Friday, November 21, 2003:

Today I visited a warm and soft-spoken woman named Munira who lives with her husband Hani and their six small children on the outskirts of Mas'ha village. Hani and his family came to Mas'ha in 1948 as refugees from Israel's "War of Independence," which Palestinians refer to as "Al Nakba," or, "The Catastrophe." Hani's father was killed in the war. Left without a breadwinner, young Hani and his family were homeless for ten years.1

When Hani grew up, he built a home for himself and his family in Mas'ha. He and Munira built nurseries and greenhouses, and lived off of their trees, land, and animals. Even as the nearby Elkana settlement was founded and grew to within twenty feet of their bedroom window, the family did not move. Then, in the past year, another major "Nakba" of Palestinian recent history began: the building of the Israel's Separation Barrier, the Wall.

If you were to build a Wall to prevent two groups from hurting one another, where would you build it? Most people would build on the border between the two peoples' territories. In fact, that is where most supporters of Israel's Wall believe it to be: between Israel and the Palestinian Territories. But any map of the planned and partially-completed path of the Wall (a map that you probably won't find in any mainstream Israeli or American newspaper, by the way) reveals a different reality. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Western half of the Wall is expected to annex approximately 14.5% of West Bank land into Israel, a percentage likely to at least double after completion of the projected extensions and eastern side. The barrier winds deeply into the West Bank, passing close by developed Palestinian areas and annexing surrounding land and water sources into Israeli, along with existing settlements.

Situated on the outskirts of Mas'ha, Munira and Hani's house posed a problem for the Israeli military, who implored the family to move closer to the village so that the Wall could annex the house and neighboring area into Elkana. Munira and Hani refused. They also refused monetary compensation, insisting that all they wanted was to remain in their home, on their land, to live and work in peace.

The military responded by building a 25-foot concrete wall in front of Munira's house, separating the family from their land, village, and community. The Wall continues in both directions, leaving Munira's family on the Israeli side of the fence, even though they are on internationally recognized Palestinian territory well east of the Green Line.

In Munira's backyard is another fence keeping the family out of the neighboring settlement of Elkana where, as Palestinians, they would be considered a "threat to security." There are fences on the remaining two sides of Munira's house to keep them out of Israel proper, where the family would also qualify as "potential terrorists." Surrounded on all four sides, Munira and her family live in a cage, an open-air prison.

Munira and Hani are determined to stay in their home as long as they can, but the obstacles increase every day. Because of the Wall, Hani can no longer easily reach his work in nearby Azzun Atma, and Munira can hardly leave her house for fear of it being destroyed. Friends, family, IWPS, and delegations visit her often, or as often as the soldiers feel like unlocking the gate of her cage.

During Ramadan, the gate to Munira's house was opened once a day, from four to five in the evening. It is well-known that this hour is reserved for cooking and the breaking of the fast, and is not a time when people can visit, particularly not women. IWPS tried to inquire about the reasoning behind this schedule, but the Army did not respond. The intention, however, seems clear: to squeeze the family tighter and tighter until life becomes so unbearable that they surrender and leave.

Munira's is not the only Palestinian family being separated from its land and community. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a full 89% of the Wall itself will stray from the Green Line into Palestinian land. More than 270,000 Palestinians will be stranded between the Wall and the Green Line in what many refer to as the "Seam." Since they don't have Israeli citizenship, the families stranded in this land annexed by Israel have no rights even though they are required to pay taxes to Israel, like all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Furthermore, families in the Seam are required to obtain permits to continue living in their own homes on their own land. Jewish Israelis, on the other hand, are free to move into the Seam without permits. In fact, I could move there next week if I wanted to, because I'm Jewish.

Munira's is not the only family that is resisting. As a gesture of civil disobedience, many families in the village of Jubara near Tulkarem have been refusing to use permits. Permits for Palestinians are difficult to acquire and expire after three months. The families are afraid that if they accept the system of permits they may not receive them at all, or the government will use them as an excuse to force families out after three months. As punishment for refusing to carry permits, the people of Jubara have been kept under curfew and forbidden from leaving their village for the past month.

One week ago we went to Jubara to visit Asmi, a man whose house has been separated from his village by the Wall. Every day military jeeps drive through his backyard on their patrol of the Wall, and the Army has informed him that his house is under demolition order. Instead of leaving, Asmi and his family have found their own unique method of resistance: Asmi's family is building a new house, right next to the old one, so that when their first house is destroyed they can move into the second, buying themselves more time (assuming the military waits for a second demolition order).

On the way to Asmi's house, we met another family separated from their village by the Wall. The son smiled at us as we walked by and eventually the whole family came out and invited us in for tea. The son was studying at a university in Nablus but had not been able to go to school recently because of the checkpoint and curfew. His commute, which used to be half an hour before the Second Intifada, is now two hours each way. His younger sister and brother came out and we asked if they were in school too. They said they were, but that their school was on the other side of the Wall, so sometimes when the gates were closed they didn't make it. The gates are usually opened three times a day for an hour at a time. If they are closed, it's a 2.5-mile walk to the next gate, and another 2.5 miles to get back down to the village and school.

The father of the children looked at his land and olive groves with a mixture of pride and sadness. The mother motioned towards the Wall with disgust. "Our village, our family is on the other side of the Wall!" she exclaimed. "My mother is sick but I cannot go to her when she needs me because of the Wall. This is what they call peace? Every day they take more. And when we fight back they take even more. But stolen territory will never bring Israel security, as they suggest. Security will come from peace, and peace will never come from a wall."

Friday, November 28, 2003:

This morning on our walk out of Haris, we met a farmer named Dawud who said he had just been harassed by settlers from Revava settlement when he tried to reach his land between Revava and Haris. We offered to accompany Dawud if he wanted to go back, and he led us to the land where his family was waiting with a donkey. Dawud asked that just a few of us come along, including two Israeli activists. He said he was not interested in causing a scene; he just wanted to plow his land.

Revava settlement was founded in early 1991 in defiant response to a suggestion by world leaders that the settlements be evacuated. A few dozen religious Israelis snuck onto the land at night with trailers and set up camp. They refused to move, claiming the land legally belonged to them.2

Secret trailer establishments, like Revava once was, are called outposts. They are not recognized by the government, at least not at first. However, although Israeli law prohibits the government from subsidizing outposts the way it subsidizes most settlements, a majority of the 150 or so outposts in the West Bank and Gaza are illegally funded by Israeli state or public authorities.3 Strengthened by the State, the outposts welcome more settlers to move in, and the illegal establishments grow.

With time, the illegal group of trailers becomes more like a small village or town. Soon the inhabitants need a road to get around, and maybe a fence to "protect" them from Palestinians who are angry about the land they've lost. Eventually, the establishment is no longer an outpost; it's a settlement. Like many outposts, Revava grew into its own settlement, now recognized and supported by the Israeli government. This strategy has produced many of Israel's settlements.

Settlers recently set up trailers for a school on Dawud's olive groves outside of Revava. One can't help but wonder why settlers who frequently complain about the threat of Palestinians would build their children's school far away from the settlement itself, in the middle of Palestinian land. The trailers are not development; they are a new outpost. In another few months, the settlers will explain to the Army that they need security around their children's vulnerably-placed school, and they will annex the rest of Dawud's and other Haris villagers' land.

But the government is one step ahead of them. If the Wall continues as projected, the villagers of Haris will lose most of their land anyway. The settlers know this, but they are impatient. While Dawud and his family tried to plow, a settler drove up and asked if they would sell him their land. Dawud said that this is not the first time the settlers have asked. The Israeli activists told the settlers in Hebrew that the farmer really was not interested in selling his land. The settler replied, "If he is smart he will sell. I will buy it now for a tenth of its value. It will belong to Revava anyway in a few months. At least this way he can make some money off of it."

The settler drove away, but before the family could return to plowing a group of schoolgirls from the new outpost began to yell at the top of their lungs across the school's "security" fence. The children were singing a song in Hebrew about "my Israel." It was horrifying to watch. They were so young, and so confident in their security and immunity as they ridiculed the farmers. I waited for their teacher to come out and stop them but then I realized the teacher was standing with them in the middle of the group, singing along.

Two Israeli activists walked towards the group of girls to talk to them, but settler security stopped them. Dawud asked the activists to let it go; he and his family wanted to leave. We walked up to Haris roadblock, where we found that the Army had set up a temporary checkpoint. All traffic in and out of the village was being patrolled. Some of my neighbors were being detained. When the soldiers realized the activists with us were Israelis, they pulled them aside to warn them not to trust the Palestinians. "It could be very dangerous," they said. "We are concerned for your safety." Both activists said the only time they had ever felt threatened in the West Bank was by settlers.

Indeed, the religious zealots living in illegal settlements and outposts scare me more than soldiers or Palestinians ever could, because I don't understand them. I believe the vast majority of violence on the part of Palestinians comes from fear and trauma. The same could be said for most soldiers as well. This does not mean I condone the violence or excuse it, but on some level it does not surprise me. Ideological settlers, however, do not threaten or kill out of fear. Their actions are motivated by religious fanaticism.

Nobody has been more traumatized by violent settlers than the villagers of Yanoun, where I headed with my IWPS colleagues Jamie and Fatima after we left Dawud. First we took a taxi to Aqraba town, where Jamie's friend Adnan picked us up and drove us the rest of the way to the village. The road to Yanoun was bumpy and slow, but the view was spectacular: to the left were endless mountains of blooming olive groves, and on the right the mountains dropped off into a gigantic misty abyss. It was the Jordan Valley. We could vaguely make out Jordan on the other side.

As we drove, Jamie told us about the history of Yanoun. More than 80% of the village is olive groves that inhabitants harvest in order to survive. When we remarked on the beauty of the landscape, she explained that it is in fact the richness of Yanoun's land that renders it such a target for right-wing settlers of Itamar settlement, four miles away. Living in outposts surrounding Yanoun, Itamar settlers have been attacking and terrorizing the small village for years. They've murdered villagers peacefully picking their olives; they've burned the village's only generator and smashed its only water tank; they've swum in the village water supply, and when villagers complained, they invited their dogs in too; they've closed the only road into the village while shepherds were away with their goats; and they've stolen 90% of the village's land, including more than 27,000 ancient olive trees. They say the olive trees were planted by Jews 2,000 years ago, so they belong to the Jewish people today.

The mayor of Yanoun has been attacked by settlers seven times in the last five years and has a large scar above his eye from one incident. Another old farmer had one of his legs broken and one eye poked out by a violent settler. Another villager lost his sight after offering an approaching stranger a cigarette. The stranger turned out to be a settler, who beat him with his own walking cane. Adnan, our driver, was shot in the foot. Every family has a story: a mother throws her body over her child under a shower of stones from the settlers. Shepherds watch settlers poison 128 sheep but can do nothing to stop it. Even international volunteers are not immune; they have been beaten with clubs and rifle butts for accompanying farmers and shepherds to their land.

The Israeli government and Army have done nothing to stop the settler attacks on Yanoun. The Palestinian Authority couldn't do anything if it wanted to, because, like most of rural Palestine, Yanoun has so-called "Area C" status, which means that Israel is in charge of security. It also means that Palestinians are not permitted to construct any new buildings, or even to build onto their own houses. Meanwhile, settlers continue to put up trailers on every hilltop around.4

The violence in Yanoun climaxed in 2002, when things got so unbearable that Yanoun's residents were forced to evacuate. Fearing for their lives, the entire village packed up and left their ancestral homes and lands for nearby Aqraba. For a few days, the settlers had won. But Israeli and international activists quickly mobilized and committed themselves to maintaining a constant presence in the village if the inhabitants decided to return. About 90 of the original 300 inhabitants have now come back, but many homes remain empty.

When we arrived in Yanoun, Adnan's wife Mariam welcomed us warmly into their home and we relaxed in the living room, drinking tea and watching the couple's ten-month-old son Rafi struggle to take his first steps. Although Jamie had been in Yanoun during the weeks before and after Rafi's birth, this was her first time seeing the baby. When Mariam went into labor, the couple took an ambulance to Nablus, where the nearest hospital was located. The ambulance was stopped twice along the way, at both Zatara and Huwwara checkpoints. At the latter, Adnan was told he could not enter Nablus. He was forced to say goodbye to his screaming wife, who gave birth shortly afterwards in the ambulance—they didn't reach the hospital in time. After the birth, the Army closed Nablus completely, allowing nobody in or out, and Mariam waited to leave with her newborn infant for several days. Meanwhile, back in Yanoun, Adnan was beside himself with worry and frustration. When Mariam was finally allowed to return home, Rafi was ten days old. Adnan has missed the first week and a half of his first child's life.

After we said goodbye to Adnan and his family, Jamie took us for a tour through the village. Children at every house ran outside to greet us and their parents smiled from doorways. Jamie knew everyone by name and politely played the game of refusing tea until finally there's no point and you just have to give in. In one house, there was a little curly-haired redhead named Alima that Jamie told us about: "Alima's one of my favorite kids in Yanoun. When she first saw me, she thought I was a settler coming to take her family away and started screaming hysterically. It took the family fifteen minutes to calm her down and explain who I was. I've finally earned her trust."

Yanoun is divided into two parts, separated by several fields and olive groves. Lower Yanoun is populated by only two families: Adnan's and Alima's. The rest of the population lives in upper Yanoun, which was built on the slope of a hill now crowned by a particularly violent outpost. On the path up to upper Yanoun, Jamie pointed out the burned generator and polluted wells she had told us about earlier, as well as several houses that have remained empty since the evacuation. I could hear in Jamie's voice that she lamented the families' not returning to defend their lives and land, but that she also understood why they had left. Now matter how resilient and determined the human spirit can be, it has its limits. These families weren't willing to fight any longer.

We visited house after house all the way up to the top of the village. When we arrived at the mayor's house, he welcomed us in, served us tea, and had us sign a guest book. Another family had a child anxious to learn English, so I gave her a private lesson. We ate dinner at the International House, where a group of Canadians had taken that week's shift as international observers in Yanoun. They were from the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), an initiative of the World Council of Churches to work with Palestinians and Israelis towards nonviolently ending the Occupation. After dinner, we all made a fire under the stars and chatted with locals who stopped by to say hello.

Sitting by the fire, I asked Dave, an EAPPI volunteer, to tell me about his experiences in Hebron. He explained that Hebron is a full-time war zone, with a few hundred settlers living among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The settlers consider their presence a sacrifice to God, calling their settlement "God's bunker." He described graffiti on the walls of the local girls' school, stars of David drawn around phrases like "Death to Arabs," and "Send the Arabs to the gas chambers." Dave shuddered as he spoke. "There were bars on the windows, but settlers came and stuck in pipes to break the glass. There was no money to fix them, so the girls shivered through the winter. After school, settler kids would hide and wait for the girls to walk by, throwing stones and eggs at them as they passed. The other EAPPI volunteers and I walked with them sometimes, trying to shield the attacks. Once as we were walking I saw the mother of a settler child that was throwing stones at the young girls. I pointed and said, ‘Look! Look what your child is doing!' Her eyes fixed on me and her expression said clearly that she approved of her son's behavior. She hadn't come to discipline her child; she had come to watch."

I could not help but compare Dave's story with my recent experience watching the Revava teacher taunt Palestinian farmers along with her students. There's nothing more disturbing than watching adults condone or encourage inhumanity and cruelty in their children. How will settler children learn to distinguish right from wrong? Perhaps a stronger human instinct will someday surface to guide some of them towards transcending their deeply ingrained prejudices. Heroes remain to guide the way: Dawud refuses to sell his land to Revava. Yanoun returnees continue to live on their remaining land. The question is, how long will they be able to keep it up?

Saturday, November 29, 2003:

I took my first days off in everyone's favorite vacation spot, Nablus. First I went to Huwwara, hoping to get in from the southern checkpoint, but the soldiers refused to let me through. It was getting late and I was worried about getting to Nablus before dark, but I remembered our policy of not pleading with soldiers or asking for favors. We do not ask permission for something that is our right, and we do not validate the authority of soldiers whose presence in the West Bank is to protect settlers in illegal colonies. That doesn't mean we don't treat soldiers with respect, but we are careful that respect does not appear as consent for their illegal actions and presence. This is something we think and talk a lot about at the IWPS house, because we wish to distinguish between the people—namely the soldiers—and the institution that they are serving, and to recognize their humanity even amidst the inhumanity of their actions and the Occupation.

I asked around for a service taxi to another checkpoint but it was too late. A young man I'd shared a taxi with noticed my concern and asked if I needed a ride to Nablus. I nodded and he led me to a taxi full of other passengers who couldn't get through. After some bargaining with the driver, we set off down the highway for about fifteen minutes until we reached a spot on the side of the road next to a steep hill that had clearly been trodden before. Everyone hurriedly got out of the taxi and I quickly realized that we were entering Nablus the long way, over the hills, to avoid a checkpoint. We ran up to the summit and climbed over two roadblocks. There we found a taxi waiting to take us to a nearby town, where we could find transport into Nablus. By the time we reached the city it was after dark. The young man led me to a shared taxi bound for Balata refugee camp, where I was staying that night in the ISM apartment. He would not take any money for the entire journey. I insisted, but he just put his hand on his heart and smiled to say that I was most welcome, and then walked away.

Balata sees more violence and incursions than most other places in Palestine, and the ongoing tragedy is evident as you walk through the camp. There are bullet holes in every house, school, and store. The children are tougher than those in other Palestinian communities, and their parents are more suspicious. But the barrier is easily broken with a little Arabic and indication of solidarity. It was in Balata that I met Omar.

Omar is a sad-looking man with big eyes. A year and a half ago, on the day I graduated from college in cheerful oblivion, Omar's cousin Mahmoud was shot three times by a tank, which tore his body into four pieces. Mahmoud belonged to Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, the military wing of Fatah party.

I asked Omar why Mahmoud had become so active in Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade. He told me his cousin had once been a Palestinian police officer but found it impossible to have any significant effect with constant Israeli military invasions. One day Mahmoud confronted the raiding Army with two friends; one of them was killed and the other sent to prison for over twenty years. He joined the brigade after that.

When Omar's younger brother heard of his cousin's death, he was devastated. Five days later, he strapped a bomb to his chest and blew himself up in a city outside of Tel Aviv, killing an Israeli woman and her eighteen-month-old granddaughter. Omar's brother was eighteen years old.

International volunteers visit Omar's house in Balata, not in support of what his brother did but in protest of the home demolition threatening Omar's family, a form of collective punishment in retaliation for his brother's crime. There is a picture of Mahmoud and Omar's brother in the front hall of family's house. Balata camp is covered in pictures of men and women who have been killed by Israeli forces, or who have killed themselves in attacks on Israel. They are revered and mourned by the community as martyrs, regardless of how they died.

Omar and I spent the evening playing Palestinian backgammon and talking. Omar learned to play backgammon during his seven years in and out of jail since 1985, when he was first arrested at the age of thirteen. He had been on his way to school when he was picked up by a jeep and put into prison for six months. The soldier who arrested him claimed he had thrown a stone, but Omar insists he never threw stones. Never, that is, until after he spent six months in jail. When he was released from prison, his attitude had changed. If they were free to imprison him without trial for six months, he would have no qualms about throwing stones or Molotov cocktails. That was Omar's attitude until he started working with ISM.

ISM has a strict policy of nonviolence. I asked Omar what his friends and family thought of ISM's strategies and he said, "They support my nonviolent resistance work with ISM. Most of my friends do too. Yet the Israeli media says we are animals and killers. But they are killing us!"

Omar pointed to a crack in the ceiling.

That is from a bomb that exploded the same night I stood at this window and watched my friend get shot on the street below. I wanted so desperately to go help him but I couldn't because the Army was shooting. I am powerless. I am part of ISM but I cannot do Checkpoint Watch; I would have no effect. I cannot even go to an organizational meeting next week because there are three checkpoints between me and the meeting—with my last name, I will never make it. It is very frustrating, and as the Occupation policies become stricter it will become harder to find people sympathetic to ISM's strategies. Nonetheless, I believe there is still hope for nonviolence. Even with one brother paralyzed from debris during a raid and another one with only eight fingers, after he lost two in the same raid. Even as I watch three of my cousins and my nephew spend their lives in prison.

Omar looked at me and I saw he had tears in his eyes. When he saw my face he looked down, ashamed, "I'm sorry I make you sad. I shouldn't bother you with my problems." I encouraged him to continue. He smiled. "Thank you so much for listening to me. I have nobody left to talk to, and I'm happy to know that you are listening." I nodded. Omar was ready to tell his story. These are his words as I remember them:

I was crossing at a checkpoint near Nablus when a soldier asked me my name. I told him and immediately he asked me about Mahmoud: "Why did your cousin die?" he asked. I said, "Because you killed him!" Then the soldier asked, "Why did your brother explode himself with bombs?" and I answered, "Why do you think?" The soldier told me I would go to jail because my family was dangerous. I said that I was different than my brother, but he said that I was Palestinian, and so I did not want peace. He called some men to take me away.

The police took me to a room where I was blindfolded and my hands were tied behind my back. Ten men beat me on and off for many hours. I remember it was raining outside. When they had finished there was blood streaming down my face so they took me to an Army doctor. The doctor looked at me once and said no problem, although I was badly hurt. I waited for them to take me to my room where I could rest. Instead they took me to another room where they beat me for about one more hour.

When they had finished they took me to a small empty dark room with water on the floor. They left me there, shivering on the floor, with blood all over my body. Occasionally they would bring me food, but it was food not even fit for animals. I did not eat for three days. After five days in solitary confinement, the captain told me I would stay in jail for six months. When I asked why, he repeated the reasons of the first soldier: he said I was dangerous, and that even if my brother was dead the "Arab wrath" would continue in me.

The next six months were a living hell. If a soldier ever asks me if I prefer prison or death, I will not have to think twice. The bathrooms in jail were repulsive. Every day, we had half an hour for thirty people to use one toilet. We were all sick with not being able to go to the bathroom, and when we complained that it was not enough time the guard told us, "Don't worry, you can go tomorrow."

There were boys there only fourteen years old. And there was an eighty-year-old man who was very sick in bed crying. I told the guard he needed a doctor, or he was going to die. The guard answered, "He is dangerous. If he dies, then the people of Israel will be safe."

One week before my prison time was finished I could not sleep. I was tortured with fears that they would decide to keep me another six months, or worse, that they would deport me to Gaza, so I could never see my family again. And then they told me I could go. It was a wonderful feeling of freedom, until the reality sank in that I was returning to life in another cage. I had gone from one prison to another, a bigger prison, called Balata. I am still in prison. We all are.

Omar is luckier than some. He was on Amnesty International's list of illegal political prisoners until he was released. But he remains trapped. He is desperate to leave Palestine. One international invited him recently to visit Germany. He applied for permission to leave but Israel rejected the application because of his name; denied passports or legal citizenship anywhere, Palestinians in the Occupied Territories can't travel or migrate without permission from Israel.5 The police say Omar is dangerous, and I am reminded of how people become what people expect of them. I hope that Omar will be stronger than that. He said he hopes so too.

I asked Omar if his brother had warned him before he killed himself and others. Omar looked at me incredulously: "Are you kidding? Do you think I would have let him go?" His anger turned to tears. "I would have locked him in the house and brought him food and never let him out of my sight! He was my baby brother... And if I ever meet someone who knew what he was going to do and didn't tell me, I'll never forgive them."

I asked Omar if he wanted to tell me about his brother. He smiled and looked off into space. "He's not my brother anymore. He's a part of me, inside of me." Omar patted his chest. "I still feel him here. He was great, very charismatic, always coming home with a new crazy hairstyle. He loved to dress up nice and wear fancy cologne and he couldn't wait to buy a car to drive around the pretty girls." Omar laughed for the first time that night. "He was the only person around who didn't smoke. He hated cigarettes, and he would yell at me that it was bad for my health when I smoked. He was so smart... A year before he died he finished high school and wanted to study in a university but we didn't have the money. He had worked three years in a small hospital in Israel but lost his job when the Second Intifada started. After that he was working odd jobs to save up the money for school. He wanted to be a doctor."

Omar turned to me with a big smile, "Thank you for asking." I smiled back, sadly. I didn't know what to say. There were no words to comfort. How could I tell him he was not alone when so much of the world has turned their backs on people with stories just like his? He kept apologizing for troubling me, which broke my heart even more.

I told Omar I wanted to tell him something. He listened. I looked him in the eyes and said, "I'm Jewish." He looked surprised, but kept listening. "My family also has a devastating history. My grandparents were refugees from the Holocaust and many of their parents, sisters, and brothers were killed by the Nazis." Omar cocked his head and shook it slowly. A pained look had come into his eyes. He spoke. "I see Sharon as a second Hitler. I hate Sharon but I do not hate Jews, and I do not hate you. God loves everyone: Muslims, Jews, Christians, everyone. If you do good, then you go to Heaven. God doesn't distinguish and neither do I."

I am not writing this account to excuse what Omar's brother did. It is appalling, and likely only inspired more violence. Interactions like the one I had with Omar don't make the tragedies any more bearable, but they do remind me that Palestinians who attack Israelis or Israelis who attack Palestinians are not homicidal maniacs. Many on both sides truly believe that the other is out to destroy them, and that violence is their only hope of survival. Fear makes people do crazy things. The struggle is to revive the humanity amidst the fear.

It's hard to feel human in Palestine, with the Wall closing in and the threat of imprisonment always lurking. There are more than 8,000 Palestinian political prisoners being held in Israeli prisons today, about 10% of whom are in administrative detention,6 meaning they can be held without charge or trial, indefinitely.7 More than a quarter of Palestinian men living in the Occupied Territories have spent some time in prison. Almost every day, I meet former prisoners. In Nablus, a young man not much older than me saw me looking confused and asked in English if he could help me. I needed a phone and he let me use his. I asked him where he had learned English and he said in prison in Israel. He had just been released the year before after nine years in prison, from the age of 18 to 27.

A few days ago, my friend Ra'ad and his friend were walking at a university near Jerusalem when they stumbled upon a temporary checkpoint. The two were arrested and Ra'ad was released shortly thereafter. His friend is still in prison and we have been working to get him released, or at least to find out the reason why he is being held.

The stories don't end; they multiply. Tonight I received a call from the father of a 23-year-old accountant named Amjad who was arrested this afternoon at Huwwara checkpoint without explanation. I tried calling the military prison where we thought he might be, but the prison operator was unwilling to talk to me. I immediately called the Israeli human rights organization Hamoked. They had more luck phoning in Hebrew and located Amjad, who is being held for inspection without charges. He has never had any problems with the Army, and his family is extremely upset and worried. They are not allowed to visit him, nor can he contact them.

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