This is a very long post that was written a week and a half ago :)

I've been back in Israel for over a month, but I think I've just returned. Life is in full swing again. I've settled into an apartment in the heart of the German Colony in Jerusalem, better known as America central. I'll be in this apartment for the month and then am moving in with a friend a few blocks away. The apartment has no heat, and while I appreciate that Jersualem is warmer than, say, Michigan, it is still quite chilly to be without heat. So, I layer up quite well, cuddle under a few blankets, and turn the tiny space heater on my face while I fall asleep.

Now that I am settled, I am able to do more than look for an apartment online. So, two weekends ago I went to Ramallah with a friend of mine, Andrew, who speaks Arabic and has a few friends in Ramallah. Because there is no public transport in Jerusalem on shabbat, I took a cab to the Palestinian bus station by the Damascus Gate. We were traveling with a friend of ours, Jessica, who uses a motorized scooter to get around, and after a few tries to get it in the trunk of the bus, we were told to just buy an extra seat, which we did.

In the short, half hour drive from Jerusalem to Ramallah, the landscape changed tremendously. We had gone from the streets of West Jerusalem, which are cleaned, gardened and all around taken care of by the Jerusalem municipality, through the streets of East Jerusalem, which are neglected by the Jerusalem municipality, to the streets of Ramallah, parts of which are neglected by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

When we arrived in Ramallah, we headed to the main square, where we passed the Stars & Bucks Cafe, a well known landmark (which I took pictures of but I can't find my camera cord), to a different cafe. Being a person who cannot function well without coffee, I was quite happy to sit and drink two cups of really delicious coffee. Palestinian coffee is much better than Israeli coffee, but I still long for a reliable cup of Beaners!

We met up with Andrew's friend for coffee and they were headed to a solidarity protest with Egypt in the center of town. Keep in mind this was well before Mubarak finally stepped down. We had heard that many of the protests in Ramallah and throughout the West Bank were being suppressed by the PA, but this went on fairly calmly for most of the time. There were supposed to be only Egyptian and Tunisian flags, but tons of Palestinian flags came out.

At one point, a young man climbed on top of the statues in the center of the square and pulled out an American flag. The crowd started cheering as he doused the flag in lighter fluid and, after a few struggling attempts to light it (it was windy!) the flag caught fire and burned quickly. I have to say that I felt really uncomfortable watching the American flag burned to such cheers. I appreciate the sentiment it is coming from and, I have the same anger at my government for supporting the Occupation and generally never taking a strong enough stand on Palestinian rights. I still though do feel deeply patriotic, especially when I am abroad, and wanted to call out that we're not all so bad! Perhaps because I am too much of a government/history dork, in that moment I couldn't stop thinking about the supreme court case that ruled it unconstitutional to ban flag burning. And I felt really happy that I am a resident of a country that, at least in 1990, still had the ability to protect the constitution. Ah, democracy. And then because I have an overactive mind, I thought of Daniel Berrigan and the Catonsville 9 case about burning draft files. And then I thought of this lovely poem that I would like to share with you all:

You Finish It: I Can't
Daniel Berrigan

The world is somewhere visibly round,
pefectly lighted, free in space,

but why men die like kings or
sick animals, why tears stand
in living faces, why one forgets

the color of the eyes of the dead --

and then, because I couldn't stop thinking of things, I thought of this Dar Williams song about the Catonsville 9 case:

I Had No Right Lyrics

God of the poor man, this is how the day began,
Eight codefendants, I Daniel Berrigan,
And only a layman's batch of napalm.

We pulled the draft files out,
We burned them in the parking lot,
Better the files than the bodies of children.

I had no right, but for the love of you.
I had no right, but for the love of you.

Many roads led here, walked with the suffering,
Tom in Guatemala, Philip in New Orleans
It's a long road from law to justice.

I went to Vietnam,
I went for peace, they dropped their bombs,
Right where my government knew I would be.

I had no right, but for the love of you.
I had no right, but for the love of you.

And all my country saw were priests who broke the law.

First it was question, then it was a mission,
How to be American, how to be a Christian,
If the law is their cross, and the cross is burning...

I -- the love of you.
I -- the love of you.

God of the just, I'll never win a peace prize,
Falling like Jesus, now let the jury rise,
It's all of us versus all that paper.

They took the only way, they know who is on trial today.
Deliver us unto each other, I pray.

I had no right, but for the love of you.
And every trial I stand, I stood for you.

Eyes on the trial,
Late a.m. arrival,
Hand on the Bible...

Anyway, I think that is the end of my train of thought for now. Back to the Ramallah.

So, of course the chants turned from support for Egypt, to chants that Mubarak is a Zionist, to a call for change in Palestine with absolutely no mention of Israel. It was really interesting that all of the frustration and anger in the crowd was directed at the Palestinian Authority. I think I'm so quick to demonize Israel's actions in the West Bank, that I forget that there is a fairly functioning government in the West Bank that people are really quite unhappy with. And just this week, as protests seem to be erupting throughout the Arab world, Abu Mazen announced that elections would be held in the West Bank in September.

And here is a picture of me and Andrew at the demonstration. I am the blonde girl with the pink scarf on, if I could scream American a little louder. And Andrew is just to the left in the photo in the white scarf.


So, the demonstration went on for a while and we got cold and hungry, so about ten of us left to go eat falafel. After awhile, as we were enjoying delicious fava beans, my new favorite food obsession here, we heard screaming and yelling and then a gunshot fired in the air. Everyone in the restaurant jumped up and went to the door to see what was going on, while Jess and I sat anxiously at the table. Three of our friends who are internationals living in Ramallah sat back down at the table and said, "yep, that was a live bullet." Andrew translated the screaming on the street and explained that pro-Abu Mazen supporters had shown up at the rally, and the anti-Abu Mazen supporters were not happy, and so a bit of a rumble ensued. Noticing the slightly panicked look on my face, Andrew said, "Don't worry about the gunshot, it was just in the air. You know, cowboy culture."

The group decided they wanted to smoke hookah, so we left to go to, what turned out to be the very ritzy part of Ramallah. There was a big piece in the New York Times magazine last summer about how Ramallah is the new trendy spot to be, and it is so right! We passed a ton of really cute bars and restaurants and ended up at this adorable restaurant that overlooks Ramallah and while everyone smoked hookah, my poor lungs and I enjoyed a nice, Palestinian beer.

After the hookah we finally got to the part of the day I had been most looking forward to - kanafeh! Kanafeh is a delicious fried cheese sugary treat that will leave you feeling like you gained about ten pounds. I have been known to pack away 8 piece of kenafeh on a good day, but full from the falafel I only had one little piece. Weak. While we were eating kenafeh, we met up with another one of Andrew's friend's, Hamzeh, who is Palestinian and is getting a masters in sociology from Birzeit University, following his undergraduate degree in literature. He had such interesting things to say about the impact of literature and writing on politics and society in Palestine, and in the world in general, and it was so great to hear him speak. So many of the men I meet with Machsom Watch have never had an education above high school, and are from an older generation, and they view they the world and the Occupation in very black and white terms. They are the men who can speak about the need to end the Occupation and in the same breath tell me how they control everything their wives do without seeing any connection or any interlocking oppressions. It was really refreshing to spend the day with Palestinians who were younger and see a need to end the Occupation and reform Palestinian society.

Anyway, we eventually left to get the bus back to Jerusalem and had to go through a checkpoint. Going into the West Bank in a car, you are almost never checked. Leaving, though, is a different story. I have only left in a private car with Machsom Watch and did not know what to expect on the bus. We came through Kalandia, which is one of the biggest checkpoints. I was told that generally internationals, pregnant women, and the elderly are allowed to stay on the bus once their ids are checked, and really only the young, Palestinian men have to get off the bus and go through the checkpoint on foot. We though, got a special treat. The soldiers came on the bus, took all of our passports and told us to get off the bus. The two elderly Palestinian women and a Palestinian family were allowed to stay on the bus, and the six Americans had to get off and go through the checkpoint. There were five of us in a group, and another Muslim woman from Brooklyn who had already recounted to us the four and a half hours she spent going through security in the airport in Tel Aviv. She went through the checkpoint first and they let her through with no problem. Next went Jessica, who also had no problem. Then Mihal went through, and she had forgotten her passport so took only her driver's license and a copy of her passport. The soldiers were not entertained, but after we apologized and smiled enough, they let her though. When I went through the soldier looks at me and goes, "You are very high." To which I said, um, "I'm actually not high..." He looked at me and raised his hand up to my height and repeated, "You are very high." "Ah, yes, I'm quite tall," I agreed, and went on through with no problem. Then Andrew's friend, E, came through. He has Israeli citizenship and Israelis are absolutely not allowed to go to Ramallah, so he was hoping to go through just with his American citizenship and hence had only brought his American passport. His passport, though, did not have a visa stamp in it because obviously he doesn't need a visa to be here. E was shaking and really nervous about being slapped with a 750 US dollar fine. The soldiers did not understand why he didn't have a visa and he was giving terrible answers, so finally Andrew stepped in and said that E was planning to travel to Lebanon, and Lebanon wouldn't take a passport with an Israeli stamp on it, and so he asked them not to stamp it at the airport. Because Andrew has a hard time controlling his anger at checkpoints, and because E was shaking with nervousness, I decided to step in and play the dumb blonde card. I apologized to the soldiers for not really understanding Hebrew, told them we were so sorry but we just didn't understand what they were asking and what they needed from the passport, and was it okay if we all just went through now. They looked at us for a few seconds, asked for Andrew's passport, which was fine, and then waved us on. Saying you don't understand turns out to be the best move at checkpoints, because it makes them question their English skills and then they get flustered and distracted.

I have a hard time dealing with individual soldiers, because I really believe the notion that everyone here is a victim of the Occupation. Yes there are soldiers who are huge dicks and who thrive off the power and control that being in the military provides them, but there are also soldiers who are really left wing, who are completely indifferent, who see themselves as just serving their country, who don't want to be isolated from their friends by not serving. I was talking to a woman from Machsom Watch about this. Her first husband was killed in the Yom Kippur War when she was eight months pregnant. All four of her children have served in the army, and she is an active member of Machsom Watch, Women in Black, and every activisty group you can imagine. We were talking about the fact that, when an Israeli is 16, especially boys, start taking exams for their army service, start thinking about what unit they want to be in, start competing with each other to be the most elite. How do you expect a 16 year old to refuse to serve in the army? How do you expect an 18 year old to, after spending time touring the country, being indoctrinated with Holocaust stories and 1948 stories and the world is out to destroy us stories, to make educated, conscientious decisions? I was talking to an American friend of mine who served in the IDF about the checkpoints and his response was simple, obvious, and incredibly spot on: "Why do you want an army made of 18 year olds? You're not actually at your peak physical fitness then, but you are at your most willing to follow orders."