Israel/Palestine is roads, cranes, construction sites, sounds, exposed sewage pipes, bulldozers and crushes concrete. Israel/Palestine is green spaces and deserts, olive trees, and cypresses, hills and valleys, livestock and agricultural implements/machines. It is remolding landscapes, walls, fences, razor wire or barbed. It is bricks and mortar, roadblocks and watch towers, security checks and metal detectors, security personnel, clashing AKs and M16s, police batons and sound grenades. Israel/Palestine is yellow taxis, beat up cars, ambulances and tanks; it is small olive green armored jeeps, big ones as well as blue. It is APCs and Merkava tanks. It is armored sniper turrets on treads. Apaches and Hellfire missiles. F16s and a whole range of bullets and gases. Israel/Palestine is buses, sheroots, and services; it is donkey carts, bicycles, horses and trenches. Israel/Palestine is white, brown and black; it is accented male and female, Arabic, Hebrew, Romanian, Russian, Armenian, Filipino and Japanese. Israel/Palestine is east-west, north-south, third, second and first works, with fourth as well. It is Bedouins, Samaritans, Afro-Palestinians, Ethiopian Jews, Black Hebrews, Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Druze, and Arabs. Settlers and natives. Israel/Palestine is giant stadiums and smashed up monuments. It is falafel stands and shawarmas, bagles, challah, pita and knafe. Kebabs and dark coffees. It is school boys and school girls in tightly pressed uniforms and patriotic songs and flag-waving. Israel/Palestine is backpackers, mosques and synagogues. It is apartheid, tin grates, metal sheeting, UNRWA rations, and bleached out white concrete aid buildings with Medicin du Monde, Red Cross, and Amnesty International flags. Israel/Palestine is bloodied streets, pain, suffering, injuries, death and crushed bones. It is martyrs, serialized and televised. Israel/Palestine is self-important politicians, sectarian rivalries, party politics, corruption and intrigues. It is Special Forces, commando units, and shadowy militant groups. Masked faces. Israel/Palestine is Christians, Muslims and Jews. It is hijab, kufiyah and kippah. It is Communists and fascists, rightists, leftists, centrists, liberals, radicals and conservatives. Israel/Palestine is "God's Own Land." It is Americans with Brooklyn accents. Beards and Guns. It is racist Russian graffiti and revolutionary slogans in Arabic spray painted on the same walls. Israel/Palestine is separation/hafrada. It is cruelty and smiling children. It is tears, fear and black humour. Laughter and cigarette smoke. Israel/Palestine is a closure and a Sabbath, April Fools day. Israel/Palestine is bombs packaged as flour and assassins disguised as old men. It is deception and deceit, incredible friendship and camaraderie. Israel/Palestine is crackling radios, loudspeakers, cell phone rings, chatrooms and Internet cafes. It is spokespeople, journalists and PR. It is blue skies and cold nights. It is stolen glances and rigid dietary laws. Israel/Palestine is archeology and the past. It is nostalgia and the rapidly advancing machine. It is the destroyed home, the lost orchard, and the survivor-victim. Israel/Palestine is a university campus, an intellectual, a book on a stacked shelf. Israel/Palestine is ripped/torn pages, it is goods collecting dust, and it is stores with half empty shelves. It is rigid/rough hands and hidden hair. Israel/Palestine is flats and apartments, suburbs, dependencies and refugee camps, military bases and hideouts. It is also schedules, permits and prometric tests. It is dreams of immigration and the grave of failed ideologies. Israel/Palestine is home to ten million. It is aquifers and emotions, infrastructure and call-centers. NGOs and strikes. It is gunfire crackling under one's skin. It is mistakes and miscommunication. And soon, god willing, I will be able to move on...

*****

Today I visited the Youth Center. Ahmed Harb is still in prison. He has been sentenced to six months of administrative detention. Ahmed Bishtawi, a friend from a different part of town – and a different social class - has been in jail now for 5 days at the Salem military base. The Bishtawi family has been told that he will be held for at least three more days, they explain as I sit in their home. Ahmed Harb is now down in Megido; maybe he'll meet Yasser, the Khalili families son, I think to myself. More prisoners thrown into the mix. Today, there was another raid into the Old City during the day. This time the military activity was concentrated on the Abdel Mugheeth Al-Ansari Boys School. Terrified schoolchildren, medical personnel, and a giant blast. Water pipes leaking from the force of the bomb. It's finally raining outside but my shoes are broken.