Two agnostic Jews, a recovering Catholic, and a Druze walk into a monastery….
I am always jolted by the contradictions of Ben Gurion airport, a bastion of modernity and normalcy, evocative art and posters celebrating the Israeli national mythos. I know my Palestinian friends cannot walk these corridors, my heart lurches when the 20 year old [...]

The dangerous qanun and the intoxication of power
We leave the taxi at Qalandia checkpoint and for 50 shekels grab a ride in the back of a truck with Israeli license plates. The truck doors advertise flooring and construction, three scruffy men sit in the front seat, and soon we are staring through dusty windows at [...]

Saed Abu Hijeh, an intense Palestinian human geographer, poet, and radio host, greets us in his garden in Nablus, explaining that this is where is mother, well known peace activist Shaden Abdel Qader Al Saleh Abu-Hijleh, was assassinated by Israeli soldiers in 2002 while sitting on her veranda embroidering. His father Dr. Jamal Abdel [...]

We return from Ramallah to East Jerusalem to join the health and human rights delegation and once again I am taken aback by the daily outrages that have now become ordinary. Sitting on the #18 bus, windows caked with mud and grime, we reach the massive traffic chaos at Qalandia checkpoint for the bizarre ritual [...]

Many US activists are becoming increasingly involved in the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement as a nonviolent tactic to change Israeli policy through economic and political pressure and creative education and actions. Much is available on the internet, including the 2005 BDS call from Palestinian civil society and the PACBI call for academic and cultural [...]

The Yaffa Guest House in the Balata Refugee Camp just outside of Nablus is new. There are quarters for men and for women, a well equipped kitchen with refrigerator, microwave, washer/dryer and a living room with WIFI and piles of magazines that leave a record of previous guests. Ironically, there is a “Cosmopolitan” [...]

Because most Israelis are opposed to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction movement, I am very interested in hearing from Kobi Snitz, a thin, intense man active with Boycott from Within and Anarchists Against the Wall. Meeting with the delegation in Tel Aviv, he states that the Palestinian BDS guidelines are clear in principle, refined and legalistic, [...]

I have to confess, we were not prepared. We were not even aware of the white-faced American mostly Jewish privileged skin in which we were living. Our bus left the tiny village of Mas’ha, heading past Ariel to the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffo, or Jaffa as our Palestinian friends say. We had a yellow [...]

I have been reading about the Israeli governmental criticism and talk of censorship of left wing academics in Israel and I am eager to meet a professor who has been under fire. Professor Yehouda Shenhav of Tel Aviv University has a way of exploding the assumptions that frame many of our understandings of the conflict. [...]

As we learn more about the BDS movement, a critical question emerges: what companies are involved with which activities that ultimately sustain the occupation? In Tel Aviv we meet Dalit Baum, an Israeli member of the Coalition of Women for Peace and specifically, the group Who Profits? She explains that the organization was developed [...]

A torrential rain sweeps through Nablus, the city of hills, and the street is briefly turned into a rushing river as we come to meet Dr. Allam Jarrar, our friend and partner at Palestinian Medical Relief Society. He looks fit and cheerful, but I notice rivulets of sweat beading on his face as he discusses [...]

If you are going to be tear gassed, I strongly suggest you rub Vicks Vapor Rub in your nostrils, bring an onion to smell, or alcohol swabs although fragrant baby wipes work fairly well, and don’t forget to bring a scarf and good running shoes. Needless to say, this was not on our delegation itinerary.
As [...]

This is a cozy scene. Three members of the delegation are bent over a Ravensburger Puzzle, Crystals of Enchantment, sorting through the thousand tiny pieces with 11 year old Ahmed and 17 year old Sundus (who loves languages and speaks excellent English) and their mother Fatma. Their father Hisham is smoking a cigarette [...]

What is this, delusional?
We were in the midst of a political tour of East Jerusalem with journalist and activist Abu Hassan, trying to comprehend the bizarre realities in the Sheikh Jarrar neighborhood. We stand in front of the house of the evicted al-Ghawi family who I met last year living in a tent outside their [...]

Qalqilyia, a bulge of land protruding westward against the Green Line, was the first city in 2002 to be fully enclosed by the separation wall, with one checkpoint, like the neck of a bottle, emptying the inhabitants into the West Bank. Once known as “the city of peace,” Israelis from Kfar Saba used to shop [...]