
St. Philips, the Anglican Church, was established in 1876. The
Christian presence in Nablus goes back centuries. The school is older
than the church, having been established in 1848 .Originally the
school had twenty-one pupils, three Jewish children, five Samaritans,
five Moslems and eight Christians. The last Jewish family left Nablus
in 1939.
Father Ibrahim explains that Arab Jews were victims of Zionism as well as Palestinians. He tells us about the poet Sasson Somekh from
Baghdad, who at 75 years old now lives in Tel Aviv. He is a foremost
scholar, teacher and writer on Arabic literature. Somekh wrote
“Baghdad, Yesterday: The making of an Arab Jew”, originally published
in Hebrew in 2003. In it he describes the tragedy of Iraqi Jews,
uprooted from the culture they were familiar with, and to a large
extent thrived in, to become, in many cases, second class citizens
within Israel.
Father Ibrahim speaks of the wisdom of Solomon and the two mothers who
claim the one son. Solomon suggests that the child be cut in half and
the true mother, preferring to give up her child than to see him
cruelly butchered, bows to the false mother. “Palestine is small like
that baby,” says Father Ibrahim. But who, I wonder, is the true mother
who will give up the child in order to save its life. “Just read the
bible,” he says. “Take out the limits put on our thinking by Zionism
and find a comprehensive solution”.
Father Ibrahim quotes liberally from the bible. As he warms to his
theme, he lays out his compelling vision with eloquence and charisma.
In fact, at one point, he moves me so much that tears begin to form in
my eyes and he gently and quietly pushes a box of tissues towards me.
For him there can only be the so-called “one state” solution. “We have
five major problems” he says, “Settlements, Borders, Water, Refugees
and Jerusalem – with one state, all these problems disappear. Settlers
become neighbours, borders are settled, water is for everyone,
refugees can live where they like and Jerusalem will be for all the
people.” But it is easy to say, more difficult to achieve this.
“It is a big challenge,” he says. Fundamentalists on both sides will
not join him, he knows, but with education, he believes they can take
the first steps in the journey of a thousand miles.
He thinks a two state solution will not work in the long term. All
through his exposition, he stresses the word “harmony”, harmony with
each other, harmony with nature, harmony with the way of God. “You can
move the course of a river by force” he says, “but sooner or later
your force will weaken and the river will return.” There are no
natural borders within the whole land of Palestine and Israel – he
likens it to the river – “If you go against nature and against God,
you cannot sustain it”.
“What people have to learn here,” he says, “is the beauty of
diversity. When you use more colours, the picture is more beautiful.”
He wants people here to learn to respect, understand and even enjoy
each other. He wants to build bridges, not walls and checkpoints. He
is convinced that two states will mean two enemy states.
The Christian community in Nablus consists of about 700 people divided
between four denominations, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopal and
Malakite. Most of the Christians live in the suburb of Rafidiya. He
stresses that it is not just Palestine that Christians are leaving,
but many Arab countries. Father Ibrahim talks of the stupid invasion
of Iraq by Bush and his allies and how this worsened the plight of
Christians in Arab countries.
But he is at pains to stress that the idea that Islam is driving
Christians away is completely false. “Christians in Arab countries are
Arabs; they have an Arab mentality, a mentality they share with Moslem
neighbours. We live in harmony with Islam.” He himself has studied
Islam and Islamic culture. No, he stresses again, it is first and
foremost the occupation which is driving people away. The occupation
has resulted in massive unemployment, lack of opportunity, lack of
safety and security.
He also points out that although pilgrims from all religions are free
to go to their holy places, the only people who are prevented from
doing so are Arab Christians. They cannot go to the Jordan River, to
Nazareth, to Jerusalem and even Bethlehem is difficult because the
journey takes so much longer now, due to the wall. Last Easter he
obtained permission to go for one week to Jerusalem, but because it
coincided with the Jewish festival of Pesach, all borders were closed
and he was unable to use his permit. The Israeli media trumpeted
Israel’s generosity in allowing Christians to visit Jerusalem, but
failed to mention the impossibility of fulfilling the mission.
Two elderly women from his community wanted to make pilgrimage to
Nazareth. He worked hard to get permission for them. First off, he
could only get permission for one day, which was insufficient. He
argued for two days, and eventually the Israelis relented. They gave
him two days. But when it came to it, these were two consecutive days,
but without the night in between. It became impossible to go. The
headlines in Israeli newspapers said that permission had been granted
for Christians to go to Nazareth, but the priest refused to take them.
Another thing Father Ibrahim is sad about is the extent to which his
people believe that the west is a paradise for Christians. He wants to
convince them that if they work hard here they can also thrive. “This
is our holy place” he says, “we need to be here.” He believes the
occupation will not last forever. “We can make the future with our own
hands, but we need to stay together, and in harmony with our
neighbours.” People will not find paradise anywhere else, he believes;
they need to make it here.

Meeting Father Ibrahim was an enriching experience. He manages to
maintain a critical and harsh analysis of Israel’s behaviour and role
in the conflict. Yet he combines this with a deep love and trust that
people can live in peace and harmony, and learn to appreciate each
other and the diversity contained within this region. He will have his
detractors, but his determination to keep his community together and
to spread the message of love to everyone around him is
indefatigable.

Sderocket

We are on our mid-term orientation, or what is also known as Israel Exposure
Week. First stop Sderot. You may have heard of it. Two miles from Gaza,
target of a bombardment of homemade rockets over 9 years. We are visiting
Nomika Zion, one of the founders of The Other Voice. This is a group of
people from Sderot and a group of Gazans who came together to oppose what
was happening to both their communities. She wrote an article about the war
in Gaza, which achieved fame around the world – “Not in my Name and not for
my Security”.

She lives in a beautiful tree lined street which forms what is known as an
urban kibbutz, a kind of commune – a place where I can imagine I myself
would like to live. She came to Sderot in 1987, and describes a time when
people freely travelled between here and Gaza, shopped, went to the beach,
had friends. But since 2002 20% of the people of Sderot left. It is a mixed
community. There are many people, about 50%, from the Caucasian ex-Soviet
republics. There are Ethiopians. More recently the very orthodox Jews, who
would have gone to settlements in the occupied territories, now come here.
Sderot is what they like to call a development town. There are 200 such
families, all with large number of children, with an agenda. There are
Gazans in the town also; people who were accused of collaborating with
Israelis and cannot live in Gaza.

There are many social and economic problems, especially amongst some of the
more recent immigrants, and when you add to this the constant state of war
the town has been in, you have a very unstable community. There is much
stress, anxiety and uncertainty and therapists have been brought in to help
people cope. Immune systems are impacted. Health is generally bad. Sometimes
over a period of say 6 months people will have experienced up to 60 rockets
a day falling constantly. If a siren goes off you have around 10 seconds to
find shelter. If you are ferrying a group of neighbours’ children to school
you can’t possibly shelter them all in that time, and you have to choose who
you will protect. In this situation, the government spent billions of
dollars on providing security for the town. Schools have concrete second
roofs, houses have shelters. We pass an innocent looking children’s
playground. It has some brightly coloured caterpillars that children can
play inside. Later we find out these are reinforced concrete bomb shelters.

Nomika is shocked at the way people in her community have changed so
dramatically. She and her colleague Erik are pretty much lone voices against
the war. Even people who were left wing, refuseniks, now think that Gaza
gets what it deserves and believe that it is OK to destroy whole villages,
even children. “We have lost our ability to see Palestinians as human,” she
says, “and when you lose empathy, you lose part of your humanity.” So in
2008 she and others set up The Other Voice. They made phone contact with
people in Gaza and built relationships. She also thinks Israel should be
talking to Hamas. “They do bad things to their people, people in Gaza are
really suffering, but it was Hamas who imposed the ceasefire on all other
groups, we should be talking to them.” She says that what really worries her
is that peace has become the enemy. The media in Israel has become
militaristic and glorifies war. She speaks of how people used to come to the
hill outside the town to watch the bombardment of Gaza and cheer. Later we
go to this very hill and Gaza is spread out below us.

She had much positive feedback for her article from people who said they
felt alone with their views until they read it. But she has also been
vilified. “People in Israel are not ready to pay the price of social
isolation, like I have,” she says.

She is pessimistic about the future, as so many people I have met here in
Israel, and In Palestine. The leadership on both sides is weak and there is
so little will for peace. “Only the international community can force us
into finding a solution,” she says.

On our tour round the town we see, as well as the playground, some concrete
bus shelters, some of which have been lovingly graffitied. Even amongst all
this suffering there is humour. On one is painted the word “Sderocket”.

Erik has interesting things to say about Gaza. He says that their problem is
not so much getting goods in. The people have goods they cannot afford to
buy. Because their problem is getting goods out. They have no exports, no
economy, and the people suffer.

Days off in Israel with a ukulele

I wouldn't normally write about my days off, but these were too
fascinating. And they gave me quite an insight into life on the "other
side" of the wall. I heard about Paul Moore from a ukulele playing
relative. He runs a ukulele orchestra for children from both Arab and
Jewish families.The children and their parents all meet in each
other's houses for rehearsals in the towns of At Tira and Hod
Hasharon, one an Arab town, one Jewish. Paul's group is called
Ukuleles for Peace and it's been going for about 6 yerars. The young
people in it are extremely talented. I had the privelege of attending
rehearsals of both the younger and the older groups and I've put some pictures on Facebook, for those of you who do that sort of thing.

So, I travelled with my colleague Wenche first to Tel Aviv. Actually I
was quite surprised, because I had been expecting this smart, European style place, but what we saw of it was rubbish strewn, down at heel and pretty grotty. We changed buses there to Haifa, which looks more interesting, being a port, and is a very mixed town where Arabs, Jews and all sorts of other people live pretty close together. Finally we took a bus from there to Karmiel, which some of you may have heard of.
Recently a right wing group there has been trying to prevent Arabs
from settling in the town, because they see Karmiel as key to
Judaising the Galilee. Paul picked us up from there are drove us up to
his village high up in the West Galilee Mountains, in a place caled
Harashim. There he lives with his wife Dafna, son Alon and 7 cats in a
caravan called The Last Homely House. He is an old hippy from England
who came to work on a kibbutz in the 70s and never left. As well as
running the ukulele bands he plays in a jazz band and also performs as
a one man band. He is an avid collector of junk and his caravan is
crammed to the gunwhales with incredible finds - old manequins, a half
strung harp, washboards, grotesque dolls, dried plants and feathers.

They are all very welcoming, especially the cats. And he offers to put
some new strings on my ukulele, which I brought along on the off
chance. He is quite a character. He did his stint in the Israeli army,
and he is adamant that all immigrants to Israel should do this,
"otherwise they cannot really get the picture of what life in this
country is all about" he says. He served on the Lebanese border, and
had hilarious tales to tell about what he got up to as the platoon
joker. His wife Dafna says that she is a Zionist, in that she says all
other peoples have a state, so she thinks the Jews should too. But she
does not think this means there should be injustice to Palestinians
and she firmly believes in a two state solution.

On the way to visit the children in At Tira we drive down the toll
road that goes down the centre of Israel. At one point we pass the
town of Tulkarm, which is on the other side of the wall in the West
Bank, and there is the wall itself, banked up, with trees and plants
to disguise it. I ask Paul and Dafna if they notice it any more, "I'm
ashamed to say we don't" they admit. In At Tira we sit under a date
palm eating the dates directly from the tree and chatting with both
Jewish and Arab parents. One of the Jewish fathers asks us about our
work in the West Bank. When we tell him about the settlers and their
activities he asks who we report this to. "Why don't you report to the
police - these people are criminals" he says. For many Israeli people
it is incomprehensible that this should be allowed to go on. Although
Paul tells us that even within Israel the police force is pretty weak
and often leaves petty crime uninvestigated to focus only on crimes of
violence.

Paul is a great talker, and he was able to offer valuable insights into ordinary - if anything can be called ordinary here - life in Israel. After we left him we went through
Zefat, which is a centre for the study of the Kabbalah and then on to
Tiberias to swim in the Galilee. Tiberias is,, well to put it bluntly,
a dump. It is one of the most historic places on earth, yet they seem
to have made it into a rubbish tip. We had our swim, but I couldn't
say it was pleasant. The Sea of Galilee is definitely best seen from a
distance.

On the bus back to Jerusalem we spoke to a Jewish American couple
visiting family here. "The soldiers are all so young" they said. "But
I'm sure it does them good, they learn discipline and make friends".
Where do you start. We were too tired and besides it isn't always kind
to burst people's bubble.

Refugees and a morning hike

Is there a better way to start the day than sitting by the taboun
watching Najiha form the dough into elastic pancakes, moving them
deftly from hand to hand and placing them onto the smouldering coals?
How she manages not to burn her hands is a miracle. She offers me one
fresh, hot and delicious piece of the bread to take home and share
with my colleagues for breakfast with sheep’s cheese and apricot jam.
Next door there are three old ladies – I say old, at least two of them
are probably younger than me. But they remind of the witches from the
Scottish play, and quite often one of them will approach wielding a
small bottle of roasted almonds. This morning I relent and buy one. 20
sheqels, about twice the price I would ever pay in England. These
ladies do not know about the market economy, supply and demand.
I visit Najiha again for an Arabic lesson. I probably learn some
Arabic, but mostly I get to know Najiha, who I like more and more. She
is such a strong and bright woman, a force of nature.
Rafik and I are due in Nablus today to teach an English class. Our
first stop is in Askar Camp, a refugee camp set up after 1948. We have
a meeting at the Women’s School Society. Apparently, the man I met on a bus last week from Askar lives only two streets away and the women very kindly give him a call for me. He comes straight round, and gives us a tour around the camp. Buildings are so close together in some places that open windows touch each other across the street. Children follow us in droves shouting “Wayne Rooney”, “What is your name” and sometimes slightly ruder things which I am sure they don’t know the meaning of. There are over-crowded schools for the thousands of children who live here. Our guide Tayseer was born in the camp 45 years ago and has never left. Public workers are on strike at the moment, so rubbish is piling up in the streets, schools closed, health at risk. Tayseer is most concerned.

At his house, where about 40 members of his family live on three
floors, his brother also joins us. He lived in Australia for 20 years
and has an Australian wife Gillian, who also joins us. They came to
live here 22 years ago, when they had 4 children in tow and another on the way. She speaks fluent Arabic and works for UNWRA in charge of clinics throughout the north of the West Bank. There is a good article about her on Palestine Monitor if you want to look her up on line.
Look at eye witness section – an article called From Sydney to Askar Camp.

We felt so privileged to meet them and share something of their story,
and with regret we had to leave for our appointment with the students.
At the university we met a young Palestinian woman studying
architecture in Paris and doing a research project on the impact of
internationals at the university in Nablus. She interviews us.
Today has been a day of chance piled upon chance. Flexibility
definitely pays here. If you try to stick to the knitting you get
meagre returns.

Yesterday I could not have had a more contrasting experience, joining
a group called Shat-Ha for a delightful very rearly morning hike north of Ramallah. After three hours of hiking we stopped for a wonderful breakfast under pine trees on a hill opposite an Israeli settlement.
Someone made a fire and boiled water for tea. The company was funny and interesting, mainly teachers from Bir Zeit Univeristy. They were fascinated that we came from Yanoun and plan to visit us and the people there soon. I felt sad that I could hike there but not around Yanoun, which is, if anything, even more beautiful.

How do they put up with this?

As I begin to write I am disturbed by children knocking at the door shouting “mustautanin” –
settlers. Two young men with small guns and a dog are coming down
through the village. On the Sabbath the religious do not drive and the
shortest route between their outposts is down through our valley. We
watch them as they progress past Um Hani’s house. They do no harm.
Earlier today I hosted a delegation of 19 people from Norway. I told
them Yanoun’s story and guided them around the village, to the school, the taboun and down to the well. As if by design, a settler comes to
the well as we stand there. He sports an enormous gun and a pistol. He
makes no eye contact, he says nothing – simply washes his face in the
sheep trough and walks onl We follow his route some way behind, up to
the boundary stone. The Norwegians ask me what would happen if we
hiked further up the hill. Probably nothing to us, but there is
something called a price tag policy. If we annoy the settlers the
locals suffer for it. “How do the people here put up with this?” asks
one of the Norwegians. What choice do they have.

On ~Wednesday I met two fascinating people in Nablus. One is Abdul
Latif from the Palestinian Hydrology Group. He confirmed what I had
already heard about the lack of a ccess to water for Palestinians in
the West Bank. Israel confiscated their right to access to water after
1967. Every project to collect water requires a permit and mostly
these are denied. The group specialises in providing small water
collection projects for agriculture, including the Jordan Valley. All
the water Israel uses comes from Palestine. They use 83 % of all the
water there and they sell water back to Palestinians. What a great
racket! The water costs 60 sheqels a cubic metre. Palestinians are 70%
dependent on Israel for their water and sanitation needs. When it
comes to telecommunications the figure is 100%. There is no real
independent economy here. Abdul Latif contrasts the situation with
water here and in Gaza. “Here we have plentiful good water, but little
access – in Gaza they have access but the water is salinated and
polluted. In Gaza it is as if you called a doctor to a dead man,” he
says. The aquifer is gone, the damage is irreparable.
Our second visit in Nablus involves trying to hunt down a class of
students to do public speaking in English. Finally this comes to no
good end, but we do meet with the head of the Public Relations
department, who treats us to a performance of Shakespearean
proportions. His main theme, which he warms to extensively, is his
family’s expulsion from Jaffa. He shows us photographs he has of old
men with piles of deeds to houses and property. He paces the room,
flings his arms wildly and flashes his eyes as he speaks of his visit
with his father to Jaffa. They saw a green undulating park which
covers the ruins of old Jaffa razed by Israelis after 1948. His father
pointed out the old exit to the mosque, which the local guide knew
nothing about. In the graveyard, old grave stones were toppled and
broken.

After my day in Nablus learning about water, it was strange to have a
day off, which I spent visiting the Dead Sea. At Ein Gedi kibbutz they
have planted a wonderful botanical garden with baobab trees,
succulents and cacti, something called the Sodom Apple tree, specially
adapted for desert conditions and many other splendid species. Now I
love a botanical garden. But you can’t fail to notice the sprinklers
everywhere, the greenness contrasted to the desert all around, and
remember what Abdul Latif had said about water.
The floating in the Dead Sea is an experience worth having once, but
in my opinion only once. Any open sores or bites sting like mad, and
for women, certain nether regions suffer somewhat. The experience of
trying to get your feet back on the ground is unnerving. The highlight
of this trip is the visit to Masada. This is the ruins of the palace of Herod. It is also famous because
Jewish martyrs held out here against the Romans in 66CE. When it was
clear all was lost for them, they committed mass suicide, dividing
into groups, with one person killing all in his group and then
himself. The Romans were overcome when they found them and could not
rejoice in their victory. A sign at the beginning of the tour
describes the site as a symbol of the fight against oppression, and
asks us “What will be our Masada?” I -could answer that – here of all
places.
When I get back to Jerusalem I get off the bus in an unfamiliar Jewish
suburb and get out my map. Now in the West Bank if only so much as
show a corner of a map I will be besieged by people wanting to guide
me to my destination. Here people scurry past, eyes straight ahead or
down. I think they are frightened of a stranger in their midst who
clearly does not belong here. How terrible to live in such fear of the
other.

In contrast, on my journey back from Ramallah to Yanoun I get talking
to a man from the refugee camp near Nablus, returning from praying at
the Al Aqsa Mosque. In my broken Arabic and his slightly better
English we find out much about each other. He presses his name and
phone number on me and says “Sometimes you meet people and feel you
have known them all your life”. I love these people and these
encounters with them.

Beginnings in Yanoun

Someone emailed me saying that in my last bulletin I had not mentioned
much about my team and my own feelings. There is so much to tell about
everything else, but just to say I have a great team. But we have hit
a bit of a low point in motivation. Yanoun is quiet, very quiet. Here
we have no checkpoints, house demolitions, demonstrations, arrests in
the middle of the night. And thank God for that. Our challenge is to
be here, experiencing the day to day ordinariness of life under
occupation. Every vehicle is scrutinised, every sound responded to,
every appearance of strangers feared. As I take a morning walk around,
to ensure our visibility to the surrounding settlers and army, I am
overcome with an exquisite sadness. Some of you know that I guide
walking holidays, and I imagine bringing a group here, to this
beautiful place, watching the gazelles chase across the wheat fields,
negotiating herds of sheep, catching the darting of a gecko across a
wall, passing small boys on donkeys. How they would love it. But this
will not happen, not here, not now or in the foreseeable future.

We sat with Yasser and his family watching two settlers and a dog
parading above us. Yasser is poor. He has 25 sheep and some olive
trees. The harvest is poor this year. When he had access to all his
trees he could produce 60-70 gallons of oil. Now he is lucky to get 5
or 6. His oldest son is at University in Tulkarem - his daughter will
go to Nablus university next year. He pays 3000 shekels (£600 every
term plus food and rent for his son. When he runs out of money he
sells another lamb. God, these people value education. Yesterday we
watched a four year old girl proudly shoing us the writing she was
doing in both Arabic and Latin script.

We met with Project Hope in Nablus on Sunday. They provide many
educational and other activities for children using local and
international volunteers. Hakim who runs the project as well as
holidng down his own paid work, is an inspiring young man. I ask him
if they ever use Israeli volunteers on the project. He gives an
emphatic "no". "I could not guarantee their security," he says"and if
anything happened they would shut us down, besides, while there is the
occupation on principle we will not work with them." He is also
scathing about the projects bringing Israeli and Palesintian children
together in expensive hotels. "They go home and continue as before,
nothing changes" he says. He makes a splendid joke. "The Israelis are
so generous" he says. "We asked for one state only, they give us 11".
He is referring of course to the way small "bantustans" are carved out
amongst the territory Israel controls.

In Burin yesterday, a town much plagued with settler violence and
destruction, we watch the army patrolling just across the settler only
road. Local villagers are harvesting there and the army protects them.
Our driver Ghassan tells us that when settlers attack the village the
army close off the Palestinian road to all Palestinian drivers.
Everyone is perplexed as to the reasoning. Also, arbitrary rules state
that any building in the vilalge must only take place 100 metres or
further from the road. The new mosque just fell foul of this
regulation.

A house high above the village has Stars of David daubed all over it.
I can't help myself from making comparisons in my mind to swastikas
daubed on synagogues. On our way home we find that the electricity has
been out for hours today. An Israeli electiricity company is fixing
cable by the road. Beside them there is a guard with an M16 gun. We
also visit a huge new water tank at the top of the hill above Aqraba,
paid for by USAid. The village now awaits funding for pipes in the
houses so that they can use the water. Settlers have been to the tank
but have not damaged it. Our driver thinks that they think they will
take over this splendid tank at some point.

I have a couple of days off in Jerusalem at the end of this week and
am hoping to link up with an Israeli couple who live nearby. I spoke
to Beni on the phone. "I've just been speaking to a friend in
Sheffield" he informed me, "It's really cold and wet there". I tell
him I come from Sheffield. "No kidding!" he says. I realised with some
embarrassment after I put the phone down that I had kept on referring
to Jerusalem as Al Quds.

in the beginning

Ahlan wa sahlen to Palestine

These are newsletters I wrote during my recent three month stay in Palestine.

*Arriving in Jerusalem*

So, first impressions – how to get it all down without going on far too long and how to get you to believe it!

From the airport in Tel Aviv our taxi driver Issa drove past Ramallah – “the
prison”, he called it. He seemed to know all kinds of unorthodox ways to
circumvent checkpoint queues and soon we were in East Jerusalem and driven
up an impossibly narrow alley, pinning feral cats to the walls on either
side, to reach our guesthouse. Even at 8.30pm the temperature was still over 30 degrees.

What can I say about Jerusalem. Anywhere else in the world it would be a
source of joy and celebration to be in such a diverse place. On the Via
Dolorosa a parade of Christians carrying a large wooden cross passes two
Israeli soldiers leaning on a wall. A waiter shows an Italian couple to a
table where two Jewish tourists are already sitting, saying “In Jerusalem we
should all be together.”

Yet here diversity is unwelcome. Above the souq we stand on the roof
overlooking the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque. Around us flutter Israeli flags, a sign of the many settlements established above Palestinian families. Yesterday one such family, clinging to one remaining room of their house, finally had their furniture thrown out on the street.

At the Western Wall of what was the temple mount orthodox Jews gather to
pray. The viewing plaza is filled with celebrating Jews from around the

world. Israeli soldiers look on from one corner, relaxing, their guns piled
up. As we leave the Jewish quarter there is a clear demarcation where the
street cleaning stops, despite the fact that all Jerusalemites pay rates and
taxes. Back along the Via Dolorosa we pass under

a house , with a huge
menorah and Israeli flag, bought with American money for Ariel Sharon,
although he has never lived there.

*Another world*

Away from the old city there are hills and deep valleys, and views to the Dead Sea and the desert. In one of the valleys lies Silwan. Three days ago two children were run over by a settler. He was seen veering into them deliberately. At the police station he denied he had been near Silwan, but he had been caught on camera. Since then children have been throwing
stones at buses and cars, and many arrests have been made. Mosa, a member of
the community, had his 10 year old son taken away for questionning. He was
kept for three days. One of Israel’s knesset members, Michael ben ari said
at a press conference this morning that he would kill all the children in
Silwan. Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister said that he would have them
all arrested – he’s a little more moderate!

Silwan, like Sheikh Jarrah, is an area where houses are regularly
demolished. Archaeological work is to be carried out in the valley, which is
supposed to be where King David walked. Well, where didn’t he walk! But
these archaeologists are no respecters of a thorough, scientific approach.
The skeletons of Muslims are discarded in order to find the archaeological
remains that fit the programme.

We were driven out to Ma’ale Adomim, the huge settlement between Jerusalem
and Jericho. In a desert the entrance to the suburb is green and ancient
olive trees grow, uprooted from parts of the West Bank. The settlement is
huge and the houses out of keeping with the surroundings. The settlers here
are not the militant religious kind, simply economic settlers, offered

lovely houses at knock down prices.

The road we are travelling on between Jericho and Jerusalem does not go
where it used to, in a direct line, because now the 8 metre high wall with
wire on top cuts right across it. A gas station and shops that used to do a
thriving trade now stand in desultory fashion on a road to nowhere. Families
who used to live five minutes away from each other now have a 45 minute
journey through checkpoints. Although the Israeli government insists the
wall is for security, people regularly breach it through monastery gardens
and through olives groves.

*A rural paradise?*

I am relieved that I shall be spending most of my timein the rural north of the West Bank, in Yanoun. I spent three days there so far, to meet people we will be working with there and get a feel for the work we shall be doing.

Our first night there settlers came into the village after dark and stole fruit from 18 olive trees. The following morning the alarm was raised as a
large group of people descended from the hill top. They were hikers. And why
not? This is a beautiful place. Limestone hills surround a lush valley, and
olive trees climb each hillside. But no locals hike here. Shepherds keep
their sheep on the lower slopes and olive trees higher up are abandoned. And
these hikers carry guns. They come from Israel with maps that do not show
any villages here.

I am reminded that in Sheffield, where I live, people fought in the 1930s
for access to land to ramble and enjoy the countryside. Here people do not
even have access to land which is theirs to make their living. For they are
ringed by hostile settlers – of the most militant and violent kind. Most
recently a mosque was torched. To his credit, a liberal rabbi from near
Bethlehem personally bought new Qurans for the rebuilt mosque. But only a
few days ago settlers came down to threaten the mosque again. It has a
demolition order on it, which so far has not been enforced, so settlers take
the law into their own hands.

With the olive harvest starting people are gearing up for attacks. We
attended a rally in nearby Burin with speakers from the PA, to try to
co-ordinate the olive harvest in all the local villages. A minister from the
PA symbolically plants an olive tree, there are singers and dancers. After
the rally we take tea at the house of the Soufan family, whose house was
burned by settlers, and their solar panels destroyed.

Another village, Madama, used to have plentiful water from a spring above
the village, but twice now settlers have destroyed with pipes bringing the
water to the well, and now, like so many other places, people pay to have
water brought in in tankers by Israeli water companies.

At Rashed, the mayor’s house there is a poster of an olive tree with the slogan “I will not leave”. People have left the village, but many are
determined to stay, and the beauty of the place, and their determination not to lose Palestine are some of the reasons why. Our neighbour Kamal jokes that they have given up trying to travel to Jerusalem because of the difficulty of getting permits. “There are checkpoints even to get into heaven”, he says.

The following morning I walked down to Lower Yanoun to meet the head man there, Adnan, who is at home, as it is Friday, taking care of his three children. Minna Tullah, meaning gift from God, is a charming curly headed four year old and Ali is a nine month old terror. The older boy is studying.

Adnan is a chemical engineer working for the Palestinian Authority in
Nablus. His wife was from the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, the most densely populated place in the whole region.

Adnan will not bring his children up there, but prefers to stay in Yanoun,
where it is quiet and his children can study. He says our presence here is
helpful. “Look” he says, “In much larger villages than this settlers attack,
torch houses and mosques, but here things are much quieter, even though
there are only eight families here – why? Because the settlers see
internationals.”

Whilst we are back in Jerusalem we hear that one local village had a
children’s playground demolished by the Israeli army after children threw
stones, and the village will get the bill.

*The Jordan Valley*

The Jordan Valley, although it looks like a desert, is the main supplier of
the area’s water. Israel wants to retain the area between the river and the
rest of the West Bank in the event of any negotiated settlement.It is mostly
a military zone, and so building permits are impossible for Palestinians to
acquire and several dwellings and indeed whole villages have been
demolished, sometimes more than once. The Jordan Valley Support Group
regularly helps the local people to rebuild. Currently at the village of
Farsiya, volunteers search through the rubble for usable materials to
rebuild the village again. The village has an extensive plantation of
aubergines, but the villagers tell us there is not enough water to keep
their sheep as well. In a nearby tent a man says his prayers. Across the
road is a huge plantation of trees that belongs to the neighbouring Israeli
settlement – the trees were donated by a women’s Christian Zionist
organisation in the US. Water is a huge issue, too much for me to do justice
to here – but you can look at www.ewash.org for really good information
about the problem.

The day I left Yanoun it had been raining and a rainbow spread from the top of the hill where
the settlements are down into the valley and the peoplebeginning to pick olives. Two peoples, who seem destined to live in fear andhatred of each other are for one moment linked by its light.


For further news on these and any other stories it is always worth looking at Maan News, the Palestinian news service, who have a website.