here are some shots from the Bethlehem trip: an example of some of the devastated looking shacks we saw on the side of the road; a group shot of me and Olivia with our wonderful host-mamma Linda and her son Basel, and a couple of the house that was our last stop: a peace center built on the site of a home that has been demolished four times by the Israeli army. the man who built it talked to us about his trials, trying to build a home for his large family and having it repeatedly knocked down, once a year after it was built but only a night after he finally moved into it. His courage is amazing, as is the compassion of a number of Israelis who've joined him in fighting the unjust policies of their own military, and in helping him to build the house over and over again. I'm embarrassed I'm forgetting his name. Anyway, the place was beautiful in spite of the abject poverty all around it, in the edge-of-Jerusalem neighborhood Anata. Just across the deserted, rocky valley, the main view is of a large prison which houses Palestinian men- another place, by the way that had been made forbidden for Palestinians to build on for it's being "environmentally protected," like a national park, only to see Israel building something monstrous on it...
anyway. sort of out of the mood of all these Thanksgiving pics, huh? that's life here, I guess, but I think things are- slowly, slowly- moving in a good direction. Amir Peretz and Labor, Sharon leaving Likud, Europeans condemning the annexation of lands in East Jerusalem (came out in yesterday's NY Times). We just all have to have patience and compassion for this process.
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