Well, I’ve settled into a routine somewhat here in Birzeit. I have class every day except Friday and Sunday (the two holidays in the Palestinian territories, to recognize the Muslim and Christian holy days.) Every morning I walk about 10 minutes to the main circle of Birzeit, take the bus to the University, which only costs a shekel and a half. Palestine uses three currencies: shekels, Jordanian dinars, and dollars, but shekels are by far the most widely used. I’ve heard many complain that they’re not allowed their own currency, but that will happen if the two-state plan comes into effect, I’m sure. It’s very ironic that Palestinians are using money stamped with menorahs and Jewish leaders. Anyway, I digress.

The University is packed with students. It’s only about 6,000 but it’s a tiny campus so the effect in the cafeteria or in the main gathering area is one of a mob of students. I’m continually intrigued with the two different types of girls on campus. There are largely two extremes: those that do not wear a headscarf and have skin tight shirt and jeans, high heels, and lots of make-up; and those that have the headscarf and an overcoat falling all the way to the ground that hides any body outline. These two groups rarely, if ever mingle with each other. In fact, there are even different cafeterias on campus, one which is known as the more Islamic one and one that is the more liberal one. Of course, there are exceptions, those girls who wear a headscarf but Western style clothes and those that are in Western style clothes but not skin-tight. And there are groups which include girls that are covered and uncovered, but these are strikingly less. I think it’s not healthy to have such extremes, but I haven’t observed enough to know in what ways. It’s just a feeling I get.

Some other trends…EVERYONE (well, every guy) smokes here, in the halls, in the cafeteria, in the offices, in the restaurants. It is intolerable! We went out the other night to a jazz concert and I had to leave every five minutes because my eyes were streaming tears due to the smoke. I’ve seen many young boys even smoking. The other day we visited our neighbors and their young son of 10 years old lit up the hookah pipe, which is even stronger than cigarettes.

By the way, I love our neighbors who live across the street. They are about 8, all cramped into a tiny apartment. Nearly every night the young ones come over to get help with their English homework. (The older girls want to but can’t come over since there are men who live above us and apparently it’s not appropriate to be seen by them after dark.) The kids are so sweet and patient with my Arabic. I realized kids are perfect to practice with because they are so patient and they don’t speak English!

On the other hand, the guys who live above us are slightly annoying. They are like bodyguards, tracking who comes over and when and always popping in unannounced. They will not allow us to have male visitors after dark, not even to do homework or hang out. They say it reflects badly on the whole building and one of their sister’s lives in the building. Okay, understandable, but still, it gets dark at 6:30, which is often when I get home and start my homework. I guess I should just realize that it is their way of looking out for us as well. At least I feel incredibly safe with them around!

Okay, off to class…

Two days ago I spent the day in Jerusalem. It was amazingly easy. From campus, I took the bus to Ramallah and then a direct bus to Jerusalem (only for Jerusalem residents and foreigners). Others have to go through a lengthy search and checkpoint via a different route. The drive took 40 minutes or so, and much of it was all along the infamous wall that Israel has built between it and the Palestinian territories. The “fence” as some Israelis call it, is a HUGE, very permanent structure in look and feel and surrounded in barbed wire, lights, and communication posts. The Palestinian side is littered with graffiti. My first thought was that it looked like a prison. Then I realized that it looked just like the protective barriers around the green zone, except this one was much higher.

It was quite surreal to be driving in what felt like a huge prison and to see kids near the wall and normal life proceeding apace. I couldn’t imagine what these kids felt and thought having grown up with this.

The wall is a constant topic among Palestinians and there are regular demonstrations and protests on parts of the wall Israel is still building. In many parts, the wall has separated Palestinians from their families, farmers from their farmland and has cut through large swaths of what is considered Palestinian territory. It also presents a psychological barrier for Palestinians to the outside world and a symbol for a deep-seated resentment towards Israel. There’s nothing like a wall to create a clearly defined and delineated divide—a barrier to interaction, communication, understanding, collaboration—all such necessary qualities for a community, relations, and especially, peace…

As we drove up to the checkpoint and approached the soldiers, I felt this strange feeling of shame or guilt mixed with fear. Like I had done something wrong but I knew I hadn’t, like I was one of the accused. And that created a feeling of resentment and anger because I knew I wasn’t, that I had every right to be travelling there. This feeling intensified when the soldier boarded our bus and checked everyone’s identity cards. He gave me a hard time because apparently the official who questioned me at the airport hadn’t given me any paper indicating I had a visa for Israel. In the end, he let me go, but I have no idea how to move around Israel with no visa!

In Jerusalem, I met up with several friends for the day and walked around both East Jerusalem (the Arab side) and West Jerusalem. The differences were amazing. East jerusalem is a lot like Ramallah, as in chaotic and cramped, with goods and people spillling on to the streets. West Jerusalem is incredibly green, spacious, orderly, modern. I gawked at the change in dress, tank tops, short skirts. My Israeli Jewish friend with whom I spent the afternoon, said the two parts of the city are truly “different worlds”. In East Jerusalem, I was the only tourist that I saw and I was stopped by Israeli special forces, who asked me where I was from and what I was doing there. My Arab friend later told me these forces have free reign in Arab areas and he and all his friends are terrified of them. They can question, imprison, intimidate anyone they want with impunity.

As usual, I had lots of conversations about politics. In West Jerusalem, I talked with some folks in a restaurant who talked about the huge change in the relationship since the first intifadah, how they used to be able to travel freely to the Palestinian areas and vice versa and regularly enjoyed going to Ramallah. Now, Israelis are forbidden by the Israeli government to travel to the West Bank (for their safety, they say) and Palestinians are likewise forbidden to enter.

The owner of the restaurant however, was the first truly optimistice person I’d heard. He believed people would soon tire of fighting, two states would emerge, and over time would develop normal relations with each other.

On the other side, my Arab friend from Jerusalem and I talked about Hamas. I questioned why Hamas was so dumb as to refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Israel is smart, I said. They may in reality continue to deny Palestinians territory, rights, and want the whole land themselves, but they don’t say that. Hamas on the other hand has no ability to destroy or make war against Israel, but they say something so outrageous that the international community could never accept. I was dumbfounded when he got very agitated at this. We don’t recognize their right to exist! They’ve only been around 50 years. Somehow, with weapons or resistance or even God’s help, we will kick them out because they kicked us out. This is not their land. Sigh, back to square one.

As an aside, on this topic of saying vs. doing, I thought that it’s interesting that in the West we are accustomed to believing what our government says. In the Middle East, however, there is so much propaganda and conspiracy theories that no one believes what governments or politicians say, they look much more to actions. (Conspiracy was actually the first Arabic word I learned in Iraq!) This different perspective gets both sides in trouble. For example, in Iraq, the US seemed to believe what politicians said, (especially if they spoke to us in English), rather than what they were actually doing on the ground. Meanwhile, we also think in regards to our own actions, “Well, we’ll just tell them the truth, tell them what we want to do, why we’re here.” This didn’t really matter, because what Iraqis saw was so different than our words of democracy and development.

1.) Birzeit U. track
2.) BU Engineering building (the largest major on campus)
3.) Important Notice at the entrance of campus!
4.) Birzeit City Hall
5.) Main circle in Birzeit where we catch the bus to school.
6.) Kids in the old city having fun.
7.) PAS students at a local restaurant
8.) Old city street (The newest building is 200 years old, acc. to our guide. He also said there are always a lot more problems in the old parts of cities between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian opponents because there are many tunnels and hide-aways left over from long ago.)

The first picture is of the town of Birzeit, followed by pictures of the apartment I share with a Japanese student also in the PAS program. The last is the view from our sunroom of Birzeit’s lovely hills covered with olive trees.

Everywhere around my neighborhood the word “Hamas” is spray-painted in green and the posters of Fatah are defaced. I found that surprising since Birzeit is a moderate and half-Christian town. I’ve been canvassing the Palestinians I’ve met about the political situation–a group that includes individuals at a refugee camp we visited, our various guides, and professors and students at school.

Here are some preliminary views I’ve heard.

1.) Palestinians voted for Hamas, even long-time Fatah members, mainly to “get back” at Fatah for its corruption, mafia-like leadership style, and the fact that the party had done so little for the Palestinians. Some Palestinians, of course, favored Hamas’ more militant style, since they believed Fatah’s failure made it clear that nothing can be gained by cooperating at every point with the Israelis because it means Palestinians just get taken advantage of. With Fatah, Palestinians saw more of their land taken, more stringent security procedures, more frequent incursions and campaigns into their areas, and finally, being cut off from the world with the wall.

Incidentally, Hamas parliamentarians and ministers are the only ones who have received any salaries the past 6 months. The others have received nada, since the West cut off funding to the PA. The Palestinians with whom I spoke believed the money was coming from Iran and/or Syria, and that it was obvious that Hamas was very well-funded. (I don’t quite understand the West’s logic. Hamas’ ability to “take care of their own” and buy support in a society in serious need of finances will just increase the party’s standing. Everyone was outraged about the West’s cutting off aid as not hurting Hamas, whom they intended to punish, but hurting the Palestinian people. The Palestinians were not blaming Hamas, but the West, for this worsened condition. We did similarly in Iraq, stood by as the Iranians heavily funded the Shia Islamists parties. Meanwhile, the moderate democrats there pleaded for support and funding and we didn’t do anything because we “didn’t want to interfere”. And we wonder why Islamists won the elections?)

2.) Most saw the two-state solution as the best of the all bad options. “We MUST have our freedom,” they all exclaimed. They all agreed living under occupation was like living in a prison and was inhumane and unbearable. A two-state solution would at least give them sovereignty within their areas.

3.) Most believed it just that the “right of return” meant that Palestinians who could prove their land holdings in Israel should be allowed to get their land back or be compensated. However, they were sure a two-state solution would mean compromise on this point and they would be satisfied with the “right of return” for Palestinians outside the territories to return home.

4.) The students I talked to, interestingly, all said that the only way to accomplish these goals was through militant resistance, since past experience had shown Israel would not respond to anything else. I didn’t get clear answers from the older folks. (Not a good trend if the youth are getting farther and farther apart, and more and more militant.) The students pointed out that all the parties call for resistance (even leftist parties, such as the PFLP and Communists). There is only one leader (I can’t remember his name!) who does not and he is regarded as a buffoon by most Palestinians and has very little support even though he is heavily funded by the EU. I asked the students why smart, moderate individuals like themselves didn’t start a party and they laughed. I’m going to keep pressing!

As another aside about students and politics, the Public Relations head officer of Birzeit said the students are extremely politicized. Their student council is voted upon by party: for example, Hamas won the majority of seats on the council last year and Fatah the second highest. I asked if they ever collaborate on activities or if this means that most of their activities are political in nature. He said that they do collaborate on protests about school fees or issues, or against the occupation. However, most issues become political. He did not think that the student groups received financial or other support from the parties themselves. (I find this highly doubtful; this was a big problem in Iraq.)

5.) Gaza is much more radical politically than the West Bank because they are much more economically impoverished and isolated. A girl in our program is Palestinian-German, originally from Gaza, and went there for a while before coming to Birzeit. Her description paralleled Iraq: intermittent electricity and water, daily shootings and killings, very Islamist.

Okay, off to Ramallah to hear a jazz concert. Contrary to the news, Ramallah is a very happening and fun city! Classes start tomorrow… Oh yeah, and I got my first proposal last night from our neighbor (23 and owns a supermarket across the street. Yes, Justin, I refused him, of course! I said he was just a boy and I was way too old for him!)