August 5, 2001

As we made our way from the hostel to the bus station, we stopped at SPNI, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. This organization has published some wonderful maps, as well as some interesting books (flora, fauna, insects, etc.) on the area - unfortunately, most of them have yet to be translated into English, and Marthame's Biblical Hebrew ("God said, 'Moses, Moses.' Moses said, 'Here I am.'") doesn't help when it comes to millipedes, scorpions, and roly-polys.

We then caught another shared taxi back to Jerusalem, this time sharing it with Filipinos, Indians, and Israelis - both Jewish and Arab. One Israeli woman turned out to be insane, and one of the Indian women (whom she was harrassing and generally freaking out by alternately growling at her and kissing her arm) asked to be let out by the side of the highway rather than endure the rest of the trip (luckily, things calmed down and both of them arrived at their destinations without being left by the side of the road). Never a dull moment...

Upon arriving in the New City of Jerusalem, the young Arab who had been riding up front hopped out at his stop and was immediately surrounded by four or five soldiers and police, asking for his ID and going through his bags. We have seen this repeated on Arab men all over the new city. How humiliating it must be.

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral in West Jerusalem sits next to an Israeli court building.

We arrived at the home demolition hearing to be informed by Rabbi Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights that it had been moved to another location (rather than the court building in the area of Jerusalem known as the Russian Compound, where you find the beautiful Russian Orthodox Cathedral) and then postponed. Rabbi Asherman seemed confident that this was a good sign, and was buying more time for the families, as it was highly unlikely (although not without precedent) that the government would go ahead and demolish them without the court hearing.

We met some interesting people at the non-hearing and had lunch with them, one an American Jewish professor/tourbook writer, the other an American Jewish student/activist. Nothing like hanging out with tourbook writers to get you the best, cheapest deal on food.

We then poked our heads in at the Alternative Information Center, about which we had heard a great deal (they've been very active in supporting justice work; we'd heard about them especially for their activism opposing home demolitions).

Damascus Gate is always a bustle of activity.

Qalandia checkpoint on the edge of Ramallah.

Finally, we headed back to Birzeit to do our homework like good little boys and girls. We caught our taxi from Damascus Gate, which is always such a Eastern cultural counterpoint to the Western feel of the New City, and were dropped off at the Qalandiya checkpoint. It had been closed for a while, and we walked a good twenty minutes in the heat of the day along with all Palestinian walks of life before we got through the huge snarl of backed up traffic and headed into Ramallah.

By the time we got back to Birzeit (whose checkpoint was open), we were happy to crawl into bed early and not move until morning.