almost home

i arrived back in the states this past thursday, spending a few days in washington, d.c., with my friends julia and brandt before i head back to denver tomorrow.

the relative ease of being back in familiar territory oscillates with lingering images of israel/palestine and unrelenting questions as well as the strange sensations of returning to a faster pace of life. though i spent my last two days in tel aviv, where life is very westernized, i can't help but feel i've been thrust back into a society filled with endless choices to satiate every possible desire. i think i actually grimaced in the midst of listening to a waitress rattle off the lengthy list of beers on tap at the divey, underground restaurant we went to the night i arrived. she looked at me sheepishly and asked, "did i say that too fast?" i simply laughed and said, "well, yeah, but only because i just got back in the country." my meal of a veggie burger and tator tots that followed could not have been a clearer indication that i had indeed returned to the u.s. another strange reality is that since i passed through airport security, the only time i have been required to show personal identification was when i purchased a six-pack to add to the dinner we planned to make on saturday night.

julia and brandt's home, which sits in takoma, the northwest region of d.c., provides a quiet respite from the city and has been the perfect place to provide a transition from my travels to my return to my life filled with responsibilities, errands, and to-do lists. in addition to sipping iced coffee drinks and reveling in two brief thunderstorms this afternoon, i've been soaking in a lot of news stories and updates from npr -- something i have not listened to in quite some time.

i spent part of friday walking along the national mall. what i noticed more than anything was the magnitude of the diversity of people here. being adrift in this sea of individuals hailing from all walks of life and all corners of the world in the heart of our nation's capital made me contemplate the ideals for which this country i call home stands. despite the mess of issues facing our country, the sheer fact that we exist as a conglomeration of opinions, beliefs, cultures, and visions reassured me that the ideals i strive to maintain are worth holding onto.

it could be easy to return to the normalcy of life here, to forget about all that i have seen and experienced in the last six weeks; to dismiss the conversations and the people; to escape the complexity of politics that underlies every component of life in israel and palestine. and yet i don't want to do that. i'm not sure how this summer will resonate within my personal life. how it will seep into my personal choices; how it may affect the way i read the news or share the stories of my travels. i am returning with more questions than i had when i left. any time i think i have a newfound kernel of wisdom, i discover a new complication. the world is far from black and white, and the situation on the ground in the tiny stretch of land known as israel and palestine is no different. still, i return with my hope and optimism outweighing the threads of doubt and cynicism that tried to bind me at various moments throughout my journey.


no doubt i will continue to process these experiences for some time, so you might just want to check back in now and again to see if i've decided to tell another story here....

in need of a little tourist downtime, part two

on saturday, i completed the fourth and final day of my workshop with the teachers at the hope flowers school. so i said my goodbyes to the palestinians and internationals with whom i was forging new relationships, repacked my bags, and set out on sunday for my final stretch of experiences before heading back to the states.

i headed to ramallah with my new friend liz, a fellow denverite whom i met, where? in nablus.

ramallah is the most "normal" feeling city of all those i have visited in the west bank. it's international in that the palestinians here hail from all over the globe. when i asked a couple of teens that i met here several weeks ago where they were from, they said "virginia" and "ohio." it wasn't quite the response i expected.

liz and i couldn't resist checking out what was behind that green logo that greeted us just one long block away from the bus station... don't be fooled -- we didn't hang out all day at starbucks. heavens no. we did, however, revel in the ingenuity and humor of the palestinians.

and we just loved that the menus were made with ping pong paddles. sadly, there was no table upon which to play...



that's liz, by the way.


and that's me, enjoying my yummy vanilla frapo ' chino (as they were called on the menu).

we think this place has starbucks beat. not only can you order up an icy cold beverage; here they serve an array of mideast style sandwiches and you can top off your visit by smoking an argila (water pipe).

in need of a little tourist downtime, part one

i have come to discover that the entirety of the world does not function on the five day work week followed by two consecutive days off. for the hope flowers school, the work week is punctuated with a day off on friday, followed by a work day on saturday, and another day off on sunday... not a situation conducive to traveling or getting those errands run...

on top of this, transportation on a friday can be sketchy -- friday is the holy day for muslims, and shabbot (the jewish holy day) begins at sundown. add to that the fact that leaving bethlehem requires maneuvering checkpoints. managing these constraints and figuring out the necessary logistics can make for a rather tiresome day off. so what's a girl to do???

... head to the pool.

it is summer, after all.

and it's been darn hot in palestine!



these are pictures of the intercontinental hotel in bethlehem. this five star hotel is located a stone's throw from the separation wall (literally) and next door to a refugee camp. the irony of it all is something that i still can't seem to wrap my head around.

this place felt strikingly similar to the resort i went to with the fulton family last summer in mexico. i kept expecting one of them to show up on the pool deck for a cocktail and plate of nachos. only here, everyone was speaking arabic and drinking carlsberg (a strange phenomenon).

little things are big

i have been skeptical during my time in bethlehem in terms of my role as a volunteer at the hope flowers school. to put it briefly (something i rarely do), volunteer positions often seem to be nebulous voids that the volunteers are supposed to magically fill. at least, that's the impression i've had from the internationals i've met here. most of these positions seem to be self-made or self-directed. and things happen slowly here. which may not be a bad thing, but coming from the u.s. where multi-tasking, deadlines, expectations, and too much on one's plate are the norm, this pace can be painful.

basically, i was asked to provide a training for teachers. i requested a meeting with the school's director to learn more about the reality of the school (beyond what i had already gleaned from the web site) and to clarify the parameters of what they were looking for from me. this resulted in a slightly defined framework -- could i share the philosophy and approach of what i do in the u.s. (i.e. expeditionary learning) and share some practical methods of teaching ethics (i.e. how one incorporates character education into the academics). that should be easy enough. maybe. but where to begin? thank goodness i bothered to bring my laptop with me, so i could at least use a few resources i already have. and special thanks to the folks back home who patiently dealt with my emails lamenting my concerns and who returned love and support (i could definitely feel it).

i'll spare you the details of the uncertainties that followed, of the lack of supplies (they wanted me to put together a training manual but there was no paper on which to print it), of the feeling of being completely on my own...

the training began yesterday. and while i have no idea whether or not the five teachers with whom i spent two and a half hours in the late afternoon found the time worthwhile, i definitely felt a sense of joy from our exchange.

i barely made it through a quarter of what i had planned for the afternoon. of course there was the slow process of communication with everything being translated to arabic and back again. (i loved conducting a think-pair-share in which i explained the process and gave them questions to respond to in english, this was explained in arabic, the women would write and then share their thinking with each other in animated conversations in arabic, followed by reporting out in a combination of arabic and english.) and then there was the issue of EL-speak -- the terms used within this pedagogy, such as expedition, protocol, learning target, guiding questions...

and no matter what i shared with them, i was met with an endless stream of questions. about everything. really. they wanted to know all of the details of odyssey -- the classroom size, the daily schedule, the configuration (they couldn't get over the multiage setup we have -- it simply fascinated them); they marveled that they didn't see desks in neat rows in the pictures i showed them; they wanted to know about the students who qualify for free or reduced lunch at odyssey and if "u.s. poor" is the same as "bethlehem poor." the list goes on and on. and they wanted me to answer them all -- including the big magic wand ones as to how i make it all work. ("yes, but how do you do it?" "yes, but how do you get them to show good character?") "schway schway," i tell them (that's my bad English transliteration of the Arabic) -- in other words, "slowly."

i'll close this post with a list. these were the responses the women had to my questions of 1) what values do you wish to instill in your students and 2) what behaviors do you want to encourage and strengthen. i think you'll notice the commonalities, despite the cultural differences.

forgiveness
love
purity
integrity
respect
independence
trust in one's self
humility
frankness / openness
no bias (which i translate as tolerance)
patriotism (okay, so many teachers i know wouldn't include this one on the list)
belonging
_____

to follow their passions
to be honest
engage with others
speak up (and have the courage to do so)
be willing to acknowledge their faults
persistence
showing respect
cooperation
willingness to help others
accepting one's self as is
working to improve one's self

shades of grey

balata, the setting of the poem in my previous post, is a refugee camp outside of nablus. the largest camp in the west bank, it holds some 25 - 30,000 residents in just two square kilometers (estimates vary according to different sources). it is definitely crowded and cramped with nowhere to go but up.

i spent my days in nablus and balata with a few international companions -- jennifer and liz, two fellow denverites who are spending five weeks in nablus, teaching a poetry class at an najah university while also conducting work to boost the efforts of RJI (research journalism initiative); michael, a self-made photographer from south carolina who is finishing up a masters degree in anthropology in cairo -- and a man named mohammad, a journalism student, photographer, and a darn good cook; he also happens to be a palestinian refugee and resident of balata.

traveling to nablus stirred a lot of questions and uncertainties within me, while at the same time challenged me to push past preconceptions, stereotypes, and fearful suspicions.

you see, nablus is a hotbed where incursions are so frequent they have become an aspect of normal daily life. the media paints nablus as the breeding grounds for terrorists, giving the impression that every individual, family, and institution is inextricably tied to hamas or some other militant islamic organization. and yes, nablus has its share of fighters and other issues and it was a frontrunner during both intifadas and continues to engage in armed resistance. there is a strange tension in its patriotic loyalty and the bolstering of the memories of fighters who have met death.

this past week tensions were high as the israeli government announced its plans to shut down some 30+ NGOs operating in the west bank, claiming they are fronts for Hamas terrorist activity and fundraising. beginning last monday, july 7, the raids into nablus began, resulting in the ransacking and closing of a girls' school and a boys' club, the confiscation of school busses from a kindergarten and other schools, a raid on city hall, the seizure of computers and documents from the palestinian authority's ministry of religion. they also shut down the mall. each night, the israeli military came into the city, using the empty lot a block from my flat as a staging area and the street below our balcony as a place to park their jeeps and hummers. somehow i managed to sleep through two hours of the rumbling caused by their idling engines echoing off the walls of my temporary apartment on saturday night. liz wasn't as lucky.

while i met only three full-time residents of nablus during my brief two day visit, i managed to stumble upon those who strongly believe in non-violent resistance despite their personal experiences and all that they have witnessed. two of the three have been in prison (one at the age of 15); these same two have been shot (evidenced in one by a pronounced limp as he never fully recovered); one is still quite young and hopefully will not experience these same calamities. all have witnessed death, have lost friends and family, and know a life of occupation. they know young men who have chosen the path of becoming militants and fighters. still, they have chosen a different path.

mohammad uses photography as a way to express himself. his photos have been used to spur dialogue and writing in classrooms in colorado. at one point in the afternoon, jennifer shared an article with mohammad that she had written, which was published along with ten or so of his photos. to say he beamed with pride would not do justice to the immense joy that poured from him when he saw his photos in print and read her words. he repeatedly pulled the document up on his desktop as we sat around discussing the role of internationals in places like balata and the best means of developing NGOs and defining their purpose. at least once he had tears in his eyes.

later that evening, as i sat in mohammad's living room, eating a delicious meal prepared by him especially for us, i couldn't help but wonder how he smiles the way he does, at times blushing in a boyish way and at other times laughing whole-heartedly.

i encourage you to check out one of mohammad's projects -- picture balata -- a program he co-founded, designed to get cameras into the hands of balata youth so that they may find a voice and tell the story of life in the camp from their perspective. three of these students were selected to go to the U.S. last year to exhibit their work and speak to audiences about their experience as palestinians.

i had the good fortune of meeting taha, one of the three students who made the trip to the states. he dropped by mohammed's flat and helped prepare dinner and then stayed to join us for the meal. at the end of the evening, he hailed a taxi for us (as he left to do so, jokes were made that he was the best one among us to do this, seeing as taxi drivers were the subject of his photo essay). taha walked us out of the camp and made sure we were safely on our way. you can read his statement and see his photos on the picture balata web site.

snapshots

walking through narrow passageways of balata
the concrete walls of cramped buildings
press in from both sides
everything grey and hard
the light seeps in from above

flattened coke bottles
a lone shoe
shredded remains of plastic bags
blue, black, and tan
line the edges
and are strewn along the roadways

some may think these people don't care
though Jennifer notes that disenfranchisement
often looks a lot like laziness

children emerge from doorways
peer down alleyways
their dark round eyes gaze upward
steadily
glaring smiles and genuine curiosity
surround us

the chorus of now familiar phrases
punctuates the warm air
hello --
how are you?
what is your name?
in practiced and annunciated tones

soon we have a following

young boys press together in hopes
my friend Michael will snap a photo
they grin and giggle and begin posing
he stoops and focuses his lens

the boys huddle around him
lean in against his shoulder
eager to see their image
captured in time

we turn the corner
to a wider street
Mohammed cautions that we watch
our step
ripples of "dirty water"
stream past us
sewage, he tells us
though we already know

we are now outside the camp
newly constructed homes
built by refugees who have some money
border the edges of poverty
they chose to stay near the camp

a handful of women
bend in the nearby field
goats huddle on the rocky slope
munching the scraggly shoots
kites flutter in the high winds

in the distance someone points to
the other refugee camp
constructed by Israel
housing immigrants from Africa

we turn once again and shuffle
toward the top of the hill
Liz is absorbed by children
constantly engaging them with
high fives and handshakes
a boy takes her hand and walks
alongside us for a while

i can't get over the smell
choking me on this stretch of road
children play together in the street
with a tattered soccer ball
others kick around an old sprite bottle

martyr posters rather than flyers
announcing cultural events
decorate the sides of buildings
each gives the name of the person pictured
a message from the Koran
details of the death
perhaps images that coincide

a pair of eyes stare out at me
from the peeling paper
the boy can't be more than seven
or eight years old

walking through this place
i wonder what it would mean to live here
glimmers of hope in a hopeless scene
wondering what the future has to offer
these children
bright eyed
with toothy grins
who marvel at the foreigners
who have descended into their midst

another layer to add to my experience

(note: the dates on my posts are quirky. this one was actually written late in the night on july 8)

i've been spending some time reflecting on my purpose for coming to israel / palestine and why i would dedicate six weeks of my summer break to traveling and volunteering in the region.

primarily, i came to witness and discover what it means to be working on peace efforts and human rights issues on a grassroots level within a conflict area. my hope was to meet individuals, both israeli and palestinian, and visit organizations, both in israel and the west bank, that are engaged in this work on a daily basis. looking back on these last few weeks, i feel that i have done a fairly good job of working towards that goal. i have meet with israeli organizations, palestinian organizations, and international organizations.

due to the nature of these organizations, i have been in the midst of people who are against the occupation. much of their work involves educating people about the "facts on the ground" by exposing them to present living conditions in the occupied territories, the expansion of settlements, and the presence of the separation wall. in this way, i have seen a lot that i had previously only heard rumor of or read about.

my time seemed to slow down last week when i shifted from this heavily scheduled travel itinerary to a more sedentary experience as i began working with the hope flowers school, a palestinian school in the bethlehem area that focuses on peace building and democratic education. i welcomed this shift though i also found myself growing restless after so much activity came to a sudden halt. my days were spent at the educational center of the school, mostly in a daze of trying to bridge cultural, language, and philosophical gaps while trying to figure out precisely what my role would be and what they were hoping to gain from my short time with them. initially, it appeared that we had quite divergent ideas of what i would be doing and i found myself struggling with how to handle the situation. then, on thursday, a summer remedial session began and the center was filled with a couple dozen students from various schools in the area. i sat in and observed a few lessons -- math (which is rather interesting to observe in spoken and written arabic) and english classes.

the uplifting moment of the week was when one student, a boy of about 10, walked over from his table in the far corner from where i was sitting, and introduced himself, saying "i'm hazem. what is your name?" he then promptly walked over to a nearby table, grabbed a lump of clay from a thick brick of the sticky gray substance, and returned to place it in my hand. he then walked away, took care of some business with his teacher, grabbed his chair, and repositioned himself next to me. he began molding the clay into numbers and symbols, arranging them in equations. i assisted by making short rolls of clay that could by used in "plus" and "equal" signs. he probably has no idea, but hazem made my week a whole light brighter. kids will do that. fortunately, i can say that i made it through the awkward stages of my first week of volunteer work despite its challenges and moments of utter uncertainty and now have a clearer sense of what i can offer the teachers there.

on the social side of things, my evenings and "days off" were eventful. i was now meeting other internationals engaged in various volunteer positions in bethlehem -- mostly individuals from holland and germany with jobs at the children's hospital, the SOS village, the AIC (alternative information center), the international center of bethlehem (as the communication coordinator), and hope flowers (as the PR officer). i accepted two invitations to share meals in palestinian homes. i attended two evenings of the bethlehem music festival (a surprising cultural event put together by swedes and palestinians). i celebrated my roommate's birthday. i went on a tour of historical sites that included shepherd's field, the herodian, and the mar saba monestary.

just as things became more natural and i was developing a sense of routine in bethlehem, i returned to israel and am presently discovering a new neighborhood in west jerusalem. i am in day two of the international conference on Holocaust education being hosted by Yad Vashem and the International School on Holocaust Education. saying this is a shift in my experience thus far would be an understatement. i find myself in the presence of over 700 other individuals, hailing from 52 different countries. the variety of conversations enthrall me; the complexity of issues and brevity of their presentation astound me (nine speakers / presenters in today's experience alone from germany, south africa, the u.s., israel, canada...). unwittingly, i have gravitated to a group of germans (three men and one woman), a woman from holland, a woman from austrailia, a woman from the u.k., and keep bumping into a couple from canada.

tonight i went for a walk with the woman from the u.k. and another woman she met today. we headed down jaffa street from where we are staying (i'm at a b&b just up the street from one of the conference hotels). at some point we walked along the area where the bulldozer driver killed and wounded israelis just six days ago. we found the mahane yehuda market, which is much larger than i imagined. though the majority of stalls and shops were closed (it was after nine o'clock), i could get a sense of the place. the items for sale mimicked the scene in the old city souq -- hummus, olives, fresh made juices, cherries, peaches, plums, healthy vegetables... i hope to find time to return when the market is in full swing. we continued on, hoping to find a bit of nightlife but losing faith, when we stumbled upon ben yehuda street -- a bustling pedestrian area that made us feel as though we could have been anywhere in the world (aside from the plentiful judaica available in every storefront that made it distinctly israeli) . street performers entertained with melodies and theatrics, groups of people filled little cafes and congregated around various spots in the walkway, women walked hand and hand, various languages filled the air, kids ran around and rode their bicycles... a jewish israeli version of the pearl street mall in boulder or any other such area in nearly every city around north america and europe.

what qualifies as terrorism?

jaffa road is a road that i have come to know rather well during my stay in jerusalem. at least the small section of it that connects the old city with the city center and further reaches of west jerusalem. i have walked along this road on numerous occassions to reach the post office or withdraw money from a local ATM, to spend time at dalia on saturday nights or simply walk around to get a feel for the nightlife of israelis in jerusalem. perusing the mahane yehuda market is on my list of things to do though i have not made it there yet.

i have also seen the construction zone that runs along the busy street that represents the green line, often referred to as "the seam." here, tracks are being laid for a new light rail system, one that -- rumor among israeli human rights organizations has it -- may be designed to serve israelis exclusively, with no planned stops to serve palestinian neighborhoods and villages. i have walked past several caterpillar brand bulldozers, operated by palestinians, breaking up the sidewallk and uprooting trees to make way for the project.


because of this, the bulldozer incident that occurred in jerusalem on july 2 has been constantly on my mind. it's hard to make sense of what took place that afternoon -- the motives of the driver, his intentions, his emotions as he was carrying out his actions. such seemingly random acts of violence do not have simple explanations. was he purposefully carrying out a premeditated act against jewish israelis? was he simply pushed over the edge like many others throughout the world who have resorted to mass violence as a way out? i will never know.

what i do know is that various news reports have referred to the driver of the bulldozer as a "terrorist" and that israeli prime minister ehud olmert has called this a terrorist attack. b'tselem, an israeli organization working for human rights in the occupied territories, has named the incident a terrorist attack as well. even those reports that seem a bit more reserved in terms of labeling the man as a terrorist have compared this event to other known acts of terrorism that have occurred in jerusalem previously. other individuals and groups distinguish wednesday's events from those that have been labeled as terrorist acts. a woman i met yesterday at OCHA (the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs) felt that this occurrence was more similar to the acts of public violence that occur in the u.s. (which tend to be given some other label) than to those calculated or premeditated attacks that fit our worldview of terrorism; one reason she held this view is the fact that the area in which the attack occurred was one filled with people from all walks of life -- jewish israelis, palestinians, and internationals -- and that anyone could have been the recipient of his violence. yet in the broad sense of the term, high school shootings and occupational rage would fall into the category of terrorism as well.

regardless of what we call this act, the israeli government's response has been to announce plans to demolish the home belonging to the man driving the bulldozer. one official has gone further, proclaiming that all palestinians living in east jerusalem should have their israeli IDs revoked. from those i have spoken to in jerusalem, the demolition is a likely event while the revocation of IDs will most likely not occur, though these same people state that this is an action the government has long been looking for an opportunity to carry out.

responses by the government that call for collective punishment are equally hard for me to understand. the event that took place in west jerusalem on wednesday has been in the front headlines these past few days. what is missing from these reports are the 35 palestinians who have been killed by the israeli government in the month of june alone; of the numerous house demolitions that have been carried out by these same yellow caterpillars that wrought devistation in the lives of so many individuals just a few days ago.

i am not condoning the horrific actions taken by Hussam Dwayyat, the 30-year-old driver of the bulldozer. no act of murder is excusable. however, i am trying to make sense of what we choose to label as terrorism; what we choose to label as security; what we see as provocation or retribution; what we consider justifiable and what we consider intolerable.

below, i have pasted an article that was sent to me from a friend in the states. i'm not sure where this piece originated, but it gives a window into some of the thoughts swimming in my head. (i later learned that this piece was posted on a site called mideast youth thinking ahead)
__________ __________
"an eye for an eye, a bulldozer for a bulldozer"

author: Miriam (Egypt/Israel/USA) - July 2, 2008

What happened in Jerusalem today? A Palestinian with an East Jerusalem ID who is a frontloader (bulldozer) driver purposefully overturned a bus and smashed into cars and pedestrians on the crowded Jaffa Street, killing three and wounding 44. One of the dead is the mother of a 5-month old, who survived the attack as an orphan. The BBC’s short video and eyewitness account of the end of the attack, when an off-duty Israeli soldier used the handgun of another civilian to kill the driver, is chilling.

Immediately, according to Haaretz, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for high-level talks on what kind of retribution/deterrent is appropriate for Israel to practice against Palestinians who are legal residents of Israel who perpetrate crimes against Israelis. Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister and current Defense Minister, answered promptly: house demolitions.

If politics were about poetic justice, I’d have to hand it to Mr. Barak. You take a bulldozer into our streets and kill civilians, we take a bulldozer to your home and leave your family on the street. But the person who perpetrated the attack is dead. Though three different groups have claimed responsibility for the attack, the motives of this 30-something remain unclear and he may have acted alone and without disclosing his plans. Should his wife and children and his neighbors be punished? In a democracy, a civil suit for damages may be brought against the estate of the perpetrator of a crime. This is a far cry from a bulldozer arriving at his door the following morning. The families of Yigal Amir (Rabin’s assassin) and Eden Natan Zada, two Jewish Israeli terrorists who murdered Israeli citizens, did not face home demolitions.

On my way to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Anata in February, I heard two Palestinians in the bus with me talking about the Caterpillar bulldozer driving in front of us. “Man, I could really use one of those to help with my home renovation,” said one. “It would make the work go so much faster.” “My cousin knows a guy…” said the other.

I was startled at the light tone of this conversation, given the symbolism of the bulldozer for the Palestinian people since 1967. Today was not the first time this machine was used as an instrument of murder. A bulldozer killed Jamal Fayad of Jenin refugee camp in his home in 2002, and there are many more incidents of similar fatalities in the West Bank and Gaza. A bulldozer infamously killed Rachel Corrie, an American volunteer in Rafah in 2003.

B’Tselem and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions document the use of bulldozers in violation of the human rights of Palestinians. House demolitions as retribution or as a deterrent are a form of collective punishment. This policy is therefore against international law, but has been used in the Occuped Palestinian Territories. The complexity of the issue of house demolitions was recently broken down for the novice by Seth Freedman in the Guardian. [read freedman's article dated july 2 here] There have been many international calls to boycott the Caterpillar company for being complicit in the policies of an illegal occupation. Poetic justice may have become a bit too complex for the Defense Minister to handle.

The question posed by Prime Minister Olmert about Israel’s deterrence policy as it applies to East Jerusalemites, to demolish or not to demolish, brings up the much more complex issue that today’s attack has brought into high resolution: how does Israel feel about its Palestinian citizens and those whose ID cards allow them to move freely anywhere inside the Green Line?* Uncomfortable, uneasy. The phrase “fifth column” is often whispered and sometimes shouted. After I took a moment to pray for those who were injured or lost their lives today, my thoughts turned to my friends in East Jerusalem. Will they be able to go to work, to travel? Will students registered for summer camps or activities in West Jerusalem be able to attend? What additional security measures will they face? The Prime Minister of Israel today referred to the “potential terrorists” in their midst: will they be viewed with a renewed suspicion?

What happened in Jerusalem today? A nightmare. A bulldozer, the monster beneath the collective Palestinian-Israeli bed, came alive and turned on civilians. A horrific act of violence that is unjust, unpoetic. And so is the reaction of certain members of the Israeli government.

*The East Jerusalem ID and the regular Israeli ID differ slightly with regard to voting rights and international travel.

__________ __________

in response to the planned actions of the government, b'tselem, despite condemning the act of violence itself, has called on the israeli government to halt the demolition.

in many ways, i feel far from jerusalem while i am in bethlehem. aside from officials, it seems that few people are speaking about what took place just a few kilometers away from this small city, making me think it is just another in a long series of incidents that occur here on a regular basis. i wonder what would happen if similar acts of terror at home resulted in house demolitions or the mass removal of rights from an entire community. would we tolerate it? would we consider it justice? many people might respond that the situation here is different. perhaps that is true. but in my experience, when horrific things like this occur at home, we grieve as a community. we question what could have provoked such brutal actions, and we attempt to do a better job of treating one another with care and compassion.

yesterday i had a day off from the educational center where i am now volunteering and ventured into jerusalem for the morning. as usual, i took the #21 bus from bethlehem. this time when we got to the checkpoint in beit salam, we were made to exit the bus to show our i.d.s / passports and have our bags inspected as the bus was searched. everyone climbed back aboard but the bus was made to pull off to the side as the soldiers discussed some problem they were having and then began to search the back of the bus again. the driver told us that they had found something that caused them alarm and that resulted in the bus not being allowed to cross into jerusalem. the item that they found turned out to be the metal bar of a footrest that had broken off of a seat and was tossed into the back of the bus. we filed off the bus once again and waited for the next bus to approach and take us the rest of the way to jerusalem. again, as often is the case, i do not know what caused this passage through the checkpoint to be different than others; whether this was due to "heightened security" following wednesday's events or some source of information received by the IDF warning of a future occurrence or simply a strange coincidence.

walking through the streets of east jerusalem and the old city felt the same as they have on previous occassions. i continued to see the yellow caterpillars driving through the streets, i saw further progress on the construction of the light rail, and i interacted with the merchants along the streets and within the souk. i'm not sure what sense to make of all of this, but it definitely has given me a lot to ponder.