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?