Diaries: Live from Palestine

Letter from Los Angeles

Last night I returned from the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. I met with religious and political leaders from both sides, spoke with Red Cross workers and people from UNRWA returning from Jenin and Ramallah, and had talks with a Jewish American man and a Japanese woman who’d been trapped in Ramallah, both attempting to go back in with medicines despite the shrapnel still lodged in the Japanese woman’s leg. 

The oracle at Jenin

On Wednesday I left the wasteland of Gaza and came to East Jerusalem where it is easier to base oneself for traveling. For two days I stayed in the Jenin refugee camp, returning only late this evening. I know I will have to write about it soon in much greater detail than here, even though I know many people are doing this. The sorry truth is that it will not be nearly enough. 

Under Siege: 2-15 April 2002

I went out of my house today, for the first time in four days. The Israelis allowed us to buy food but we can only be on the streets for two hours. The city is destroyed. Cars on the side of the road crushed flat like pizza. Tanks rolled over them. 

Cries of the heart

Nestled in the rolling hills and mountains in the north are numerous small Arab villages scattered among the olive trees and agricultural fields. Spring red poppies and wild flowers are in full bloom tucked among various breeds of tall grasses. 

Strange birds above Abu Dis

It is a disturbing indication of my acclimation to the militarization of everyday life here that when a group of Apache helicopters began bearing down overhead in a closed village where no one is allowed to be on the streets, what first came to my mind were Lauri Anderson lyrics and second, whether there are batteries in my camera. 

A letter from Oakland

As a Palestinian-American I enjoy the rights of my country of citizenship. This makes it difficult for me to understand what it must be like to watch another nation’s tanks roll into your community and destroy everything in their path—your car, your neighbor’s house, electrical poles, gardens and community businesses. 

Pages