I spent my first few days after the Hebrew University course had ended nursing a cold at the Faisal. Today, though, I did manage to meet with the folks from the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ) - actually located in Bethlehem - through a trip organized by people I had met on the exchange. Here we were given a presentation by ARIJ's General Director Jad Isaac on the steady erosion of Palestinian life in the Bethlehem district, which has been slowly carved up by by-pass roads, military bases, 'nature reserves', settlements, portions of the apartheid barrier and various roadblocks, checkpoints and earthmounds.  Most productive lands are being cut from urban Bethlehem and access to Palestinian farmers is being severely restricted. The population is being deprived of its landbase at a steady rate throughout the West Bank - let alone Gaza, which is already the world's largest and most overcrowded open air, urban prison.

...The Bethlehem checkpoint. The line up. The cold muddy streets. And the felasha IDFer pointing his gun inside the red car. Yelling, red-faced, at the Palestinian driver inside - the barrel of the M16 poised near the drivers face - "TURN AROUND!" This man is not permitted to enter Bethlehem...

Jad makes a solid presentation on the cantonization and bantustanization of lands in the West Bank and Gaza by the occupation forces. He uses GIS mapping technologies, with a particular emphasis on the Bethlehem district, to illustrate his point. During the first intifada Jad was an activist with the popular neighborhood committees. He organized 'community gardens' which quickly became a small form of civil disobedience designed to create community spirit and challenge the directives of the occupation authorities. For such an 'act' he landed himself in prison for six months of 'administrative detention'. Now Jad has the comfortable mannerisms of PA functionaries. He is a gracious host, but there is no doubt who the boss is in ARIJ's offices. Assistants are constantly milling about, whispering in his ear, bringing drinks and cheques to be signed.

This is my first encounter with the civil-society types in the Bethlehem-East Jerusalem-Ramallah corridor. The people in this region, especially in Beit Sahour, where instrumental in giving shape to the first intifada, especially in its early years. They led tax-revolts against the occupation authorities and launched a whole series of remarkable civic initiatives. Since Olso, however, this sector has become more distant from ordinary Palestinians. Donors filling the coffers of these organizations and many becoming implicated with the now discredited Oslo era. There's a sense that they are fighting against the tide, frustrated by the lack of vision among the Palestinian political class and the increasing support that the popular sectors are lending to the armed struggle and the Islamic movement.