my first day in Palestine

I crossed the checkpoint yesterday, from Jerusalem to Ramallah.
I'd heard 'you'll be taken and searched, you'll be interrogated and questioned, you'll have to wait for hours.'
We drove in the taxi, right through. No questions asked. No passports checked.

I am moving to Ramallah for the summer. So far, my journey has been terrific, but filled with so many complex emotions.

I spent a couple days in Israel, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, before crossing into Palestine.
I entered hesitantly. I have come with a sort of hatred for the Israeli state. For its gross violations of Palestinian and Israeli human rights, and for its international grand-standing that takes exception to any probe or question about its actions. I felt I would say something wrong at every turn. Flip out on an unsuspecting coffee shop owner - 'do you know what your country is doing! Do you have any idea what is being done in your name?!'
But I didn't.

Instead, I was completely awe-struck by the place.
It was beautiful, people invited us to drink and dance with them, they drove us around and let us stay in their homes. They were incredibly kind and human. Just like anyone else.

I am starting this blog to put up words and experiences I think capture the situation, or at least my situation (a Canadian women working in Palestine) today.
I want to show how there is real dissent from within the country, how there are amazing people and how confounding all this is.


I woke up this morning, in my new flat in Ramallah, and started reading Haaretz. One of the editorials, from this ultra-Zionist newspaper, said "Israel is becoming a pariah state because the extreme right has taken it over almost entirely. The army has undergone an extreme turnabout and does not distinguish between anti-Semitism and the abhorrence the enlightened world feels toward it as a settler and an occupier."

Rachel Neiman, in Haaretz, wrote "I would like to be happy with my Israeliness - I have no other tongue. But I feel like a stranger in this country that has walls and fences in its heart, and I can find neither joy nor pride in my own heart."

I am here to spend four months working in community health programs and doing research on women's participation in local society. I want to know how people on this side of the Green Line feel, and if or how weary they have become. Comments like those above suggest to me that the settlements in the West Bank, and the "myths about the pioneers and the draining of the swamps" have had their time, and are not sustainable for much longer.

Thanks for reading so far, and I hope I can bring some more words and thoughts up soon.