Ruby's World Views

On Soldiers and Holes in My Heart

2011-06-15T23:46:00.003+03:00

I never thought I'd say this, but I almost miss the Israeli checkpoint soldiers. Not, obviously, because they're particularly friendly, but because they gave me stuff to write about in my blog.

What do I write now that I'm back in Sweden? About a rude person in the subway? Rainy summer days?

Or the two holes in my heart, perhaps.

Yes. I have two holes in my heart. When I left Egypt many years ago, it was as if a corner of my heart had attached itself to the great city of Cairo and as the plane lifted, I could feel a small hole rip open as that part of my heart refused to let go.

For years now, I have had that small hole that just won't go away no matter how much I try to fill it with longing, Egyptian music, and dreams of returning one day.

I do sometimes. Return. And every time I leave, it's as if that little hole gets torn open all over again and let out all the longing I put there.

A few weeks ago, I tore a new hole in my heart when I left Palestine. I think I got caught in the sabr, the patient cactus whose thick, thorny body can be cut down, but whose roots refuse to leave the soils of Palestine. No matter how many Jewish hands try to dig up and uproot Palestinian history in the land.

I think my heart got caught in the sabr on the way from my old hometown Ramallah to Areeha, and when I reached the border control manned by Israeli guards and soldiers, it was bleeding into the sands that hide mines and memories of war and conquest.

And here I sit at the kitchen table at my parents' house in Sweden with two holes in my heart and so much longing that I'm not sure what to do with it all.

So I bake Palestinian bread with zaatar and cook Palestinian rice dishes that I turn upside down and call maqloobeh. And I read. I read a book by Susan Abulhawa called Mornings in Jenin and cry more than I can remember crying over a book for a very long time. In it is all the longing of all the Palestinians made refugees by the Jewish war for independence in 1948 and the Israeli war of conquest in 1967. A longing for a homeland lost, a longing for sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers killed, and I feel it ache in my heart too. Not because I lost anything really, but because I have these two holes in my heart that, when I come to think of it, have always been there. Or the longing for something has, anyway.

And do you know what else I do? I go through old things to make room for new things. And I find old poems that I wrote when I was 13 and 18, and songs and short stories and even books that I wrote and I wonder at my own imagination and wonder where it went. Could I write something like that now?

And then, then I almost mourn the loss of my old dreams that I left along the way. I will never be a singer songwriter now, I won't write fiction again, I think, and I almost never write in my diary anymore. And I think, "Is this what it is to finally grow up?" You apply for jobs you don't really want, move home even though you don't really want to, you do things for people because you don't want to disappoint them, and then you sit with no energy left for the things you think you really want to do. And the thing is that you stop really wanting to do them anyway, because it no longer matters.

But then I think it's just the going-back-to-Sweden blues. And maybe I'll pick up the guitar and do what I always used to do: turn my sadness and longing into songs so as not to waste all the energy that goes into feeling less-than-fantastic.

Maybe there will be a line for the soldier that pointed the gun at me in Al-Khalil, but then maybe there won't. Because why should I honor those who don't even honor the lives of their neighbors with words that pour out from the two holes in my heart?

Israel's Right to Self-Defense

2011-05-16T21:19:00.000+03:00

Israel can kill every Arab in the Middle East, blow up each and every country surrounding it, and I fear the world will still say it had a right to defend itself.

But Palestinians? They don't have a right to anything.

Yesterday, for the first time as far as I know, thousands of Palestinian refugees, some Lebanese, Syrians and Jordanians, marched towards the borders of Israel to mark the 63rd anniversary of the start of Al Nakba. (Before, they would have been stopped by their own regimes, but this is a New Middle East).

It was a symbolic Freedom March for Palestine and a reiteration of Palestinians' right of return to their homeland.

Beautiful in its simplicity in the middle of all the blood that is currently staining the Arab uprisings. Why shouldn't they just enter their homeland?

On the Syrian border, several did. They climbed over the fence, kissed and hugged their neighbors and brothers in the occupied Golan Heights. Imagine.

But of course, Israel had a right to defend itself against this terrible act of... not sure, but marching, I guess. (Kind of like Qaddafi and Assad are defending themselves, too).

And so Israel reportedly killed four on the Syrian border and ten at the Lebanese border, one in Gaza, and not to forget, one in Jerusalem the day before. Scores injured.

I found this picture on Facebook. It's of a young Palestinian man in Lebanon carrying his grandmother towards the border yesterday.

"I will take my grandmother home," he said.

Al Nakba Never Really Ended

2011-05-14T15:51:00.000+03:00

Tomorrow marks the 63rd anniversary of the beginning of the Catastrophe that the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine entailed.

The Catastrophe, or Al Nakba, hit Palestine with its full force in 1948, although the preparations began much earlier. If you would like to learn exactly how meticulously planned each and every stage of the takeover of Palestine was, I recommend that you read Ilan Pappé's book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

They had plans - written-down, carefully thought-out plans - to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its people so that they could create a Jewish majority state in its place. The Zionist terrorist groups Hagannah and the Irgun and Stern Gang carried them out. These plans.

One of the most cynical strategies which the Jewish terrorist gangs, later turned Israel, used, was to destroy the Palestinian villages they had ethnically cleansed to make sure that none of the hundreds of thousands of refugees would have anything to return to.

It wasn't one of the bloodiest strategies, because that was to massacre Palestinian villagers - to line them up, and execute them one by one. To set an example for inhabitants of neighboring villages - flee now, or else.

Nor was it one of the most thieving strategies, because that was to plunder, steal and appropriate land and assets. (Have I told you before that even bank accounts were stolen? Palestinian refugees who wanted to at least withdraw their money from their bank accounts, even if they weren't allowed back to their homes, their farms, their factories and offices, were met with a steel wall. Everything, everything, was confiscated by the new Israeli state. Can you imagine?).

But it was the most destructive strategy. The Jewish terrorist gangs, and later the newly created Israeli state, destroyed at least 531 villages and towns during and after the war in 1948. They bulldozed them to the ground. Mosques, churches, farms, houses, graves - all of it turned to dust.

Why? Because they noticed that once they had moved on to the next village, those expelled started making their way back to their houses, thinking that the danger had passed and that they could go on with their lives. That didn't fit with the Zionist plan for Palestine to be for Jews only.

To make it worse - if anything can be worse than expelling a people from their land - all those hundreds of thousands of refugees who still have their deeds and their keys to houses that don't exist anymore. All of those who aren't allowed to return to where their villages once were. Do you know why they can't return?

If you imagine it is because Jews live there now, I would forgive you for your naivety. It sounds reasonable that the reason why Israel won't allow Palestinians to come home is because Jewish cities have taken the place of those Palestinian villages, so that there is no space for those who fled over 60 years ago.

And in some cases you would be right, imagining this. But in many, many cases it is simply so that grass can grow.

Over countless old houses and farms, marked only by the sabr - the patient cactus that used to separate one farm from another - and some old stones, there now grows grass. Grass and pine trees. The Jews planted European-looking pine trees where Palestinians used to grow oranges and olives to erase the history of the land. Make it look more like the Europe they had fled or emigrated from.

Sabr, Arabic for patience, and a national symbol for Palestine

Yesterday I watched a film about old women and men who are "internally displaced" within that which is now called Israel. They fled, but were still inside the borders of what would become Israel and were therefore allowed to stay, but not return to their old villages.

The film team came with them as they walked across fields to visit the places where they grew up. Tearing off tufts of grass from where their kitchen floor had once been, uncovering the grave of a loved one, they told stories of Al Nakba to the camera. Stories they still struggle to understand.

Because even 63 years later, Palestinians still can't really understand why anybody would want to come and uproot people from their homes, force them out of their villages, and in many cases out of their country, and then not let them return even though so much of the land still stands untouched since those days.

Why would anybody think grass is more important than a fellow human being?

As the refugee community keeps growing, and as the occupation of the strips of land still officially promised to the Palestinians tightens, it is increasingly clear that Israel has absolutely no intention of ever granting Palestinians their right of return, nor giving up a single square meter of the land they stole 63 years ago.

And the international community? They also gave up on the refugees and their house keys. They've settled for mild diplomatic pressure on Israel to maybe allow Palestinians to create their own Swiss cheese state between the Israeli settlements sometime in the future. Perhaps.

And so Al Nakba deepens with every year that passes.

List on a wall of towns and villages refugees in

Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem fled from

The Curse of the Mummy

2011-04-18T17:16:00.001+03:00

After 70 years of empirical-evidence-gathering (by others than me), all facts point to the same inevitable conclusion: the curse of Tut Ankh Amon is upon us.

Remember the first tumultuous weeks of the Egyptian Uprising, when the baltageya and other hired thugs took to the streets of Egyptian cities to create general chaos and disorder to blacken the name of the protesters?

Not only were somewhere around 800 Egyptians killed during this period, the NDP headquarters burned down (without a single fire fighter showing up at the scene), stores and houses looted, horses and camels unleashed in the middle of peacefully protesting crowds, but a number of ancient artifacts were also stolen from the Egyptian Museum close to Tahrir Square. In spite of the human shield created by young protesters around the pink Museum.

Among the stolen artifacts, was an ancient brass trumpet found by Howard Carter in Tut Ankh Amon's tomb in 1922. And here begins the magic:

In 1939, seventeen years after it was found, the trumpet was played for (as far as I understand) the first time in 3000 years.

Imagine what such an old instrument can conjure up.

It was James Tappern who, I assume rather innocently, sounded the trumpet as 150 million people from all over the world tuned in to listen to the BBC radio broadcast directly from Cairo. Moments before he was to begin his mini concert, the electricity went (like you would expect if you tamper with a pharaoh's belongings).

And? Shortly after, the Second World War broke out.

Years and years later, the trumpet was once again sounded by a, for me, unknown person. Not long after, the Gulf War broke out.

A coincidence?

One week before the Egyptian Revolution started this year, a member of the staff at the Museum reportedly lifted up and tooted the instrument, one would suppose, rather innocently. Days later, the Egyptian Revolution began.

See what I'm saying?

How can one not interpret these three unrelated events as evidence that Tut Ankh Amon's tomb was indeed cursed and that the trumpet possesses a mysterious power to summon wars and revolutions?

According to the BBC, where I learned about this thrilling story to begin with, the brass trumpet has been returned to the Museum. It was found in an anonymous bag in the Cairo Metro a while back. As if by magic.

I never expected a cursed trumpet to allow itself to remain in the hands of the baltageya for very long anyway. But I do wonder what will happen the next time an unsuspecting person picks up and blows the instrument.

Should we beware?

The Man and The Pigeons

2011-04-16T18:39:00.001+03:00

Outside the New Mosque at Eminönü tram station in Istanbul, there sits a man at a small red stand who has found a way to make a small profit of the hundreds of pigeons that flock there: he sells birdseeds.

One afternoon a week or two ago, as I was walking towards the tram station, I witnessed a series of events that made me think to myself,

"This needs to go into a blog post when I come back home."

This is what happened:

It was another gray day, with clouds so heavy they threatened to burst into rain any moment.

The birdseed man was sitting at his red stand, having just sold a small plate of seeds to a visiting couple. I watched as the lady fed the birds, guiltily taking some pictures of "the general view" without asking first. I know it's not polite, but the scene was too pretty to just walk past and the birds would fly away if I were to approach her and ask her if it was okay to take pictures first.

The birds gathered around, lined up on the wall of the mosque. Not really cooing, even though that would have added a nice touch to the story.

A well-behaved boy walked past, and the pigeons moved a little. But they didn't fly away. The couple left. The birdseed man waited for other customers.

Then came two other boys who, like boys do when they're together, started chasing away the pigeons for no other reason than to just chase the pigeons away.

The birdseed man didn't notice the boys at first (as can be seen in the picture above) but when he did (I didn't catch this on camera because I was too astonished to remember to press the trigger), he stood up, produced a green plastic stick from behind his chair and, yelling Turkish obscenities (or so I imagined) started after the boys and chased them up the stairs of the mosque.

The boys, who I suspect had gone through this routine once or twice before, were of course much faster than the old man, and were inside the mosque doors before the birdseed man had even reached to the top of the stairs.

I chuckled a little to myself (can girls chuckle?), remembered I had the camera in my hand and took a crooked picture of the mosque before I continued my walk to the tram station.

Life Under Occupation, in Numbers

2011-04-16T15:08:00.002+03:00

I'm researching the issue of water access in the Palestinian territories, because the organization I work for is applying for funds from the EU to start up a new project to improve water access in poor Palestinian villages in Area C (Palestinian West Bank areas under total Israeli control, as opposed to areas B and A that are under varying degrees of limited Palestinian Authority control).

Apart from learning some numbers that had ended up in the back of my memory shelves anew--such as: Palestinians who are connected to a (very substandard) central running-water network in the West Bank (that supplies water during a few hours on certain days of the week) use on average 73 liters of water per day; Israelis use 242 liters per day. But then, some 191 238 Palestinians live in 134 villages that are not connected to a running-water network at all and rely on expensive water tanks that deliver water to the hefty price of 7 dollars per cubic meter, and they use much less per day. Simply because they can't afford to use more. (These numbers are from B'Tselem).

At the same time, Israeli settlers have access to unlimited amounts of water through the high-standard running-water network of Mekorot, or the Israeli national water authority, and can irrigate their unnaturally green lawns in the middle of the dry desert, fill their swimming pools, and water their water melon and cucumber fields.

Apart from this, I also learned that Israel routinely demolishes water cisterns built to collect rainwater. Which is very bad news for those who try to collect the little rainwater that is literally heaven-sent at a time when Israel sucks up the water content of the natural underground reservoirs (that the Palestinian farmers aren't allowed to tap into without impossible-to-get Israeli permits) and uses 80 % of it, only to sell back the remaining 20 % to Palestine.

In February alone, six cisterns were destroyed.

It is also bad news for my project planning, because we wanted to build water cisterns to ease the financial burden on households in Area C villages that currently depend on expensive water brought in by water trucks. We need to reconsider.

Anyway, I also came over the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) March report, and thought I would share some other numbers that I am convinced don't exactly make it into your evening news hour, but is a part of our daily reality in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In March 2011, 15 Palestinians were killed at the hands of Israelis. All of them were in Gaza. This is the highest number of Palestinian deaths since "Operation Cast Lead."

Out of these 15 killed Palestinians, 4 were children.

In the same month, 0 Israelis were killed in conflict-related incidents, 0 were children.

A total of 204 Palestinians were physically injured in conflict-related incidents, 196 of whom were civilians, 55 in Gaza, 149 in the West Bank. Out of these, 57 were children. For perspective, 15 Israelis were injured, out of which 5 were civilians, and 0 children.

Two of those children who were injured were Yehia and Mujahed in the village of Qattana. On March 21st and March 22nd they were shot with live ammunition by Israeli Border Police near the Separation Barrier (the Israeli euphemism for the Apartheid Wall, which, by the way, I just learned is twice the height of the Berlin Wall).

These are their testimonies, as given to UN OCHA on the 31st of March:

Yehya, 14 years old:

“On 21 March, I left school with a group of friends at about 1:30pm. The Border Police were parked at the fence, which is very close to the school. We went to throw stones at them. As we got close, before I could throw any stones, I was shot with three bullets—both of my legs were injured (one of them in two different places), as well as my arm and in my side. After I was shot, the Border Police did not try help, but that’s to be expected, after all, they were the ones that shot me...my friends carried me away, and then I was taken to the hospital. One of the bullets remains in my knee; the doctors are worried about possible complications should they try to remove it.”

Mujahed, 17 years old:

“In the afternoon of 22 March, I was playing football with some of my friends just outside of my family’s home when we heard the sound of Israeli Border Police on a loudspeaker coming from the area beyond the fence (the Barrier). We were no more than 150 meters from the fence, and we could hear the sound of tear gas and sound grenades being fired, and smell tear gas. The Border Police were using loudspeakers—taunting us with curses, daring us to go out and meet them. We looked up (the Barrier is on the hill), and although we couldn’t immediately see the Border Police, we knew who it was, and my friends and I climbed up to throw stones at them. They were hidden behind some of the trees in the area, and began shooting at us. I was shot twice with live ammunition, once through the hand, and once in my back. They tried to arrest me, but my four friends carried me away. I’m worried all the time that they will come looking for me, and that I will be arrested...both of my older brothers have been sentenced to three years in prison for throwing stones; one was arrested from our home on his eighteenth birthday.

The Border Police come here very often—maybe every other day, or sometimes even daily. This is the second time I’ve been shot with live ammunition—the first time I was shot was in March 2009. At that time, I had initially left school for a period of one month, but when I tried to go back, I kept having dizzy spells and bouts of nausea. In the end I dropped out of school completely, and haven’t been back since.”

Mujahed was arrested two days after the interview. Because Israel doesn't give a hoot for the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In March, 22 Palestinian died as a direct result of Israeli settler violence, and 55 settler-violence incidents that led to damage of Palestinian property and land were recorded. During the same period, one Israeli settler lost his life as a result of settler-Palestinian clashes, and three incidents led to damage of Israeli settler property/land.

In March, 381 "search campaigns" were conducted by the Israeli army in the West Bank, and 320 Palestinians were detained. 'Awarta, a Palestinian village whose only proven fault is to be located too close to the Israeli settlement of Itamar, the scene of a brutal murder of a settler family of five, including three children, by an unidentified knifeman/woman, was hit especially hard. 'Awarta was placed under two complete curfews, one of which lasted for four consecutive days during which the villagers couldn't leave their homes even to buy food. Homes were searched and damaged during nightly raids, villagers were interrogated (more than 400 of them, to be more exact), arrested and detained (at least 50, including 8 children, are still being held).

In addition to this, Israeli forces also demolished 78 structures around the West Bank, 77 of which were in Area C, and 1 in East Jerusalem. These demolitions led to the displacement of 153 Palestinians; 63 of whom are children. If you think the problem of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons is a thing of the past, I mean.

Ah, and not to forget: the military checkpoints that have provided so much material for my blog posts. In March 2011, there were 62 permanently staffed checkpoints in the West Bank; 26 partially staffed; 428 unstaffed "movement obstacles" and as many as 454 so-called flying checkpoints, or temporary checkpoints set up at will by Israeli soldiers.

Gaza continues to be completely closed off.

This, my dear readers, is just one month under Israeli occupation. One month of many.

And we can't even build water cisterns for Palestinian farmers in Area C.

Traveling Alone

2011-04-13T23:23:00.000+03:00

You know how there are people who prefer to travel alone?

I, as much as I am attracted to the idea of being the independent, lone globetrotter, do not belong to this group of people. I do go places alone; to work, visit friends. But I am not the lone traveler type.

For a long period of time, I tried to play the part, however.

Example one: a few years ago I decided to explore Egypt on my own. I was visiting friends in Cairo, and thought to myself: while I'm here for the 20th time, I should totally take the opportunity to go and see Alexandria and Aswan too.

Because that's what a suave lone traveler would do.

Result: I arrived at the train station in Alexandria, lump in throat, feeling more abandoned and alone than ever before in my entire life, I think. There were no more trains back to Cairo that day, so I went and checked in at the hotel I had booked beforehand, notified the young guy in the reception that I would only be staying one night--not three--turned down his kind invitation to share his meal, and went out and took a walk along the Kornish. Alone in a sea of families that were taking evening strolls, children eating cotton candy, men sitting on plastic chairs placed on the side of the beach walk, drinking tea and eating roasted seeds.

The years add a certain romantic hue to the image in my head, but I know I felt utterly, utterly alone that day. Until two young Egyptian university students took it on themselves to keep me company, which made me feel approximately a hundred times better about the situation even though we hardly understood each other. We smoked shisha (well, they did), drank mango juice and discussed politics and religion with their broken English and my even more broken Arabic.

Alexandria's evening breeze was actually a nice change from Cairo's stifling diesel-scented heat, after all.

Example number two: when I first came to Palestine I spent the entire summer in Jenin. At the end of my stay here, I had managed to see Jerusalem, Bethlehem (barely), a Jericho hotel swimming pool and Ramallah (mostly alone actually) but I said to myself: Self, you can't go home without having visited Israel. I mean: independent woman, independent woman.

So I packed a bag and took a bus up to Haifa. Again, lump in throat, feelings of abandonment rushing through my system. I immediately thought: rebook ticket, go back to Palestine. Now. But Shabbat had started and I was stranded (everything stops working during Shabbat in Israel).

So I walked around on some street whose name I can't recall, and the next day I met a friend's friend who showed me around the city. Israel may have the sea of Palestine, but they never did adopt the local custom of hospitality and the Arab tradition of showing kindness to strangers on the street.

So you can imagine how relieved I was when I finally returned to the West Bank. But at least I had made an effort to see Israel too.

Example number three (all good things come in threes): last week I went to Istanbul with my (very lovely) boyfriend's mom. She has a clothing store and buys her clothes from there. Tarek couldn't come because of university, and his mom would be working most of the time, but once again I imagined I was an experienced, assertive single traveler and decided to go with her.

Going through Jordan was fine (if you don't follow my blog, you might not know that Palestinians can't travel anywhere unless they go through Jordan--Israel doesn't allow them to go through the Tel Aviv airport that is so much closer and would be so much easier to get to, if they only allowed them to). Anyway, Jordan was fine, but the minute we landed in Istanbul the feelings of abandonment set in.

I wasn't technically alone yet, but I hadn't factored in the I-miss-my-boyfriend part. At first I thought that I had become a very unindependent woman all of a sudden, but then I came to my senses and realized that it's only natural to miss somebody that you not only love very much, but also spend almost all your time together with.

It was the first time I was away from him longer than a couple of days, and I was experiencing the classic you-don't-know-what-you've-got-until-it's-(temporarily)-gone.

Then, after having spent a day and a half together with my boyfriend's (very hardworking) mom, I decided to go and explore the city alone.

I had barely left the office in the wholesale market in Osmanbey before I got lost in their very uncomplicated tram system. And with all the clever people who know to travel in pairs around me, tears of loneliness and envy suddenly welled up, one blink away from falling down my cheeks.

I was beginning to realize once and for all that I'm pretty lousy at playing the part of the lone traveler.

I got off at Sultanahmet at last, walked around because I couldn't not walk around, snapped some pictures of random rooftops, and swore to myself never to travel alone again.

Mosque rooftop and minaret reflected in puddle

The next day, however, I had learned the tram system, knew my way around (well, not really, but I had gotten into the Istanbul mood and was feeling more confident of myself), and actually started enjoying my trip.

Sure, I kept wanting to turn to Tarek to share my thoughts with him, and I kept texting him descriptions of random scenes such as:

"Honey, I just saw the Cup from which Prophet Mohammad Drank Water and Prophet Abraham's Saucepan!"

(Which I actually did. They can be seen at the Sultan's Palace Topkapi, together with the Cane of Prophet Moses, a rather impressive collection of small glass containers with gold inlays containing a hair or two from Prophet Mohammad's beard, and an even more impressive collection of golden locks and keys for the Kaaba in Mecca--one for each dynasty who ruled the Islamic world).

The morale of the story? Traveling alone sucks the first day, to be frank. Then you usually somehow find something that makes it all worth while--a friendly smile, mango juice, a way to understand the tram map--and it's not all that bad.

But if you travel together with the right person to begin with, you always have that friendly smile, the mango juice tastes so much better, and not understanding the tram map is just another adventure you share.

And that's why I'm not the lone traveler type.

Memo to self: remember this for next trip.

Sabreen

2011-04-12T23:28:00.000+03:00

There lives a girl in Um el Sharayet who is like no other girl in Palestine.

When she was born her brothers were detained in Israeli jails and her family went through great hardships. So they named her Sabreen, from the Arabic word for patience.

From the stories she tells me, it must have been obvious from early on that she wasn't going to let the world tell her who to be or how to act. When her mother told her to behave, she did exactly the opposite; when her brothers told her not to get involved in conversations they thought she didn't understand, she raised her voice.

She still does, by the way. Every time they discuss politics, religion, or anything else that she is passionate about.

She came to the office where I work last summer because we were looking for women journalists to take part in a project we were just starting up. Like expected (that is, if you knew her, which we didn't at the time), we noticed quickly that she wasn't like any of the other young women who came for interviews. She wasn't satisfied with just being interviewed. No. She offered to volunteer to help us find more participants, and before we knew it we had five new candidates each day, sent to us by Sabreen.

Not before long, she quit her old job at the TV station she worked with and started working with us instead. As my project assistant.

At first I thought,

"How is this ever going to work? She doesn't speak English, I barely speak Arabic. How are we going to work together?"

And I must admit I was a little bit... well, unhappy with my boss who had hired her.

But that's because I didn't realize that he had just hired the best project assistant (and soon-to-be friend) in all of Palestine, and that she would improve my Arabic tenfold in a matter of months by just being patient with me, overlooking most of my mistakes, and respectfully correcting the ones that were way off target.

Other people I work with will forget to do what they should, or postpone it into a distant future, but Sabreen always does exactly what is expected from her, and then helps me with what she can, and if she doesn't know how to, she will ask me to teach her so that next time she can do it.

This way, and because she has way more spunk than I will ever manage to mobilize in me, she soon took over a lot of the everyday coordination between ourselves, our young trainees and our TV partner. She took on the fights, solved the problems that arose and directed everybody's role in our TV show.

I was left with the slightly more boring evaluation, reporting, donor relations, and the never ending making-sure-we-follow-the-regulations-and-the-budget work. (And the even less exciting project planning and fundraising for new projects, of course. The dark side of development work in a small NGO).

Sabreen had her share of boring work too, mind you; she took over most of our administrative assistant's and our accountant's work as well. Not because they quit, but because she is much more organized than both of them put together.

Anyway, our project is finished now, and the two of us sit in our room with more time on our hands than before. We still work, of course, but with my squiggly Arabic we also find the time to share our life stories, some secrets, and our plans for the future.

But if my planned move back to Sweden comes up, her eyes get teary. And so do mine.

Words for the Mediterranean Sea

2011-04-06T14:16:00.003+03:00

Friends, I must share this story with you. It was sent to the organization I work with by a young girl named Kholoud Ajarma. My organization was the national jury for a regional writing contest a few months ago, and Kholoud's story was selected (by yours truly) as one of the best 20 in the region.

I was brought to tears by Kholoud's words. She is 25 years old and lives in Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, Palestine. This is her story:

(The story has been temporarily removed upon the request by Kholoud, as she is expecting it to be published in a magazine, on the condition that it hasn't been published electronically beforehand)

That is Kholoud's story, unedited and unabridged. She told me that she would like to know what people think of her story. So please do comment, and I will pass everything on to her. Thanks.

The Boy Who Caused a Bomb Scare at Qalandia

2011-03-24T13:08:00.001+02:00

On Monday, Qalandia check point between Jerusalem and Ramallah was closed off. Completely closed off. No one was even allowed to walk through.

I thought nothing of it at the time, because such is the Israeli occupation of Palestine: utterly unforeseeable, and completely arbitrary.

So my co-worker and I who had been to a meeting in East Jerusalem shrugged our shoulders and walked through the normally closed off passage-way to Al-Ram instead, a suburb to Jerusalem separated from the city by an eight meter high concrete wall.

We tried to approach the Israeli soldiers first, to ask them what was going on, and whether the check point would open anytime soon. But they - not very surprisingly, perhaps - weren't especially cooperative.

In their check point Arabic they yelled, "Eb'ad, eb'ad!" Get away, get away. Always expecting that everybody is out to harm them.

So we did. Get away from them. We walked through the gate they had opened in the wall facing Qalandia check point on the "Israeli" side, and caught a public taxi on the other side.

Confusing? Yes, the wall snakes in such a way so that you can actually stand with your back to Qalandia checkpoint, which is itself an opening in the wall, and face the gate in the wall that leads to Al-Ram.

The gate to Al-Ram, right opposite Qalandia check point

Such is the Zionist separation policy of Israel: it runs parallel with their strategic, geographic vision of a Greater Israel in which all Palestinians are conveniently pushed out of existence with the calculating use of concrete walls, turnstiles, baggage checks and electrified fences.

In any event. Today, my co-worker Sabreen came up to me and told me:

"Ruby, remember when you and the Doctor couldn't go through Qalandia the other day?"

"Yes?"

"You know why? My brother's fiancée was there, waiting to go through. There was a woman in front of her, with a small boy, who had barely put their belongings on the conveyor belt to have them x-rayed, before suddenly the place was stormed by Israeli soldiers wearing masks over their faces, holding their weapons, yelling 'Where is the qonbela, where is the qonbela?'"

I interrupted. "What's a qonbela?"

"A bomb," Sabreen said and motioned with her hand how you pull the safety lever off a hand grenade and throw it.

"Oh, " I said. "I see."

"Yes, and the woman in front of my brother's fiancée held her hands up and screamed 'We don't have anything, we don't have anything!'"

She said that the soldiers had told her to shut up, but she had insisted and screamed again that they had nothing with them.

"But the Israeli soldiers closed off the whole check point and held everybody in there for two or three hours to question them," Sabreen said. "And then it turned out that the bag with the woman and the boy did not in fact contain a qonbela."

"But what?"

"A belt!"

"A belt?"

The boy had put his belt with the bag so he could pass the the metal detector without setting off the alarm. And the belt buckle was shaped as hand grenade.

"Motkhalfeen." Stupid soldiers.

Yes, indeed. But fear breeds stupidity.

The soldiers then told the woman and the child to throw away the belt and never use it again. Because in the world of Israel, a toy grenade in the hands of a Palestinian boy is so much worse than a real grenade in the hands of a Jew.

Letter to Google Maps

2011-03-06T19:01:00.001+02:00

Dear Google Maps,

We appreciate your service greatly, but there are two mistakes in your website that we hope that you will correct shortly.

First of all, when we go to your website and search for Jenin, Ramallah, Nablus, Salfit, Abu Dis, Bethlehem, or any other village or town in the occupied Palestinian territories, it comes up as "(town we googled), Israel" (with the name in Hebrew letters).

Screen shot of Google Maps placing Jenin in Israel

Perhaps you're not aware of the fact that the occupied Palestinian territories are unlawfully occupied by Israel and not actually Israel?

If this is the case, please consult the UN; they should be able to tell you that virtually the entire world condemns Israel's occupation of Palestine and does not recognize its attempts to annex Palestinian territories, such as East Jerusalem or the areas trapped between Israel's separation wall and the so-called Green Line.

For such a world-known corporation as Google to locate Palestinian towns and villages in Israel and not in the occupied Palestinian territories can be interpreted as an attempt to legitimize Israel's claim over Palestine. Are you sure that this is what you want to do?

Secondly, perhaps you didn't know that it is misleading and in fact insulting to provide a Hebrew translation of Palestinian villages, towns and cities, instead of an Arabic translation?

If so, please note that since Israel is an occupying power that is not only brutally repressing the basic human rights of Palestinians, demolishing their houses, stealing their land, taking their water, and so forth; Israel is also trying to erase all Palestinian historic claim to the land by, for instance, writing the place names in Hebrew first, and Arabic second on traffic signs in the occupied Palestinian territories. In spite of the fact that nobody except the illegal Jewish settlers that occupy and colonize Palestinian land actually speak Hebrew in Palestine.

For Google Maps to provide a translation into Hebrew, but not into Arabic, can therefore be seen as another attempt by your corporation to legitimize Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.

Is this the face you want to show to a world who is getting increasingly impatient with Israel's defiance of international law and human rights?

Since we don't believe that it is, we are confident that you will correct these mistakes immediately.

Sincerely,

Palestine

PS We're gathering support on Facebook.

I Saw the Old Lady Again Today

2011-03-02T21:25:00.000+02:00

Remember the lady from Bethlehem, old and bent, who set out to walk all the way from hilly Al-Tireh to Ramallah Tahta to go and see a doctor for her shoulder?

I saw her today. Hobbling down a street in central Ramallah.

She was wearing the same black shoes, black stockings, a black skirt, a dark blue cardigan with a silver clasp in the front, and the colorful silky scarf over her hair, tied under her chin.

She looked so tiny.

I saw her stop at the sight of a blue plastic bag on the ground, study it, lift it up with her cane, and I wondered what her situation is, really. Is she so poor that she has to go through trash? Has she maybe lived through such hard times that she feels she mustn't let anything go to waste?

She inspected the plastic bag, decided it wasn't worth anything after all, let it go, and walked on.

The sun was shining, people hurried past her on their way to work.

She came to the end of the sidewalk and stopped. Reached her cane over the edge and steadied it on the street before she ventured to take a cautious step down.

She made it. But was so exhausted by the feat that she only took a few more steps before she sat herself down to rest on a white plastic chair set up by a parking lot. The parking guard came out of his little booth,

"That will be one shekel," he joked.

He stayed and talked to the old lady.

And I. I thought I couldn't let the moment pass, since I do have a blog to think of, so I pulled out my camera.

Not very clear because the windshield was dirty, and I didn't want to roll down the window and make my paparazzo-ing too obvious. But there she is. The old lady from Bethlehem.

Diplomatic Missions

2011-02-26T20:54:00.000+02:00

I learned two things about two diplomatic missions today that upset me.

1. Diplomatic staff are not allowed to visit the occupied Palestinian territories as they wish.

I sort of knew this already, or I knew that there are special rules and that UN staff from abroad, for instance, are always based in Jerusalem and are restricted when it comes to traveling in the Palestinian territories.

I also knew that up until recently Canada's diplomatic staff, who are also always based in Jerusalem even though their office is in Ramallah, weren't allowed to drive in the occupied territories at all.

Today I learned that even though they are allowed to drive here now, they can't drive to other places than Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jericho.

How I found out? I suggested to a nice Canadian lady from the Canadian Representative Office that she go and watch Alice in Wonderland at the Freedom Theater in the refugee camp in Jenin. Really professional production, great actors.

And she went, "But I'm not allowed to go to Jenin if I don't go in an armored vehicle."

Did I miss something? Are we at war?

A little innocently I replied, "But you can go on a day off, no?"

"No, we're not allowed to."

But it's your DAY OFF. Why aren't you allowed to do whatever you want? Is what I wanted to say, but I didn't.

Oh, and for the record, it's obviously not the Palestinian Authority that forbids diplomats from traveling freely here; it's the diplomatic missions themselves who set up all these completely-disconnected-from-reality type of rules for their staff. Or rather, it's their governments who do.

As if Jenin is somehow more dangerous than Ramallah. And as if Ramallah is dangerous to begin with.

Anyway, then I learned something else from a colleague who recently had a meeting with USAID staff in Jerusalem:

2. Only foreign aid recipients from the West Bank and Gaza are required by the USAID to sign anti-terrorist provisions.

Never heard of the anti-terrorist provisions before?

It's a contract that all NGOs (well, Palestinian NGOs) have to sign every time they enter into a contract with the USAID.

"The Recipient, to the best of its current knowledge, did not provide, within the previous ten years, and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that it does not and will not knowingly provide, material support or resources to any individual or entity that commits, attempts to commit, advocates, facilitates, or participates in terrorist acts, or has committed, attempted to commit, facilitated, or participated in terrorist acts."*

And a terrorist act is

"an act of premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents"*

"any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act."*

Which would mean that we aren't allowed to work with basically any Israeli, since they have all served in the Israeli army that frequently does just that. Performs acts that are intended to cause death to civilians not taking active part in hostilities, in order to intimidate a population, I mean.

But of course, we are allowed to work with Israelis if we want to.

We have signed the anti-terrorist provisions twice, and then, according to our contract, made all of the people we buy products or services from sign it too. Such as the printing company that does our roll-ups and banners, the store we once bought a camera from, our taxi drivers (but we actually don't make our taxi drivers sign a contract before we get into the car, because that would be ridiculous, and we told our donors just that), and the grocery stores we buy cookies and tea from (yes, there is a huge risk that the revenue they get from cookies goes directly to evil terrorist camp owners).

All the while, I naively thought everybody who receives foreign aid from the USAID had to sign these contracts.

But apparently, it's only Palestinians. Not Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, or anybody else who normally get labeled "terrorists" in the international media. Only Palestinians.

Does that make me feel good about the world?

Not really.

Does it surprise me?

Sadly enough, not really.

*These quotes are from an application to receive funding from the USAID, which is readily available to the public in Palestine in case anybody thought I'm disclosing top secret information here or something. The application form includes the special provisions that NGOs must be prepared to sign in order to get the funding.

Forgiveness

2011-02-22T23:18:00.001+02:00

On Sunday, the rain was pouring down on Palestine. It gushed forth from the clouds as if great buckets were being emptied onto us as a part of an early spring cleaning from the sky.

It took us a little by surprise, the icy bucket loads of water pouring down on us, as we got out of the car to show two Italian girls the old city of Al-Khalil (Hebron). We hadn't expected it, although we always welcome all the rain we can get in the winter so that the olive trees can produce enough olives for us in the fall to make our golden green olive oil that we eat with everything.

Yes. I learned here in Palestine to eat olive oil with everything. Drench my bread in it, drizzle it over hummus, vegetables, cheese. I never knew it tasted so good.

The rain poured down on us, but to my surprise at least 15 shop owners had ventured to fling open their doors open and line up their olives, pickles, raisins, sweets and spices beside beduin carpets, traditional embroidery, scarves and touristy trinkets. In spite of the rain, the Jewish settlers and the Israeli soldiers.

One of those stores in Al-Khalil I never saw open before

Beautiful hand-embroidered Palestinian clothes for sale in Al-Khalil

I had never seen so many shops open at once in Al-Khalil. Tarek told me and the Italian girls that the Khalilis are making a concerted effort to stand up against the settler violence and harassment and sort of protest by carrying on their lives as if everything were as it should in Al-Khalil.

But it isn't.

The Ibrahimi Mosque is still separated from the predominantly Palestinian part of the old city by a two-turnstile, two-metal-detector checkpoint, manned by armed Israeli soldiers that control and intimidate.

Palestinians passing the Israeli military checkpoint that divides their city

The Mosque is still partitioned into two parts by the Israelis; one side for Muslims, and one side for Jews.

Rooftops are still guarded by green clad soldiers; settlers still drive their cars at top speed through the neighborhoods, splashing freezing cold water on Palestinian children.

We walked down Shuhada Street, where Palestinians aren't allowed to walk except on a narrow stretch on one side of the street, cordoned off by a cement barrier, watched over by Israeli soldiers. Palestinians are only allowed to walk on this narrow stretch of their old street so that they can pass from one side of the city to the other. The rest of the street, and everything that's in front of you and behind you if you should stand in the middle, the settlers have taken over completely.

Shuhada Street is the same street where doors and windows of houses have been welded shut by the Israeli military so that the Palestinian inhabitants have to climb up on the roof, over to their neighbors' houses, and down on a parallel street to be able to go out at all. So that the Jews don't have mix with the locals.

The rain poured down, and collected itself in streams on the ground that washed sand and gravel onto the streets.

A group of Israeli soldiers came walking down from where the Jews-only part of the Ibrahimi Mosque is, over to two armored vehicles that they had parked in an area where Palestinians are still allowed to walk.

Israeli soldiers on their way to their armored cars in Al-Khalil

A young Palestinian girl with dark brown curly hair tied in a little bun struggled with a baby stroller loaded with white sacks, stuck in the gravel and the puddles.

She had been to collect sacks of grains, perhaps rice, and probably flour from ICRC. Around 7 000 Palestinians in the old city of Al-Khalil depend on humanitarian aid in the form of food from ICRC every month. But because Palestinians aren't allowed to drive in the old city, they have to lug the sacks over long distances, down the streets they are still allowed to walk on, past checkpoints.

On Sunday, it was little Shaimaa's turn to get the ICRC sacks. Perhaps her parents were sick. I don't know.

Her younger brother Shadi helped her push the stroller through the gravel, but neither one of them was strong enough to keep it rolling straight. It kept turning the wrong way, getting stuck and refusing to move. Their hair was wet and their fingers purple from the cold.

Tarek walked up to them, took over the steering for a moment to prevent the stroller from getting stuck in a particularly huge puddle.

Then he came over to us again, only to say,

"Honey, do you have my mittens with you?"

"Yes," I said, immediately understanding what he was thinking. Glad that he thinks this way.

I produced his brand new mittens we had bought in Cairo from my purse, and handed them to him.

"Thanks," he said and walked back to Shaimaa and Shadi.

He took the cold little hands of the girl in his and pulled the mittens on, finger by finger.

I wanted to take a picture, but felt it would somehow not be right. Instead I asked the girl what her name was.

"Shaimaa," she said so timidly I almost couldn't hear her.

"And you?" I asked the boy.

"Shadi."

"Where do you live?" Tarek wanted to know.

"Just around the corner," Shaimaa answered.

"Okay." Tarek put her hands on the handle and told Shadi to stick his hands in his pockets. "Yalla."

Shaimaa and Shadi pushed the stroller around the corner, and we tried to walk back towards the car. But apparently we took a wrong turn somewhere because we were stopped by soldiers who wouldn't let us take a short cut in spite of the heavy rain. Tarek is a Palestinian, after all. And these are Jews-only streets.

A blocked street in Al-Khalil, with graffiti that reads Forgiveness

People Who Just Do Their Job

2011-02-22T20:21:00.000+02:00

I cannot for the world understand that there is anybody in this world still willing to work for Muammar Qaddafi.

If the massacre in Libya of the past few days didn't convince them that working for him is indefensible, then his speech today surely must have.

Seriously.

Who is he?

An arrogant, vain, tragic theater man who can't accept that he's not the center of the world anymore, as he once imagined himself to be.

How can there still be soldiers, civil servants, anybody loyal to him?

How can the man who brought out the mug to him during his speech still work for him?

There comes a time when "just doing your job" is no longer an acceptable justification.

Alf Mabrook, ya Masr!

2011-02-11T18:50:00.000+02:00

That is to say: Congratulations to a job well done, Egypt!

The Middle East is changing. And therefore, the world.

Wael Ghonim speaks on CNN

2011-02-10T13:53:00.000+02:00

My blog recently turned into a Egypt Revolution page, and in keeping with the new tradition I'd like to share an interview with Wael Ghonim on CNN:

That's it.

Khaled Said's Mom

2011-02-08T23:31:00.000+02:00

I usually don't put other people's pictures on my blog, but tonight I will make an exception because this picture brought tears to my eyes:

It's Wael Ghonim and Khaled Said's mom Laila in Al-Tahrir Square in Cairo earlier today. It's the first time they ever meet.

Imagine.

(Not sure what I'm talking about? Read this blog post, and watch this video clip).

Thanks Egyptian blogger Zeinobia for sharing this picture; I hope you don't mind that I borrowed it.

A Reluctant Hero - Wael Ghonim

2011-02-08T09:58:00.001+02:00

This is an interview everybody who has followed the recent events in Egypt must watch:

I won't say anything else, except that I won't take back calling Wael Ghonim a hero, regardless of what he says. He is a hero. Just like every single Egyptian who has gone out of their houses to reclaim their rights, their freedom and their country is a hero.

The Birth of a Hero - Wael Ghonim

2011-02-08T00:36:00.000+02:00

It's nowhere yet, because I think all those journalists who keep updating the live feeds on the Egyptian Revolution went home to sleep, but tomorrow there will be one name on everybody's lips:

Wael Ghonim.

Wael Ghonim was captured--kidnapped, actually--at the very start of the Egyptian Revolution, and has been detained for the past 12 days. Blindfolded. Interrogated. (But not tortured, he says).

Why? Why him? Why 12 days?

Because he tweeted and facebooked about political change in Egypt? Because he made Mohamed ElBaradei's website?

There are thousands of young Egyptians who are the same, and the ones we heard were detained, were detained for a day or two, and then released. The journalists too--a few hours, a day, then they could go, it seemed.

So why Wael Ghonim?

A few minutes ago, Egypt found out.

Wael was released in the afternoon today, Monday the 7th of February. There were some false reports at first, but finally he was released, and the whole Twitter community welcomed him back as if he were everybody's brother. It was mentioned, too, on these live news feeds of the major news agencies I was talking about (I monitor Al-Jazeera's, The Guardian's, and BBC's).

Then, everybody forgot about him a little and concentrated on getting all the other activists released, cracking Mubarak jokes, and talking about the next step for the Revolution not to lose momentum.

That was until Dream TV broadcasted a live interview with Wael Ghonim and the whole Revolution shifted and Egypt finally got a hero (who is alive, unlike the around 300 who lost their lives fighting for the freedom of their people).

Wael Ghonim is the young man behind the Facebook page that essentially started this whole Revolution.

Kolena Khaled Said. We Are All Khaled Said.

Did I tell you about Khaled? He's the young Egyptian blogger who was brutally beaten to death because he posted pictures of corrupt Egyptian police officers on his blog last June. For all of you who think you can handle it (but please be warned), you can see how he used to look, and the way he looked after his killers were done with him here.

Kolena Khaled Said has 501 925 members as I'm writing this. That's half a million. And it is widely accepted that it is this Facebook group that essentially started the 25 January movement in Egypt. The 25 January movement that lead to this full-out revolution we've seen unfold over the past two weeks.

And until an hour ago, nobody knew who was behind it; who had started the group. Everybody was out on the streets because they were inspired by the message the group was spreading, either directly or indirectly, but nobody knew who was behind it.

But then Wael Ghonim comes on live TV and cries. Saying that he was the admin of the Facebook group. And that he only found out yesterday what had happened in his country over the past two weeks. The millions out on the streets. The hundreds killed. The thousands injured. The concessions made by the government, the young Egyptians who won't give up and who won't go home until Mubarak steps down and Egypt is free and democratic.

He cried. And he said he is not a traitor. There are no traitors; all those behind the Facebook groups that call for demonstrations are Egyptians.

And he said he is sorry for those who lost their children, but it is not their fault, it is the fault of the regime.

Then he broke down. As the music was playing and pictures of those who have given their lives in the Revolution were showing, he broke down and walked out of the studio, weeping.

I only saw the last few minutes of the interview, but it was enough to understand that the Egyptian Revolution just got its hero.

Watch for the youtube clip tomorrow morning.

Jessy's World

2011-02-07T00:58:00.000+02:00

I know you've all been asking yourselves where the updates on Jessy the Mad Dog are.

What's going on in the world of Jessy?

Here's what:

Jessy the Revolutionary Dog

Besides getting caught up in the Egyptian (and the overall Arab) Revolution, she's keeping herself busy sniffing and licking, barking randomly at passers-by, and giving us the puppy-eye look when we eat, guilt-tripping us into sharing with her.

It's Not Over

2011-02-04T13:22:00.001+02:00

I listened to people yesterday who seemed to have accepted Hosni Mubarak's speech on Tuesday night, and wanted the fight for freedom to end.

Mubarak is old. And he's a war hero. And he's Mubarak. We can't humiliate him any longer. And besides, he said he won't run again in September. And that there will be constitutional changes.

Come on. Enough is enough. We want our lives back.

And then I listened to all those who were still in Al-Tahrir Square, saying that after the immense crackdown on Wednesday on the peaceful protests (that was clearly at least in part performed by Mubarak's state security people), how can they trust him? After 30 years of despotic rule, how can they trust him? After the hundreds that gave their lives for the struggle for a free Egypt in the past week, how can they give up?

And how in the world can we trust a regime who's broadcasting propaganda on state TV so far from the truth that even the journalists presenting it quit because they can't bare to lie anymore?

Then I got a message from somebody asking me to stop writing what I'm writing because Egypt doesn't need this. Egypt needs stability now.

I wavered a little. Was the revolution over? Was I supporting something even Egyptians had given up?

Who could I ask?

My very dear friend Hani in Cairo. He would tell me like it is, regardless of his personal viewpoint.

This is what he said:

"Ever heard of the Stockholm Syndrome? (you must have, you're from Sweden!)

I've seen many do the same today and over the past few days (give up on the revolution and back Mubarak). People are scared and confused. But I have also seen many more with unwavering resolve. This is a defining time for Egypt, and -even more important for the answer to "what's next?" - for my generation in Egypt. When I see some not being able to cope with the overwhelming stress, my mind is tempted to scream "Betrayal!", but I know that people's coping capacities are different.

Let me speak for my own demographic and age group (late twenties, educated): I have never seen young Egyptians so determined on anything like this before. Whatever happens tomorrow or next week doesn't matter. Mubarak's dirty regime is done. They dug their own grave.

It is a very difficult time, but we are emerging from this with a revived sense of *ownership* of Egypt. Is this what all "revolutionaries" before us felt before? I don't know, but I know it feels good."

I asked him about his take on the likeliness of the Muslim Brotherhood hijacking the revolution.

"The Ikhwan (the Muslim Brotherhood) are a potential threat and should be taken seriously, but an amended constitution can hedge against that to a pretty good extent. Also, it is erroneous to draw parallels between Egypt and Iran because we're very different religiously. Furthermore, the revolution will ideally set some ground rules and "lessons learned" that will uproot tendencies towards a blind regress into a theocracy. I also think that Egyptian secular intellectuals will have a much bigger influence now, and they are many.

There were Ikhwan dudes hugging Christians in Tahrir today. There were Christians forming a human cordon around praying Muslims in Tahrir yesterday. It might just be the "heat of the moment", but it says something about the social fabric of Egypt."

I am reassured. By Hani's words, and by the amazing live pictures from Egypt today, when once again hundreds of thousands are flooding the streets. Al-Tahrir Square is absolutely packed with people who have no desire for violence. All they want is a free Egypt.

In the words of @hmikail on Twitter a moment ago:

"Tahrir Square is hosting the biggest freedom festival this planet has ever seen!"

The Egyptian People

2011-02-03T18:45:00.000+02:00

I just had a minor nervous breakdown over following the news a little too closely over the past week. Too many terrible youtube clips of people being killed; too many reports of missing persons.

So just to remind everybody for a moment of who the Egyptians really are, I borrowed this picture taken yesterday by Twitter user @NevineZaki in Cairo:

These are Christian Egyptians, forming a protective circle around their Muslim brothers and sisters during their prayer. It's at Al-Tahrir Square yesterday, during the protests.

Beautiful, isn't it?

That's Egypt.

"Rantings of a Sandmonkey: Egypt Right Now!"

2011-02-03T16:51:00.002+02:00

Since Sandmonkey was arrested and his blog account suspended, I managed to get his last blog post and will paste it here:

Egypt Right Now!

I don't know how to start writing this. I have been battling fatigue for not sleeping properly for the past 10 days, moving from one's friend house to another friend's house, almost never spending a night in my home, facing a very well funded and well organized ruthless regime that views me as nothing but an annoying bug that its time to squash will come. The situation here is bleak to say the least.

It didn't start out that way. On Tuesday Jan 25 it all started peacefully, and against all odds, we succeeded to gather hundreds of thousands and get them into Tahrir Square, despite being attacked by Anti-Riot Police who are using sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets against us. We managed to break all of their barricades and situated ourselves in Tahrir. The government responded by shutting down all cell communication in Tahrir square, a move which purpose was understood later when after midnight they went in with all of their might and attacked the protesters and evacuated the Square. The next day we were back at it again, and the day after. Then came Friday and we braved their communication blackout, their thugs, their tear gas and their bullets and we retook the square. We have been fighting to keep it ever since.

That night the government announced a military curfew, which kept getting shorter by the day, until it became from 8 am to 3 pm. People couldn't go to work, gas was running out quickly and so were essential goods and money, since the banks were not allowed to operate and people were not able to collect their salary. The internet continued to be blocked, which affected all businesses in Egypt and will cause an economic meltdown the moment they allow the banks to operate again. We were being collectively punished for daring to say that we deserve democracy and rights, and to keep it up, they withdrew the police, and then sent them out dressed as civilians to terrorize our neighborhoods. I was shot at twice that day, one of which with a semi-automatic by a dude in a car that we the people took joy in pummeling. The government announced that all prisons were breached, and that the prisoners somehow managed to get weapons and do nothing but randomly attack people. One day we had organized thugs in uniforms firing at us and the next day they disappeared and were replaced by organized thugs without uniforms firing at us. Somehow the people never made the connection.

Despite it all, we braved it. We believed we are doing what's right and were encouraged by all those around us who couldn't believe what was happening to their country. What he did galvanized the people, and on Tuesday, despite shutting down all major roads leading into Cairo, we managed to get over 2 million protesters in Cairo alone and 3 million all over Egypt to come out and demand Mubarak's departure. Those are people who stood up to the regime's ruthlessness and anger and declared that they were free, and were refusing to live in the Mubarak dictatorship for one more day. That night, he showed up on TV, and gave a very emotional speech about how he intends to step down at the end of his term and how he wants to die in Egypt, the country he loved and served. To me, and to everyone else at the protests this wasn't nearly enough, for we wanted him gone now. Others started asking that we give him a chance, and that change takes time and other such poppycock. Hell, some people and family members cried when they saw his speech. People felt sorry for him for failing to be our dictator for the rest of his life and inheriting us to his Son. It was an amalgam of Stockholm syndrome coupled with slave mentality in a malevolent combination that we never saw before. And the Regime capitalized on it today.

Today, they brought back the internet, and started having people calling on TV and writing on facebook on how they support Mubarak and his call for stability and peacefull change in 8 months. They hung on to the words of the newly appointed government would never harm the protesters, whom they believe to be good patriotic youth who have a few bad apples amongst them. We started getting calls asking people to stop protesting because "we got what we wanted" and "we need the country to start working again". People were complaining that they miss their lives. That they miss going out at night, and ordering Home Delivery. That they need us to stop so they can resume whatever existence they had before all of this. All was forgiven, the past week never happened and it's time for Unity under Mubarak's rule right now.

To all of those people I say: NEVER! I am sorry that your lives and businesses are disrupted, but this wasn't caused by the Protesters. The Protesters aren't the ones who shut down the internet that has paralyzed your businesses and banks: The government did. The Protesters weren't the ones who initiated the military curfew that limited your movement and allowed goods to disappear off market shelves and gas to disappear: The government did. The Protesters weren't the ones who ordered the police to withdraw and claimed the prisons were breached and unleashed thugs that terrorized your neighborhoods: The government did. The same government that you wish to give a second chance to, as if 30 years of dictatorship and utter failure in every sector of government wasn't enough for you. The Slaves were ready to forgive their master, and blame his cruelty on those who dared to defy him in order to ensure a better Egypt for all of its citizens and their children. After all, he gave us his word, and it's not like he ever broke his promises for reform before or anything.

Then Mubarak made his move and showed them what useful idiots they all were.

You watched on TV as "Pro-Mubarak Protesters" - thugs who were paid money by NDP members by admission of High NDP officials- started attacking the peaceful unarmed protesters in Tahrir square. They attacked them with sticks, threw stones at them, brought in men riding horses and camels- in what must be the most surreal scene ever shown on TV- and carrying whips to beat up the protesters. And then the Bullets started getting fired and Molotov cocktails started getting thrown at the Anti-Mubarak Protesters as the Army standing idly by, allowing it all to happen and not doing anything about it. Dozens were killed, hundreds injured, and there was no help sent by ambulances. The Police never showed up to stop those attacking because the ones who were captured by the Anti-mubarak people had police ID's on them. They were the police and they were there to shoot and kill people and even tried to set the Egyptian Museum on Fire. The Aim was clear: Use the clashes as pretext to ban such demonstrations under pretexts of concern for public safety and order, and to prevent disunity amongst the people of Egypt. But their plans ultimately failed, by those resilient brave souls who wouldn't give up the ground they freed of Egypt, no matter how many live bullets or firebombs were hurled at them. They know, like we all do, that this regime no longer cares to put on a moderate mask. That they have shown their true nature. That Mubarak will never step down, and that he would rather burn Egypt to the ground than even contemplate that possibility.

In the meantime, State-owned and affiliated TV channels were showing coverage of Peaceful Mubarak Protests all over Egypt and showing recorded footage of Tahrir Square protest from the night before and claiming it's the situation there at the moment. Hundreds of calls by public figures and actors started calling the channels saying that they are with Mubarak, and that he is our Father and we should support him on the road to democracy. A veiled girl with a blurred face went on Mehwer TV claiming to have received funding by Americans to go to the US and took courses on how to bring down the Egyptian government through protests which were taught by Jews. She claimed that AlJazeera is lying, and that the only people in Tahrir square now were Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. State TV started issuing statements on how the people arrested Israelis all over Cairo engaged in creating mayhem and causing chaos. For those of you who are counting this is an American-Israeli-Qatari-Muslim Brotherhood-Iranian-Hamas conspiracy. Imagine that. And MANY PEOPLE BOUGHT IT. I recall telling a friend of mine that the only good thing about what happened today was that it made clear to us who were the idiots amongst our friends. Now we know.

Now, just in case this isn't clear: This protest is not one made or sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood, it's one that had people from all social classes and religious background in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood only showed up on Tuesday, and even then they were not the majority of people there by a long shot. We tolerated them there since we won't say no to fellow Egyptians who wanted to stand with us, but neither the Muslims Brotherhood not any of the Opposition leaders have the ability to turn out one tenth of the numbers of Protesters that were in Tahrir on Tuesday. This is a revolution without leaders. Three Million individuals choosing hope instead of fear and braving death on hourly basis to keep their dream of freedom alive. Imagine that.

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay "because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people". This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can't. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can't allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn't over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak's gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.

Sandmonkey Arrested

2011-02-03T14:01:00.005+02:00

The Egyptian I quoted earlier today, who calls himself Sandmonkey, has been arrested according to another Egyptian Twitter user.

Zeinobia Zeinobia Famous Egyptian blogger Mahmoud aka @Sandmonkey has been arrested #Egypt #Jan25 #Tahrir spread the news

No.

I don't know him, but I've followed him on Twitter for a week now... and anyway, right now, all Egyptians fighting for freedom are my brothers and sisters.

Update:

It has been confirmed. Sandmonkey is arrested.

RamyYaacoub Breaking news: @Sandmonkey was arrested by state security. They called his father and claimed he has revolution leaflets #Egypt #Jan25

RamyYaacoub Breaking news - Confirmed: @Sandmonkey got arrested! #Jan25 #Egypt

I'm sure the fact that the Guardian, BBC and countless others quote his eyewitness reports from the Egyptian Revolution has nothing to do with it.

Update #2:

Sandmonkey's blog is taken off the internet. I wish I had copy-pasted his entire blog post before.

Update #3:

Sandmonkey has been released.

Update #4:

Read his account of what happened here.

Don't Lose Hope

2011-02-03T12:10:00.001+02:00

Another copy-paste blog post while I'm supposed to be working:

If you thought that Mubarak's security people and rented supporters could break the spirit of the Egyptian people, think again.

After the battles yesterday that killed at least three, but probably more like 8, and injured hundreds and hundreds, the pro-democracy protesters have regained control of Al-Tahrir Square.

And the spirit of cooperation cannot be broken:

AymanM (on Twitter)

Incredible scenes of heroism and defiance in #tahrir makeshift clinics, frontline reinforcements arriving, this is the battle for #egypt

Peter Beaumont and Jack Shenker reports for the Guardian:

"Some sections of the roadway are so littered with debris and torn apart by those seeking rocks to throw that they are now impassable. But social organisation amongst the pro-change forces remains strong, with groups cooking breakfast over fires and handing out food amongst the crowds."

Directly from Cairo

2011-02-03T09:55:00.000+02:00

Until I have more time to write, I will paste this quote by an Egyptian who calls himself Sandmonkey:

I am sorry that your lives and businesses are disrupted, but this wasn’t caused by the Protesters. The Protesters aren’t the ones who shut down the internet that has paralyzed your businesses and banks: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who initiated the military curfew that limited your movement and allowed goods to disappear off market shelves and gas to disappear: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who ordered the police to withdraw and claimed the prisons were breached and unleashed thugs that terrorized your neighborhoods: The government did. The same government that you wish to give a second chance to, as if 30 years of dictatorship and utter failure in every sector of government wasn’t enough for you.

To read the full blog post, just click on the quote. It's well worth reading. Gives a recap over the last 10 days from somebody who experienced it firsthand. (The only thing is that the three million he said demonstrated on Tuesday, was actually eight million according to many news sources).

OK. I promise to come with more updates later today. I'm literally watching the developments in Egypt minute-by-minute (which makes it difficult for me to sleep and do my work properly... oops... but it's not every day a whole nation rises up in a revolution that will change the country, the region and, frankly, the whole world forever).

Dear Conspiracy Theorists

2011-01-31T19:24:00.002+02:00

Firs of all, and in order not to alienate you, let me just say one thing before I start: I am much like you. I believe there is a lot going on behind the curtains of the international political scene; things that we're not supposed to know of, but we have hunches about (people like you and me), and sometimes receive proof of.

That having been said, let me move on:

Before you let your mind go wild after recent claims by some newspapers (read: The Telegraph) that the US is backing Egyptian activists and start drawing unsubstantiated conclusions that the US in fact is behind the whole popular uprising in Egypt (or maybe in the whole Middle East?!), take a moment to consider two points:

1. The hard evidence we have is a leaked cable from the US Embassy in Cairo. This is what the Telegraph bases its whole conspiracy theory friendly piece on, that appeared on Friday the 28th.

Have you actually read it? The cable, that is. If not, please do.

The cable does not in fact prove any widespread support for Egyptian political activists at all; it simply states that the US Embassy in Cairo has asked the Egyptian government to free three detained activists, and it has protected the identity of one particular political activist from the 6 April movement when he traveled to New York to attend the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit.

The Alliance of Youth Movements is not exactly a secret training camp for dangerous insurgents; it is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization that brings together digital activists from around the world and work to

"Support digital activists through in-person trainings, online tutorials and best practice guides, and leveraging Movements.org's relationships with technology leadership to generate direct support for activists’ activities and help grassroots movement to build capacity."

The Movements is also not exactly funded by secret government-toppling organizations; its sponsors and partners include MTV, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Pepsi, National Geographic, Columbia Law School and the US Department of State.

According to the cable, the unnamed activist was detained at Cairo airport as he came back from the summit in New York, and had his notes from the meeting confiscated. He apparently contacted the US Embassy in Cairo and told him about a secret unwritten plan that he and some other activists had drawn up at the summit. A plan to overthrow the Egyptian government before the 2011 presidential election and replace it with a parliamentary democracy.

The cable states that the US Embassy is "doubtful of this claim."

It also says:

"April 6's stated goal of replacing the current regime with a parliamentary democracy prior to the 2011 presidential elections is highly unrealistic, and is not supported by the mainstream opposition."

Now. You say, "Okay, but they still supported them, didn't they?"

Let me tell you exactly why this doesn't even almost suggest that the US is behind the uprising in Egypt:

I work at a Palestinian NGO and we receive money from the US government to train young Palestinians in media. We also have a project training young Palestinians in communication skills, advocacy and lobbying funded by the Canadian government. Imagine that tomorrow there's a third intifada here, and one of our trainees proves to be an activist engaged in the revolt, particularly skillful in lobbying and using the media to reach out with his or her message.

Is that proof that the US or Canada is behind the third intifada?

No.

But the Telegraph would have to publish another article about how the US supports anti-government activists in the Middle East.

You have no idea how many thousands of small non-governmental projects like these the US government and pretty much all Western (and some non-Western countries) support around the world. That does not mean that they're actively trying to topple the governments in the respective countries.

2. The second point I invite you to consider is: pretending that the cable actually isn't so utterly unexciting as a cable can possible be for a conspiracy theorist, and believing for a moment that there is proof for US backing of the Egyptian protests, what is the motivation behind it?

Hosni Mubarak is one of the United States' most important allies. This is why the US pours in something around 1.5 billion US dollars a year for him to be able to stay in power with all means available to him (hundreds of thousands of police, torture, strict control of the media).

Moreover, Mubarak keeps Egypt's peace agreement with the most important ally (not really, but the US seems to believe it is) Israel.

Mubarak keeps Hamas safely locked into the Gaza strip.

Mubarak keeps the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt behind bars.

Mubarak works with the US in its fight against what it decides is terrorism.

Mubarak makes sure that the Suez Canal - a vital canal that keeps the oil flow steady - remains open to the West.

Why, please tell me why, would the US actively support a revolution against this man?

Sincerely,

Ruby

A Great Cooperative Project

2011-01-31T18:29:00.000+02:00

Over the past few days, sitting glued to my Twitter feed, a very encouraging picture of what is happening in Egypt emerges.

It shouldn't come as news to anybody who knows Egyptians, but it is still very worth dedicating a blog post to:

The Great Cooperative Project that the Egyptians Are a Part of

It was Ahdaf Soueif who called it that - a great cooperative project - and I can't find a better way to put it.

‎"Once... my son, watching a young man run to help an old man who had dropped a bag in the middle of the street, said: 'The thing about Egypt is that everyone is very individual, but also part of a great co-operative project'. Today, we are doing what we do best, and what this regime has tried to destroy: we have come together, as individuals, in a great co-operative effort to reclaim our country."

This is but a small collection of tweets over the past week from people describing how people are working together in the midst of the uprising to protect each other and their country, clean and cook for each other:

Cairo residents remove passwords from wi-fi routers so protesters can communicate with world http://bit.ly/g9xOdl #jan25 (before the internet was shut down in Egypt)

@saidboudriz: Christians were out protesting/protecting Muslims while Muslims prayed Jummah. #Egypt people are standing together! #Jan25

@_yaz: Al Jazeera: Protestors create a human shield around the Egyptian Museum to protect it. #egypt #egipto #jan25 (when looters, reportedly identified as police officers in plain clothes, threatened to break into the Egyptian Museum)

@RNN: Areesh: no forces exist and civilian movements form teams to protect banks and public buildings #jan25 #egypt

@Sarahcarr Amazing scenes in Cairo. Tanks in Salah Salem, citizens directing traffic (& doing a great job). Joyful atmosphere #jan25

@Sandmonkey women carry sticks &join volunteer protection committees on the streets of Heliopolis. Ppl saluting army. It's great. #Jan25

@amunati: just talked to my uncle in cairo. they are all doing good, every1 making breakfast for whole neighborhood. #Jan25

@bencnn Profound respect, appeciation for Egyptian, foreign neighbours patrolling all night long in dark and cold to keep us safe. #Jan25 #Egypt

@IvanCNN Far more soldiers and tanks in the streets today. Military was distributing bread to poor people from a truck off Tahrir square.

@RNN - Now Muslims protesters are praying in Tahrir SQ, while Christians are protecting them, you can hear 'Ameen' very loudly!

@DannyRamadan: She was cleaning Tahrir square."I believe some should protest and others should clean",she says.#jan25

Still not entirely sure what I'm talking about? Watch this video clip:

My Egyptian Friends

2011-01-31T09:33:00.000+02:00

I can't get a hold of my Egyptian friends. The internet is still down since the night of the 27th, as everybody knows, but the cell phones should be working again. The sms service is reportedly down, but I've tried calling. But nothing. I called landlines too.

I'm worried, because I know at least some of my friends were out in the protests the first couple of days, before it got so chaotic.

The only news I have is through my little sister's husband who manages to talk to his family. The men are out on the street, protecting their neighborhood from looters (who are, according to hundreds and hundreds of reports, apparently mostly police officers in plain clothes); his father, actually a police officer, but not a looter, brought his gun home for the first time in his life to protect his family.

And my little sister's husband's cousin is at home, recovering from the police beatings he was victim to on Friday the 28th when he took part in the protests.

And I'm waiting. Hoping to hear from the others somehow. Watching the brave Egyptian people, out protesting for the seventh day in a row.

A Tale of a Tremendous Uprising

2011-01-28T13:10:00.000+02:00

When I’m old, I will be the aunt who lived in another age and my nephews and nieces will sit around me and ask me to tell them stories about the how the world was when I was young.

It will be like a couple of years ago when I went to visit my aunt in New York, and we sat together one evening and looked through old photo albums. There were pictures of my dad as a baby, of aunts and uncles I’ve never met, and of my grandfather who died long before I was born, when my dad and aunt were still teenagers.

From one of the photo albums, an old passport fell out. It was my grandfather’s. I opened it and for a moment it was as if I finally got to meet him. It wasn’t the old black and white photograph; it was the stamps. His visas. My grandfather had been a little like me, I thought. Like me, he had also been drawn to the Middle East when he was young.

There was an Iranian visa. An Iraqi visa. And something I had never seen before; a visa from the United Arab Republic.

The United Arab Republic?

I had to google it. Yes, of course. It was the short-lived Egyptian-Syrian union at the end of the 1950s. His visa was from 1959; one year after the creation of the unsteady union and two years before it fell apart.

My grandfather died before I got to ask him what the Middle East was like back then, but insha Allah, I will be alive to tell my nephews and nieces what I have seen.

They will sit around me and ask,

“Please tell us a story from when you were young.”

And I will tell them. About how I lived in a land known to the world as the occupied Palestinian territories when I was in my late twenties. About how we, if we wanted to go anywhere, had to pass through military checkpoints with Israeli boy and girl soldiers acting as if it were their country, and we were intruders.

“Who were the Israelis?” they will ask.

“Mostly European, American and Russian Jews who drove out the Palestinians from their homes, and occupied their land.”

“Oh.”

I will continue and tell them about how Palestinians were arrested at night; killed in their beds. About how Israel stole our water and sold it back to us; how the Jewish settlers were allowed to burn olive fields and throw rocks at school children on their way to school, with soldiers standing by, only watching. And how Israel then put 12-year-old Palestinian boys in jail for months and years for throwing rocks at the Jewish settlers who were stealing their land.

Then I will tell them about the bombings in Gaza; about the house demolitions and about how Jewish settlers used to spit at us when they walked past us in the Palestinian city Al-Khalil.

Finally, I will tell them about the roads. The good roads were for Jews only, I will say. The bumpy roads for Palestinians, who weren’t allowed to fix them.

“And the world leaders,” I will add, “the world leaders mostly stood by and let Israel do what they wanted because they were the only democracy in the region, they said, and they had a right to defend themselves. Sometimes they would come with creative ideas such as ‘Instead of having separate roads, let’s make separate lanes!’ or ‘I know, since we don’t want to force Israel to allow the Palestinians to return, let’s move them to South America!’”

Then my nephew will ask me,

“Then what happened?”

And I will reply,

“Then something tremendous happened. A few years before, I had lived in Egypt where I would see people so poor that they would eat from the garbage and sleep on dirty blankets on the side walks.”

“In Egypt?!” they will hardly believe me.

“Yes, Egypt was different back then.”

I will tell them about how Egypt was also under occupation; but a different kind of occupation.

“Egypt was ruled by a despot who thought he could fool time with enough plastic surgery,” I will say. “This despot, called Mubarak, employed his own people as soldiers and set them up at checkpoints, hired secret police to spy on their neighbors. If a taxi driver questioned the legitimacy of his regime, he would be thrown into jail. If a man would dare to run against Mubarak in one of his charade elections, he would be thrown into jail. If a blogger would publish photos that proved the wide-spread corruption in the police? He would be brutally beaten to death.”

Then my nice will say that I’m exaggerating, because Mubarak surely couldn’t afford having that many police officers it would take to control everybody at all times.

And I will say,

“You’re right, he couldn’t afford it. That’s why the then-world power the United States of America paid him billions and billions of dollars.”

“Billions?”

“Yes, billions,” I will say. “Billions and billions of dollars to keep Mubarak in place.”

“But why did they like Mubarak so much?”

“Because he promised not to attack Israel even though Israel was literally killing his brothers and sisters. The United States really liked Israel. And he promised to keep the Muslim Brotherhood in jail and out of the government, and the United States really didn’t like the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“So what happened?”

“Then something tremendous happen,” I will say again, because I got sidetracked and forgot to tell them about the tremendous thing that happened. “Then the people of the Arab world had suddenly had enough.”

“What did they do?”

“It started with a spark in North Africa, that ignited a full-blown, country-wide fire in Tunisia. Then the fire spread to Jordan, to Egypt and to Yemen. The people of all Arab lands took to the streets armed only with placards demanding their rights.

“Only placards?”

“Well, some had rocks. The people marched. Day and night. They shouted slogans and they used their mobile phones to get the news about what was going on in their lands out to the rest of the world. I would sit glued to Twitter and Facebook. And the Arab dictators – because there were more than just Mubarak – sent out all of their police forces on the streets, but they themselves stayed inside, shivering in their palaces.”

“Not before long,” I will continue, “they fled. First, the Tunisian president fled; then Mubarak. It was as if the whole Arab world had joined in one massive uprising and finally shook themselves free.”

“So what about the Palestinians?”

“Their lives changed too, of course. But it’s getting late and I will tell you what happened tomorrow.”

Story from a Revolution in the Making

2011-01-27T23:25:00.000+02:00

One of Egypt's best contemporary writers, Ala Al Aswany, tells a heartwarming story from the January 25 protests in Egypt:

A young demonstrator told me that, when running from the police on Tuesday, he entered a building and rang an apartment bell at random. It was 4am. A 60-year-old man opened the door, fear obvious on his face. The demonstrator asked the man to hide him from the police. The man asked to see his identity card and invited him in, waking one of his three daughters to prepare some food for the young man. They ate and drank tea together and chatted like lifelong friends.

In the morning, when the danger of arrest had receded, the man accompanied the young protester into the street, stopped a taxi for him and offered him some money. The young man refused and thanked them. As they embraced the older man said: "It is I who should be thanking you for defending me, my daughters and all Egyptians."

January 25 Protests in Egypt

2011-01-27T13:55:00.004+02:00

For the first time, I'm finding myself glued to Twitter. I tried using it before, but never really understood the advantage it had over Facebook.

Then the protests in Egypt started.

I was urged by a friend in Cairo to go to Twitter and search for #jan25; the search term for anything relating to the Egyptian mass protests that started on January 25.

From then on I was addicted. I am addicted. I discovered the intoxication of receiving instant, uncensored updates from people who are actually out on the streets, protesting against Hosni Mubarak's undemocratic (to say the least) regime.

And the things the Egyptians are saying... people are witty, sincere, eloquent:

@SalmaNoshokaty: must be the longest day in Egyptian history, it's the 27th but for us it's still the 25th

@SherineT: El Baradei: "The Egyptian people broke the barrier of fear, and once that is broken, there is no stopping them,"

@HosniMobarak: Habib just sent me a bbm. He says I should prepare a farewell speech for my citizens. Where are you guys going?

(I didn't get it first; but it's supposed to be a clueless Mubarak speaking... haha)

@abgemei: Arab World is rising, Israel shits its pants.

(Oh, indeed)

@geoplace: Cairo residents in Egypt remove passwords from their wi-fi routers so protesters can communicate with the world http://bit.ly/g9xOdl

(How great is that?)

@adlybazaar: Walk like an Egyptian

(Hehe).

@A_MgDee: Please retweet to the world. We are being beaten up to death, arrested for expressing our point of views

(How brave, to stand up for what you believe in under these circumstances).

@shabab6april: Egyptians calling for a 1 MILLION march All over egypt after friday prayers which end at 1pm share,Retweet,forward,broadcast

izzy82 Reports that Friday prayers are banned, big mosques closed in central #Cairo to prevent protesters from gathering

(Oh, but protesters will still gather!)

@ianinegypt El Giesh street looks like a war zone. Burnt out tires and rubble litter the street. Police checkpoint destroyed.

And my favorite tweet from yesterday:

"Yesterday we were all Tunisian. Today we are all Egyptian. Tomorrow we'll all be free."

Just because I discovered Twitter, however, doesn't mean that I abandoned Facebook. And neither did the Egyptians. Twitter is best for updates, but Facebook is still where people organize themselves. Sonia Verma reports:

"An estimated 3.4 million Egyptians use the social networking site, the vast majority under the age of 25. Egypt is the No. 1 user of Facebook in the Arab world, and No. 23 globally. It is the third most-visited website in the country, after Google and Yahoo.

With freedom of speech and the right to assemble severely limited in Egypt, which has been ruled under a state-of-emergency law since 1981, Facebook provides one of the only forums for dissent."

To support the Egyptian revolution (also called the Koshari Revolution on Twitter), join here.

Finally, to remember one of those who sparked the social movement that lead to the protests on January 25:

@_aser: Today is Khaled Said 's 29 birthday , let's make it a real birthday for freedom.

Khaled Said was the young Egyptian beaten to death by the Egyptian police last summer, after having exposed corrupted police officers on his blog.

(Redundant observation: the internet is changing our world. Or we're changing our world with the help of the internet).

The Old Lady from Bethlehem

2011-01-22T18:24:00.002+02:00

On Monday morning - a bright, chilly Ramallah morning - a tiny, bent woman climbed the steep hill that leads up to the main road from the mosque in Al-Tireh. She had a coat on to protect her from the wind; a skirt that reached just above her ankles; black stockings, and a colorful little silk scarf tied under her chin, covering most of her gray hair.

In her right hand, she held a brown wooden cane to support her slow, slow, arduous ascent.

When I caught sight of her, on our way to work, something tugged at my heart and I gave Tarek a nudge,

"Honey, ask her if she needs a ride," half thinking that she would never agree to get into a stranger's car. Where I come from, you don't offer people rides unless you know them.

Tarek rolled down the window and called out,

"Sabah el kheir, ya hajjeh." Good morning, hajjeh (a polite way to address old ladies).

She stopped and leaned against her cane, squinted her eyes at us.

Tarek repeated the salutation, and then: "Where are you going, ya hajjeh?"

She couldn't quite hear.

A little louder: "Get inside the car, ya hajjeh, we will drive you."

The little lady obliged, showering us with blessings, mumbling her gratitude to God Almighty as she scrambled her way into the back seat. I helped her with her cane.

"Where are you going, ya hajjeh?"

"To the doctor." Her shoulder was aching, and she was on her way to see the doctor.

"What doctor?"

"The one that is in Ramallah Tahta," she replied.

If I walk from the house in Al-Tireh to Ramallah Tahta, the old part of the city, it would take me at least half an hour.

I looked back at the little lady, her brown, smooth, leathery face. She was old, she could barely hear and her back was curved with age, but there was a whole lot of spirit in her.

"Where are you from, ya hajjeh?"

"Bethlehem, but I moved here 45 years ago." After some quick calculations in my head, I realized that meant that she had seen the 1967 Israeli invasion, the first Intifada, the second Intifada and the 2002 invasion of Ramallah; and she looked old enough to having been a girl in Bethlehem during the ethnic cleansing of what is now Israel, that culminated in the 1948 war. I wanted to ask her about it, but she could hardly hear anything and I got self-conscious about my Arabic.

She looked at me, "Where are you from? She doesn't look Palestinian," she told Tarek.

"I'm from Sweden," I replied.

"What?"

"From Sweden, Sweden."

"From where?"

"Sweden, ya hajjeh."

"Sweden in Europe," Tarek clarified.

"Ah, Amreeka, yaani?"

"Yes, Amreeka." Close enough.

We drove. Up the hill, past the olive trees, rounded the gas station, passed the UN Women's Vocational College, the Scouts center, the Kol Shi Shahi delicatessen, the video rental store with bootleg DVDs.

When we got to Ramallah Tahta, we pulled over and said good bye to the little old lady.

Then, as she was hobbling away from the car, Tarek suddenly said, "I have to make sure she has money to see the doctor," and went after her. Three strides and he caught up with her.

I watched them through the rear window.

When Tarek came back he said that he had given her a 100 shekel. He had asked her if she had money, and she had replied,

"No, but God will look after me."

Then she had refused to take money from Tarek, but Tarek insisted and finally tucked the 100 shekel bill into her pocket.

She was right. God did see to it that she would be able to pay the doctor's bill.

Creative E-Mail Addresses

2011-01-19T12:57:00.001+02:00

So. I work as a project manager at a local NGO in Ramallah, and we have several different development projects for youth in the West Bank with conflict resolution training, media internships, talk shows on TV... among other things.

Anyway, for reporting purposes, we have our participants sign attendance sheets at events and training sessions.

And you can never believe the e-mail addresses kids have these days (how old does that make me sound?).

Therefore, I will list a few:

soosa-BIGBOSS (my personal favorite)

love_snuger

red_flower

pearl_sea

hope-tear

dintistforever (somebody who likes the dentist?)

missy_romance

nedal_VIP

lovely_mays

when_Ineed_you

cute.larna

im4you4ever

badstory_soso

Haha. Very creative.

(I only listed the fun stuff that comes before the @ for privacy reasons. Plus, many of them had a series of numbers after their name, which I didn't include in the event that evil spammers monitor my blog).

The Fruit Seller and His Son

2011-01-17T12:54:00.003+02:00

Once upon a time not very long ago, there lived a fruit seller in Cairo.

There lived many fruit seller in Cairo, of course, just like there still live many fruit sellers in this immensely large city; but only one who sold fruit on the street corner opposite my sister’s and my apartment.

Every day, he sat on the curb outside of the grocery store on Al-Hegaz Street, in his gray or light brown traditional galabeyya robe with baskets of fruit beside him.

His son sometimes took his place during the long days; and sometimes his brother. Somebody would always be there from early morning until after eleven or sometimes twelve at night.

His son was about twelve years old, perhaps a little tall for his age, thin, had beautiful brown skin. He also wore a galabeyya, and he was cross-eyed, shy and very sweet.

For only half a dollar per kilo, the fruit seller and his son sold huge, firm pomegranates that, when you cut them open, would drip with dark, dark crimson juice and stain your fingers and color your tongue red. They had pale green guavas that would make your whole apartment smell sweet; and large, aromatic navel oranges for less than half a dollar per kilo.

And they sold expensive golden apples from Syria; the most expensive fruit in Egypt that cost a whooping three dollars a kilo.

One day my sister and I stopped to buy oranges and pomegranates on our way home from Arabic school. The fruit seller was on a break, and his son was there instead, squatting on the sidewalk. When he saw us approaching, he immediately stood up, ready to weigh the fruit we wanted on his hand-held scales.

We knew the fruit names in Arabic, my sister and I, even if we didn’t speak the language very well yet. But the fruit seller’s son understood our broken sentences and picked out oranges for us, some guava, a few pomegranates.

Then, while I was trying to put together an acceptable sentence in my head to ask for some of his beautifully red strawberries, he must have been plucking up courage, too. For the moment I opened my mouth, and as he handed over the bags of fruit, he took a deep breath and started,

“Ana bahebi…” I love y…

“Momkin nos kilo farawla, low samaht?” I never meant to cut him short, but I had the strawberry sentence all ready on my tongue already and I couldn’t stop it.

The fruit seller and his son had no bananas, because bananas were sold off the cart by another galabeyya clad man, cut directly from the stem. Small, yellow bananas, sweet and soft.

The fruit seller and his son also had no lemons. Lemons – the local kind that are the size of a large strawberry, sweeter and more lemony than the “Italian” ones that you could sometimes find imported in some grocery stores – were also sold off the sidewalk, but because they fetched such a negligible price, it was a little bit below the rank of our apple-selling fruit seller.

He had started, maybe 15 years ago, with a small basket of lemons on the same street, saving as much as he could from the small profit he made, slowly working himself up to guavas, oranges, and now even apples. He was doing well now, and a woman a little bit further down the street had filled the lemon-selling void in our neighborhood. Lemon, fresh mint, parsley and spring onions.

If I return in ten years, I wonder if I will find her there still, selling oranges, maybe mangos and apples instead. Who will sell lemons then?

Don't Forget Gaza

2010-12-27T23:48:00.000+02:00

I spoke to two brothers who moved to Ramallah from Gaza fairly recently. They came to the office one day when there was a power cut because of a sand storm. I made them tea and asked them how things were in Gaza.

They said it's good. But that's because they're Palestinian and that's what you say when somebody asks you how things are.

We spoke a little more, and it turns out they still have frequent electricity and water cuts. People still live in tents since the war that started exactly two years ago today. Others moved into the schools.

"So where do the kids go to school?"

"In people's homes," one of them said.

"But it's better than during the war," the other said.

"You were there?" It's the first time I meet people who were in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. "How was that?"

They laughed a little. What are they supposed to say?

"We were very, very afraid," one of them said, looked at his brother and laughed again. Not sure what else to add.

"We couldn't sleep because of the bombs."

"They only bombed at night?" I asked.

"No, no, they bombed all the time", he said. "All the time. But in the day there was so much else to take your mind off it. At night, there was only darkness and the sound of the bombs."

"I put music on in my headphones to try to drown out the sound," the other brother said. "We were so scared."

I didn't know what to say. We drank our tea in silence.

"You Shouldn't Have Come"

2010-12-26T23:44:00.000+02:00

We went to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem and found ourselves at our new Canadian friend Nora's house unexpectedly drinking mulled wine together with a group of Israelis on Christmas Eve.

We had been out all day, watching the Christmas Parade, eating hummus at Afteem, listening to Christmas carols at Manger Square at night, squished in between thousands and thousands of other Christmas celebrating people.

Christmas Crowd on Manger Square in Bethlehem

Cold and tired, Nora had kindly invited us over for some hot mulled wine.

A little bit into our mulled wine evening, a colleague of hers called and invited himself and a few friends. Friends that proved to be four Israeli leftists from Tel Aviv. Naturally, the conversation quickly gravitated towards politics and the Conflict.

The Israelis were self-named activists, critical of their government, and had demonstrated with Palestinians in East Jerusalem earlier in the morning.

There were some insensitive Yasser Arafat jokes and (of course) Holocaust talk (because the Holocaust, it seems, inevitably comes up if there are Israeli Jews in the room).

For those of you who have not discussed politics with Israelis, the Holocaust is normally used as a way to excuse or justify, or at least explain Al-Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948) - an explanation that Palestinians generally oppose themselves to, since they did not have anything to do with either the Second World War or the Holocaust, and because they (rightly) feel as if their collective experience is belittled in the eyes of the world when referred to as a consequence of the Holocaust.

"Yes, but the Jews needed a safe haven to escape to after the atrocities committed against them in Europe, and..." somehow that makes it okay to kill and forcibly expel something like 800,000 Palestinians, displace them, raze their villages and towns to the ground, steal their farms, their property (even what was in their bank accounts, mind you), and then make them unwelcome strangers in their own homeland? Only to create an Apartheid Jewish state?

Tarek, the only Palestinian in the room, said that there will never be peace until the Israelis understand and accept the Palestinian history.

"No, no, that can never happen because that would mean that all Israelis would have to leave," one of the Israelis said. "That's how I see it; we would have to leave."

Nora's friend had sat quiet up until then, but opened his mouth and matter-of-factly said: "No, it means that you shouldn't have come."

Which sounds terrible in a way, but really summarizes it all. Anybody who reads the recent history of Palestine and Israel can only come to one conclusion (unless they read the fabricated Zionist version, of course, but I'm talking about the fairly objective history that is widely available to everybody who cares enough to learn, whether they are Israelis or not):

It was wrong for the Jewish Europeans to come and establish their own state on the land that was inhabited by the Palestinians (who were, contrary to popular belief, not only Muslims, but Christians and Jews too). No world-power resolution with borrowed legitimacy from the newly formed United Nations that recommended the partition of Palestine can make the colonial enterprise in Palestine right: it was wrong.

Just like it was wrong for Europeans to kill native Americans, native Australians and establish their own colonies-later-states.

That is not to say that Palestine should have been closed to those Jews who came as refugees; only that the Zionist colonial movement to create a Jewish state in the land of Palestine was wrong.

But now that the Israelis are here, there is not much we can do about it. And it should be clear to most people that since the PLO has given up the Palestinian people's claim to Historic Palestine and reduced their struggle to only regain the territories that were stolen in 1967 (the West Bank and Gaza), that for Israelis to accept Palestine's history does not mean that the Israelis must leave.

It means that they will probably reach the conclusion that they shouldn't have come, but now that they are here, they need to recognize that there is another people with a very real claim to the land that they now inhabit. It means that they need to understand that something has to be done very soon to work things out with their Palestinian neighbors, to allow them to win back their human dignity, to stop denying them their human rights, lift the occupation, and agree how to share the resources of the land they both live in.

I understand the Israeli man who thinks he should leave; I too would probably have a very serious crisis of existence if I learned that my country was created by killing and forcibly expelling the people that lived there before me (and can only exist through oppressing and ever so often bombing those who stayed).

And I understand the Israeli woman who said that she would be happy to leave, because she disagrees so much with her own government that she is ashamed to stay, but where can she go? She doesn't have any other citizenship or national identity. Her parents came from the Ukraine, but she doesn't have a Ukrainian passport.

She can migrate and eventually seek citizenship in another country like almost anybody else (from the West, at least), but to expect that all Israeli Jews would do that is simply impractical.

And because of this, the solution is not to expel all Israeli Jews. Because facts on the ground (most of which very carefully thought out and meticulously planned by the Israeli leadership throughout the years) have made it impractical.

How I Came to Hold Hands with the Palestinian President: Part II

2010-12-21T19:16:00.000+02:00

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, I think the best way to continue yesterday's blog post is:

A little bit out of focus, but that's us. The President of Palestine and I. Holding hands.

And why we were holding hands?

(After all, words do sometimes say more than pictures).

I think because Abu Mazen saw that I wasn't exactly going to push and shove my way over to him to be able to take a picture with him, whereas the other suit-wearing men did just that... he reached out his hand, pulled me over to his side, and then just kept holding my hand until Tarek had taken my picture.

Sweet of him.

Lunch at the Muqat'a or How I Got to Hold Hands with the President of Palestine

2010-12-21T00:12:00.000+02:00

On Sunday, that is to say yesterday, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) invited Israeli Knesset members and civil society activists for lunch at the Muqat'a; the President's Compound in Ramallah.

Hanan Ashrawi shaking hands with Amram Mitzna

If you follow the news, you will probably know that the peace negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli governments are, as Nabeel Sha'ath put it, "in a deep coma," after Netanyahu refused to stop new settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories in September.

Yesterday was an effort from the Palestinian political leadership to reach out to the Israeli people - to show that they are committed to keeping an open dialogue with the Israeli Jews - no matter what is going on on the political playing field.

Now, you probably didn't hear anything about the lunch meeting on the evening news last night, but it's actually a pretty big deal.

Imagine the absolutely highest level of the political elite in Palestine inviting Israeli Jews for lunch in Ramallah at a time when there is almost no contact between the two societies at all. Except between Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints and at the borders, of course.

And then imagine that most of the Jews who came yesterday have never seen Ramallah before (even though they live maybe 15 minutes or maximum an hour away); and those who have seen Ramallah, have probably not been for eight years.

But that time - eight years ago - they weren't invited. That time, they invaded Ramallah with tanks and bombs; they demolished and besieged Al-Muqat'a and held late President Yasser Arafat prisoner for months on end.

But yesterday, they - the same people - were invited for lunch.

Arabs and their hospitality.

Yasser Abed Rabbo speaking

We sat down... oh yeah, did I forget to tell you we were invited? Tarek, his father and I.

Anyway, we sat down, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, the General Secretary of the Executive Council of the PLO and facilitator of the lunch discussion, leaned over his microphone at the table of honor and joked with the Israeli guests,

"Ya'ni, you would think that you could have at least one woman up here..."

Then, after two Israeli women were placed at the end of the table and the press was asked to leave so that the event wouldn't turn into a press conference (it was supposed to be an informal opportunity for dialogue), he gave the floor to President Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen.

"I told the Americans and the Israelis that if there is no freeze of settlement construction, I cannot continue the negotiations," Abu Mazen said as he was telling the story about the recent negotiations break-down. "Netanyahu said that it is impossible for him to freeze the settlements, because... because... there were many becauses."

Many becauses. I love it.

And then, "I can't accept that settlements are better than peace." Which is to say; he can't understand how the Israelis can choose settlements over peace.

Neither can I.

He said that they had been very, very close to reaching an agreement on the two most important questions - security and borders - before this latest round of talks (that is to say, two years ago at Annapolis), but that Israel had refused to continue negotiations after they launched their war on Gaza that Christmas.

One Jewish Knesset member said that he didn't know this; and that it is very important for Israelis to know that the two most important questions are borders and security, and not the Right of Return for the Palestinian refugees. It gave him hope.

Other Jewish Knesset members thanked Abu Mazen for inviting them, and for extending a hand, and talked about the importance of dialogue, and how the majority of Israelis want peace and how they support a two-state solution.

"We have come here today to listen to you," one man said.

Another Jewish man talked about his 82-year-old mother who, although she always votes for the ultra-orthodox Zionist party, Shas (that has called for the total annihilation of evil Palestinians), she still "supports peace."

(Which is a little bit like saying that a Swedish neo-Nazi still likes immigrants).

The same man also had a 28-year-old son, he let us know, who had been here eight years ago, as an Israeli soldier besieging Al-Muqat'a. But he (again, like a Swedish immigrant-friendly neo-Nazi) is a real peace activist.

"Because you can't be a real peace activist unless you are a good soldier who protects the security of your country."

(I'm still trying to work that one out).

Then Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, was given the floor. And she said:

"I don't want to rain on your parade..." and of course started raining a rather cold - but very refreshing - rain that brought everybody back to reality a little.

"If you say that the majority of Israelis want peace," she said, "then how come you don't elect a peace government?"

(I.e. not extreme right parties like Likud and Shas).

She spoke about the Wall and about the settlements that are "spreading like an octopus," leaving nothing but a few isolated population centers for Palestine.

"The two-state solution is all but dead." It continued raining. "We don't have five minutes of negotiations left; we have only one minute. We are running out of time."

One Israeli man pointed out that leaders must not be pessimists.

A Palestinian woman stood up, perhaps a little empowered by Hanan Ashrawi, and drew attention to what an Israeli person who had spoken earlier had said:

"You said you have come here to listen. Yet it is not we who need to talk, it's you. We already said everything we can say. Now it's Israel's turn to answer us."

A young Jewish woman who had probably prepared her intervention beforehand, and was therefore sort of very out of context, started talking about the need for Palestinians to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

Saeb Erekat, the Chief negotiator of the PLO, pointed out that the PLO already recognized Israel's right to exist years ago.

"But when you ask me to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state," he explained, "you're asking me to join the Zionist movement."

Which he was not prepared to do for obvious reasons, not in the least that it would be very problematic to proclaim a state Jewish when more than 20% of its citizens are not even Jews.

We listened to Palestinians and Jews speaking their mind. Many Jews supported the PLO and criticized their own government.

Waiters brought us bread and hummus, arugula salad, stuffed grape leaves, avocado salad, fresh orange juice, Palestinian olives, rice and meat, and knafeh, a very sweet Arabic pastry with nuts and cheese that literally drips with sugary syrup.

And before we knew it, the lunch meeting was coming to an end.

(So is my energy, unfortunately, which is why I think I will wait with the second part of the title of this blog post until tomorrow:

How I Got to Hold Hands with the President of Palestine).

Yasser Abed Rabbo took the microphone again:

"Thank you for all the kind words you have said about the Palestinian government. And thank you for the... semi-kind words about the Israeli. I think what Abu Mazen wanted to say today," (because sometimes Yasser knows better), "is that the two most important questions before us are borders and security. If these are solved, then all other questions will be solved... within an hour."

Checkpoint War Game

2010-12-20T00:22:00.000+02:00

We were on our way back from Bethlehem after a very nice pre-Christmas party at our friend Renee's house late last night, and as we came to the checkpoint after Wadi el Nar, we slowed down and waited for one of the Israeli checkpoint soldiers to wave us through.

It was dark save for a light from the narrow guard tower windows. Nobody was out.

Remembering another recent checkpoint experience when we drove through at night without stopping because the checkpoint looked unmanned, and we were pulled over by four young boy soldiers with huge guns pointed at us, and scolded for our bad checkpoint behavior; we decided it would be better to wait for some kind of signal.

But no signal came.

Tarek is not the most patient person in the world, so after half a minute or so, he honked the horn.

Still no signal. Nobody.

So we drove over the metal stop claws that allow you to drive slowly forwards, but would slice your tires if you back up or try to drive through in the wrong direction.

Still nothing.

As we approached the little checkpoint booth, we saw a light radiating from something inside, and a young soldier boy sitting as if glued to the source of light, not taking his eyes from it even to look at us, the (supposedly) potential terrorists driving past.

"He's probably Facebooking," we said to each other and craned our heads backwards to see what it was that mesmerized him so as we drove past.

But he wasn't.

He was playing Counter Strike. A first-person shooter computer war game at a checkpoint in the occupied Palestinian territories.

What the hell?!

I don't want these Israeli soldiers here at all, but to know that they're sitting at the checkpoints playing computer games in which you play war, makes me feel even less secure.

Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists.

2010-12-14T22:36:00.002+02:00

I'm reading Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. It's a dauntingly fat book with font size 4; but very, very worth reading.

After the news that a suicide bomber blew himself up on the streets of Stockholm has sunk in, I read these words by Fisk (written about Afghan freedom fighters/terrorists during the Soviet invasion):

"Terrorists, terrorist, terrorists. In the Middle East, in the entire Muslim world, this word would become a plague, a meaningless punctuation mark in all our lives, a full stop erected to finish all discussion of injustice, constructed as a wall by Russians, Americans, Israelis, British, Pakistanis, Saudis, Turks, to shut us up. Who would ever say a word in favour of terrorists? What cause could justify terror? So our enemies are alway 'terrorists'." (p. 74)

I'm not saying I would like to say a word in favor of the actions by the man who strapped explosives to himself and (it seems like) intended to take as many persons as he could with him on his disturbed, suicidal way out of this world.

Because honestly. It seems a little misguided and anticlimactic hitting the streets not of Israel the colonial occupying human rights defying power; not of USA the meddler in everybody's affairs (especially if there's oil), but of Sweden.

Because we have 500 troops in Afghanistan (out of 140 000 foreign troops in total) and one lunatic artist who enjoys offending people's deep-held religious beliefs?

And his bomb didn't even detonate properly (thankfully, but anticlimactically enough).

No, I have no words in favor for his actions. Nor for anybody else's actions that aim to hurt or kill.

But I do have several words to say on the word terrorism. It is all about the politics of naming. Whoever dominates the public sphere gets to label people and actions according to what fits their interests for the moment, and the whole world nods and listens (it seems).

But here is no given definition of terrorism; no objective truth about the word.

Is it terrorism because the man in Stockholm was a Muslim? Because there were explosives?

I seem to remember another mad man who stabbed the Swedish foreign minister to death a few years back. Why wasn't he a terrorist?

Because he didn't send a letter before he killed her, maybe. So is it the motivation behind the action that makes it terrorism?

But then... I think we all can think of a countless number of actions by a countless number of persons and armies and governments around the world that have motivations behind them that would make them... terrorists.

And plenty of innocent victims where they bring mayhem. Which is necessary. There must be innocent victims for it to be terrorism, right?

So what if nobody had gotten hurt in Stockholm? And the suicide bomber had just killed himself? Would it still be a terrorist act?

This nitpicking doesn't make sense, I know. But once you start questioning the meaning of the word terrorism, you inevitably end up weighing these questions against each other.

Of course there are no final answers.

It is not surprising that still to this day we have not been able to agree on a single definition of terrorism. In the UN itself, there is no consensus about the meaning of the word (but still, the member states base policies on this undefined term).

But the word itself has no absolute meaning. And therefore, it is meaningless. A meaningless punctuation mark that exists to end discussions of injustice.

Travel Log: Mishmish the Camel

2010-12-05T19:24:00.000+02:00

I think I might have told you before how I feel about camels.

They seem to know some kind of secret to life that makes them a little haughty; gives them this absolutely content and slightly arrogant look.

They might not be very pretty, but I love them.

That's why I took these pictures of Mishmish and her clover-munching colleague at the Pyramids in Giza:

Mishmish (which means Apricot) looking very Camel-like

Her caretaker said she started singing because she was excited about us being there

Very, very excited

See?

Mishmish and her caretaker

She's absolutely fabulous

Mishmish singing again

Mishmish's serious look

Not sure what's she's doing here

Posing

Her clover-eating friend at the base of one of the pyramids

That's it. Just wanted to post some of my very cool camel pics.

Travel Log: Flying with Egyptians

2010-12-01T11:59:00.000+02:00

Back to my travel log:

Egyptians care very little, if at all, about instructions onboard a plane.

Well, they actually do refrain from smoking, which is nice for somebody like me who doesn't smoke.

But the fasten seat belt sign? It's as if it doesn't exist. Whether during takeoff or landing, or anywhere in between.

Can't go to the bathroom because we're two seconds from landing and even the flight attendants need to fasten their seat belts?

Nuts to that! I have to pee now.

And this whole thing about cell phones? Most actually do turn theirs off, but not necessarily before we take off. And they certainly don't wait until the seat belt sign has been switched off before they turn them on again once we've landed.

The millisecond we touch ground, there's a hundred switch-on melodies at once. Half a second after, half of the plane is on the phone with somebody.

Flying Egyptian

But one thing that's actually good, and something that I've never seen with any other airlines than Egypt Air, is sign language safety instructions in a square at the bottom of the screen.

How come everybody doesn't have sign language safety instructions? It ought to be mandatory.

Way too many of us take for granted our privileges and forget about those who can't hear, see, speak, read, or walk.

They Know Everything

2010-11-29T10:56:00.001+02:00

The secret spy side of me that has watched too many CIA movies is telling me not to write this (because what if they reeeaaaad), but the more sober they-already-know-everything side of me knows that... well, they already know everything.

(I don't use mine or anybody else's full name anywhere in this blog, but who am I kidding? They know it's my blog).

So here it goes:

The Israeli intelligence knows EVERYTHING. And when I say 'everything' I mean EVERYTHING.

Every single freaking thing.

It's freaky and scary and surprising all at the same time when you get pushed into situations where it becomes unmistakably clear that they do.

Our intern Moni's boyfriend and cousin came to visit, and they were held at the airport for six hours.

Six hours!

Six hours of interrogation and waiting.

They started out by lying about visiting the West Bank, because everybody knows that if you say you will visit here, then you will have problems.

But apparently, you will have problems anyway. (As I already knew, to be frank).

It soon became clear to them that it was entirely useless to lie, because the Israelis alrady knew about their girlfriend/cousin. They knew that she's here in the West Bank and not in Israel. They knew that she's working with us, in our NGO. They knew that she's working with Tarek and me. They freaking knew that she was in Jordan when they arrived!

(And nobody of us ever told them).

And yet, they let them in. Just like they let me in last summer after 5 hours of interrogation. Or like they gave Moni a new three-month visa.

So what's the point? Of all those hours of interrogation? Of freaking us out by showing off their intelligence-gathering skills?

Make us not want to come back? But we will.

And every time they do this to us, we get even more critical of the State of Israel, and we tell even more people of how they treat normal human beings who would just like to visit, or perhaps volunteer in a charitable organization, or, God forbid, work in humanitarian aid or even something so terrible as human rights.

And even more people will shake their heads, learn more about the conflict, join the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. Even more people will pressure their governments to take a stand for the Palestinian people against the occupying power.

Don't they know this?

Travel Log: Camels, Horses and Cairo Garbage

2010-11-28T15:05:00.001+02:00

There are a few things I'd like to see revolutionized in the Middle East, of which two stood out inescapably clearly during my last visit to Cairo:

1. Environmental Awareness

2. Animal Rights

The streets of Cairo are dirty. Much like, I think, everywhere in the Middle East (with the exception of Amman that is always eerily clean for being located in the Middle East), there is trash on the streets; old plastic bags and empty water bottles blowing around in the desert; the Nile has soda cans and potato chips bags floating around on its surface.

I mean, come on!

People throw chewing gum and cigarette packages out of their car windows, leave fast food paper bags on benches. True, there is an acute lack of garbage cans, which tells us it's not only a problem of people not caring about the environment; it's also a governmental problem.

Put up garbage cans! Hire people to clean the streets.

Thankfully, though, there's an initiative on Facebook called the Keep Egypt Clean Project. They have 78,337 followers (out of something like 80 million Egyptians, but still) and they organize cleaning events out on the streets.

Their last status update is:

"Guys i want everyone of u to suggest a place to clean.. take a picture of this street or this place if u can.. upload it here and write full details about where is it.."

Power to the grassroots!

Bird in a heap of garbage at the side of the street in the 6 October neighborhood

But then Cairo, being a city of something like 20 million or more with almost as many old and crappy cars (it seems), located in the desert, is also unimaginably polluted and dusty. The once-white or light-colored buildings are literally black with pollution; the cars become dark gray if left uncleaned for only a couple of days.

They say spending one day in Cairo is equal to smoking one pack of cigarettes.

Cairo needs a serious environmental protection plan.

Cairo also needs a serious animal protection plan.

On day three I think, we went to the Pyramids area to ride horses (camel for me, because I don't trust horses), and that experience made me depressed for the rest of the day.

My camel looked skinny, dirty and she had an open wound on the side of her neck. I considered briefly to demand another healthier camel, but then I felt bad for wanting to reject Sukkar and stayed with her.

As if that made her happier.

In any event, we rode past other camels and horses on our way out into the desert. Some with chafed off skin and open wounds where the saddle or the reins were; some so skinny that you could see their bones protruding; one horse so tightly tied to a concrete wall that he was panicking, trying to free himself in vain. We called a man who was standing there to check on the horse; he said the horse had a stomach pain.

A donkey was leaning his forehead against a wall, just standing there, reaching into complete apathy.

Beside the wall that surrounds the Pyramids area, right before you ride out into the desert, two horse carcasses lay and rotted in the sun, spreading a vile, metallic odor in the noon air.

A slightly crazy-seeming man who was purportedly a trainer, was pressing his horse so hard that he had pink froth in his mouth surrounding the bridle. From the blood. He was whipping the horse to keep him going.

We rode out in the noon sun. Tarek's horse was farting. My camel was strutting along, looking as confident and unaffected by anything as camels always do.

My camel Sukkar and I

I gazed out over the sand, the pyramids, and thought about the monkeys at Cairo Zoo that are about as apathetic in their small, empty cages as the donkey leaning his forehead against the wall and wished that the whole world was vegan or at least vegetarian and that animals were treated with respect and love everywhere.

The Pyramids at Giza, behind the constant Cairo smog

Travel Log: The Day Tarek Got Arrested (sort of)

2010-11-28T11:10:00.000+02:00

One of the days we were in Cairo - I can't remember exactly which one - we were taking the metro to Mar Gerges where the very old churches are. Among which, of course, the Hanging Church that is built on top of old Roman city walls.

An opening in the floor of the Hanging Church, showing why it has been named the Hanging Church

But first, we walked over to the Egyptian Museum from our hotel in the morning; over the bridge Kobry Al-Galaa, straight across the island Al-Gezira in the middle of the Nile, and then over the bridge Kobry Qasr Al-Nil with its huge iron lions guarding the crossing over the Nile.

It was still the holidays, and a little too early for the streets to be crowded Cairo style, but the streets of Cairo are never empty.

Much of the sky was whitened out by thin strands of smog; the sun shone through hazily, tossing glittery silver reflections over the surface of the river.

We got to the museum and did the whole bottom floor thinking we had endless energy resources, but quickly became too tired to do much more than the Royal Mummy Room (morbid, I know) and Tut Ankh Amon's treasures on the second floor.

If you haven't been, it's a huge museum with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, it seems, of ancient artifacts and it would probably take at least two days to do the whole museum.

Some Pharao outside of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Anyway, after the national dish koshary for me, and KFC for Tarek, we went under ground on Midan Tahrir to take the metro to Mar Gerges.

Tarek, thinking that it's Egypt and that they're probably not very particular with the non-smoking signs on the walls, walked under with his cigarette still in his mouth and placed himself in the middle of the hall while I was trying to figure out which line to take, when suddenly two or three white-clad Egyptian police officers walked up to him, looking for trouble.

"Where are you from?"

"From here," Tarek replied, probably without thinking at all. Or maybe, remembering what I had kept telling him: "Pretend that you're Egyptian when you barter in the souq." To get good prices.

But that only goes for the souq!

You see, as is illustrated repeatedly in the movie 'Asal Eswed that I was telling you about the other day, Egyptians don't exactly get treated very well by the police in Egypt. But wave a foreign passport, and you'll get away with pretty much everything.

That is to say, unless your passport is Palestinian.

The police officers ordered Tarek to put out the cigarette immediately, and when he couldn't produce an Egyptian ID and they realized that he had lied about his nationality (why oh why did he say he was Egyptian?), they ordered him to give them his passport ("Palestinian?!") and follow them to their small security room beside the turnstiles.

I was nervous like hell. Being Palestinian in any part of the world is not exactly popular; being Palestinian in a country that shares a border with the outdoors prison of Gaza, that is constantly fighting radical Islamists (and not-so-radical Islamists as well, mind you), and that is overrun by secret and military police, is potentially dangerous.

I followed.

Inside the small room, that had a desk, a chair behind the desk, a chair in front of it, and nothing much else, a man in civilian clothes looked at Tarek's passport while (ironically enough) smoking a cigarette under the glaring white neon light.

They reprimanded him a little for lying about his nationality, told him he had to go and pay a fine of 15 gineh (a little less than 3 US dollars) for smoking in the metro, and come back with the receipt to get his passport back.

And then the police officer who had done the talking outside pulled him aside and suggested that he pay the fine directly to him instead.

The corruption! Charming from a distance, perhaps, when you see people bribing police officers with a gineh or two. Not so much so when you're standing face-to-face with it in a security room under ground, though.

Tarek, in a way of trying to the officer an anti-corrpution lesson, did not give him any money, but went to pay the fine and came back with the official receipt.

The police officer handed back his passport, perhaps a little reluctantly, but we parted with smiles and well-wishes and headed to the ticket sales window to buy our tickets to go see the Hanging Church.

Disaster averted. All is well that ends well.

Travel Log Day 1, Late Night: Cairo

2010-11-25T14:54:00.000+02:00

Coming back to Cairo was like seeing an old lover on the street. Familiar, yet surprising after so long. Comfortable in one way; painful in another. Painful because old lovers invariably change, and so do big cities, and you can never have them back the way it used to be.

We landed at 8:40 on Sunday evening. The man sitting beside Tarek, an Egyptian worker of maybe 35 years old who was returning to Egypt to celebrate Eid Al-Adha with his family, couldn't read or write so Tarek helped him fill out the entry form.

If you've seen 'Asal Eswed, a hilarious Egyptian movie about an Egyptian-American returning to Cairo for the first time since he was a small boy, you will be able to picture Tarek's reaction when we stepped out of the plane perfectly:

He took a big step out of the plane onto the staircase down to the tarmac, and drew a deep breath: Ah, finally here!

And then COUGH! Pollution. Lungs contracting. Dust. Night air humidity. Gasping for his breath.

"Oh my God, it's exactly like the movie!"

"Yes," I said. "Welcome to Cairo."

You get used to it. The car fumes, the dust, the dirt, the smog. You get used to it, or you overlook it, I'm not sure.

We were held at the airport for the better part of three hours for no other reason than Tarek being Palestinian. After a number of expensive international phone calls to people who know the Egyptian embassy in Palestine, we managed to get his passport stamped and left the airport and headed into the city night.

Cairo's streets are the same, but yet somehow different. The billboards advertise new planned cities out in the desert surrounding Cairo's crowded, polluted neighborhoods.

Come Uptown, to the New Heart of Cairo!

Invest in 6th October south of Cairo!

Move to Medinaty, a new planned city with everything you could dream of!

There are more newer cars, and many of the old flea-bitten black-and-white taxis have been replaced by new, shiny white ones whose drivers actually put the meter on.

And there are traffic lights. Who would have thought?

True, it is not rare to see cars that run a red light, but at least they're there. And looking fabulous, mind you:

Why doesn't the rest of the world have as instructive, pedagogic traffic lights as Egypt?

I was happy being back, but couldn't help but feel disconnected from the pulse that used to run through the veins of the city into mine. I had been away for too long.

Ruby's Travel Log Day 1: Jordan

2010-11-24T21:55:00.001+02:00

My boyfriend Tarek and I packed our bags about ten days ago and crossed through the Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian border controls into Jordan. As usual (and a little unfairly because I'm sure it is a country that has much to offer) Jordan was only a stopover on our way somewhere else.

I will regret saying where. There are so many people I didn't call (actually I didn't call anyone) because we decided it would only be us... Tarek and me... (and about 20-25 million others in the city).

I will regret saying which city, because I will make enemies out of friends, but since it's hopefully short-term (because I'm sure you all understand), I'll go ahead: we were on our way to Cairo.

Cairo. The city of pyramids, a thousand minarets, the oldest capital in the world, the home of the last existing wonder of the seven ancient wonders, the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Cairo Om el Donia. The mother of the world.

But first we had to wake up at 6 in the morning to get to the Allenby Bridge as early as we could. We weren't the only ones passing through Jordan that day; it was two days before Eid Al-Adha - the pilgrim holiday when millions and millions of Muslims from all over the world travel to Saudi Arabia to do their Hajj - and the bridge was packed.

As I've mentioned before, the only way out from the West Bank for Palestinians is through the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge over to Jordan. This is why Jordan becomes a stopover on our way somewhere else.

Anyway. For days and days, people had been turned back by the Israelis because they couldn't pass before the bridge closed at night (it's open from 8 am to 8 pm on weekdays, and from 8 am to noon on Fridays and Saturdays). So naturally, we were a little nervous.

But we got through all right in just around four hours (luck and useful contacts), went to Tarek's neighbor's sister's house for lunch, and then headed to the airport and Cairo.

The way to the airport in Amman is nice though. With families parking along the highway to barbecue under the trees that line the road. And camels in the back of trucks.

Photo courtesy of Tarek

Life in the Occupied Territories

2010-10-30T12:44:00.000+02:00

I've been collecting a whole mental list of items I need to blog about, but what with work and family I haven't had the time nor the energy to actually sit down and write.

But now, I'm taking the time. Here follows a summary of some of the things that have been going on:

We started recording a TV series at work. It's a development project for youth which we received funding for from a foreign aid organization.

The project is aimed at giving an opportunity to young women and men in Palestine to express themselves freely regarding problems and matters that really mean something, while at the same time allowing them to take an active part in the public sphere and thereby sort of creating a space for democratic participation.

I had a vision of it being an honest, sometimes controversial, talk show that would stir up a society-wide debate on everything from unemployment to how the occupation affects love affairs between Palestinians in the occupied territories and inside what is now Israel. We would discuss the peace negotiations, gender roles, relations between Christian and Muslim Palestinians...

But with all donor-related rules and regulations, we have been obliged to water it down to a wimpy little Q and A program that is half-advertisement for the donor's other programs. We are not allowed to discuss political or religious topics at all, and what's worse, they ask us to literally edit out mentions of the Israeli occupation if somebody happens to bring it up of his or her own accord.

(Perspective: something like a third of Palestine's economy is directly made up of foreign aid - so you can begin to imagine what this implies for basic human rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press, not to mention the development of a democratic society in the occupied Palestinian territories).

I will not mention our donor by name in case they google themselves, but suffice it to say that the money comes from a certain uncle by the name of Sam.

Anyhow, it is not only this censored TV show that has been taking up most of my time lately, my boyfriend's mom also came down with a severe case of double pneumonia a few weeks ago and had to go to hospital.

It is obviously distressing for any family anywhere in the world when a family member becomes hospitalized for whatever reason, but I daresay that being a Palestinian family in the occupied territories adds another layer of worry. I'll tell you why:

It all started like flu-like symptoms after Tarek's mom came back from a business trip to Turkey, but we quickly realized it was much more serious than that and took her to a hospital in Ramallah on a Sunday. On Monday she started feeling worse, on Tuesday even more so, and by Wednesday she had been moved to the intensive care unit by a group of perplexed doctors and nurses who didn't understand why she wasn't get any better.

The standard of the hospitals here leave much to wish for - after all we're living under occupation, in a conflict zone - so at this point, we realized that we needed to take her to a hospital in Israel.

However, because we live under occupation we can't just go. Even if a person is dying, they can't go without a special permit issued by the Israeli occupation authorities. And this might take three days, or a week, or who knows how long.

Who knows how many people die before they can get proper care?

Luckily, my boyfriend's family know people who know people, so in the end it only took one full day of office visits and paper signing before we got the OK to take Tarek's mom to a hospital in West Jerusalem.

Then it turned out that there were no beds available until the day after. So Tarek's mom had to stay one more night in intensive care in Ramallah before she could go see another doctor in Jerusalem.

At the same time, Tarek and his father were doing all the necessary paperwork to hopefully get permits to go with Tarek's mom to Jerusalem.

Finally, on Thursday at midday, they were allowed to go with her in the ambulance to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in West Jerusalem, where she stayed for another 5 days. The first night she was kept in the intensive care unit because she was close to lung collapse, and her doctor said that she had come to Jerusalem in the last minute.

Again, imagine those who don't get permits. And those who can't pay the hospital bill.

I could go and visit her every day, which I did, but Tarek and his dad did not get permits after the first day because they were suddenly considered a "security risk." (Who knows why?)

So Tarek's dad slept in the hospital for four days (even though that meant that he risked being arrested, fined and jailed since he was a Palestinian in Israel without a permit). After two days Tarek was cleared, apparently ceased being a security risk, and could go and visit his mom.

The arbitrariness of occupation policies.

Tarek's mom is doing much better and things are getting back to normal. Except our TV program is still being censored.

تطبيع/Normalization

2010-10-02T12:13:00.000+02:00

In Palestine, there's a word that can close doors in your face or even kill your career like nothing else:

تطبيع

Or normalization.

The term is not exactly a hundred percent clear, because I daresay it means different things to different people. But the general idea is that it refers to normalizing relations with Israelis. If this is done in times when Israel is still occupying Palestinian lands, imprisoning Palestinian children, shooting peaceful demonstrators at close range in their heads, arresting people during nightly raids in people's homes, restricting movement of people and goods, denying Palestinians water, confiscating land, building illegal settlements... and generally making life as impossible as they can for Palestinians, then normalization is not a good thing.

Some might think normalization is wrong under these circumstances, but okay if the occupation ended. Some want absolutely nothing to do with Israelis at all, maybe because they've lost their sons, their fathers, or their brothers or sisters in the name of the security of the Israeli state.

What exactly constitutes normalization, however, is like I mentioned not completely clear. Some say you cannot have any relations at all with Israelis, others think dialogue is acceptable because it can help changing the way Israelis see the conflict, maybe make them understand what they are collectively putting the Palestinian people through.

The organization I work for, is accused of normalization.

We have a project together with an Israeli organization (whose director, I may add, is a Palestinian from 1948 - a shorthand for that part of Palestine that was declared as Israel in 1948) that is aimed at creating change through dialogue and joint meetings between Israeli Jews, Palestinians from 1948, and Palestinians from 1967 (the remaining parts of Palestine that was occupied in 1967).

We do this because we (the organization, I mean) think it is important that especially Israelis come in contact with Palestinians from 1967 in other situations than as soldiers at the checkpoints; that they get a chance to understand how their government's policies affect the lives of millions of Palestinians on a daily basis; that they understand that the version they get to hear about the conflict is not necessarily true.

And also a little bit because we think it's important for Palestinians to understand the Israeli version.

The idea is that dialogue could serve as a step on the way to creating change in both societies.

But it's difficult to recruit participants to this program. Some want to take part, but get threatened by their unions. Others would like to take part, but understand they would kill their careers if they did. Many don't want to have anything to do with the program because it is seen as normalization.

A part of me agrees. Have I not repeatedly advocated boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel? (Yes, I have, and I still do).

Another part of me thinks we have to open up a dialogue or we will never find our way out of this situation.

But when I write project proposals with another Israeli organization we might work together with in the future, and they can't even acknowledge that what is their independence war, is Palestine's ultimate colonization war... I see we have a long way to go.

Bil'in

2010-10-02T00:29:00.003+02:00

Today, for the first time in my life, I saw soldiers firing teargas canisters across the sky.

We went to Bil'in, a village not far from Ramallah that I've never visited even though I've been in Palestine for a year now. Not because I didn't want to, but because I'm not courageous - or maybe heedless - enough to go.

You see, Bil'in is a village that's surrounded by Israel's Apartheid Wall - there, a stretch of electrified fence, heavily patrolled by the Israeli army - and that has had about 60% of its land confiscated by Israel for the surrounding Israeli settlements.

Every Friday, the villagers walk up to the wall to demonstrate peacefully against the confiscation of their land. And every Friday, the Israeli soldiers respond with shooting rubber-coated steel bullets, live ammunition and teargas canisters at the protestors.

Sometimes they shoot children, sometimes they kill. Mahmoud Yusef Abu Rahme, a 12-year-old boy participating in the non-violent demonstration one Friday in 2007, was shot in his head with a rubber-coated steel bullet at close range. Bassem Abu Rahme was shot in his chest with a tear gas canister last year; he died immediately. Abdullah Abu Rahme was shot in his head in 2008.

Today, on Friday 1 October, we thought we'd drive out to Bil'in and go somewhere close to the demonstration. Not too close (because we'd prefer not being shot at, or arrested), but close enough to perhaps get some shots of the non-violent demonstrators facing the armed soldiers on the other side of the fence that cuts through the village.

Not knowing exactly when the demonstration starts on Fridays, however, and then getting a little lost on the way, we came too late. We came when the demonstrators were walking back towards the village center through the olive fields, equipped with flags, cameras and gas masks.

Demonstrators with cameras and gas masks

We could still see the soldiers patrolling on the other side of the fence, driving military vehicles. A group of children were biking up the hill together with the demonstrators. A few Jews from Israel spoke Hebrew among themselves. Some from other solidarity groups around the world walked with them. The rest were from Bil'in.

Demonstrators heading back

Up on the crest of the hill stood an ambulance in case the Israeli soldiers would injure somebody. The medical personnel were also walking back up the hill.

Israeli soldiers behind the electric fence in Bil'in (photo courtesy of Tarek)

The soldiers fired off a tear gas canister. As if to say to the demonstrators that they'd better be leaving. It cracked. Fizzed across the sky, and landed somewhere in the dry, yellow grass.

Tear gas canister landing to the left (see the smoke?)

Not before long, Tarek, Moni and I were the only ones left on the hillside, save for a few village boys and a Palestinian woman harvesting olives on the side of the dirt road.

Palestinian woman harvesting olives

She had spread out sheets on the ground under the tree, and was picking the olives with her hands, one by one, dropping them down on the sheet. Her skin was browned from the sun, and she kept her hair out of her face with a light green shawl.

The boys observing an Israeli soldier on the other side of the fence (photo courtesy of Tarek)

Suddenly the ladder toppled over and the woman fell to the ground. We ran over to her to help her up, and made sure that she wasn't hurt. The soldiers fired another tear gas canister at absolutely nobody further down the hill, and I exclaimed with irritation;

"Leesh?!" Why? "All the people already left."

The woman echoed my irritation with the soldiers, and then answered my question saying that they do it because she and her boys are there, harvesting their olives.

She called for her boys who had run across the street to watch the soldiers on the other side of the fence, worried for their safety. Then she climbed up the ladder again, because there were olives that needed picking.

"Yalla," she called to the boys, "help me so we can finish and go home."

Burned-out tear gas canister

End of What Settlement Moratorium?

2010-09-26T11:58:00.000+02:00

Today is the last day of Israel's alleged moratorium on settlement expansion in the West Bank, and everybody is wondering whether the renewed peace talks will break down if Israel fails to extend the settlement freeze.

Meanwhile, I still ask myself what settlement freeze we're talking about? They call it partial, I know, but this is because Israel has excluded East Jerusalem from the construction ban, and not because in reality construction in many settlements around the West Bank has continued throughout this 10-month "ban".

Only yesterday, we took this picture on our way to Nablus. The white barracks are temporary dwellings; the gray concrete constructions are new houses being built on occupied Palestinian territory.

Just so you know.

Land of Olives

2010-09-21T18:45:00.001+02:00

I don't have much to say but this:

The olive harvest is coming up and the olive trees of Palestine are insanely beautiful right now. Some with olives of green, some with frosty dark purple, and some with olives that are just beginning to blush.

Look:

Isn't that gorgeous?

The Last Palestinian Scarf

2010-09-20T22:58:00.001+02:00

This whole blog post is dedicated to Herbawi Texteal Factory in Al-Khalil.

For the simple reason that it is sad and a little heartbreaking that the last factory in Palestine that produces the hatta, or the Palestinian scarf that Yasser Arafat made world famous back in his revolutionary days, is going out of business.

Old Herbawi works six machines this week. Six out of the 16 that used to weave kilometer after kilometer of the famous black and white (or the Jordanian-style red and white) fabric under ear-defening jingling, metallic clamor in the 1990s.

Two months ago, he only had two machines going, so even though this month is a little bit better, the future of Herbawi's factory still looks bleak. Because people would rather pay 10 or 15 shekels for a cheap polyester "Palestinian" hatta made in China, than 35 or 40 for a 100 % cotton hatta made in Palestine.

So who knows when Herbawi's six running machines will be two again? And when two machines will be one? Or when the whole factory will go quiet?

The day when the last Palestinian scarf will be cut, hemmed and packed will come soon, and will not only be the end of a family business, but of a Palestinian tradition that became a national symbol and the very hallmark of the Palestinian revolution.

This day will come unless people start buying Palestinian again.

The Swedish Election and Racism

2010-09-20T20:38:00.000+02:00

Two weeks ago, I passed through military checkpoints that separate Palestinians from Jews and other Palestinians, to go and vote in the Swedish general election at the Swedish Consulate in Jerusalem.

I did so because it is my duty as a citizen of a democratic country and because it is a way of making my voice heard.

But mostly, I went and voted because I was afraid that the extreme-right, anti-immigrant party, the Sweden Democrats, would win too many seats in the Riksdag if I didn't vote.

At the same time, I didn't really believe that the Sweden Democrats would pass the 4 % threshold and get actual seats in the Riksdag.

I mean, come on. We've been criticizing the Danish, the French, the Austrian, the Australians... all other countries who have voted for anti-immigrant, racist parties in large numbers in recent years. And anyway, the Sweden Democrats always loom in the background in our general elections as a potential threat to our open-minded society, but they never really reach 4 % of the Swedish votes. Why would they this year?

Well, this morning, sitting in a taxi on my way to a meeting in Tel Aviv, my taxi driver was listening to the news in Hebrew and suddenly I hear "Fredrik Reinfeldt" and something like "parliament" and other words I have no idea what they meant.

I asked for a translation, and the taxi driver said that the four ruling parties had gotten 172 seats in the Riksdag, the opposition parties 157. And the Sweden Democrats had won 20 seats.

20 seats.

That means that 5.7 % of the citizens of my home country voted for racists to partake in the governance of our country.

Living under occupation of, if not the most, then one of the most institutional racist countries in the world, this makes me wonder.

What makes people think that we will somehow build better societies by separating people based on where they were born? Or where their parents were born? Or what they choose as their religion? Or what their parents or grand parents once chose as their religion?

Who wakes up a happier person knowing that there are families with less rights and less privileges than you? Who feels more at peace with themselves with concrete walls, electric fences--legal, social, or physical as in the case of Israel--separating themselves from their neighbors?

Seriously, Sweden. Do you know what road you have turned onto?

It is one thing when people are racist, but something very different when racism becomes legitimate through a political mandate.

Even God is Angry

2010-09-18T01:15:00.000+02:00

We woke up to a cloudy, gray day and got ready to go visit the Old City of Jerusalem.

Going anywhere here requires effort and usually quite a substantial amount of planning.

Originally, we had planned to rent a car and go to Akka and Nazareth in the north of Israel. It was the perfect opportunity: Tarek has a two-week permit to go to Israel (and annexed Palestinian areas), without which we can't cross Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Our new intern and friend, Moni, has a driver's license--I don't, and Tarek is not allowed to drive in Israel because he has a West Bank ID.

Why we wanted to rent a car instead of taking Tarek's car? Because no one--Palestinian or not--is allowed to drive a car with a Palestinian license plate through Qalandia checkpoint, nor inside Israel.

We thought we had planned everything perfectly.

But then we were reminded that Yom Kippur started today, and everything in Israel closes during the Jewish holidays.

So we decided to postpone the trip to the North until next weekend and go to the Old City in Jerusalem today. The Muslim and Christian neighborhoods don't close during Yom Kippur.

But then, Tarek's Mom reminded us that Israel imposes closures on the West Bank during Jewish holidays (for "security reasons" I assume). Closures mean that nobody with a green ID--the West Bank ID--is allowed to cross any of the checkpoints into Israel.

Tarek checked his permit, and because it has been issued for work purposes (meetings in Jerusalem), it says that it is valid even during closures.

So we went, Tarek, Moni, Ahmed from the office, and I.

Qalandia checkpoint was empty, even though Fridays are usually among the busiest days because everybody who has a permit (and is let through) goes to Jerusalem to attend the Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa.

We let Tarek try to go through first. Not very surprisingly, they wouldn't let him pass. He tried pointing out that his permit is supposed to be valid even during closures, but the soldiers behind the window didn't really care.

Again, we weren't very surprised.

We went and sat in the car while Tarek called the Israeli authorities to ask why he wasn't let through even though his permit is valid.

The lady answered that it is because of the closure.

Tarek said that his permit says it is valid even during closures.

The lady said that yes, she knows, but he still can't pass.

Tarek asked why. The lady said she couldn't explain in English.

Fabulous.

Outside, the soldier up in the watch tower barked out orders to people in Israeli-licensed cars in broken Arabic.

"Stop there!"

A Watch Tower at Qalandia

We sighed a little, but neither the weather nor any Israeli closure would dampen our mood. We changed our travel plans a third time and turned to go to Al-Khalil in the south of the West Bank instead.

The way to Al-Khalil is long and sometimes a little treacherous as it winds up and down dangerously steep hills. And by "the way to Al-Khalil" I mean the way Palestinians are allowed to take (we're not allowed to take the much shorter road through Jerusalem, but have to drive around the whole city instead).

At one point, the road led us halfway up a hill, only to stop us at a dirt and rock mound that he Israeli military had dumped in the middle as a makeshift roadblock for reasons left unexplained.

We turned back and took a detour around the hill. Driving past Israeli settlements--the roads unusually full of military jeeps because of the Jewish holiday (I suppose)--Tarek motioned to the gray sky and said,

"Look, even God is angry at the Jews today."

Once in Al-Khalil, we visited the Herbawi Factory for Palestinian scarves (but I will write about this factory in another blog post), bought Khalili ceramics at the ceramics factory, and visited the Old City that the Jewish settlers are trying to take over by way of military force and harassment.

The Old City is dismally empty and quiet, like a ghost town. Palestinians can't keep their shops open and streets are closed off for exclusive use by settlers (I've written about this before here and here).

A small Palestinian boy ran up to us with a water gun and began to spray in our direction. He stopped nicely to have his picture taken.

Palestinian Boy with Water Gun

A grandmother invited us in for tea at her small shop that she keeps open in spite of it all. She already had two guests--two observers from TIPH, the international civilian observer mission in Al-Khalil that monitors human rights breaches and reports from the military checkpoints in the city.

Drinking Tea at One of the Very Few Shops that Remain Open

We discussed the situation and drank sweet tea from plastic cups. The grandmother's grand daughter tried on scarves from the store, and a small boy sat and played with a plastic gun and listened to the conversation, half in Arabic, half in English. The low, domed ceiling of the small room was covered with canvas. Nobody walked past on the narrow street outside.

The TIPH observers advised us to hurry and drink up if we wanted to visit the Ibrahimi Mosque before the Israeli military closed off the whole area for the settlers, because we don't want to risk getting caught in a crowd of settlers.

We thanked the grandmother for her hospitality, and walked down the empty streets, through the checkpoint, and to the Ibrahimi Mosque.

A few Palestinian boys followed us.

It's Friday today, and on Fridays only Muslims are allowed inside the Mosque. Tarek waited with non-Muslim me outside while Ahmed and Moni went inside. We sat on chairs that the Palestinian mosque guard put out for us.

The guard stayed with us and talked about the settlers. They would come out after an hour or so, he said, escorted by the military as always, on the eve of their Yom Kippur. Normally they come out to stir up problems on their holidays, but Yom Kippur is their Day of Atonement--the time of the year when they are expected to ask for forgiveness from God. The guard didn't expect them to do anything too bad today.

But he and Tarek were doubtful anyway whether any God could forgive them for what they are doing.

(What is it that they are doing? They set fire to Palestinian houses, break into their homes, harass them on their streets, take over their neighborhoods, throw stones at people and threaten with guns, and then camp on the lawn outside the Ibrahimi Mosque as if everything is perfectly normal).

Israeli Settlers Camp Outside the Ibrahimi Mosque, on the Side They Have Occupied

We walked on down to the Shuhada Street where the Israeli army has closed down (and welded shut the metal doors to) all Palestinian shops, and set up a military checkpoint with soldiers that keep all Muslim Palestinians off the street (Christian Palestinians can still go sometimes).

A small Palestinian boy joined us, or sort of decided that he wanted to escort us there. The soldiers thought Tarek is a foreigner and let him through. Ahmed was not allowed. We took a few steps on Shuhada Street.

I felt uncomfortable.

The boy tried to catch my attention, still standing behind the crush barrier that separates the settlers from the Palestinians, and I walked up to him.

"Tehkeesh arabi," he told me under his breath. Don't speak Arabic.

He doesn't want me to get into trouble.

Settlers, with their black pants, white shirts, their curls and kippas, walked on one side of the concrete barrier that leaves a narrow strip of the street for Palestinians to be able to access a street a little further down. The Palestinian kids who have followed us for some time leaned on the road blocks and observed.

Separation. Soldiers.

Soldiers, Settlers and Palestinian Boys on Shuhada Street

It was getting late, the settlers would come out soon. We walked back, told the grandmother to close the shop because the settlers would come.

She nodded.

I smiled at her and something broke inside of me. All the humiliation, the anger, the sorrow that I had collected during the day just somehow turned into tears, and I tried to walk faster to get away from it.

The sky was still gray, and if God gets angry then I suppose Tarek was right about today.

Even God is angry at the Israelis.

Confessions from Palestine

2010-09-07T21:59:00.005+03:00

We have a new intern in our office in Ramallah - Moni from Sweden - and even though she's fabulous in every way and we all love her already, I'm afraid she has a bad influence on me.

Or I on her? Whatever, this is what happened:

We went to Al-Khalil (Hebron) in the south today to hold a focus group meeting in preparation for a new youth project that we have. In Al-Khalil everybody is very traditional and fasts during Ramadan (not like in Ramallah where some people fast some days of Ramadan).

That meant no eating or drinking during the whole 3 hour focus group meeting (that was incidentally held in the Middle East afternoon heat, at lunch time after a looong drive from Ramallah,).

A little low on blood sugar, then, Moni and I went out and talked under the grapevine pergola outside the meeting room during the break, and sort of kind of maybe filched a grape or two.

In our defense (not against filching, but against breaking Ramadan code), we didn't eat them until we were in the car, and even then we tried to be discreet.

A poem by William Carlos Williams comes to my mind:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten





the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Anyway, it gets worse: after the event, Moni and I wandered off the youth center grounds, led by the sweet, coconutty scent of the fig trees surrounding it, and again, I think we may have maybe sort of filched a couple of figs as well.

It doesn't end there. On the way back, Moni, Tarek and our colleague Ahmed and I snuck into a Christian hummus and falafel place in Bethlehem while our General Director had a short meeting close by, and ate hummus and falafel and drank water and soda.

Yes.

In the middle of the day, during Ramadan.

Forgive us
It was delicious

We Have No Water

2010-09-03T14:12:00.001+03:00

It's Friday morning, and we have no water. I'm assuming that there was some kind of problem the last time Israel delivered water to Ramallah, but I have no idea exactly what has happened.

We normally get water on Wednesday evenings, when Israel opens the water pipes to Ramallah to fill the water containers on our rooftops, then maybe on Friday (I'm hoping soon!), and then I'm not sure how much more water we get in Ramallah.

Normally we're okay, because we have extra water containers on the rooftop that serve as a reserve. It costs extra, but it's money you're glad to pay if it gives you access to water every day of the week.

The black plastic containers where Palestine keeps its water rations, waiting for proper water infrastructure

But this week something is obviously wrong. There's no water coming out of the faucets, no water in the toilets. Nor for the washing machine, nor, obviously, the shower.

Let me here quote some passages from Amnesty International's report on water access in the occupied Palestinian territories:

"Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies."

We in the West Bank, for instance, have the Mountain Aquifer as our only source of water. We are permitted to use about 20 % of this water. Israel, who has access to several additional water sources, uses 80 % of this water.

"While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much."

Illegal Israeli settlement, without a single black water container on the rooftops. They are connected to the Israeli water network.

As many as 200,000 Palestinians who live in rural communities have no access at all to running water:

"...Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.

In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools."

Makes you pissed of, doesn't it?

And to make matters worse, like I said, the water resources are mostly located in occupied Palestinian lands. But if you as, say a farmer in the West Bank (Palestinian of course, because Jewish farmers have all the water they want), want to access the water under ground to water your crops, you can't just start drilling. Because Israel

"has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays."

When Libby, the American intern who was in our office for a couple of months this summer, went to the Jordan Valley to see with her own eyes Israel's house demolitions and destruction of Palestinian Beduin villages, her car was stopped on the road by a small boy of maybe 12 years, waving his arms desperately. Panting, he asked for any water they could spare.

Libby gave him her plastic bottle of water, the only water they had in the car.

If small boys go thirsty when their settler neighbors have swimming pools, there is something very wrong with the state of the world.

Palestine Book Project Update

2010-08-23T01:05:00.002+03:00

I finally managed to get a hold of some books on the PLO and the wars that Palestinian freedom fighters and revolutionaries have fought in. Have lots to read.

When I say lots, I mean lots. I have Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation about the Lebanon wars (nobody told me it was 727 pages!) and The Great War for Civilization for a general overview of the region (I did know it was kind of dense... 1368 pages--what was I thinking?); and Arafat and the Dream of Palestine by Bassam Abu Sharif (a slim 260 pages-- I suppose former freedom fighters/terrorists don't waste words the way journalists do).

Arafat and the dream of Palestine.

Did I tell you that Tarek's Mom gave me a small embroidered pouch made from a traditional Palestinian dress that Abu Ammar (also known as Yasser Arafat) gave her years and years back? She cut up that dress recently to make a new, slightly more modern one (yes, I tried to talk her out of it, but somehow it didn't seem half as remarkable having been given a dress by Abu Ammar to her as it did to me), and had the pouch made for me.

Oh, and Tarek and I were invited for iftar at his neighbor's house and she told us about when she was 9 or 10 and lived in the old city of Nablus and Abu Ammar would come and hide at her house right after the 1967 war (her father was one of the town elders).

We never had historical figures hiding in our house when I grew up.

Lebanon Amends Labor Law

2010-08-17T17:13:00.001+03:00

Two days ago I wrote about the difficulties under which Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, and although I daresay that life will go on pretty much as usual for most Palestinian refugees who are still undereducated and lack basic social and civil rights, today Lebanon took a small step forward nevertheless.

The Lebanese Parliament voted to amend article 59 of the Labor Law and grant Palestinian refugees the right to work some professions that have been barred to them until today.

About time.

Update: I must admit that I didn't fully understand the Arabic article I got the information from. At the time of writing, there were no English articles available, but now there are. And it turns out that while the amendment to the labor law permits Palestinian refugees to work in the private sector, they are still not allowed to have jobs in the public sector, or in medicine, law or engineering.

Public health care and state education facilities also remain unavailable for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

So when all is said and done, thanks to the Christian factions in Lebanon, the country keeps falling far behind its neighboring countries when it comes to granting Palestinian refugees even the most basic rights.

Christians Observing Ramadan

2010-08-17T16:55:00.000+03:00

Many years ago, I met a young Christian man in passing at the airport in Cairo, who told me that he fasts during Ramadan.

It's not like he just walked up to me and said, "Hi, I'm Christian and I fast during Ramadan." We were talking about being Christian in a city where almost everybody is a practicing Muslim, and I remember asking him what it's like to live in a society where everyday life is arranged to accommodate people with a different belief system than yours, what with everything being closed in the daytime during Ramadan and all.

And that's when he said that he doesn't mind, because he fasts too. Not because he's forced to, but because most of his friends are Muslims and it just seemed like the right thing to do for him.

This conversation happened a long time ago and honestly, I have no idea if this person still fasts or not, but the memory came back to me as I was reading an article on Al-Arabiya about a Mike Kanawati who is a Christian living in Bethlehem, a Muslim majority city in Palestine that is also home to one of the largest Christian communities here. Mike, just like the airport person, also fasts during Ramadan as if it's the most natural thing to do:

"My grandmother used to fast, both Christian and Muslim fasting, and we were raised this way to show respect for and solidarity with other religions," Kanawati said.

Mike added that some of his Muslim friends fast during Christian fasting periods, too, because in Bethlehem there's a "centuries-old tradition of interfaith solidarity."

Isn't that something?

Palestine TV's Ramadan Special

2010-08-16T00:06:00.008+03:00

We were invited for iftar at Tarek's uncle's house today. Although the only one actually fasting is Tarek's aunt, we all waited for the maghreb prayer before we sat down to break the fast.

Tarek's uncle lives outside of Ramallah at the end of a bumpy road, on the slope of a hill looking out over an olive tree terraced valley. His house is new, huge and has a big flat screen TV in the sitting room.

After the bamya, batinjan, malfouf mahshy and the salad, we sat down in front of the TV to watch Palestine's government TV, Falesteen.

Falesteen has a Ramadan special this year. Every night, they show one of their reporters walking around refugee camps in Lebanon, knocking on people's doors, stopping people on the street, asking them if he can know their name and where they're from.

Tonight, most of them were born of parents who fled from Akka in the north of what is today Israel. They were born into refugee camps in Lebanon, a country where they make up roughly 10 % of the population but enjoy almost no social or civic rights at all. They have no access to public social services, very limited access to health care and education, and they are forbidden by Lebanese law to work in around 20 different professions.

Wait, I'm not sure you got this: If your parents fled from Palestine and you were born in Lebanon, you are not allowed to be a dentist, you can't work as a doctor, you are forbidden by law to become a lawyer or an engineer, and you can never work as an accountant.

Yes.

Around half of the 425,000 UNRWA registered refugees (as opposed to the non-registered refugees who fall outside of UNRWA's statistics and sometimes outside of their social service system) live in the 12 UN administered camps where UNRWA provides basic health care and education. But because of the very difficult conditions under which Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, the number of refugees living in abject poverty is higher than in any other of UNRWA's camps in the region.

They suffer from overcrowding, unemployment, poor housing conditions and no proper infrastructure, and many of the kids are so disillusioned with life that they drop out of school.

(Where do I get this information? UNRWA's website).

So it is to these camps that Palestine TV send out a reporter every day this Ramadan, to extend a hand from those who might not have much, living under occupation in their homeland, to those who have less, living in exile after having fled from their homeland.

The reporter walks around, like I said, and talks to people. And in some kind of attempt to reconnect these people with their roots, he asks,

"What is the capital of Palestine?"

And half of the time, they can't reply. So the reporter helps them a little and goes,

"Al-Quds, right?" Jerusalem.

Yes, of course!

And then he will sometimes say, "So can you mention five other cities in Palestine?"

Sometimes they will remember Ramallah, sometimes Gaza. But never do they mention the city their parents were from, and the reporter has to help them again.

"Areeha, Al-Khalil, Yafa, Haifa, Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem..."

Other times he will ask the name of the famous church in Jerusalem, or the famous church in Bethlehem. And again, most of the times, he has to fill in the names.

But every time, he pulls out a hundred dollar bill, says that they did well, wishes them a Ramadan karim and sticks the dollar bill into their hands.

It's not really a quiz so much as a way to remind them of where they come from--they're not just poor refugees living in squalid refugee camps in Lebanon, they're Palestinians.

Tonight, in the last house the reporter visited, a small child in diapers was standing in front of a fan, and an old man in shorts and a white t-shirt invited the TV team inside. The reporter is sweating a little in the heat as he starts asking him the same questions he asked everybody else.

But this man knows the capital of Palestine, he doesn't need any reminders. He has fought in the Palestinian revolution for 25 years. For 25 years he has been loyal to the PLO! Only to be left behind in this refugee camp. Like a dog, he says.

The reporter replies but I can't understand. He hands over the hundred dollar bill and the man with the gray hair accepts it and starts weeping. He sits in his sofa and weeps on national Palestinian TV. The reporter leans in and gives him a hug.

And now, writing this, I started crying and I don't know how to end this blog post.

I will go out for a walk.

Visa Extension

2010-08-12T13:26:00.000+03:00

For having so many reservations about letting me enter Palestine only a month ago, Israel seems to be surprisingly lax about me working in Ramallah for a Palestinian organization.

The Ministry of Interior in Tel Aviv just approved a one-year extension of my visa.

Oh yeah!

Yoyo is Gone

2010-08-09T21:57:00.002+03:00

Jessy the Mad Dog--the ex-settler who bit me and then became a thief--had a love affair not too long ago.

I think I failed to mention that here (didn't I?), but my Facebook friends will remember the Youtube link I posted on my wall:

Do I hear an Oscar Buzz?

No?

Okay, but it's Tarek's and my first film. Cut us some slack.

Anyway, the object of Jessy's infatuation was a young stray puppy, as you can see here. She was white with light brown patches over her eyes and ears, and we named her Yoyo. Yoyo, I think, fell in love with Jessy right away and would follow us around when I took Jessy for walks. Jessy would strut along by my side with an air of indifference, and only occasionally pay attention to Yoyo. But when Yoyo fell behind to smell something, Jessy would implore me to wait so Yoyo could catch up with us again.

I could never really figure out if Jessy was playing hard to get; if her age and comfort in life had made her a little blasé; or maybe if it was a dog hierarchy thing.

Nevertheless, Yoyo wasn't put off. Au contraire--for a period of time she would come by the house each and every night to kiss/lick/smell Jessy through the metal bars of the gate. Sometimes we would let Jessy out to play with her, or we would allow Yoyo to come inside the garden. There the two of them would sniff and lick each other unashamedly.

We used to give Yoyo food and water, and Jessy (surprisingly enough) was only mildly jealous of her. Only once did she try to bite her, and that was just because I gave Yoyo a piece of bread before I gave Jessy. Quite understandable, in other words.

Yoyo whimpered and ran away with her tail between her legs and we didn't see her for a week or two. But the bond between them was too strong for such an incident to break, and before we knew it, Yoyo forgave Jessy and came back.

This was in May. Observant readers will already have noticed that I write about Yoyo in the past tense.

It's not a grammatical mistake.

At the end of June, before Tarek's and my surprise visit to Sweden, Yoyo would still follow Jessy and me when we went out jogging, and she would still come by the house at night.

In the beginning of July, when we came back, the streets of Al-Tireh were empty. Not a stray dog in sight. The nights were quiet.

At first (rather naively) I thought that maybe it was too hot for the dogs (I mean after all, Jessy won't even drink in this heat unless we put ice cubes in her water first). But then, a few days ago, I learned that our neighbor's dog passed away a couple of weeks back after having eaten poisoned chicken that the Ramallah Municipality throws out in the neighborhood to deal with the "problem" of stray dogs.

And if our neighbor's husky died like that, then...

...I don't even want to think the thought.

Jessy still jumps at the mention of Yoyo's name, and runs to the gate to look for her. But she never comes. And her sleeping place on the street outside Dr. Taha's house is empty.

How sad it is when love stories come to an unhappy ending.

Ramadan Karim

2010-08-06T23:42:00.001+03:00

On Wednesday, it seems, Ramadan will begin. We never really know until the very last minute, since it's not exactly up to us, it's up to the Moon.

I've never been in Palestine during Ramadan before, but I've had the pleasure of spending two Ramadans in Egypt. One of them was in Cairo, and Cairo is amazing in Ramadan. Amazing.

The days leading up to the first day of fasting are filled with preparations, cooking, stockpiling and the air is virtually vibrating with excitement and well wishing.

"Ramadan karim!"

"Allahu akram."

Literally: Ramadan is generous, but God is more generous.

Then Ramadan begins. The first day is difficult, they say. Exhausting without water, cigarettes or food. Long. But then it gets easier to fast because you get used to it. From where I'm standing, however, it doesn't seem to get that much easier at all. In fact, as the days creep by at a snail's pace, they just seem to get longer and hotter and people seem to get worse headaches and less patience by the hour. They talk less. Carry out their duties, but do little more than that.

In the afternoon, right before the prayer, you can hear a pin drop on the sidewalk in the middle of Cairo, if you had one to drop. Not a soul is out. And for Cairo, a city of something like 20 or 25 million souls, that is truly a strange thing.

So what's so amazing about this, you might ask yourself.

It's not the days, and it's not the breakfast (literally breaking the fast) at sundown with all its abundance.

And even though they are quite amazing in themselves, it's not even the nights that truly make Cairo amazing in Ramadan. It's true, every street is lit by multicolored lightbulbs strung up between buildings and trees, winking at people dressed up to go out to the Ramadan tents set up all over the city to smoke shisha and eat and talk. And as much as I do love the foul vendors that set up special Ramadan booths all over Cairo to provide its citizens with piping hot fava beans at night to keep them longer during the next day, it's not really that either.

It's what happens in the poor quarters. People who have been more blessed in this life line up table after table after table in long rows on the streets in the less affluent areas and invite anybody who needs a helping hand to sit down and partake of a good square meal that leave little more to ask.

I think it's this that Ramadan is all about. Reaching out to your neighbors who might be lacking what you have an abundance of, and share with them your abundance.

But, without wanting to offend anybody, I sort of don't really get the whole fasting part. I know it's supposed to remind you of what it's like for people who don't have access to all the food and water they need or want, but surely we don't need to deprive ourselves of food and water to understand that they need our help? And, honestly, there are people who need a helping hand during other months than Ramadan as well.

Which reminds me of Christmas. Somewhere along the line, the birth of Jesus was also made to remind us of the importance of being together and helping those in need. And just like some Christians (if not most that I know of, including myself who still celebrate Christmas without being an actual Christian) sort of forget about that--and about Jesus, for that matter--in the middle of all the Christmas gift buying, gingerbread baking and food preparations, I daresay some Muslims also focus on the symbolism around Ramadan and forget about the essence: they fast diligently, but then the indulge in an excess of food at night... which, I believe, is not really the best way of reminding yourself of what it's like not to have food on your table at all, day or night.

So. My point? Don't fast during Ramadan or indulge in an excess of food at night; don't buy lots of Christmas gifts and overeat Christmas food?

No, not at all.

Be nice and share all year around?

Yeah, maybe.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing what Ramadan is like here in Ramallah. I think very different from Cairo. Most people I have talked to don't exactly plan on fasting at all, except maybe the first day. No one in our office will observe Ramadan, which will make life much easier for me. Because even though I understand that it is actually illegal to eat or drink on the street during the fasting hours here, nobody will know what happens behind our office door.

Meat Trauma

2010-08-05T22:43:00.002+03:00

I was hungry a second ago, but now I can't eat.

Struggling to keep inner calm.

It's like this: I grew up with a mom who refused to eat another bite of meat at the age of 11 and a dad who gave up meat after he started seeing my mom. My childhood was tofu, soya burgers, beans, and sometimes vegetarian hot dogs on special occasions.

I never even smelled meat cooking until I started school. No wait, sometimes they would cook meat at my kindergarten and one time one of the ladies had forgotten to make a vegetarian meal for me, and she suggested that I pick out the meat parts from the soup she had cooked for the other kids.

I looked at her as if she were from outer space.

Then I think she got the message and she made me some kind of instant pudding or other which I ate instead.

My point is that I've never eaten meat in my entire life, I've never wanted to eat meat in my entire life, I've never touched meat unless I was wearing plastic gloves (once when I worked in a restaurant: I almost threw up all over it, then they put me on chopping vegetables instead), and I always look away when I see meat at the market or in grocery stores. I walk out of the room when meat is cooking, damn it. I can't even smell it.

So you can imagine what it was like for me when I just went out into the kitchen two minutes ago, at my boyfriend's parents' house (who eat meat on a daily basis), feeling a little bit hungry, opened the fridge and took out the little plastic container in which I put the sun dried tomato pesto I made last night and I see something red dripping from under it.

Not fully realizing it at first, I went: Oh, the container is leaking and the olive oil is colored red from the tomatoes.

Then: But it wasn't leaking at lunch when I took it out, and nobody else has touched it.

Then, holding the container in my hand, seeing that the red whatever-it-was had dripped on my foot, turning my eyes back to the shelf in the fridge, noticing a blue plastic bag, remembering that Tarek's dad bought meat in a blue plastic bag today on the way home: No, it is NOT!

It hit me like a punch in the stomach. It was meat juice. Like diluted blood. Dripping on my foot.

I called for help. Meaning: I asked Tarek's parents to clean it up, because I could certainly not, and I desperately needed to run to the bathroom to wash my feet with soap.

I also changed my pants in case a tiny drop had landed somewhere I couldn't see.

Then I went back outside and cleaned my sun dried tomato pesto container. First with a paper towel that sucked up the juice and turned light red as if it was blood.

Which it was.

And then I cleaned it with soap and water. And fully aware of the fact that there is no way the meat juice that was leaking from the blue bag had actually entered into my pesto, I still put it back in the fridge (on another shelf, mind you). Completely unable to eat. Especially something dark red.

I need to convince my boyfriend of the benefits of veganism.

The Beach

2010-08-05T20:15:00.005+03:00

I didn't tell you that we went to the beach the other day, did I?

If not: we went to the beach the other day.

It was a sunny, windy day and the gemstone-green Mediterranean thrusted its waters onto the seashore, wave after wave.

We spent hours in the warm water, tumbling around in the waves, (sort of) body surfing... (that is to say, Tarek tried to teach me. I might have gotten it right once or twice, but mostly I was just caught in the middle of enormously huge waves, sucked under the water, spun around a few times; I scrubbed against the sandy bottom, and then popped up again, gasping for air with eyes burning from the salty water)...

...like I said, sort of body surfing... for hours and hours, not really minding the scorching sun and definitely ignoring the beach guards shouting at us in Hebrew through their loudspeakers. Supposedly something in the line of: you are not allowed to swim outside the designated swimming area!

But we didn't understand.

Once, we got out of the water as a nice gesture, but everybody else was still swimming so we jumped right back in, immediately swallowed by the waves again.

Tarek Swallowed by a Wave

Me Swallowed by Another Wave

Imagine if we were allowed to go there without permits, checkpoints and all that crap. Then we could take the car tomorrow morning and be there within an hour. And get all sunburned, sandy, sweaty and salty again. But Tarek doesn't have a permit to go to Israel now. So we'll have to make do with the hotel swimming pools here.

Yay (kind of unenthusiastic... although it's certainly better than nothing).

Palestine Book Project Update

2010-07-31T21:38:00.001+03:00

I've realized that I need to study the history of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) much, much more closely. I know the basics I think, but I have interviews coming up with two very leading figures within the organization and I need to really know what I want to know from them, if that makes sense.

So I don't just sit there and go, "So... you want to liberate Palestine, huh?"

Do Not Litter

2010-07-27T22:49:00.003+03:00

When I was little, I was taught not to litter. And just like I can't go to bed without brushing my teeth, I can't throw an empty can on the street.

Do I ever think "Ah, but maybe just this once..."?

No. I tried, but it just doesn't work. I cannot.

Tarek, our friend Yazan and I went to Al-Kasaba movie theater in Ramallah the other day. It's the only movie theater in Ramallah, situated downtown. They show mostly Arabic movies without subtitles, which I guess would be annoying unless you're like me and you need to practice your Arabic.

I really do.

Anyway, we went and saw the new Egyptian movie Assal Eswed (Black Honey) with Ahmed Helmy.

There are two floors at Al-Kasaba. The top floor is beautiful and spacious with raw stone walls; the bottom floor is kind of cramped, the chairs are a little stained and broken and the walls are ugly. Assal Eswed was showing downstairs.

Was I bothered?

Not one bit, because before I knew it I was sucked into the beautiful, crowded, noisy life of Cairo, with the Nile, the pyramids, the people...

Oh. Sorry, this post wasn't supposed to be about how much I love Cairo. It was supposed to be about littering.

Yeah. So the main character, Masry, comes back to Cairo after having grown up in the States and notices that things are done a little bit differently in his home country. For instance, people litter.

His taxi driver (sorry, lemozeen driver) throws whatever trash he has out the window while driving down the street, and Masry goes "Shit! What are you doing?!"

Which is sort of how I feel here too. Because people litter. All over the Middle East (with the possible exception of Amman in Jordan, but I'm not sure if people actually don't litter or if the city just employs people to clean up the streets).

I fight with my boyfriend over it. And he goes, "What do you want me to do? It's not like there are trash cans around."

Which is true. So I end up keeping his litter in my purse until we come home.

Others don't. Which makes me sad, because all the trash on the streets, in the olive fields and among the bushes just gives the whole country an air of "Nobody cares about us, not even we do."

Which is sad.

Chewing Gum Wrap with Instructions

But chewing gum maker Orbit tries to turn things around by providing people with clear instructions of how not to litter. I know my scan isn't super clear, but see how they cover every situation?

I love it.

If you're in a car, you lean out the window and throw it into a trash can. See? If you're biking, you throw it while driving past a trash can. If you're alone, you walk up to a trash can and throw it. If you're with friends... oh, you thought you could get away with acting cool and spitting the gum out on the ground? Think again! You walk up to the trash can that's under the street lamp and throw it.

That's how you do it.

Or, in case of an acute lack of trash cans, you do it my way: keep it in your purse until you find a trash can. Or the Masry way: collect it all in a plastic bag and take it back to the hotel with you.

Settlement Freeze: When Pigs Fly

2010-07-26T17:13:00.000+03:00

I haven't seen any pigs flying lately, have you?

I have seen a lot of construction going on in Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank, however. Here, I'll show you:

New Constructions in Ma'ale Adumim

Going back and forth between Ramallah and Bethlehem over the past few months, I've seen this row of houses in Ma'ale Adumim--a gigantic Israeli settlement in the West Bank--going from concrete skeletons to finished houses.

I would have taken pictures earlier, only it's along the highway and you're not exactly allowed to stop to take pictures. But the day before yesterday we had a problem in the car and had to stop. So I pulled out my camera and made the most of the situation.

You see the second house from the right? It's still under construction. And so are number six and seven from the right. The rest in the row were all constructed in the past months.

Newer Construction in Ma'ale Adumim

This is a clearer picture. Tarek drove slowly after he fixed the car so that I could take better pictures. Another new house in Ma'ale Adumim, under construction.

So? You might think.

So. This means that Israel's settlement freeze is not a freeze at all, but empty words from Israel's government to appease the American government. As usual.

What about a partial freeze? I mean, Israel has said that they don't consider East Jerusalem occupied territory, and that demolishing Palestinian houses and evicting Palestinian families and putting up Jewish neighborhoods there is therefore like... constructing in Tel Aviv. They've been very clear on that point: they never intended the freeze to include East Jerusalem.

Fine. But Ma'ale Adumim is not in occupied East Jerusalem, it's in the occupied West Bank.

I know, my blog is turning into something like a settlement watch.

The past few months I've blogged about other non-East Jerusalem constructions, and uploaded pictures (here and here) that I've taken on construction sites faaar away from East Jerusalem. Because regardless of what you might understand from the world press, Israel is not only demolishing Palestinian homes and building new homes for Jews in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem during their alleged settlement freeze, they're doing it all over the West Bank.

So forgive me for thinking that there is a correlation between the absence of flying pigs and the continued settlement expansions. And forgive me for thinking that we won't see a settlement freeze here until the day pigs fly.

Ruby's World Views

On Soldiers and Holes in My Heart

Israel's Right to Self-Defense

Al Nakba Never Really Ended

The Curse of the Mummy

The Man and The Pigeons

Life Under Occupation, in Numbers

Traveling Alone

Sabreen

Words for the Mediterranean Sea

The Boy Who Caused a Bomb Scare at Qalandia

Letter to Google Maps

I Saw the Old Lady Again Today

Diplomatic Missions

Forgiveness

People Who Just Do Their Job

Alf Mabrook, ya Masr!

Wael Ghonim speaks on CNN

Khaled Said's Mom

A Reluctant Hero - Wael Ghonim

The Birth of a Hero - Wael Ghonim

Jessy's World

It's Not Over

The Egyptian People

"Rantings of a Sandmonkey: Egypt Right Now!"

Sandmonkey Arrested

Don't Lose Hope

Directly from Cairo

Dear Conspiracy Theorists

A Great Cooperative Project

My Egyptian Friends

A Tale of a Tremendous Uprising

Story from a Revolution in the Making

January 25 Protests in Egypt

The Old Lady from Bethlehem

Creative E-Mail Addresses

The Fruit Seller and His Son

Don't Forget Gaza

"You Shouldn't Have Come"

More Bethlehem Checkpoint Stories

How I Came to Hold Hands with the Palestinian President: Part II

Lunch at the Muqat'a or How I Got to Hold Hands with the President of Palestine

Checkpoint War Game

Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists.

Travel Log: Mishmish the Camel

Travel Log: Flying with Egyptians

They Know Everything

Travel Log: Camels, Horses and Cairo Garbage

Travel Log: The Day Tarek Got Arrested (sort of)

Travel Log Day 1, Late Night: Cairo

Ruby's Travel Log Day 1: Jordan

Life in the Occupied Territories

تطبيع/Normalization

Bil'in

End of What Settlement Moratorium?

Land of Olives

The Last Palestinian Scarf

The Swedish Election and Racism

Even God is Angry

Confessions from Palestine

We Have No Water

Palestine Book Project Update

Lebanon Amends Labor Law

Christians Observing Ramadan

Palestine TV's Ramadan Special

Visa Extension

Yoyo is Gone

Ramadan Karim

Meat Trauma

The Beach

Palestine Book Project Update

Do Not Litter

Settlement Freeze: When Pigs Fly