In the beginning

Hey all,

I'm realizing that this blog may not be updated as frequently as I had initially hoped, so the posts that I do make will be as detailed as possible.

For some background, I am volunteering with the Palestine Solidarity Project in the village of Beit Ommar, located in the West Bank. I have been in Palestine for almost a week now, and this is my first time out of the United States.

Coming into Israel was not easy. When I arrived in Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, I was interrogated four times in the space of an hour about my reasons for coming. Israel is very nervous about internationals who are coming to volunteer, so even though I dressed up nicely and had a plausible story not involving my actual work here, they still asked many questions. Thankfully, I was allowed in.

On my shared taxi ride from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, one of the first things I was struck by was the Apartheid Wall running along the road. For my readers who may not be familiar with what I'm referring to, this is also referred to in the media as the Separation Barrier or something similar. It's being constructed to protect Israeli settlements in the West Bank from being removed as the result of negotiations with the Palestinians. Seeing it for the first time, I mistook the barbed wire for some sort of nature preserve or park, but as it continued for miles I realized I was seeing in person this very ugly tool of the occupation. Further into the country the wall is sometimes concrete slabs and watch towers.

I attended two demonstrations last Friday. This is very important - much like legal observers at a demonstration in the US, internationals can help lessen the violence used by the Israeli military against demonstrators. The military is more than willing to use force against peaceful demonstrations by Palestinians.

Besides demonstrations, most of my time has been spent in Beit Ommar itself. Volunteering here means many things. Sometimes it means accompanying residents when they protest the occupation. Sometimes it means going on a bus with hundreds of crazy children to a water park outside of Hebron. I've enjoyed every minute of it.

I am very fortunate to be here, it's hard for me to describe. When you sit with families on land they have lived on for generations, talking about this and that and playing with children in the shade of the tree outside of the house, you know what you're fighting for.

There is much more I can say, but that's all for now.