Free Jamal Juma' and the Anti-Wall Prisoners

Hey guys,

Now that you have all gained 20 kilos eating all those Christmas chocolates (I'll exclude Nùria because she's actually pregnant - and going to give birth on January 2nd!!), what better way to burn it all off by doing a little activism?!

As you know, I've been helping out with Stop the Wall Campaign here, and two weeks ago, the Coordinator, Jamal Juma' was arrested. It reminds me a lot of Colombia: peaceful activism and advocacy met with jail time or assassination.

I won't bore you with all the details here; you can go to freejamaljuma.wordpress.com for more info. But all you have to do is take a picture saying "Free the Anti-Wall Prisoners" from wherever you are, and send in a picture! We are going to use your pictures in our days of action for the prisoners.

So start snapping away and send them to me or to global@stopthewall.org. I'll leave you all with a pretty cool video for the Free Jamal Juma' and the Anti-Wall prisoners campaign.

Nablus' Newest Martyrs

You can spend a whole day just getting lost in the winding streets of Nablus' old city. Trays of kunafa, the orange-colored doughy, goat-cheesy, honey-liscious sweet for which Nablus is famous, greet you at every corner. If you venture a little further down stairwells and small tunnels, you may find an old soap factory or two where they still make olive oil soap by hand. Somewhere in the middle of the old city, there is a small palace, the now-abandoned home of some aristocratic family, bitter mandarin trees populating its open courtyard.

And you can't miss the posters. Nablus may not have seen fighting like in Jenin during the Second Intifada, but some locals say that Nablus has historically given the lion share of Palestinian martyrs. And they have the posters to prove it. Every wall of the city is plastered and re-plastered with pictures of 'martyrs', usually with a Koranic inscription enshrouding their head, and a photo of the leaders of the respective groups. As I talked to some gangly youth hanging out in the Ras el-Ain neighborhood, one of them pointed to a poster on the wall and indicated that the grim-faced Al-Aqsa Brigades fighter had been his brother. I look closely at the poster. Below the picture of the youth carrying a gun half his size are smaller pictures of him after his death. A kuffiyeh covers the hole where his brains were apparently blown out. Another picture shows him without the kuffiyeh.

The posters, the memorials. There are plenty. And today, new ones will be put up. In the early morning, IDF forces stormed the old city and the Ras el-Ain neighborhood and assassinated three members of the Al-Aqsa brigade. When I first arrived in the city, the streets were emptying after a 20,000-strong march to the cemetery to bury the three new 'martrys'. (Muslim traditions require a swift burial after death). They had already shoveled over the last bit of dirt when I arrived at the graves. Ghassan Abu Sharkh was buried next to his brother, Naif, also an Al-Aqsa member killed in 2004. People are still at the gravesite, praying. From the hillsides overlooking Nablus, I'm sure the soldiers who killed these men, alleged to be the masterminds of the recent murder of a West Bank settler, are pondering Al-Aqsa's threat of responding in the "language of blood and fire." Mustafa Barghouti, the runner-up for PA presidency in 2005, gives an interview nearby saying that Israel only understands "the language of force."

Language, language. Everyone's thinking about with what language to respond. Political futures may once again be on the line. I head up to the Ras el-Ain home of Anan Sabah, one of the men targeted in the morning raid. My taxi driver, aware that I am American, feels a little uncomfortable leaving me among all the suspicious eyes, but I tell him not to worry. I introduce myself and after some time, suspicions lead to desires to tell me what happened. I'm introduced to Anan's brother, still red-eyed and in shock. I notice an extreme amount of equally shocked children wandering about.

He tells me how the soldiers first fired from the street into the windows before ordering everyone out. The walls are full of bullet holes. The windows shot out. Every room has been trashed. Used tear gas and sound grenade shells are laying around. Anan was recently let out of jail, he tells me; in exchange for writing off violence, he would not be targeted by Israeli forces. When the soldiers came, everyone was ordered out of the house except for Anan. Close to 90 people, Anan, his 5 siblings and their children, lived in this building. When they were allowed back in, they found his body riddled with bullets.

Anan's children, nine of them if my surprised ears heard right, are scattered around the house or at the local mosque. One 3-year-old, sleeping on a mat, springs out of his sleep when Anan's brother wakes him. He looks jumpy. "He hasn't stopped using the bathroom since this morning. Because of the fear," I'm told.

Israel is claiming a 'victory against terror' now. As I walk back down through the old city, a mob is rushing a young boy carrying handfuls of posters. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have already printed out huge color posters of their three newest martyrs. Everyone is mobbing the young delivery boy, who yells that he can't give posters to everyone. Chaos. Somehow, it seems that despite all the language, no one can really claim victory in this latest round of bloodshed.

What Would Berlusconi Do?

Hosni Mubarak should take a cue from Silvio Berlusconi when dealing with the 1000+ international activists hanging out at the Jordanian-Egyptian border.

When the little Italian Alpine village of L'Aquila was slammed with an earthquake earlier this year, everyone's favorite Botox King was quick to offer reassurance. Prime Minister Berlusconi, probably fresh from another naked-models party, said that earthquake survivors who were spending their nights in tents should view themselves as being on a "camping weekend." Poor Silvio, he got a lot of shit for that one.

Now, international activists around the world, my dad included, are participating in the 3rd Humanitarian Mission to break the siege on Gaza. Named Viva Palestina, the convoy is sending much needed medicines, food, building materials, ambulances and other items to the Gazans, trapped on two sides by the Israeli Apartheid Wall, on another side by the Israeli Navy (which only allows Palestinian fishermen to catch their harvest a mere 3 nautical miles from the shore), and now on the fourth side by Egypt's new Apartheid Wall.

The convoy started off in England, getting great reception from people in every country. Apparently, in Syria, the group was put up free of cost by the government at the Sahara Tourist Complex in Damascus. (The only time I ever went there was when I attended the 'Extraordinary' Meeting of International Communist Parties, and I wasn't given anything to eat and my bike was stolen.) Now, the Jordanian government has given a typically cold reception, while my dad reports that Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are very enthusiastically receiving the convoy (of course).

But as the Pharoah of Egypt, Mubarak is now putting the brakes on the convoy. He's in a pickle. Should he bend to popular will and allow the convoy through to Gaza, thus making him look slightly more legitimate? Or should he do the Israeli bidding and block the caravan, thus allowing for more money to come into Egypt to siphon off to fund his own Botox operations?

He'll take the Botox. The Egyptians are currently refusing entry to the convoy, thus stranding my dad and his convoy-mates in the port city of Aqaba. Mubarak should tell them that they should see it as a camping trip, that might make it more fun. My dad said he hasn't changed his underwear in three days; I'm not sure if that is in protest for not getting in, or because there aren't adequate facilities. In any case, the convoy, along with their buses and ambulances, food and medicine, are being made to camp out on the border.

If you feel moved by the story of my dad's gross underwear, do them all a favor. Call the Eygptian embassy and tell them "No more money for Apartheid walls and Hosni's Botox!". Or stand outside the embassy with a similar sign. Or even better, take a cue from Italy's mentally deranged, and if you see Mubarak, take a metal statue to his face like what happened to poor Silvio.

You can follow the convoy at: http://readingpsc.org.uk/convoy/

Stop the Wall Campaign

Here in Ramallah, close to the infamous Qalandia checkpoint and just overlooking the Palestinian Red Crescent building, is the offices of the Stop the Wall Campaign. It's a small office, populated with twiggy, chain-smoking, coffee-guzzling Palestinian revolutionaries, activists, intellectuals and their international allies. A huge poster of Che - Hasta la Victoria Siempre, it says - hangs above books and pamphlets on the Occupation. An out-dated UN poster from 2007 of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank on one door, Mahmoud Darwish's angry poetry on another. Boycott the Occupation posters lay scattered on the floor.

Burn-out central. Sigh. Sounds like my kind of place...

I'll be volunteering with the Stop the Wall campaign (www.stopthewall.org), a grassroots, decidedly not NGO which helps to coordinate local action and international solidarity with Palestinian activists. Last week, at midnight on December 16th, the Campaign Coordinator, Jamal Juma' was arrested by occupation authorities, and today we found out that he will be charged with 'incitement'. Incitement to exactly what, no one knows. According to Israeli military regulations, a Palestinian detainee can be held in custody for up to 12 days without knowing the reason for his/her arrest, and without seeing a judge. Afterwards, they can be charged, released, or giving administrative detention. Administrative detention is where the Israelis basically say that they have no proof of illegal activities, but they have a 'secret file' and thus are forced to hold you. No one can see that 'secret file', so know one knows why you are in. Administrative detention orders can be infinitely renewed. The Stop the Wall Youth Coordinator, Mohammad Othman, was arrested a few months ago, and after finding no reason for which to charge him, Israel put him under administrative detention.

I'll be putting together the website for Jamal Juma' - freejamaljuma.wordpress.com. It's really ugly, so if anyone has suggestions, please let me know. I'm basing it off Mohammad Othman's website (freemohammadothman.wordpress.com, duh!). Aside from web-building and translation, I will be helping with the Campaign's work on researching Israeli arms trade with Latin America, so if anyone has any articles or interesting information, please let me know. Currently, I'm looking into a agricultural trade agreement into which Israel and El Salvador entered. The idea is to inform grassroots organizations and Latin American civil society about Israel's attempt to prop up its sagging occupational economy. You can find a great article about Latin America and Israel written by Jamal on the Wordpress blog - http://freejamaljuma.wordpress.com/about/

You can also learn more about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which is building steam across the globe - www.bdsmovement.net

Thanks!

An Old Movie

artículo en español: http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/israel-palestina-pelicula-vieja


Let’s see, I think I have seen this movie before. Israel calls a 10-month partial ban on settlement construction in the West Bank (not including 3,000 buildings already approved, public buildings, or construction in East Jerusalem[1]), the settlers cry foul and images of screaming settlers carried away by police are flashed through the news. Oh, the pain! Obama, can’t you see the pain you are inflicting on Netanyahu and the Israeli people by telling them that they don’t have a legal right – much less a biblical right – to build in the West Bank?

Of course, everyone foresaw it coming. No one needed the settlers to explicitly say that for every outpost or settlement building dismantled or evicted, the Palestinians would be the ones who would suffer. Will Israel ‘vow to uphold the law’ against the ‘extremists’ who attack ‘innocent’ Palestinians? “Without a doubt,” says my 8-ball. Because of course, Israel is better than that. Israel wants peace. It is even taking ‘far-reaching and painful steps’ for peace. Indeed, even the government’s ‘unilateral freeze’ shows “who is for peace and who is against it.” (Let’s consult the 8-ball again: Are the Palestinians the ones against peace? “It is decidedly so”.)

We can be sure that following the mosque arson in the West Bank village of Yasuf, by ‘extremist elements’ within the settler ‘movement’ - I have conflict with that term, because it implies a separation, a distinguishing from Israeli government policy, which actively subsidizes and coddles [2] their ‘brothers’ in the West Bank -, the Israeli government will wash its hands of responsibility and say that it is doing everything possible for peace, and that some people (a ‘small percentage’ of settlers and don’t forget, 100% of Palestinians) don’t want peace. All the Livnis, the Baraks, the Netanyahus, and the Leibermans are the doves, can’t we see that?

Speaking of Livni, she became almost philosophical regarding the attacks on the mosque. “We must turn to introspection and contend with what is happening within Israeli society.” [3] Can someone tell me what the hell that means? I don’t recall her introspecting when white phosphorous was melting the skin of Gazans and she was rejecting a cease-fire. Maybe Israel only introspects when gun-toting Brooklynites with chutzpah and Torah-wielding dudes with curly locks are carrying out attacks.

The settlers – for economic or ideological reasons, 500,000 are living in the West Bank, furthering the dream of ‘Greater Israel’ – are a very vocal group within Israel, and opinions differ on whether they enjoy support from ‘mainland’ Israel. At a recent settler rally in Paris Square in West Jerusalem (which at first sight looked more like a Jonas Brothers concert, what with all the braces and 14-year old girls screaming their heads off), of the two dozen or so people I spoke with, at least 80% were from the U.S., and of these, almost all of them were from ‘Little Israel’ (you know, New York and New Jersey). And all of them had something to say to the Obama administration.

“Let Obama keep his change and let us keep building!” “Bibi [Netanyahu], don’t give in to American pressure!” One American teenager, holding a yellow flag with the portrait of Rabbi Meir Kahane on it, came up to me and eagerly said he wanted to tell me something. Go for it. “Tell Obama that if it doesn’t work out in the White House, maybe it will work out in the N.B.A.” Do you have anything else to say to Obama? “Um, yeah. He should go back to Iran and mind his own country.” (Rabbi Meir Kahane, the assassinated ideologue of the ‘fringe elements’, once claimed that to defend Israel you need “faith in God and a strong army.”) In the background, I heard a Yesha Council leader sound out clearly the name of the enemy, to cheers from the crowd: “Barack HUSSEEEEEEEEIN Obama”. Two 18-year olds from Brooklyn told me that ‘any empire that doesn’t align itself with the Jews’ will fall. G-d gave them the land, and now f---ing Obama wants to take it away?

We tried to visit the village on Ni’lin for their Friday demonstrations against the wall. The previous week, the army had used live ammunition against stone throwers and the night before, in the adjacent town on Bil’in, had arrested the organizers of the Popular Committee Against the Wall [4]. The army refused us entrance to Ni’lin for ‘safety purposes’. So we entered the bordering settlement of Mod’in Ilit and watched the protest from the other side. Some settlers approached us and gave their point of view of the situation. The wall, they said, has given protection against terror attacks and ‘stealing car radios’. “But,” one British-sounding settler graciously reminds us, “there was nothing on this land before. No one lived here. Just olive trees.” About the protest? Most didn’t pay attention except for one settler whose doctor wife reports that some Fridays, when the wind is pro-Palestinian, tear gas wafts into her clinic from across the valley and leaves her patients crying. About the Palestinians? “Well, the problem is that they don’t know how to manage their own people.” As we spoke, across the valley, another Palestinian youth was shot with live bullets.

These people would clearly fall into what Netanyahu would call the ‘not-fringe elements’. They don’t carry around M-16s like the settler at nearby Dolev settlement who was visibly shocked and surprised when we asked for directions to Ramallah. They most likely would condemn mosque attacks, though they might accept a wall to keep out ‘terrorists’, or the fact that another Palestinian family may be evicted from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem this week, or that Palestinians who want to enter Israel for work have to wait hours at checkpoints or are arbitrarily detained, or even ‘targeted strikes’ by Hellfire missiles on Gazan homes. They’re not ‘fringe elements’, they’re the mainstream. Netanyahu’s real brothers. He can afford to label a few scary guys as extremists, as obstacles to peace, while he counts on the passive majority who accept occupation and don’t see that as the real obstacle to peace.

When Palestinians reject this settlement freeze as the farce that it is – as they already have-, the Clintons and the Obamas and the Mitchells will express disappointment that Israel’s ‘gestures’ have not been accepted, the settlers would be vindicated and Israel will ‘be forced’ to reign in the Palestinians. It’s an old movie. Just rewind and replay.

Will the settlement freeze open ‘new doors’ to peace in Palestine and Israel? Eight-ball says: “Outlook not so good.”



________
1. “Israeli PM Netanyahu declares 10-month freeze in new building in West Bank settlements”. http://blog.taragana.com/business/2009/11/25/israeli-pm-netanyahu-declares-10-month-freeze-in-new-building-in-west-bank-settlements-3277/

2. “Land Expropriations and Settlements.” B’Tselem. http://www.btselem.org/english/settlements/migration.asp

3. “Officials Blame ‘Extremist’ Settlers for Arson Attack on West Bank Mosque”, Robert Mackey, December 11th, 2009.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/extremist-settlers-blamed-for-arson-attack-on-west-bank-mosque/

4. “Release Bil’in popular leader Abdallah Abu Rahmah”, International Solidarity Movement. http://palsolidarity.org/2009/12/9688

"This is Not Apartheid; This is the Wild West"

Those words came from a young ex-IDF soldier named Ilan as we sat and gorged ourselves on delicious falafel - mine with extra hot sauce and xatzeel, eggplant - in a corner of Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda market. We had just returned from Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, home to roughly 180,000 Palestinians. Ilan, an ex-IDF soldier who served in Hebron during the Second Intifada and now leads tours with Breaking the Silence, an Israeli peace group made up of ex-IDF soldiers determined to make known the occupation's dirty work in Palestine, explains himself as he licks his fingers clean.

"Apartheid is where you have a set of laws defining discrimination between people. In Hebron, there is no law. The Israeli army is doing what they want there. They can evict Palestinians and nothing will happen. This is worse than apartheid."

Following the Oslo Accords in 1994 and the subsequent dividing of the West Bank into three araes - full Palestinian control ("Area A", about 15% of total land), full Israeli control ("Area C", 60% of land) or joint Palestinian civil authority / Israeli military authority ("Area B", 25% of land), Hebron received special treatment. The city was divided into H1 and H2, the former being Palestinian control and the latter, Israeli. Some 30,000 Palestinians still resided in H2 at the time of partition alongside roughly 500 settlers. Today, the settlers have increased by 300 - protected by close to 3,500 soldiers and police officers - and close to half of H2's resident Palestinian population has been evicted or scared off. The city center, once a vibrant area, is now inhabited by dogs and Israeli soldiers. Almost 80% of Palestinian businesses in H2 have closed, welded shut, weeds growing from their neglected entrances. Windows, protected against settler rocks by iron gates, don't have old grandmothers peering from them anymore. As they say, it's a 'ghost town'.

"Since most Palestinians have small shops on the first floor of their homes, our strategy would be to come and close the entrances to their shops, sometimes giving a week warning, sometimes a few hours, or sometimes no warning at all," explains Ilan. "Since they couldn't enter their shops, they couldn't enter their homes, and that way, they just left."

Ilan justifies his organization's continued attempts to educate people about what the army is doing in Hebron, despite harassment, jailing and threats. "I served three years in the army and I did things I never thought I could do. I have to make up for it." For refusing to serve as an army reservist, he must serve one month out of the year in prison. (In addition to the mandatory three year army service, Israelis may be called for reserve duty for one month a year until the age of 45.) His ultra-orthodox family has shunned him; ironically, some family members from Miami send thousands of shekels every year to support the settlers in Hebron and the neighboring settlement of Kiryat Arba.

A few Palestinian businessmen who brave attacks and harassment near the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi mosque (a sacred site for both Jews and Muslims, a stone wall divided the structure in two parts, one mosque, one synagogue, following the 1994 massacre of Muslim worshipers by the American-Israeli doctor Baruch Goldstein), tell me that between four workers selling trinkets and pottery, they make 20 shekels a day (U$5.30). Jewish worshipers hurriedly pass by as soldiers, armed to the teeth, watch out not for settler attacks, but rather attacks against settlers. Since the army's mandate is to protect Israeli citizens, Ilan tells me that they would only intervene in attacks if the settlers were being attacked, in order to arrest Palestinians. When little settler youths throw rocks at Palestinians, the most the army can do is to reprimand them and tell them not to do that again.

Recently, in a video circulated by Israel's Channel 2, after a reported knife attack by a Palestinian against settlers in Kiryat Arba in which the attacker was shot by the IDF, a settler is seen taking his car and running over the Palestinian - twice - as police and soldiers look on idly. The tension is high here. One Palestinian I talk to claims that another Intifada is coming.

Who knows if Palestinians could endure another Intifada, but as Hebron makes clear, the status quo seems unbearable. People on both sides offer me pessimistic views of the future. As we returned to Jerusalem, we stop at the tomb of Baruch Goldstein in Kiryat Arba, overlooking the Hebron hills and guarded by an equally nutty looking fellow. The inscription on his tomb speaks volumes: "Here lies the saint... who gave his life for the Jewish people, the Torah and Israel."

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For pictures, click here.

Chillin' in Bil'in (ok, that was cheesy, but I can't think of anything else)

When the wind pushed the first big cloud of white gas towards us, I figured I would just wrap my kuffiyeh around my face and press forward. "No big deal, Nico." Ten seconds later, I was crying like a baby who just crapped his diapers and coughing like an old man with one lung. That sucked. For a brief second, I remembered the story of Wendy Avila, the 24-year old Honduran woman who, with her husband, left her job in the United States to return to Honduras after the coup to join the resistance; she died of asthma complications after police gassed a demonstration. The 20-something Israeli soldiers, grinning behind the wire fence, literally had duffle bags filled with these gorilla-fist-sized (actually, maybe gorillas have bigger or smaller hands, I don't really know) bombs, and would throw them at anyone who got too close to the fence, or talked too much, or was a journalist, or was Palestinian, or was American, or was Israeli, or was a medic, or was in a wheelchair, or was an olive tree, or was the wind, the sun… they seemed to be firing at anything. The hand thrown bombs are problematic only inasmuch as the gas that comes from it; the real danger are the gas canisters launched from rifles that can cause considerable injury - or death - if they fall on you. We run past the tomb of "Bassem" Ibrahim, a veteran organizer of the weekly protests in Bil'in, who was killed when an IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces, as they are considered) soldier fired a tear gas canister, hitting him on the head. He lays now just 20 meters in front of the fence.

Internationals by far outweigh Bil'in residents, most of whom seem to be almost indifferent now to the weekly protests, though I was told that most of them are scared for fear of reprisals. The youth are the most energetic, making me feel like an old fogey, and seem almost indifferent to the gas clouds. A young-looking veteran of the First Intifada (the Intifada of the Stone-throwers) is decked out in a sweet automatic wheelchair and speeds away down-hill at impressive speeds everytime gas was launched, leaving the rest of us handicapped by the gas (no pun intended). Actually, at one point he stands up in his wheelchair to yell at the Israelis, which leaves me dumbstruck. Israeli tear gas causes miracles. The Tel Aviv mod squad, looking more like Williamsburg hipsters, arrive looking aptly glum. There is an old Irish man in combat boots and a gas mask, who mutters "fucking bastards" or "come on, motherfuckers" everytime a canister is launched. He stands like a rock at the front line the whole time filming the Israeli attack. (Later, at then end of the protest, someone overheard him saying: "I forgot to press the record button. Fuck." Luck of the Irish.) Some journalists for AP and other mass media watch from the sides, donned in gas masks and helmets, looking more like soldiers. Kuffiyehs and Palestinian flags abound. I wonder if the cheese of my left over pizza tucked away in my bag will absorb the gas.

Bil'in's residents have become famous for their weekly demonstrations since 2005 against the wall that has cut them off from more than 50% of their agricultural lands. Together with other towns, such as neighboring Nilin (where, at the same time I was choking on clouds, a young protestor was shot with "tutu" bullets), they have consistently challenged the Israeli state's right to build a wall through their lands under the pretext of guaranteeing security to Israeli Jewish citizens and, more directly, the more than 40,000 colonists living the illegal settlement of Modi'in Illit. (Last year, the Israeli government upgraded Modi'in Illit's status to "city", which some say would encourage more colonists to move in, thus further reducing Palestinian land.)

Most days, Bil'in residents are allowed to access their lands to tend to their olive trees, but only after passing through a checkpoint and as long as the IOF commander in charge deems it appropriate. The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that the wall's path is illegal, and ordered a change in the path allowing for a return of at least 50% of confiscated lands. However, according to one organizer, the Israeli government has dragged its feet, claiming "lack of funds" to destroy and rebuild the wall. See www.bilin-village.org for more information.



Of course, however, plenty of gas and sound grenades. After 30 minutes, it's all over. The protest retreats for the week, and the game is over, for now. It's frustrating for me, this non-violence thing. Our heads still foggy with the gas, two Aussie journalists and I ask Abdullah, a Bil'in organizer, why the use of nonviolence as a tactic. He claims that if they can make the Israeli occupation spend money on having to deploy troops and weapons, little by little, they will become a thorn in the Israelis side and force them to give in to their demands. I wonder to myself how much it costs the Israelis to deploy a couple dozen teenagers against 150 protestors. Personally, I think it would cost more if we sent them to the hospital with a rock lodged in their faces... hmm, prudence, Nico. But hey, Gandhi's nonviolence tactics alone didn't send the English packing, nor did King's brotherly love alone win civil rights. But maybe, just now, I can't - and don't want to - really imagine more bloodshed out here.

As we retreat, I go to watch the parallel protest of a handful of Palestinian teenagers throwing rocks at troops. They are strictly forbidden by protest organizers to mix with us "nonviolent folk". In between olive trees, rocks and shouts of "sons-of-bitches" fly and bounce harmlessly of the wall or an ear. Rock, gas, rock, gas. These kids were the same ones who told me earlier that if they catch any Israeli on "their side" of the wall, they'll kill him. I hope they don't see those poor Israeli anarchists walking ahead of us. We walk back to town, about half a kilometer away, and you can still smell the gas. Some cool-looking Palestinian men are perched on a balcony watching the action, ironically puffing on a sheesha, as if there wasn't enough smoke in the air. The Israelis, to make some kind of point which is lost on us, are still shooting gas long after the protesters disperse.

Looking back across the valley, I see the Israeli soldiers crossing the barrier and removing flags and signs. One of them waves the Palestinian flag then tucks it away. I guess we'll be back next week.

P.S. This coming week, the colonists/settlers and their allies will gather in front of "Bibi" Netanyahu's residence to protest the 10-month settlement "freeze" (actually, they will still be building; I guess they call it a "freeze" because of the coming winter). Funny how tables turn. Go back to October 1995, when Netanyahu and the Likud were leading protests against Rabin for "being removed from Jewish tradition". One month later, a settler assassinated Rabin. I'm sure Mr. Yahoo is sweating his kippa off.