Cathy Sultan

The West Bank is fragmented by checkpoints, settler-only roads, closed military zones and Israeli-declared “nature reserves.” The road barriers come in many forms — barbed wire, metal fences, cement blocks, dirt mounds, trenches and permanent border crossings or terminals like Qalandia around every Palestinian city. The one at Qalandia actually says “Welcome to Israel,” as though it was an international border. Cathy Sultan writes from the occupied West Bank.

My love affair with Lebanon began when I left America in 1969 to settle in Beirut with my Lebanese husband, Michel, and our two small children, Naim and Nayla. In Beirut, I found my place to grow. My commitment to stay there through the first eight years of the civil war was a consequence of that deep love affair. I had married into a family that was loving and accepting. It was exciting to wake up every day as a foreigner embraced by a Lebanese family. This is the kind of love which develops a loyal Beirut heart, one which never dissolves. When war began in 1975 I chose for practical reasons to stay and fight. When I say ‘fight’ I mean fight in a way a housewife does.