Sprouting geysers in Iceland, where the venting ground is a dormant giant whale when not a volcano.

Travel offers an appreciation of nature’s marvels.

***

The ancient city engraved in pink stone— Petra, symbols and tombs the size of mountains— the Pyramids, a lover’s eulogy— Taj Mahal, an art collection’s most reveled sanctuary– Hermitage, and a once despised entrance arch—Le Tour Eiffel.

Travel gives an appreciation of Man’s marvels.

Travel is pilgrimage to holy places, Jerusalem, Lourdes, Mecca, Varanasi, catering to the mystical, the spiritual; magnificent temples immersed in gardens on precipices, often combining both nature’s and man’s marvels with a revered historical reference.

Travel enriches.

Travel is adventure, a suspension of reality, an escape to an unknown place, sharing an intimate moment with a complete stranger that feels familiar, under a clear night sky on a Greek Island, skinny dipping, fearless and daring.

Travel reminds us that we are born free.

Travel with someone reveals truths, exposes other sides, tests relationships.

Travel adds to a life’s experience.

Auschwitz, Hiroshima.

Travel reminds us of the horror and madness that man is capable of inducing.

But that is not the travel I wish to talk about today.

***

Working for a multinational consulting company in San Francisco some years ago, I was assigned a two week project in Ramallah, West Bank, Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Landing in Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv, I proceeded to immigration and security, feeling secure with my Canadian passport.

“First time in Israel?” the young girl behind the counter said. She must have been in her early twenties.

“Yes.”

“You were born in Jordan?” She leafed through my passport.

“Yes.”

After a few customary questions about the length and purpose of my visit, and after checking documents by my employer validating my assignment, she asked,

“Where are your parents from?”

“Here.”

Her eyebrows flinched.

“Where exactly?”

“My father is from Ramleh [not Ramallah] and my mother is from Jafa.”

“Please go to the office over there.”

She kept my passport and uttered something in Hebrew into her transceiver. I had arranged with my colleagues to meet at the airport, their flights having arrived before mine, and was anxious not to miss our connection. I had no experience navigating this terrain and my cell phone did not function.

After an hour’s wait with other Arabs, I finally got my turn.

“Are these your bags?” an officer said.

“Yes.”

He proceeded to ask me more questions, went through every boring detail in my bag, then took in his hands a book with music scores and flipped through its pages.

“So you play music huh?” he said with belittling amusement. I was reminded of the story of the Palestinian violinist, who was forced to play his violin before the guards at one of the check points in the West Bank. Luckily, piano is not a portable instrument.

Having found nothing suspicious, the officer ushered me to another check point where my bags and I passed through two X-ray machines. After being cleared by the machines, he had the chutzpah to ask,

“Do you have any bombs on you?”

I wasn’t sure of the purpose of the question.

***

Graffiti in Palestine. Photo: iStock

Up until then, I’d only met Palestinians in Diaspora. My first encounter with Palestinians in their homeland was in Ramallah, a run-down place that, compared to Gaza, I was told, is considered the San Francisco of the Occupied Territories. I felt a sense of belonging with the people and the land. It was a strange feeling that I could only approximate to what I imagined to be the feeling of an orphan meeting his biological parents for the first time. After completing my work assignment, I spent a couple of days traveling around Palestine-Israel. I made sure to get a taxi with a license plate that allows it to travel in and out of Israel.

We headed to Ramleh, which became part of Israel proper – not the occupied territories – in 1948. We asked people to point us to City Hall. That was easy to find.

An unmistakable edifice, looking more like an overgrown house, sat in a vast plot of green against the backdrop of olive trees. The taxi stopped and I stepped out. Green grass, well kempt, covered the spacious porch before the entrance.

The façade had pink undertones and was beautified by arches and columns wrapping around a large balcony. As I drew closer, the immense edifice towered over me, making me feel very little. Perhaps it wasn’t really that immense but it did make me feel little. There was no one else but the structure and I.

Security cameras plastered high on the walls gave me the sense that I was being watched, made me feel like a trespasser. I must have looked suspicious for I really had no business being there, walking around this municipal government building.

Except that this house and this land, covering an area of 29.34 dunams (7.25 acres,) belongs to Shukri Rizk, my late grandfather. He had built it in 1947 and had no time or chance to enjoy it or bequeath it to my father.

1948. Forced expulsion. Compensation: nil.

I was defeated by a combination of pain and helplessness. I quickly extricated myself and walked away, re-entered the taxi and took off, never looking back.

My father still preserves the property’s proof of ownership. Many other Palestinians still hold on to such documents, for what they’re worth, for mine is a world governed by the rule of power not the rule of law, and what is history but a fable agreed upon, as Napoleon once said. Except, it is not agreed upon.

Travel nostalgia— you ask?

Exile— I say.

Travel enriches and travel impoverishes the heart as well.

(Today, there are over four and a half million Palestinian refugees registered with the U.N.)

Every time I think of 9/11

I see burning flesh

Dripping off the bones

Of Iraqi children in Fallujah

Now Gaza

I tend to memorialize the forgotten

The collateral damage

Eclipsing our unpunished crimes

Maybe it’s because I’m a numbers guy?

Kanazi speaks and performs with an urgency that commands your attention; his voice is forceful, lawyer-like in the way he pleads for justice. His conviction of opinion may offend the faint-hearted. Needless to say, Kanazi is never at a loss for words.

“I write a lot of angry pieces,” he confesses. “All you gotta do is turn on CNN to write a poem. Thanks to our government and media, I’m never devoid of creativity.”

While Kanazi uses his past growing up as the “the brownest thing going in a small western Massachusetts white Catholic town,” for inspiration, he wasn’t always so comfortable talking about his Palestinian heritage.

“Look, Arab Americans usually go two routes,” he says. “It’s either I am Arab hear me roar, or I want nothing to do with you people.” Remi was the latter. “I wanted McDonald’s, I wanted Coke, I was the fat kid who didn’t care and I rejected my Palestinian ancestry.”

Remi began singing another tune when he connected with Arabs in college. “When I talked to some of these people, there was an enormous feeling of embarrassment, of not knowing where I came from, and that pushed me to find out.”

After a brief stint as a business major at the University of Massachusetts, Remi moved to New York. He didn’t begin writing until about four months before 9/11. Following 9/11, his creative output only intensified:

“The backlash against Arabs, the mischaracterizations, the vitriol, it made me want to write,” he says.

Kanazi, who grew up politically conservative, began independently reading and researching, delving in progressive politics, Edward Said and “anything I could get my hand son.” He saw Def Jam poetry on Broadway and was drawn to Suheir Hammad and Carlos Andres Gomez. “It blew my mind how spoken word was so progressive and interlinked with socially conscious hip hop; it moved me in a way I wanted to emulate,” he says.

Activism drives his work. “I used to write op-eds, but I felt the youth was yearning for voices, for artists to say ‘this is me, and I’ not afraid.’”

In 2005 Remi started his poetry website PoeticInjustice.net and began booking shows.

“The first show I ever did was at a Palestinian Relief Fundraiser at St. Georges church in New Jersey. Natalie Hundall and Maysoon Zayid were reading that night.” The event organizer-Remi’s brother’s friend’s mom- read some of his poems off PoeticInjustice and asked him to perform.

“They said I would perform for ten min, and I was so mad at myself for agreeing, thinking I was gonna make an ass of myself. I was shaking like crazy but then I did it and it was the best feeling ever.”

Six months later, the idea for Poets for Palestine started. An anthology of poems edited by Kanazi, it unites poets, spoken word artists, and hip-hop artists calling for humanity. Remi relied on open-call submissions and help from within the Arab American artistic community, eventually personally asking writers to submit their work. Networking within the Arab American community was key.

“There was and continues to be an immense amount of support from the Arab artistic community, which I know sounds funny because Arabs are so well known for their dividedness.” He laughs. “Everyone gave their time for free or did it for dirt cheap. If it wasn’t for the Arab American community I don’t think I’d still be a poet.”

Remi’s maternal grandparents are from Yafeh, his paternal relatives are from Haifa. They all fled to Lebanon in 1948, during Al- Nakba, the creation of Israel.

In 2007, Remi went back to Palestine for the first time, visiting the land his ancestors dreamed of returning to. “You can read as much as you want but nothing can replace the experience of being in Palestine, feeling it, and connecting with people on the ground.” When he says that, you get the sense his mind is wandering back to a specific encounter and image.

Remi’s grandmother passed away in the summer. He credits her for influencing him as an adult, and for the love and pride she instilled in him. “She was always talking abut Yafeh and wanting to return,” he says. “When I look back [at my younger self], I constantly feel, like, what the hell was wrong with me? The more you reject your roots when you’re younger, the more you actually come back to them when you’re older.”

Remi finished his fall U.S. tour last month. During performances, he talks about how PoetsforPalestine came together, but focuses more on his own poetry, performing ten to twelve poems per show.

“I tackle double standards, war and politics, but my main focus is Palestine, so I talk about what coexistence means, what justice means,” he says.

In the spring, Remi will head back to Palestine to teach a course as part of the Palestine Writing Workshop and will be participating in Palfest, a yearly literature festival in Palestine.

“I’m a little afraid because Israel has been jailing Palestinians-especially non violent outspoken ones,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “But I’m looking forward to it.”

I ask Remi if, like many Palestinians, he prays to God for freedom from oppression. His answer is, not surprisingly, political:

“In a post 9-11 world people want to say, ‘Oh it’s fundamentalist or religious zealousm, but when you look at Palestine, it’s occupier vs occupied, colonzier vs colonized. The problem is disposition, apartheid.”

I’ve touched a nerve.

“It’s ridiculous when people say Jews and Arabs can’t live together because of Hamas,” he says. “Israel didn’t reject Hamas because it was religious- before Hamas there was Fatah, the PLO, secularism, the problem clearly isn’t religion.”

Remi’s poem “Coexist” is a tribute to Palestinian resistance, as the only thing that keeps the people from becoming extinct.

I don’t want to coexist
Not like good guys and bad guys in True Lies and propaganda
Put on blackface as cab drivers or deli owners in racist comedies
Not bomb Dunkin Donuts with my Kuffiyeh
Fist pound Fox News
Or let you steal my food and call it Israeli salad
I won’t Mess with the Zohan
Or let him turn the rocks of Palestinian children into balloon animals
While Israeli soldiers snipe our children’s heads, shoulders, knees, and stomachs
Hollywood snipes ears of young ones with lovable tales of blue and white heroes
I am not looking for your approval

The last lines read:

I don’t want to coexist!
I want to exist as a human being
And justice will take care of the rest!

Jordan and Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, they maintain diplomatic relations, and even before the peace treaties, relations between the governments of Jordan and Israel were friendly. As far as Iraq is concerned, it is true that historically, Saddam’s Iraq had been in conflict with Israel. Iraq also supported the Palestinian resistance movements financially and politically. But since that time, and especially after 2003, Iraq has been too occupied with its own problems to have an actual conflict with Israel.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE don’t enjoy formal diplomatic relations with Israel, but neither have they engaged in actual conflict. The practical life of the average citizen in any of those countries is not in the slightest impacted by Israel (or vice versa). The only other countries in the Middle East that have a palpable problem with Israel today are Lebanon and Syria. On any average day, the life of a Lebanese or a Syrian is nowhere impacted by Israel, though. Existentially, it is the Palestinian’s day-to-day life, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza, that is made unnecessarily so much more difficult, if not unbearable, by the Jewish State.

Referring to this situation as the “Middle East Conflict” exaggerates the scope of the conflict, making it appear that twelve countries are at war with Israel, though only three are involved, and at best partially. The term works to draw sympathy towards the Jewish State, a lone country surrounded by hostile Arabs, where in reality Israel wields so much power that it can choose to bomb sites in other sovereign countries like it did in Iraq in 1982, and Syria in 2008, actions that amount to acts of war, without seemingly worrying about reprisals.

Naming it the “Middle East Conflict” has the added effect of diluting the Palestinians’ stake in the discord, the specificity of their suffering, and the uniqueness of their plight to protect their precarious identity.

The term “Arab Israeli Conflict” is also misleading. Again, it serves the purpose of exaggerating the discord, insinuating that all of the Arabs are out to get Israel. There are 350 million people defined as Arab. While most of them, just like many other citizens in the world, may oppose Israel because of its human rights abuses and violations of International Law, not a mere 2% of them are “officially” in conflict with Israel.

To the surprise of many in the U.S., many Jews are Arab themselves, including Egyptian, Iraqi, Yamani, Moroccan, Lebanese, Syrian and Tunisian. These Arab Jews, known as Mizrahi, mostly live in Israel today, while some also live in the U.S., some still in Syria, and many in Morocco. These Arabs are definitely not in conflict with Israel. In Israel, they have full rights, unlike the non-Jewish, Palestinian citizens of Israel.

According to Ella Habiba Shohat, an Iraqi Jew and Professor of Cultural Studies and Women’s Studies at New York University, the story of Israel and Jews only takes the European narrative into consideration, most notably the Holocaust, and assumes it for the collective memory and experience of all Jews. This story excludes the experience of Arab Jews.

Mizrahis spoke more Arabic than Yiddish, ate and looked more like Middle Easterners than Europeans, and were immersed in some of the Arab traditions. They had more in common with Muslim and Christian Arabs than with Polish or German Jews. Mizrahis largely lived in harmony (though there were times of tension) with the non-Jewish Arab communities, contrary to what some Israelis would have us believe.

According to Shohat,

“In Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia, Jews became members of legislatures, of municipal councils, of the judiciary, and even occupied high economic positions. (The finance minister of Iraq in the ’40s was Ishak Sasson, and in Egypt, Jamas Sanua–higher positions, ironically, than those our community had generally achieved within the Jewish state until the 1990s!)”

The different communities that once co-existed were not so consumed by their religious affiliations.

Terming the Palestinian-Israeli conflict an “Arab Israeli conflict” unnecessarily invites more people to join, politicizes and segregates people further, and emphasizes our differences instead of our similarities. It pushes us to identify ourselves in terms of binarism, us versus them, good versus evil (how good and evil are determined is another story), instead of acknowledging that we are the same people and that we all demand to be treated with respect and dignity.

What if Christian Arabs formed a state and called it “X,” brought European Christians to live in it and suppressed the indigenous non-Christian population in that state? Would they call the ensuing conflict the Arab-X conflict?

Again, this naming serves to obfuscate the idea of a Palestinian identity. The main distinguishing factor is whether a citizen in Israel is Jewish or not, not if he or she is Arab or not, just as in the example of the Iraqi, Yemeni and Egyptian Jew living in Israel. The whole burden of this racist design falls crushingly on the shoulder of the Palestinian. The “Arab-Israeli” is none other than a Palestinian, hence he or she should be called a Palestinian-Israeli. Similar to the Palestinian living in Israel proper, the one in Gaza and the West Bank happens to be a Muslim or a Christian, not a Jew. Hence, the Palestinian feels the wrath of the Israeli suppression machine.

At the core of it, this conflict is about a universal fight for human rights and social justice, an oppressed-versus-oppressor conflict. This is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Amid this whirlwind of activity, it is fair to say that the average Arab’s assessment of US policy is rather puzzled. Arabs have gotten used to the US government’s absolute bias towards Israel, a bias that reached its ultimate climax under the forgettable George W. Bush.

President Obama has spoken a different language. He seems genuinely focused on trying to build a bridge over the long years of mistrust between the Arab masses and the US political establishment.

This of course came to a head in Obama’s extraordinary Cairo speech, a speech of grand ambition that was historic in every sense of the word. Suddenly, it seemed that there is an American President who has at least an inkling of Palestinian suffering, and who wanted to talk of Palestinian rights on an equal footing with those of Israelis. Obama went as far as comparing the Palestinian struggle to that of African Americans in the US over the last two hundred years.

The tone and body language were of a kind that Arabs have not seen in years. The focus of the US administration on putting pressure on Israel to stop all settlement activity, as well as the language on how resolution of this conflict is the key to other conflicts in the region, was refreshingly empathetic.

Faced with this barrage of messages from the US administration, Arabs are reacting in various ways. On the one hand, you have so many who still find refuge in the safety of cynicism; nothing will ever change when it comes to US policy, the US administration is beholden to the agenda of AIPAC… Etc. Some Arab writers, whilst acknowledging the existence of some divergence in views between Israel and the current US administration, argue that signs of slight conflict do not represent the beginning of any real crisis in relations. A more resigned view also exists, which holds that Arabs are clutching at straws and, in fact, there is no real change in American policy.

On the other hand, you have a large number of optimistic Obama admirers who are convinced Obama will bring real and lasting change to this issue as he did to American politics. They have bought in wholesale into the Obama mantra which saw him declare on the eve of elections, “together, we will change the world.”

While we are strong admirers of Obama, we feel that the best approach, as always, is somewhere in the middle. There is the air of change in Washington for sure. We must acknowledge that element of change, and assess Obama’s policy regarding this issue with a sober and calm head. Most importantly, Arabs must react to this new policy with a positive and enabling attitude to ensure that we seize the momentum and guide it towards a just and fair solution.

Let us analyze in a measured manner some of the changes that the Obama administration has introduced into this issue. Firstly, the matter of continuing settlement activity was covered in great detail in the press. This was not a publicity stunt. Obama’s insistence on ceasing any expansion of Israeli settlement in the West Bank was stronger in both substance and tone than that of previous administrations. While some writers like Noam Chomsky claim that Obama did not match his words with any radical action, such as linking Israeli compliance to US aid, it is self-defeating to pretend that positions have not changed in the slightest.

Secondly, unlike George Bush, Obama has so far refused to follow Israel’s argument that the root of the problem is Iran and not occupation. Obama has clearly distinguished between the issues of Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While any nuclear proliferation is a cause of concern, it is good to see that Obama has not fallen for the trap of ignoring all the wrongs of Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights in the interest of pursuing a separate foreign policy challenge. To quote Time magazine’s Tony Karon,

“the US President won’t buy Netanyahou’s sequencing …. Netanyahou will say no progress is possible on the Palestinian front until Iran is defanged; Obama will argue that rallying Arab support against Iran’s ambitions requires resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Thirdly, the US administration has introduced the sense of urgency into the necessity of salvaging the two–state solution. While this has been the position of previous administrations, the Obama team is eager to see the vision materialize with speed.

Uncertainty still reigns over many aspects of the current administration’s policies. For example, the US approach to Jerusalem is not clear at all. In a campaign speech last year to AIPAC, Obama made it clear that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel. This seemed to deny all Palestinian rights to parts of Jerusalem in line with United Nations resolutions. Although Obama has since toned down his position in this regard, seemingly as a result of the advice of seasoned advisors like former President Jimmy Carter, he has not yet proclaimed a definitive position.

It is our view that there is some form of change taking place. This new-found flexibility in the American approach is primarily due to two interrelated factors:

Obama is first of all a man of the world who listens intently to all sides of a story. He brings a fresh analytical approach to the highest office in the US.

Secondly, this change is the result of the Obama administration’s analysis of the long term interests of the United States in the region. Certain commentators have argued that Obama’s team sees the necessity of integrating Israel into the region in order to guarantee a more secure future for its ally.

However, the issue is not the rationale behind Obama’s stance on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The question is whether there is a momentum of change, and how can Arabs seize the initiative in the interest of Palestinian rights and justice for all. We cannot sit back and let our inherent cynicism destroy the opportunity of the moment, yet again. What good is there to achieve from burying our heads in the sand and bemoaning our misfortune, yet again.

Whatever conspiracy theory one can concoct out of thin air to justify Obama’s words and actions, it is high time for a proactive approach. Real change in politics can never come from resignation and passive aggression, which have dominated Arab political emotions for the last century.

Let us try to analyze the seeming shift and see how we can contribute to any momentum and actively encourage it. It is time to believe in our own capacity to contribute to the shaping of the future of the region.

Jonathan Mok: How should the Netanyahu speech be interpreted?

Nigel Ashton: Beyond uttering the words ‘Palestinian state’ Netanyahu has not yet conceded the creation of an entity which would have genuine sovereignty. His concept of ‘demilitarisation’ is so wide ranging that any Palestinian state created under it could not be deemed to have full control over its territory and would therefore not be sovereign. Nevertheless, he has at least conceded that peace negotiations cannot proceed on the basis of his opening position which amounted to little more than a form of economic autonomy. So there has at least been some movement in his position even if so far this is limited.

JM: It appears that the Arab world has been silent in response to Bibi’s speech. How do you perceive the apparent lack of interest?

NA: I think Arab leaders are allowing the United States to make the running at present in negotiations with Israel. The Arab peace plan is on the table and I am sure that if genuine negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians resumed Egypt and Jordan would be prepared to play their part in supporting the process.

JM: What do you think about Israel’s continuing exclusion of Hamas in peace negotiations?

NA: For nearly three decades, Israel refused to deal with the PLO and termed it a terrorist organisation. Eventually it did negotiate with the organisation so these things are not set in stone. Having said that, negotiations for a final settlement with Israel as opposed to a truce would effectively contravene the Hamas charter so there would have to be considerable movement on both sides before it would be possible to bring Hamas within the framework of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Even before we can reach that stage, though, means have to be found of repairing the Fatah-Hamas schism which will be a considerable challenge.

JM: Some of the demands in the speech have been listed by other Israeli leaders, including Olmert, Sharon and Peres. The demands include Jerusalem as the permanent capital of Israel and Palestinian abandonment of the right of return. Would it be wise for Abbas to agree with the demands in order to speed up the peace negotiations with Israel?

NA: I think Netanyahu would be astounded if Abbas agreed to these conditions, particularly those in relation to Jerusalem and the right of return. They are aimed at Netanyahu’s domestic constituency and not at the Palestinian leadership. If serious negotiations begin, these issues will inevitably have to be addressed. There is no way the Palestinian leadership can be expected to concede them in advance.

JM: With the growing divide between the United States and Israel, what will be the role of other negotation partners, such as the EU?

NA: The role of other negotiating partners will continue to be insignificant. I don’t perceive a growing US-Israeli divide. What we have is an administration which for the first time in a decade is taking the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seriously. It’s inevitable when that happens that it will tend to put pressure on Israel to shift its position. That’s what has happened during previous phases of negotiation, most notably during Clinton’s second term in the late 1990s.

JM: Finally, how likely is it that there will there be an indepenent Palestinian state under the Obama administration?

NA: The obstacles are considerable. It will need a remarkably favourable combination of circumstances for this to happen within the next eight years, never mind four. History does not lead one to be optimistic since this conflict has proven remarkably intractable. The best one can say is that there is more of a window of opportunity now than there has been at any point during the last decade.

Mixing henna for a bride Beit Sahour, West Bank. It's traditional for the women of a village to gather for an evening of dancing, singing, and henna mixing to wish the bride well the night before her wedding.

The majority of Palestinians living in the occupied territories are young people who have spent their lives in the shadow of a war from their great-grandparents’ generation. For Palestinians, it is not simply a matter of one, singular event that drives their situation. Palestinians mark time on an altogether unique clock; major political events designate their experience in a general sense, but for each person there are smaller and more personal events that mark each family’s own timetable.

To better understand the complexity of the term “aftermath” when applied to Palestinians, here is a general rundown on the Palestinian population: First there is the post-1948 population, those who originated in the region that is now the state of Israel. Many fled as refugees to southern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and what is now called the West Bank. Then there is the post-1967 population (which contains a large portion of the post-1948 population) that originated in the West Bank but became a mass of internal refugees during the Six Days War of 1967, as well as a population dispersed in refugee camps in Jordan and many other countries. Although separated by two decades, these two events mark the mainelements of the Palestinian Diaspora.

In the summer of 2007, I spent five weeks extensively traveling throughout the West Bank in order to photograph the daily life of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

Hand stands in Hebron. The city of Hebron, the oldest city in the West Bank and home to the tomb of Abraham, used to host a thriving tourist industry and economy. Since the infiltration of radical Zionist settlers, the city resembles a cross between a ghost town and a police state. These children were so excited at the site of a westerner that they performed minor acrobatics for almost thirty minutes.

As a Palestinian American, it was important to me to be able to document all aspects of Palestinian life, from the oppression and destruction, to the domestic and mundane, to the celebratory and joyful. All too often, in the United States, the only images of Palestine and Palestinians that Americans are shown are inaccurate depictions of Palestinians as uniformly violent and angry.

The reality in fact is that Palestinians are predominantly non-violent and surprisingly tenacious given the circumstances of their lives. However, this side of their story is not often depicted in mainstream media.

Despite severe human rights violations, economic strangulation, and the slow and systematic ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians from their lands, beauty still lives in occupied Palestine. The people themselves are a testament to willpower in the face of injustice, as they have developed exceptional coping mechanisms in order to survive their circumstances.

Portrait of Bassam, with this daughter Abir, who would have been this tall. Bassam stands in the village school yard, not far from where Abir was shot in the head and killed by Israeli soldier's while walking home from school. This photograph was taken about 4 months after Abir's death. The Israeli Apartheid Wall looms in the background as a reminder of Israeli dominance.

My intent in documenting Palestinian survival is to educate people on the consequences of spontaneous and unresolved wars. I want people to understand that although the wars of 1948 and 1967 are long over, Palestinians live in a continual and latent state of post-traumatic stress.

I furthermore want the beauty, complexity and perseverance of these people to be just as attention-worthy as their mistakes and their often violent deaths.

It is my hope that through this photographic education project there will be stronger international support for the creation of a Palestinian state, so that we can finally allow these people to stop living in an aftermath society, and start living anew in a nation of their own making.

File this one under Diplomatic Pipedream: “As a result of the recent Israeli elections, the West will boycott the rejectionist, quasi-racist new government of Binyamin Netanyahu and cripple the economy with punitive sanctions – just as it did with Hamas in 2006.”

Some hope this is. The appointment of Israel’s new Prime Minister hardly raised an eyebrow in Washington, despite his stated distaste for the idea of a Palestinian state on Israel’s side of the River Jordan, his torpedoing of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s and his belief that the savage bombing campaigns in Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza this year represented the worst of lily-livered liberalism. Even support from Avigdor Lieberman, a settler-dwelling immigrant from Moldova who would rather there be no Palestinians in Israel, and no state to house them in either, has yet to provoke a diplomatic question mark.

Compare that with Hamas’s victory in Palestine three years before, which was regarded as nothing short of genocide in the making. The free and fair elections – at the height of the neo-con drive for liberal democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan, remember – were instantly delegitimised, the new government ostracised and more than four million people subject to a repressive economic blockade that came on top of an already crippling occupation.

The treatment of Hamas from January 2006 is a study in Western hypocrisy. In elections described as “honest, fair, and safe” by monitor Jimmy Carter, Hamas won 76 of 132 available seats in the Palestinian Authority’s parliament. And while the ruling Fatah party immediately resigned, Hamas extended a conciliatory hand and immediately agreed to work with President Mahmoud Abbas in a unity government. But Condoleezza Rice, American Secretary of State, confirmed that the US wouldn’t work with the new authority, and with the EU cowering behind, all institutional aid to the PA was frozen on April 7th. Israel also proceeded to withhold all tax revenues from the Occupied Territories. The figure exceeded $1 billion.

The reasons for the boycott were laid down by the Quartet: Hamas must renounce violence, recognise Israel and abide by the terms of past agreements – even though a letter from new Prime Minister Ismail Haniya to George Bush expressing Hamas’s willingness to accept a Palestinian state on 1967 borders didn’t even merit a response.

Of course, the West makes no such demands of Israel, a state that uses overwhelming violence to enforce a 40-plus year occupation as well as devastate neighbouring countries, has continued to block Palestinian self-determination while colonising more of its land, and that has decisively ripped apart the Oslo Accords in 15 years of intransigence.

Hamas motives, it seems, were more of a problem than Israel’s actions.

In what became the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy, Gaza slipped into open civil war. When that spilled into rocket fire across the border, Israel responded with air raids that killed over 1,300 Palestinians, the overwhelming majority civilians.

As campaign poster, the January onslaught still proved insufficient for Tzipi Livni’s Kadima party, and Binyamin Netanyahu strode into power on the back of the biggest rightward shift in Israeli politics in a generation. And, true to form, the man who ran Israel between 1996 and 1998 and constantly rewrote the “bad” Oslo Accords to postpone withdrawals to less than 13 per cent of the agreed total and accelerate settlement activity – not least the massive Har Homa project in East Jerusalem – has already been setting out policies that seem to permanently postpone a Palestinian state.

At the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations in February, he openly stated he was putting “the surrender of land” to the Palestinian Authority “on hold”. He then added that it was “too early” to talk about a sovereign Palestinian Arab state and, in an interview with Haaretz, promised he would expand settlement activity in the West Bank.

In addition to his aggressive stance on Iran, it’s clear that he fulfils the Quartet’s anti-Hamas trifecta. He refuses to renounce violence, he refuses to accept a sovereign Palestine and refuses to abide by the commitments of Oslo – of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.

We look forward to an instant freeze in the $8 billion aid package any day now. No?

Dan Shvartsman: What are the big themes you take out of the Gaza conflict, and the initial days of the aftermath?

Dr. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman: This latest round is over. Just the way the (2nd) Lebanon War ended in summer of 2006, and since then the ceasefire has held almost perfectly, so too in this case I think that it’s fairly likely that we won’t see another round like we just saw any time soon.

What did each side achieve from this? Israel went into this determined not only to end the rocket fire, but to also change the “rules of the game”. That “Hamas shoots rockets, we shoot back,” and this tit-for-tat doesn’t change Hamas’s behavior. Beyond that, I think there was also a general desire for Israel to strengthen its deterrent posture. There was a feeling here that Israel’s deterrent posture over the last years has weakened.

I think a central goal of this operation was to send a clear message to the rest of the region and the world that it wasn’t going to allow an Iranian client-state to develop on its borders.

Hamas turned out to be far weaker than anticipated. In that regard, Israel has significantly improved its deterrent posture. It’s not just that they hit them hard, but also the incorporation of the diplomatic elements. At least on paper, the support for a change in the strategic parameters governing the Gaza area, the support for Israel’s desires is considerable. The French are patrolling off the shores of Gaza, the Americans signed a memorandum of understanding, they’re training Egyptian troops dealing with smuggling, they’re talking about interdicting Iranian ships in the Gulf of Aden.

The Egyptian participation in this sort of Western framework is a gain for Israel as well. It remains to be seen whether this framework will have real teeth and do what it’s supposed to do. So from that regard, one can say that Israel’s achievements in this operation were considerable.

They came at costs, obviously. Israel’s image has been damaged to a considerable extent among public opinion. There’s no question that more hate towards Israel will have been generated by this operation, which doesn’t bode well if you talk about the need for a long-term reconciliation.

You can even suggest the possibility that radical forces might become even stronger, particularly among Palestinians; there’s a possibility of splintering off from Hamas to represent even more Islamist, jihadi, Bin Laden-type radical views, which would make Hamas look like a positively moderate force in comparison.

Dan: How does Hamas come out of this?

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: Hamas has always had a number of different viewpoints within it. Not in ideological terms, on that they’re united. In terms of how one achieves their goals, there have been different trends. One can point to pragmatic kinds of thinking, adapting to particular circumstances.

It’s clear that there were sharp differences of opinion within Hamas over the decision to tear up the ceasefire and goad Israel into an attack, which Hamas believed was going to be beneficial – that an improved set of arrangements would be established. Clearly, that wasn’t the case; they paid a horrific price.

Hamas is likely to demonstrate a greater degree of pragmatism, to seek accommodations, to present some kind of common front with Mahmoud Abbas, so that they can then move on and say, “this is how we’re going to deal with the opening of the crossing points, the passages to ease the siege.” This is an immediate issue for Hamas, so they can engage in reconstruction, and get legitimized as an interlocutor by the international community.

It is possible that they will achieve that over time, that more and more we’ll hear voices in the West: “You need to engage in dialogue. They’re an important force. You can’t just ignore them. You have to find ways.” And that’s a double-edged sword. By Hamas engaging, they may have to modify their behavior in ways which eventually threaten to clash with their principles. On the other hand, it means that they may be getting legitimized in a way that’s to their benefit, without them giving things up.

Dan: In the whole region, a lot of interesting things came up. What’s the significance of Syria’s statements in light of the indirect negotiations with Israel before the war?

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: I was thinking about that too. On the face of it, a Syrian-Israeli agreement is much easier to achieve than a Palestinian-Israeli agreement. It’s straightforward, you deal with sovereign countries; it’s not an existential matter, per se. It’s not an inter-communal conflict on core ideological matters.

But Bashar Assad, I think, is going to be reluctant to pay the price that he has to pay for a peace treaty, which is shifting his alliance orientation: moving out of the Iranian radical camp and moving into the Western camp. I don’t think he wants to do that, I think he wants to have both: to maintain his connections with Palestinian and Lebanese forces, to maintain his connections with Iran, and to have better ties with the West, and he was trying to work through Turkey to get that.

But his militancy on these matters is very off-putting. I think it’s probably less likely also that the new Israeli government will want to pick up where the Olmert government left off. So I think we’ll probably again see a hiatus in the Israeli-Syrian track. Especially since the Turkish President has gone and alienated the Israeli political class with his behavior.

Dan: And that’s another country interesting effect of the war, Turkey’s sudden change of heart on Israel. Do you view that as a serious blow to the relationship?

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: It’s problematic. The Israeli-Turkish relationship is based on common strategic interests. The forces in Turkey that are the guardians of those strategic interests are still there.

Politically, of course, the elected leadership is an Islamist party and an Islamist government, which has a different set of considerations. And certainly a significant segment of public opinion in Turkey identified strongly with the Palestinians and is very hostile towards Israel, and we saw that during the war. This is a cause for concern. Turkey’s stance is going to be watched very, very closely.

But in any case, it’s not at all clear that the new Israeli government will give the Syrian-Israeli track a priority. I’m not so sure the Americans are going to be so keen on renewing that track either, even though there’s been a lot of advice in Washington that’s said, “go for the Syrian-Israeli track right away, because it’s more doable.” Well, I’m not sure it is.

Dan: Are you not sure because of the new Gaza conflict and the issues that were raised now? Or do you think it was the same before?

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: I was skeptical before. I’m more skeptical now. And I think because the Israeli government is about to change, that also is going to play a role here.

Now, if the Americans do get clear signals from the Syrians that they want to play, that they want this to go forward, which is very possible…everybody’s waiting for Obama. Bashar Assad’s going to want to find out where does Obama stand on this. And if he does send the appropriate signals, that will get America’s attention. And that in turn will get Israel’s attention.

Dan: What’s the significance on a broader scale that Israel, even before the war, was leaning towards Netanyahu? What does it say about the broader future prospects of Israel and peace if they’re swinging to the right?

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: You’re right about Israeli public opinion becoming more right wing, and it’s something that’s been true over the last eight years. And yet, when you ask people how they outline a settlement, you’ll find a solid majority of public opinion is in favor of a two-state solution, in favor of a centrist kind of solution, not a right wing solution. There is a consensus on that.

There’s less consensus in Israel about the kind of hard steps that Israel would have to take to help the dynamics of a diplomatic effort, particularly on settlement matters. Israelis underestimate the symbolic effect that settlement expansion has on public opinion on the other side, and also on the opinion of leadership on the other side. Continuous settlement building is seen as an example of massive Israeli bad faith. And Israelis don’t appreciate that to a sufficient degree.

With regard to the likely Netanyahu government, that also depends on the nature of his coalition. It seems very likely to me that Ehud Barak will be his Defense Minister, which means the Labor party is in the coalition.

Which means you’re talking about a center-right government, but not a right wing government. That’s a big difference. It means you have a government that can engage and will engage with Washington. Netanyahu clearly will not want to be in open confrontation with Washington. He will try to balance off the competing domestic political forces and the need to be a statesman. And that’s why Barak will be very important for him to have, and Labor.

Dan: What do you view as the likely shifts on Iran’s status? It almost seems unrelated to what just happened, but obviously it’s the elephant in the room.

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: It’s very related. I don’t know. Clearly, the U.S. administration is going to see if it can critically, and constructively, and robustly engage Iran on this matter. I think the fact that Dennis Ross has been appointed to be the point man on that, I think that’s an interesting choice, actually.

I know that Ross is a proponent of this sort of approach, robust engagement. Which means, find out what the Iranians are thinking, see what you can do, but also make sure that you have sticks as well as carrots. I think the fact that he knows the Israelis well, and the Israeli thinking well, will be an asset perhaps, to make sure the Americans understand where the Israelis are, and the Israelis understand where the Americans are.

But I don’t know where it’s going to go, and a lot of it depends on internal Iranian things, which I don’t have a good enough sense of. There’s always been a broad consensus in Iran that Iran should be a nuclear power. But that doesn’t mean that everybody’s in agreement on the path to get there, the timing, and how to respond to particular international pressures or incentives. It remains to be seen.

Dan: Would you say the same thing about the new Obama administration’s effect on the region, that it remains to be seen?

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: I think everybody expects the Americans to take a higher profile on the Israeli-Palestinian, or Arab-Israeli tracks. Nobody doubted that they would be intimately involved with the Iranian matter, and how much continuity and how much change there will be remains to be seen.

There’s a lot of expectation out there for Obama. And undoubtedly it’s exaggerated, which can lead to disappointment. But it seems to me that a lot of people in this region understand that, and want America to play a positive role here.

Dan: On both sides.

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: Yes, absolutely. The trick for the Obama Administration will be translating that desire and good will into something that makes sense for the regional actors, and makes sense for America’s interests. Big concepts, but then you have to have incremental steps. This is how things are done.

Then maybe you can look around in 2-3 years and say, “Wow, things have really moved.” As opposed to a sudden breakthrough on these issues, which are close to being intractable – but they need attention. And one hopes that they’ll receive the right kind of attention.

Dan: What do you think the overall trend in the region is, among all the different issues? Is it a positive one with incremental steps? Or will it be mostly disappointment?

Dr. Maddy-Weitzman: I think that there are some opportunities there for incremental improvement. As I said, I think that Hamas has been humbled by what happened, and that’s to the good. They’ve been taken off their high horse, even if they haven’t been crushed.

Obviously, peace isn’t around the corner. The Palestinian state-building project of the 1990s was a failure, and that’s one of the reasons why the peace process failed. What we have now are two de facto Palestinian entities, and they’re going to have to work mightily to bring a semblance of unity to their own camp. It’s essential if there’s going to be any progress on the big political issues.

Peace isn’t breaking out, that’s for sure. Let’s hope that we can start taking some positive steps, some incremental steps, and start repairing the damage that’s been caused over the last eight years.

The unabridged version of this interview is on Dan Shvartsman’s blog.

Israel is small in size of course, which is why the intractable conflict between Palestinians and Jews drags so long. But it’s also small in the way things work, as if the sort of soundstages from which America has exported its slick culture haven’t quite been built up as smoothly in Israel, so that you can see the wires from which the angels fly, the cameramen behind the screen, and the clumsy movements of the actors on and off screen.

It is inevitable that a population of 7.3 million will feel compact, as if you might run into Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the street someday and not blink. In fact, one drives by Barak’s high-rise apartment in North Tel Aviv on main highways. Without tremendous pull and with a little bit of patience and luck, a high school senior can get an interview with President Shimon Peres.

But then there is the smallness of the way the government and political parties operate. The way the war, while launched in response to the ending of a cease-fire set up long before President Obama was an inevitability, wrapped itself up tidily just before his inauguration, down to the targeting of his swearing-in ceremony as the deadline to pull out the troops. The way two of the three major parties held political primaries marred by computer breakdowns (Kadima dodged this bullet, but they also were the last party in line). The way Arab-baiting politician Avigdor Lieberman, of Yisrael Beiteinu is treated with kid gloves by his political rivals in other parties, for fear that calling him out will cost them their share of the valuable Russian vote. And then there’s the whole Arab party issue.

It’s not quite as simple as saying the Jews banned the Arab parties from the next elections out of hatred and a desire to keep the enemy down. While the Arab parties stormed out of the Central Election Committee vote to ban them chanting that Israel is, “a fascist, racist state,” there was at least a quasi-reasonable impetus for the call from Yisrael Beiteinu and another right wing party: some Arab members of the Knesset have been known to not only be sympathetic to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other “enemies of the state”, but were reported to have been in contact with those enemies. They’re also reported to have incited their constituency against this and other war efforts, and to unite in protest that at times turns violent.

Of course, that reminds the reader of plenty of other minority movements in the modern world, most obviously the Civil Rights movement in the U.S.A. that at least paved the way to our current president. If the Arabs were to manage a similar rise to near equity and open opportunity, perhaps the one-state solution wouldn’t look so imposing, and Israel would gain huge lumps of political capital, and all of a sudden the brilliant success of Israel over the last 60 years would look broader, more welcoming, and exemplary.

Instead, the country can barely see past its nose, barely past the next threat or the short term needs, which leads to three-week military poundings, Netanyahu’s return, and the banning of the main minority parties. It’s not so much that any of these decisions are on their own completely indefensible (though the last one approaches it); it’s that the big picture, the broader world’s perception, and the collection of these leanings to the right, to fear, and to paranoia all combine to make the general situation in Israel an unpromising, unpleasant one.

And it’s not just Netanyahu, for that matter: Tzipi Livni still flits back and forth between pragmatic diplomacy and militaristic posturing, and Barak, while certainly capable as a Defense Minister, has no one’s trust for the big picture. There is no uniting outsider force that can take Israel to a better place, whether through peace or through some cohesive security policy.

The country seems untroubled by its increasing international isolation, an attitude perhaps born out of 60 years of making it work underneath improbable, impossible circumstances. If we’ve made it this far, goes the thinking, who the hell is going to stop us? And why change what we’re doing?

The smallness permeates the region, there’s no denying that. Hamas’s efforts to declare victory while still trumpeting their tragedy, the constant side-choosing between Egypt and Syria, and Hezbollah’s saber-rattling, all part and parcel to the region’s problems. But Israel relies on its democratic roots, its troubled past, and its supposed moral superiority to act in a strong and bold way to protect itself. Those grounds are challenged when they go as far as to bar the main representatives to the minorities in their own country.

Kernels of hope exist. For one, the ban was quickly overturned. A recent poll suggests that the majority of Israelis want peace. And then there’s everybody’s favorite deus ex machina, President Obama, who might just swoop in and impose peace on all of us. Considering the candidates for Israeli PM are approaching a “six in one basket, half dozen in the other” phase, this may be our only hope, the only change to believe in, and the only way to break us out of our smallness. Which leaves us fighting for our turn in line along with the rest of the world.

We in the media have, to use the obvious pun, plumbed new depths. While distillation of the news to fit the location or political inclination of the audience is hardly a new phenomenon, accelerated in the past 15 years by the rise of conservative talk radio and the infamous idiocy of Fox News, the recruitment of Joe the Plumber to report from Southern Israel during that country’s bombardment of Gaza offers a further refinement of the trend – world events presented through the filter of everyman ignorance. Bias in the media is no longer a matter of partisan affiliation but academic faculty.

Joe Wurzelbacher was, of course, the blue-collar middle American – regular, representative and conspicuously unintellectual – who confronted Barack Obama’s tax plans on his lawn during a campaign stop. With the tide of popular opinion swinging inexorably towards Obama, Wurzelbacher’s down-home, go-get-’em street corner democracy became a beacon of hope for the reactionary right; his name, if not always his bar-room-brawling face, was rarely out of the debates and stump speeches as the election date neared. Alongside the twitching imbecility of Sarah Palin, the wholesomeness of uninformed American insularity was the Republican Party’s sole remaining strategy.

It failed, and failed abysmally. But neither Palin nor Wurzelbacher appear to be any less in demand as a result. And after more run-outs on Fox – apparently Joe’s qualified to run the rule over the intricacies of the financial bailout and Obama’s CIA chief pick – the man was suddenly being flown by an outfit called Pajamas TV to Israel to cover the conflict from the town of Sderot.

Pajamas TV is a right-wing blog whose mission statement includes “exposing both bias and deception by the typically liberal Main Stream Media”. And as Roger Simon, one of their contributors, argued that as the American press – yes, the American press – was obviously an extension of Hamas, only Joe the (previously passportless) Plumber could redress this grievous imbalance for the fact hungry nation.

Leaving aside the issue that a news organisation can instruct a reporter as to the conclusions he must come to before he even arrives at his assignment, the use of someone who is neither well-versed nor remotely impartial to cover such a conflict underlines two new trends in news consumption:

Firstly, that people are less interested in being informed than they are in having existing prejudices confirmed and, secondly, that complex issues must now be boiled down to a simplistic bad-versus-good narrative by a guy you might want to sip a beer with – just so the nation can be saved from the grip of people who have a vague idea as to what they’re talking about.

Joe’s “reports” – and I confess I could only stomach two – revolve around speaking to everyday Israelis about how evil Palestinians are for not accepting their apartheid imprisonment.

He uses of the word “terrorist” every 12 seconds, avoids grammar and generally phrases questions so they induce gleeful nods from his interviewees, mostly militant rabbis and evicted Gaza settlers.

But it was off camera that he really made his mark, launching a tirade against a flock of Israeli journalists who, in his words, “should be ashamed of themselves” for reporting the mounting Palestinian civilian death toll.

He then went on to say that journalists shouldn’t even be in a war zone at all, lest they quibble over the nature of the onward march of goodness – an odd position for a newly-hired war correspondent to take.

Not that piercing truth was on the minds of the Pajamas TV web community, of course. When this columnist argued that the complexities of the Middle East deserve a more learned correspondent than someone who stated, in October, that “a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel” – without actually being able to say why – the seething began. “Let me tell you,” said Michael Toledo, “that Joe the Plumber is the guy many of us have waited for. He speaks his mind, and he’s not afraid to go head to head with some of the nastiest reporters in the world… When is he running for Congress?”

And someone called Cynthia saw Joe as the moron’s messiah: “He is a guy whose opinion has not been shaped by being in New York City and Washington politics. He is more like one of us than anyone who writes or reads the New York Times.”

Is this really the news landscape of the future? Papers and networks outbidding each other in the drive to provide a version of events that not only their readers might want to hear, but in a monosyllable, smiley-studded, texting language they can be bothered to understand? Joe the Plumber might have already had his 15 minutes, but the trend of segmented, audience-centred news looks set to be around a little longer. In the internet age, “telling it like it is” really means “telling me what I want to hear”. And that is neither news nor journalism.