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Or see 2011 blog entries below
- January 16, 2011 Final Thoughts January 16, 2011Dread and loathing at the airport Last night I purged my belongings of almost all evidence that I had been on the West Bank or that I had associated with NGOs or dissidents in Israel. I took the battery out of my camera and hid my memory cards and minidisc cassettes in rolls of socks. ...
- January 15, 2011 My last quiet day January 15, 2011I thought my last day in Ramallah would be a reflective, low key day to catch up, finish blogging, look at my 700+ emails, and pack, when my host asks me to join him and the US student he is mentoring on an extraordinary visit to the village of Al Walajeh near Bethlehem. Soon ...
- January 14, 2011 An NGO is not a health care system January 14, 2011For the second week of the delegation, we divide into different interest groups and the medical folks are based in Nablus, working with Palestinian Medical Relief Society. On the second day we are standing in the waiting area of the Community Based Rehabilitation offices when a staff member, a beautiful somewhat demure woman with ...
- January 10, 2011 Qalqilyia: On a clear day I can see Tel Aviv January 10, 2011Qalqilyia, 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 ...
- January 09, 2011 East Jerusalem January 9, 2011What 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 ...
- January 08, 2011 Pieces of the puzzle January 8, 2011This 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 ...
- January 07, 2011 Tear gassed in the Holy Land January 7, 2011If 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 ...
- January 07, 2011 Breaking the siege of Gaza with SKYPE January 7, 2011A 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 ...
- January 06, 2011 Who profits from the occupation? January 6, 2011As 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 ...
- January 06, 2011 The skeletons in the closet January 6, 2011I 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. ...