August 4, 2001

We've been looking forward to our plans for the rest of the weekend, for events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. First Tel Aviv, where we arrived in a shared taxi from the Damascus Gate (Saturday is Shabbat, and so there are virtually no busses running in Israel), along with a real smattering of internationals living here - Nigerians, Ghanaians, Filipinos...

Marthame sat next to an Arab from East Jerusalem, but finding this out was difficult. People who live in Jerusalem live an interesting life, never knowing whose "side" anyone is on - for some there are obvious physical clues, but sometimes there are none. When Marthame asked him where he was from, he said, "Jerusalem." When he asked him where in Jerusalem, he said, "outside the Old City" - always very careful to make it unclear whether he was Jewish or Arab. Finally Marthame said, "We live near Jenin," which permitted him to tell his story a little more openly. En route, he pointed out where many Palestinian villages were located before they were destroyed during and after the 1948 War.

Tel Aviv beaches are crowded on Saturdays.

We walked from the bus station to the water - Tel Aviv on Saturday is a lot like Ramallah on Friday, with everything closed up. We spent most of the afternoon hanging out at the beach, taking a nice dip in the Mediterranean, drinking really good minty lemonade and enjoying a little leisure reading.

An estimated 100,000 people marching for peace in Tel Aviv.

Tonight there was a large Peace Now demonstration in Tel Aviv, which was calling on Sharon to stop escalating the situation, asking him to move away from war and return to the negotiating table. We especially wanted to come because we had also heard about the event from those who were going to protest the demonstration, to make a stronger leftist stance, with signs saying, "No peace now without right of return" and the like from groups like Gush Shalom, IndyMedia, Intifada Solidarity, and the Socialists (as well as a few anarchists and stragglers thrown in).

The crowd was really big; we hustled to the front of the line and stood on the sidewalk and watched the whole procession pass by - it took a long time. Estimates run up to 100,000 demonstrators. It was heartening to see so many people call for a halt to hostilities, particularly when hostilities are so popular within Israel and Palestine these days. And it was exciting to see (what we consider) a healthy variety of opinions within the "peace camp." Unfortunately, we saw only a very few Arab Israelis (who represent approximately 20% of Israel's population) participating in the march; at times it seemed a bit strange for Jewish Israelis to argue amongst themselves about how generous they were going to be towards the Palestinians.

We were anticipating heading back to Jerusalem, because tomorrow morning a small group was hoping to stop some planned home demolitions set to take place in Shua'afat Refugee Camp near Jerusalem. Instead, we found out that the families had been granted a second hearing, so we would meet at the court in the morning.

We spent the rest of the cool evening at a Tel Aviv theater watching the latest Hollywood nonsense (starring John Cusack :-).