I am thirsty, sitting here in the wrong corner of the ‘service’ (pronounced ‘serveece’) taxi. It is hot. The seat belt is tight, scratching my neck. I am sweating. The sun is beating down on me. I am hungry. My mind meanders, searching various avenues of escape. Could I walk through the checkpoint, leaving my fellow Palestinians behind? Would I find a car on the other side? Could I pay a sum to a private car waiting in line on the other side of the dead, closed closure point? Could I persuade someone to leave the line and turn around and take me to my destination? Read more about Valley of Fire 

We piled into four shiny, new Mercedes, and headed into a foggy night in Tunisia, speeding up and down hills until we came to an office in a suburb. Armed young guards lounged at the front door. They were smiling broadly and looked like they wanted to high-five us rather than do any security checks. Our delegation filed into the main room. A burgundy sofa-set curved around half of the room, in the middle of which was an office chair on wheels. In it sat Yasser Arafat, devoid of his trademark kaffiyeh. He was in high spirits, despite the late hour, and welcomed those he’d met before with kisses and hugs, and then shook hands with the rest of us. He looked at me and asked, out of the blue: “Are you Irish?” EI co-founder Laurie King-Irani reflects on Arafat’s legacy and failings. Read more about After Arafat: refracted reflections 

With the whole of the West Bank locked down by the Israeli army on the day of Yasser Arafat’s burial, we made our way to Beitunia, the official crossing point into Ramallah from Israel. For Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs, Israel’s Palestinian citizens and foreigners it was the sole gateway to the Muqata’a compound, the place where “Abu Ammar”, the Palestinian president, was to be buried. Greeting us at a dusty car park before Beitunia checkpoint was a short khaki-clad soldier, armed with clipboard, called Tali - we knew that because she was wearing a name tag in three languages. She and the other soldiers had also been ordered to take off their helmets and berets and wear instead customer-friendly blue baseball caps bearing the initials MP (presumably short for Military Police). Read more about Palestinians reach out to their leader for a final embrace 

The Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence is larger than the late President Yasir Arafat. The decades-long symbolism that Arafat embodied should not be underestimated. It is this symbolism that Palestinians are mourning. Despite the confusion of the hour, one fact remains clear. The Palestinian people, collectively, whether in the Occupied Territories, scattered in squalid refugee camps around the Middle East, or living in exile, will never wake up one day and accept the historic injustice that has been done to them. Read more about Palestine Greater Than Arafat  

Catching a taxi to my apartment near Arafat’s compound in Ramallah the other night, the Palestinian driver’s immediate question concerned my nationality. “Germany?” he asked. No. “France?” No. “Switzerland?” No. “Italy?” No … Before he covered the rest of Europe, I somewhat sheepishly admitted, “America.” He cut to the chase: “Do you support Bush?” With an almost desperate note of pain in his voice, different from that of the jaded drivers I usually have, he asked me about occupied Palestine, about occupied Iraq. “Why does your country do this to us?” he asked me. “Are we bad?” “Am I no good?” Read more about A letter from Palestine to my fellow Americans 

Olive harvesting, an ancient practice that holds great spiritual and economic significance to Palestinians, is threatened by Israel’s colonization of West Bank lands. In areas such as the village of Jayyous, farmers have been cut off from their olive orchards by the apartheid wall Israel is illegally building on Palestinian land with the intention of annexing precious natural resources to the Israeli side while preventing the rightful Palestinian owners access to their land. But here in Yanoun, it is the Israeli settlers themselves who harass and shoot at the Palestinian harvesters, whose only crime is their desire to work the land that their ancestors have tended for generations. Read more about Photostory: Olive harvest in Lower Yanoun 

While the BBC and CNN have been treating the failing health and rumored death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as the world’s top story for the past two days, it is business as usual here in Ramallah. Though journalists swarmed the PA headquarters where Arafat has been holed up for the past three years (known in Palestine as the Maqata’a) last night and presumably this morning, news of Arafat’s impending death did not stop the Friday markets from bustling this morning — another Friday during Ramadan. Today I casually asked a Palestinian man I had been talking to in a shop what he thinks will happen in Ramallah once Arafat dies. “Nothing,” he said. Read more about Just another Ramadan Friday in Ramallah 

We all cannot sleep, this Friday early morning. Mary, Jara and I sit around the TV to watch the latest news about Arafat. The best news on offer is the announcement that he is not yet dead but in coma, a “reversible coma,” it is said later on. Palestinian spokespersons in Ramallah and Paris were yesterday contradicting each other. I am reminded of the repeated complaints, at a recent conference, by young Palestinian media students about the presence of multiple spokespersons at the PNA. Jara solemnly announces that she hopes that “our leader will not die.” Toine van Teeffelen writes about the feeling in the streets of Bethlehem. Read more about The Mountain Shakes