Also, Barney Stinson says new is always better.

Ma salam.

Even though I knew how long the bus ride from Eilat to Jerusalem would take, and exactly where I was when I woke up after napping a bit on the bus, how much the taxi from the bus station in Jerusalem to the checkpoint is supposed to cost, how to maneuver my bag through the revolving doors at the checkpoint, how much I’m supposed to pay for a taxi ride to Beit Sahour from the checkpoint, and where to go on a Tuesday night to find people when I have lost all the phone numbers the last year. It is a homecoming, even though most of my friends from my last stay are now scattered around the world, and I now live alone in the same apartment were I used to have a flatmate who did the dishes and tidied up after me. It is a homecoming, but it is different. It’s the same place I left a year ago, but also it’s not. Some of the things that I left here  is still in the apartment. It feels like it’s no more than a month since the last time I was here, also it feels like 10 years. I know this, even though I have only been here for a few days now.

I experienced some of the same things in Cairo last week. I got pretty well acquainted with Cairo in November 2010 when I was waiting for my new passport (yes, I still think the Norwegian embassy there is sort of a joke), and spent a lot of time in the afternoons just strolling the downtown streets. Cairo has changed. Egypt has changed, Dahab where I have spent most of my time the last two weeks has changed. Obviously there is less police in the streets now, as Mubarak’s regime is gone. In Dahab this was most noticeable by the free flow of marijuana in the streets, and people smoking openly, with no fear from the extreme legal consequences that drug use in Egypt has. In Cairo I witnessed that 100 000 people again gathered in Tahrir Square, as they were marking Egypt’s Second Day of Rage. Even a couple of days before the protest the army announced that it would stay away from Tahrir, as many of the people gathered there to express their dissatisfaction with indeed the army, and it’s leaders who are now controlling the country. Even though Egypt isn’t close to perfect, and people aren’t satisfied, the country has changed since the last time I was there. After all the Second Day of Rage developed to be more like a celebration, with the underlying demands of a people who forced one of the longest lived dictatorships in the world to fall, in the same place, in this very same spring. Sure the Egyptian army knows this, and the Egyptian people feel empowered, but still oppressed, I guess. Empowered and oppressed, that must be the hardest, and certainly the most scary group of people to try to rule, and neglect.

This is the Arab Spring.

People are behaving differently. Also Palestinians. On May 15th when Palestinians all over the world commemorated the Nakba (the Catastrophe), and marked the 63rd Nakba Day, it was clear that the Arab Spring is still very much alive. In addition to the more “normal” Nakba demonstrations all over Palestine, thousand of Palestinian refugees, walked, unarmed, to the Israeli borders with Syria, and Lebanon (they were stopped by the Egyptian army before they reached the Israeli border there), in Syria demonstrators actually managed to cross into the illegally annexed Golan Heights close to the town of Majdal Shams. 13 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army in these non-violent marches, and hundreds were wounded. In Qalandia, close to Ramallah, doctors said that they hadn’t seen as many people wounded in one single event since the Second Intifada. On Sunday, these scenarios are likely to take place again.

5th of June is the Palestinian Naksa Day, (the Day of the setback), and Palestinians will commemorate the 1967 war, when the Israeli occupation of Golan, East-Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and even Sinai started. Thousands of Palestinian refugees will again march to the Israeli borders. Palestinians will demonstrate all over the West Bank, in East- Jerusalem, Gaza and in Israel (the Israeli Government has made it illegal to mark the Nakba Day, and even to mention the Palestinian suffering that came with the declaration of the Israeli state in 1948 in Israeli schools, I don’t know if they have a official policy on the Naksa though). It will surely be another tense day, and sadly I’ll be more surprised if the day ends without any loss of human life, than with more people dying because of the all the historical wrongdoings that has led up to where we are today. Occupation and oppression. Settlements and walls. Racism and segregation. Two wrongs make a right, huh?

Not according to international law. International law is what drives the Palestinian resistance. International law is opposing the moral and legal standards of the Israeli state’s behavior towards the Palestinian people. The refugees that forcefully, and unarmed, will be trying to march into Israeli territories are indeed doing it with the UN Resolution 194 backing them. A resolution that says that the Palestinian refugees have the right to return home to where they fled from in 1948. The Nakba. The international community, the UN, and even the US, is still clear on the fact that the Golan Heights, Gaza, East-Jerusalem, and the West Bank is occupied land from Syria and the Palestinian people. This is now Israel’s problem. The Arab Spring. People don’t seem to be scared to defy authorities in this region any longer. Empowered and oppressed. And Israel is dealing with this as it has always done. Violence, and more violence. And people die. And Israel continues to neglect international laws. And people die. And violence creates violence.

I must say that I am genuinely afraid that any excessive use of violence that will be used to handle the Palestinian’s Arab Spring, might lead to a circle of violence that we hoped would be in the past. Counterproductive and horrifying. Whoever thinks that taking another human’s life in this conflict is promoting freedom and justice is wrong. It only promotes death and killing. This should be remembered as the Israeli army have to handle Naksa Day- protests on Sunday. It’s the Arab Spring. Handle with care. Or it explodes.

Oh, and I should probably also mention the flotilla expected to set sail for Gaza in the end of June. It will be a busy month for the Israeli army to defend it’s right to neglect international law. 

During the movie we are served phrases like: “I want to fight for my country, on my country’s soil!”, “My country was stolen from me, Sir, and I want it back”, “We shall both die. Only I will die with a smile, because I know we [the Norwegians, I guess] will win”. It disturbs me. Is my freedom founded on nationalism? Am I free, because someone claimed that they loved Norwegians, and the Norwegian King (who at the time really was Danish), and where willing to die and kill for this? I choose to believe that the persons who resisted the Nazi- occupation of Norway didn’t exclusively care about Norwegians. Still some of the language and the quotes, which are based on the protagonist’s own memoirs, say something about a nationalism which I don’t understand.

In one of the last scenes of the movie, when Norway is liberated, and the Germans either have gone home, been arrested, or killed, the main character is alone in a room draped with the biggest Norwegian flag I have ever seen. Honestly, if I that scene was presented to me out of its context, I would immediately think it was a movie about Norwegian neo- Nazis.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t believe in nations. I don’t believe in nationalism. I believe in groups of people having different cultures, different languages, and sort of different needs. I don’t believe these groups need their own state to ensure these needs, and their culture. I have several times the last years observed nationalism in many ways. I have seen a Palestinian nationalism being used to fight the horrible occupation of the West Bank. Palestinians fighting for their own country. For their right to govern themselves. Palestinians fighting for a just and free Palestinian state. I have seen, and met, Israelis who use their nationalism to deny Palestinian refugees their right to return to Israel, where they fled from in 1948. I have observed an Israeli nationalism excluding 20% of all Israeli citizens in many ways (20% of the population in Israel are in fact Palestinians, and are for example experiencing that the state plays a big role in the “judification” of East-Jerusalem, to change the geopolitical status of the city ). I have witnessed an Israeli nationalism mixed with religion, making Israel a Jewish state, based on laws that exclude other religious groups (the Lutheran church in Israel is for instance not recognized as faith community, and doesn’t enjoy the rights of other bigger faith communities in Israel). The religious nationalists also claims that only Jews have a historical right to live in the West Bank (referred to as Judea and Samaria by the religious extremists). I have experienced that nationalism is used to create an “us and them” image of the world. An image that I reject.

Earlier I have seen nationalism in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq being used to build a state. School children there are shouting “Love live Kurdistan! Long live the Kurds!” at the start of a school day. The Kurds have been oppressed in many ways in Iraq, and I fully understand their wish for a Kurdish state, including the Kurdish areas in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, but that says more about those countries, and their excluding forms of nationalism. Doesn’t it?

I didn’t go to the occupied West Bank, to show solidarity with the Palestinians in their struggle for a Palestinian state. I didn’t leave an occupied people to go home and advocate for a Palestinian state. There is no doubt that the Palestinians have every right to have their own state that includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, but this is not anything I can, or will advocate for. I advocate for freedom and justice for all. I advocate for peace with justice. In a way I couldn’t care less about if it is a one state-, or two state s solution that will be the outcome of the occupation, as long as it is just solution. But in a way I care. Simply because a Palestinian state in the occupied territories would mean that the Israeli Jewish state would continue to exist in its very problematic nature.

Even though the history of Israel is highly disturbing, and holds stories about ethnic cleansing (such as the village of Deir Yassin), no one can deny the Israelis their right to live on this small piece of land that is the state of Israel. But we shall crave that it is done in co- existence. I don’t think any state that is funded on a specific religion (not even Norway that is a Christian country by constitution) is equipped with laws suited to fight injustice in every way, and to treat people as what people are; human beings. No more, no less. I know for a fact that Israel is not equipped with laws that in an efficient way fights racism. This is not only because Israel is a Jewish state, but also because it is governed by extreme right wing politicians. This is why I personally see a one state- solution, with a free, just and secular state as the ideal outcome of all these years of occupation. But that is for the Israelis and the Palestinians to choose. Not me.

Back to the movie and the endless killing: As a humanistic Christian, it pains me to think of all the lives that ended in a brutal way when the country I live in was liberated from the Nazis. As a pacifist you get these questions: Do you really believe that WW2 would have been won without weapons? What would I as a pacifist do if my freedom was robbed from me, by a brutal and racist regime? Short answers: No. And I would probably print newspapers for the resistance movement.

I mean, if we all had respect for human lives, there would be no wars, and no reason for resisting violently. If we all lived our lives with a deep respect for all that lives, there would be no wars, no occupations, and no oppression. If we all lived our lives as Mahatma Gandhi our world would look different. It would be a better place (maybe full of insects though). Whether or not WW2 would had been won by Gandhi, or if a Europe full of Gandhis would have prevented the genocide against the Jews is a hypothetical question. Even though I am pretty sure that a Norway full of Gandhis would make the country harder to occupy, and more important; it would spare human lives. Also, it might have created scenes like in the photo above, which is from a non-violent protest against the Wall in Bil’in, close to Ramallah, that is met by a very high level of violence by the Israeli occupying force (protesters have been killed in this particular demonstration that has been held every Friday the last five years). I’ll write more about how I experienced Bil’in later.

I admire the Palestinians for their commitment to the non- violent way of protesting against the occupation. I am fully aware that most of you in fact are not aware of all the thousands of Palestinians that are engaged in the non- violent, Popular Committee- based protest groups across the occupied territories. Simply because it is not something that comes up in the media often enough. This is the popular Palestinian way to resist the occupation. Non- violent protests.

To summarize: I watched a movie that gave my own freedom a bittersweet taste. I do believe that nationalism can be used in a way to create something good, and to motivate people to fight for a certain cause. But I don’t think it is a constructive approach to a conflict. Freedom and justice is much more important. This goes for Norway, Palestine, Israel, Kurdistan and probably every other country in the world. Acknowledging that killing was a necessary evil to ensure my freedom is also hard to accept, just as it is hard to accept anyone’s use of violence, either it’s Palestinians, Kurds or Israelis. Nationalism creates a space between people, and  that certain space makes violence seem like a more legitimate mean to fight for something that is important to this specific group. It creates “Us and them”. I reject it, as we are all humans.

May 17th is the national day in Norway, and we celebrate it with Norwegian flags, very nationalistic songs and parades. I do enjoy the day. Mostly because of the food and the cheerful people. But secretly I laugh of it. Because we’re not celebrating Norway, or Norway’s independence from Sweden. We’re celebrating our freedom. I couldn’t care less if I had a Swedish passport.

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains

I arrived safe back in Norway today, after a thorough but surprisingly friendly security check at Ben Gurion Airport (blond hair and blue eyes are an asset in the world, but less is obviously more, according to the Israeli security officers, who always gives me the highest security score on the threat scale, while Gjermund and Marie never face any trouble).

As i predicted, it feels strange to be back. Today at the train from Olso Airport to Stokke, where we are doing our debrief,  I overheard some conversations by people as old as I am. I felt like an alien. My body is in Norway, but my mind is set on Palestinian fight for peace with justice. When the conductor woke me up to let me know that we had to change from train to bus, as there had been an accident on the route to Stokke, I instantly assumed that the uniformed man wanted to see my passport. I was wrong, he wanted me out of the train, in a rude manner that is carried out just as well by Israelis (which are not well known to show hospitality, but I think most of them actually are quite hospital) and Norwegians (we also have a hard time showing hospitality). As I did during the rather normal security check at the airport in Vienna, I felt a contempt for unnecessary rude people in uniform, and answered him in a way that I often even have a hard time to justify when I’m talking to the brainwashed soldiers at the checkpoints in the West Bank. I hope that this is an attitude that will leave me pretty soon.

In Norway I have already used more water by taking a shower, than I would do in a week in occupied Palestine, the internet is faster, and I keep looking up news from Ma’an, IMEMC, Haaretz, al-Jazeera and BBC, streaming videos of the recent non-violent demonstrations to halt the building of the Wall, that still is being erected as a symbol on how inhuman humans sometimes are. We are staying in an old beautiful farm with log houses in the Norwegian woods. I enjoy the facilities,  but also I couldn’t care less. It’s just a dream. My real life isn’t here. It’s in Palestine. I’m afraid I will feel like this for a while.

I just slept hours on the sofa (as I didn’t get much sleep travelling from Beit Sahour to Stokke), and had the strangest dream of Palestine, where all my Palestinian friends and colleges appeared in the strangest roles, as the strangest characters. I woke up sweaty and confused, and found myself in this unreal place: Norway.

Was Palestine just a dream? Was none of this real, no occupation, no abuse of power, and no weekly fights for justice? Did it ever happened? Looking out the window I have a hard time finding traces of oppression. If there is such a thing as occupied Palestine, refugees, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and a wall, why are we sitting here? Why aren’t we doing anything to end this madness as I am writing these words?

Palestine is like Narnia. I fell a sleep on this couch and woke up minutes later. Nothing had changed. Not visibly at least. But I have changed. Will people believe me when I tell them about Palestine? Will my friends believe me? Will they care? Will they question my rationality? My sanity? Will they listen? Will they believe me when I tell them of heroes like Doctor Mazin Qumsiyeh, or all the other good people? What will I do if they don’t show the same passion to end the insanity as I have? How will I react if I find out that ending the daily violations of human rights in occupied Palestine isn’t the most important agenda in my friends lives? What will I do? In a year, will my mind be just as set on going back to Palestine, to feed myself with stories to tell, as it is today?

I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.

— C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

The photo is from a trip to Nablus. The only set of photography that I didn’t erase from my computer, in fear of what the Israeli security at the airport would do if they found out I’ve been travelling with an open mind in the West Bank.

As soon as you stop being on the offensive in the occupied Palestine you will start to lag behind. For my part the intensive Christmas celebration forced me to take a deep breath. Stop. After Christmas it has been impossible to write. Not because there haven’t been anything to write about. On the contrary. It has been too much. Too many thoughts. Too many late nights trying to figure this place out. Too many events. It never stops. Every day is a new day worthy of a blog post. Every event could have been a good short story. It’s hard to keep up the pace. Hard to breath in the same pace as this place. As the occupation. As a blogger. Hard to write.

Even though it is hard to follow the pulse of this place as a blogger, it’s not really hard to keep on going to the beat of Palestine. It’s harder not to follow the daily rhythm of occupation and resistance. As a human. That is what we do.

A month ago I had to leave for Egypt to renew my visa again. As last time, it felt weird leaving, and good to come back. This time I only stayed a few days in Dahab, smoking shisha, drinking tea and reading books. Taking a break. Doing nothing. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right at all. Is that how life in Norway will feel like when I’m coming back? Not right. Not right at all? In 20 days I’ll be back in a world without checkpoints, walls, soldiers everywhere, teargas on Fridays, and without constantly having to think “what’s next?”. What more gruesome has the occupation to offer? It’s soon time to burst out of this bubble for real. The thought of it is scary, comforting, annoying, and overwhelming. My heart starts beating faster when I think of it. I don’t know if it is good or bad. Leaving will not be easy. It will not feel good. I’m afraid it will feel wrong. Leaving.

Coming back to Norway. I hope it will be OK. Hopefully it won’t feel wrong. But I’m not sure. Coming back.

Coming back? It’s bizarre. Every time I’m crossing the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, I am met by the eager taxi drivers on the eastern side of the wall. Then I’m coming back. Bethlehem and Beit Sahour is back. Norway is distant. Far away. Cold. It’s where most of my friends live. My family. Still, going back to life in Norway scares me in many ways. It comforts me as well. It really does. But I don’t feel like I’m ready. Not yet.

I might never be ready. Maybe I will feel ready the day the occupation ends? After all, my purpose here is based entirely on the occupation. Being a part of the society in Palestine that every day is resisting oppression and injustice makes me  feel in some ways important. More important than I remember that I felt in Norway. More purposeful.

It might not be like this. It’s not as I will leave a black hole after me when I leave Palestine. Not at all. I’m probably able to be as purposeful to the Palestinians, probably even more, when I’m in Norway. My new knowledge, passion, and pragmatism is not unique in occupied Palestine. In Norway it’s different. I think I have a lot to offer in Norway. More than I had before I left. My hope is that Palestinians are better off with me in Norway than here. That makes leaving this place truly meaningful.

Breath in. Breath out. Follow the pace. Start writing again.

Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem is surrounded by the Israeli Apartheid Wall. For every 300 meter (or so) in the wall there is a watchtower. Since this camp is surrounded by the Wall, the camp is also surrounded by watchtowers. Residents of the camp claims that most of the shooting in to the camp comes from soldiers based in these watchtowers. Sometimes the gate in the wall opens, and the Israeli army drives into the camp with jeeps, and does house searching (which often ends in damage of the houses they search, as they kick in doors, and damages the interiors of the apartments they are invading). Of course, the soldiers often shoot as they enter the camp as well. After the wall was constructed the Israeli army doesn’t enter the camp in jeeps as often as they used to. Before the construction of the wall, soldiers also used to occupy buildings surrounding the camp, and then shoot into the camp from the surrounding rooftops. The watchtowers have made this kind of behavior unnecessary as well. Most of the time.

This photo is taken inside Aida refugee camp, and shows Israeli soldiers on a rooftop of a house in Bethlehem. As far as I know, there was no shooting in to the camp this day, but still people in the camp where quite upset, and alarmed (not as upset and alarmed as I would expect though) by the soldiers on the roof. Will they shoot? You never know.

Residents of the camp are used to all this, so used are they, that the children of the camp can recognize the sound of the Israeli armys’ jeeps as soon as they come out of the gate in the wall. Of course they instantly run inside whenever they hear this sound. The residents of the camps also gets alarmed when they spot soldiers on rooftops outside of the camp. I didn’t see anyone panicking, nor did I feel that people where expecting a worst case scenario which included shooting. Even though the word of the soldiers on the roof spread quickly through the camp, and everyone was well aware of the soldiers on the roof.

I’m not telling this story about the soldiers on the roof, and showing this photo, just so I have a dramatic story to put on my blog. Actually, if it wasn’t for the people in the camp being so calm about the incident, I would easily present this as something dramatic. Because, for me, a Norwegian, soldiers (there are many soldiers on the roof, even two more soldiers to the left of my “magnifying glass”) who have a habit of shooting into a refugee camp, occupying a nearby house of a refugee camp is quite dramatic. It should be. It shouldn’t be “just another event”. At worst, it should be once in a life time.

I also know that I’m just stating that there is random (unexpected, unprovoked, targeting people who definitely is no threat to the soldiers)  shooting in to the camp. This is based on what I’ve heard from people in Aida refugee camp, but also in other refugee camps. If I would reject all these stories as lies, I would also have to ignore the hundreds (maybe thousands) of bullet holes I have seen in the different camps. That is impossible.

Every morning they are standing in what seems to be two endless queues. One queue at the entrance of the container checkpoint, that is where they are standing outside in the open air, next to the wall, in one line with wired fence on both sides. There is not enough space to have two people standing next to each other. Just inside the wall is a revolving door, the Palestinian workers wait for the light on the door to go from red to green, then they show their permits to the young Israeli soldier in the booth next to the door. He nods his head in blissed ignorance, and the workers continue their journey through a metal detector.

Then the workers run.

I talked to a Palestinian worker at the checkpoint, he told me that if he is late for work three times his employer will fire him. Being delayed by a construction that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law (The UN General Assembly also in Resolution ES-10/15 overwhelmingly reaffirmed the ICJ Advisory Opinion), is not a good enough reason to be late for work.

For some people the stress of loosing your job, -the fact that the checkpoint doesn’t always open on time, – occasionally technical problems with the metal detectors, – or, a soldier in a bad mood, makes you run. As fast as you can. Over the parking lot, down to the container room, where you will have to face another queue, another line, more waiting. The clock is ticking, will you be able to be at work on time? How disastrous will it be if you’re not on time?

Some people get sick because of the daily stress, and the mental harassment that the whole every day repeating checkpoint experience is, tormenting them to quit their job on the other side of the wall. Most of the time these jobs are better paid than jobs inside the wall. Also, you should be happy if you have a job: 21,5 per cent of the Palestinian labor force are unemployed(17.7% in the West Bank and 29.7% in Gaza Strip)(2007)). It’s not easy to quit a job. Not in Palestine, not in Norway.

Ok, back to the container checkpoint: You are finished running (for now). This time you’re waiting inside a big hall. There are two rooms (well, there are three, but they never open all three at the same time), with metal detectors (again!), and a machine to scan all your belongings. While waiting in line, you’re having Israeli soldiers with machine guns patrolling on a strange “cat-walk” over your head. Yelling to you in Hebrew if you do something “wrong” (it’s not easy to know what you have done wrong when the soldier yell at you in a language you don’t understand).

After a while (A study conducted by the UNRWA over three days in January and February 2009 showed that the average crossing time was 1 hour 10 minutes with a range from 22 minutes to 3 hours and 19 minutes. According to the EAPPI, on a normal day it takes 1 hour and 30 minutes if you are queuing from 4.30 am. ) you will reach a new revolving door, wait for the light to turn green, then enter room with the metal detector and the machine to scan your belongings. If the detector beeps when you walk through it, you will have to try again, the soldier will probably also yell at you in Hebrew (again!). The soldier scans your belongings, making sure that you don’t bring weapons (even though, there are not really any civilians who owns weapons on the West Bank any longer.) Some soldiers consider certain tools weapons (even though it is clear that you are a carpenter working for a contractor in Israel), and they will not allow you to bring it. Which means, that they in a way don’t allow you to do your work. Some soldiers don’t care. Which makes the whole checkpoint experience even more random, and tormenting, and makes you more stressed and insecure, and I would guess; makes you run even faster.

After collecting your belongings from the conveyor belt, you also have to wait for a new green light on another revolving door. As the light turns green, you enter a new room, with 12 booths (maximum four of them are staffed, though), where you will have to show your papers to the soldier, have your magnetic ID- card scanned, and your fingerprints scanned. The machines to scan all of this are being used several thousand times every day, and together with a worn out ID-card it might take a while to get the system to work, and grant you access to the other side of the West Bank, grant you access to the western parts of the West Bank

It is not a border, if the wall was a border, and the checkpoint a border crossing it should have been built on the green line (the ceasefire line from 1949 (often referred to as the 1967-borders), which is the internationally recognized border between Israel and the West Bank).

Anyway, you start running again. To the bus that waits for you, the same bus that will take you back to the checkpoint, in time for you not to get a mark in your access papers. Some workers have to be back to the checkpoint at 5 pm, others can stay in the other part of the West Bank until 7 pm. When the bus drops you of at the checkpoint, you once again start running. Being late back to the checkpoint three times might result in your permit being hold back one day, preventing you to go to work, and then possibly loose your job.

This is the occupation, wishing the Palestinians a good morning!

Also, this is a short film made by Images for life -project from Al-Rowwad center in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. It should give you an image of how it is at the checkpoint an early morning.

Yesterday I talked to a taxi-driver, he was complaining over the economical situation (in fact I was his first customer that day, at 12.30), the lack of tourists in Bethlehem, and how people have to live on a day to day- basis without any financial security. Two months ago, having this conversation, I would have nodded patiently and said: “Yes, I understand”, yesterday I said “Yes, I know” and nodded my head harder and faster than ever before (just to make sure he got the message, “Yes, I know”).

There is of course a difference between understanding and knowing. Even though I’m free to go wherever I want to go, I’m paid enough money to live a good life here, and my biggest dream is not to leave this place rather sooner than later, I still think that I the last weeks have learned more about what the occupation is, and how it affects me. How it after four and a half month is making even my quite luxurious life more complicated. I can see the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints, and of course several other places at the West Bank, and I can touch the wall and ride cars with “West Bank- only” green license plates. But even more important, I have to acknowledge that daily life isn’t as simple as it could be, and I know that someone is doing their best to keep it this way: Complicated and restricted. I might sound paranoid, but everyone who goes to a Supermarket at the West Bank would understand what I mean. Try to go by car from Bethlehem to Ramallah, or pick olives in areas that are still in the West Bank, but cut off from the rest of the West Bank land by the apartheid wall. It is all a part of this occupation that I’m learning to hate.

At least I’ve been exposed to the occupation for so long that I feel like I’m being occupied. At this point I would probably not be able to tell the difference of being occupied and feeling occupied anyway. All I know is that yesterday I told someone that I know what the occupation is doing to people. I know how hard this occupation is on most people in the West Bank. And I hate it. I really do.

I hate the occupation, even though people laugh and smile, and continue their life in a way that would be abnormal and outrageous less than 12 kilometers west of Beit Sahour (in West Jerusalem).

Sometimes I feel small, helpless and insignificant, and I feel like I’m not doing anything good here. Still I have the time of my life, in a weird and confusing way.

Life here at the West Bank isn’t gold. Look at the young children wearing the Fatah- hats. I am so glad I don’t have to take in to consideration Palestinian politics while I’m here. Palestinian politics belongs to the Palestinians, and I will not even try to have an opinion about it. But I don’t like the Fatah- logo: Two guns and a hand grenade! I don’t like it at all, and I don’t like the uncritical use of it. It is a problem for me when I’m introducing people to Palestine, and it is a problem for Palestinians when I’m introducing people to Palestine. I don’t think most Palestinians react to it as I do, and they probably don’t share all the associations I have every time I’m exposed to the logo. Even though the logo is old, and Fatah and PLO has a history of being more violent than they are today, it says something about how some people still justify an armed struggle to end the occupation. I don’t think that I’m in a position to moralize, but I can’t possibly think of any good endings to an armed Palestinian struggle. In the same way I can’t think of any good endings to a military occupation of the West Bank, and I can’t remember any wars in history with a happy ending.

The occupation has in its abstract way forced me to a point where I have to find out how I can be a bigger tool as possible to advocate for a non-violent end to the occupation. It might be simple; I am a photographer. I take photos. I communicate (at least this is what I should do). And this is how I should advocate. This is how I want to advocate.

I’m not sure that my photos will ever have a big enough impact on decision makers and the public opinion to change anything at all. All I know is that I have found something that I want and need to continue to work on, something that at least makes me feel useful, and something that I want people to notice and to appreciate. It’s about right and wrong. It’s about how I justify enjoying eight months of Palestinian hospitality in Beit Sahour, It’s about how injustice is being justified by an occupying force, and it’s more or less about everything I believe in (as a Christian Humanist). In a way it is just as much about me, as it is about the Palestinians and this awful occupation. I want to use all of myself to communicate the crime that this occupation is, and to advocate for a non-violent struggle against the occupying force. Not because I want to, because I need to.

It is personal.

The settlers are simply trying to destroy the land, because they want it. They want to expand the settlement, and this way of expanding the settlement, and stealing land, has proved quite effective for settlements in this area earlier. Beit Ummar, is not far away from Umm Salamona*.

- What is the legal process, when such things happens?, I asked.

- Well, there is none, they replied. – Basically, if a Palestinian attacks a settler, the surveillance camera in the nearest military camp or settlement, will catch it, and make sure the Palestinian is imprisoned. If a settler is violent to a Palestinian, or damaging Palestinian farmers land, the same surveillance cameras are usually not functioning on that particular day.

Palestinians are encouraged to file in the complaint, but usually there is all that is to it.

File in a complain, then replant the land. Next year, JAI (The Olive Tree Campaign) is going to plant about 1000 new trees on this land.

*Back from Beit Ummar we stopped by the fields in Umm Salamona. Today they where planting 250 new trees there, and no trees have been uprooted since the last incident.

The village has not been populated since 1948. Today most of the villagers live in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. In fact, about 750 000 Palestinians fled their homes in 1948. Today about 4,7 million Palestinians are living in refugee camps, either on the West Bank, on the Gaza strip, Jordan, Lebanon, or Syria.

Life in a refugee camp is not as life in a village.

When talking about Palestinian refugees, it is also important not to forget the refugees who do not live in camps. There are Palestinian refugees living in cities inside Israel and the occupied territories, who are internally displaced. They are also refugees. Together with Palestinian refugees living abroad they make the number of Palestinian refugees as high as about 7 million, while there is about 10 million Palestinians in the world.

In an earlier post I used the term “ethnic cleansing”, some are saying that it is controversial to accuse the state of Israel of performing such a crime. Well, when you systematically force people to leave their homes and their lands, clearing a certain area of an ethnic group, either by military force or eviction orders, it is without doubt ethnic cleansing. The events that lead to the establishment of the Israeli state included wiping Palestinians off their lands, and out of their villages, towns and cities. Today, 61 years later, Israel is still forcing Palestinians to flee their homes. If this is not ethnic cleansing, then what is? If it doesn’t stop today, when will it stop? If we don’t react, and call these actions by their true name, when will we react and dare say it out loud? Ethnic cleansing.

I like the sound of it just as little as you do.

The state of Israel probably don’t like the sound of it either. That is why Lubya isn’t easy to find these days. You have to know where Lubya is to find it. It is not on the map and it is not in the history of Israel. Look at the photo. There are pines and cacti. Looking at it with my European eyes the cacti are the ones who look alien. They are not. The pines are aliens, planted there by the Jewish National Fund*, several years after 1948, to cover up the misdeeds that lead to the creation of Israel. The cacti are growing over piles of debris, where the houses in the village used to be. The cacti are keeping strangers out of the villagers homes, while the villagers themselves are experiencing an exodus in refugee camps in the surrounding countries.

Under the cacti there is debris, ruins of buildings. Of villages. Homes. Waiting to be rebuilt, waiting for their owners. The villagers themselves, are waiting for the world to act as promised, and let them return home. They have indeed the right to return (Article 11 of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (III)).

*In fact, the Jewish National Fund is registered as an environmental charity, because of their tree planting project. I’m not going to link to the JNF website, but I would encourage you to google it.