Blog archive by year
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Or see 2014 blog entries below
July 1, 2014 Airport Hasbara
The talk on the cab radio is all about the murder of the three settler teens, their bodies were found. I am too disconnected to know the awful…
June 30, 2014 How Do You Say Shalom in Tigrenya? Part two
Ran takes me into the Open Clinic for some reality-based learning. The rooms are basic health center with shelves of paper charts and two volunteers…
June 30, 2014 Zionist Doctors and Jewish Values part one
It is probably not a good idea to write a blog after two glasses of wine, particularly after three weeks of abstinence (except for that lovely Taybeh…
June 28, 2014 Tell Them You’re Italian! Part three
Al Manara, the famous square in Ramallah with the circle of lions sculpted in the center, is bustling with chaotic traffic, shoppers, drenching heat,…
June 28, 2014 In the Container part two
The bus station in Bani Nayim is hot, humid, and thick with exhaust fumes from idling vehicles that have seen better days in the seat and shock…
June 28, 2014 Who is the Terrorist? Part one
I have been thinking a lot about collective punishment and military force and the cost of fear. I am not going to reveal the identity and details of…
June 26, 2014 Speak Truth to Power and Choose Joyfulness part three
As a physician, I am always impressed by the combination of intelligence, dedication, weariness, and fortitude that characterizes so many…
June 26, 2014 The Darkest Aspects of Human Experience part two
I have been thinking a lot about torture lately, given the three murdered Israeli settlers and the most likely revenge killing of a Palestinian teen…
June 26, 2014 First/Third World Medicine part one
The newly built Ministry of Health Palestine Medical Complex is filled with all the expected contradictions of building a health care system under…
June 25, 2014 Medicine: If It Doesn’t Kill You, It Makes You Strong part two
The meeting with the medical students is not that polite. Now I will grant you they had just finished their exams (because of the Hebron curfew and…
June 25, 2014 Teaching in the Ghetto part one
The Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis ended up on the wrong side of the wall. Every time bus #36 from East Jerusalem turns this particular corner,…
June 24, 2014 Travelling while Occupied
Blogging retrospectively is a challenge, I am reporting from the ground and the ground is in constant seismic shift mode. Let me acknowledge that…
June 23, 2014 Building Dreamers in a Nightmare part three
I write this blog belatedly about a visit to the Old City of Jerusalem and Yasser Qous, an Afro-Palestinian who runs a youth center in a cavernous…
June 23, 2014 Water and Salt part two
We meet with Randa Wahbe, the dedicated and articulate advocacy officer at Addameer, on the sixty-first day of the longest hunger strike by…
June 23, 2014 Tarnishing the Israeli Brand part one
Our meeting with Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, starts in a stairwell, since the office…
June 22, 2014 What do I know? I am just a Bedouin. A lot.
My glasses (somewhat symbolically) have broken; perhaps my brain does not want to see any more, but there is so much to witness. Even with my eyes…
June 22, 2014 Crying and Shooting part two
We have not had enough sleep in days and are suffering from that weariness that comes with bearing witness to injustices that seem overwhelming, over…
June 22, 2014 Zochrot: Bending the Arc towards Justice part one
So why should Jewish Israelis care about what happened to the people they defeated 67 years ago? The Arabs rejected the Partition Plan, there was a…
June 21, 2104 Memory Keeper part three
I first met Abu Arab and his museum of artifacts from destroyed villages last year. Jonathan warns us to be respectful and to remember that "this is…
June 21, 2014 Can You Be an Israeli Citizen and What Does That Mean Anyway? Part two
I know Jonathan Cook explained this last year, but the topic is so contorted and bizarre I am going to give it another try and forgive me if it is…
June 21, 2014 There Was No Farewell part one
Today, Jonathan Cook, a brilliant British journalist and writer now living in Nazareth with a Palestinian wife and family and Israeli citizenship…
June 20, 2014 And for Extra Credit: Hebron part two
We leave for the tortured city of Hebron later than expected (tear gas, food, and embroidery), and H. (Palestinian from Ramallah, just graduated from…
June 20, 2014 From Tear Gas to Maqluba part one
Feigning bravado and an ambivalent sense of group confidence, our delegation sets off for the West Bank village of Bil'in (see the documentary Five…
June 19, 2014 The Tigers, the Butterflies, and the Birds
Our host father and his two young daughters begin the tour of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem after a breakfast we prepared together with his…
June 18, 2104 Scarlet Johansson Has Gas part two
Spending a few hours with Tamer Nafar, the hip-hop artist for the group DAM (see the incredible documentary Slingshot Hip Hop) is always a trip. The…
June 18, 2014 The World According to Sami part one
Last night, as we leave Elbeit Alnisa'I for dinner, the nine of us wander off into the dark streets of Beit Sahour, past churches and statues of the…
June 17, 2014 The Stones Do Not Lie part two
After a frightening moment with a billowing forest fire, we meet Umar in the village of Imwas in the middle of Canada-Ayalon Park, a major Jewish…
June 17, 2014 Walking with Ghosts part one
The gunfire stops around midnight and we sleep well at the Yaffa Cultural Center in the Balata Refugee Camp. In the morning we learn that the Israeli…
The Main Course June 16, 2014
The Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus is a concrete maze of twisting, narrow, sometimes shoulder-width paths, two main streets for the schools and the…
June 15, 2014 To Exist Is to Resist: Challenging the Occupied Mind
Today our health and human rights delegation of nine energetic women in various states of jet lag is about to encounter walls: the kind that occupy…
June 14, 2014 A Blurring of Boundaries and Conscience
I have been on a number of tours of Jerusalem with staff from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and I never cease to feel this…
June 13, 2014 The Social and Political Determinants of Health Care: I.e. Don’t get Sick While Palestinian
So this is my current understanding of a fragment of Palestinian health care (take a deep breath and suspend any concepts you may harbor regarding…
June 12, 2014 Disneyfication of the Old City part two
The sherut drops me in front of the dusty Jerusalem Hotel, a former Arab mansion, where I stop for a bottle of water and a deep breath. A breeze…
Seminar on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Voices Across the Divide screening at Boston College, followed by a Q&A with the director Seminar on the the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict,…