A day of resurrection surrounded by mortality...Happy Easter.
Read MoreThe Western churches, meanwhile, will be gathering soon to sit vigil by the tomb. In a land of such death, it only seems appropriate.
Read MoreAs Arafat's compound was under siege, word of another suicide bombing in Jerusalem came. It's really bad. Really bad. Good Friday indeed...
Read MoreAh, the bubbling cauldron of al-Quds...
Read MoreWe could see flares being shot over the hill, which made us worry for our friends in Aqaba and Tubas.
Read MoreNews has come out recently that if cease-fire talks fail, Israel plans to hit the refugee camps again. What more can be done, other than ethnic-cleansing? The refugees have nowhere to flee, and even if they could, the spectre of 1948's "temporary" flight weighs on their minds. Fleeing is no longer an option. Staying and fighting is all that remains. These scars will stay a long time...
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They finally reached the other side of the destruction and the waiting taxis, just under the shadow of the most surreal sight in the Northern West Bank - a restaurant in an old airplane under the shadow of a ferris wheel.
Read MoreSince the churches in Zababdeh celebrate Christmas on the Western calendar, Easter (and Lent as a result) is celebrated on the Eastern calendar.
Read MoreSuch things like that don't even register on people's radar screens anymore, let alone make the news. Nevertheless, they perpetuate and spread hopelessness.
Read MoreRoughly 25,000 people live in Jenin Camp, a third of the population of the city, all refugees and their descendants from the 1948 expulsion of Arabs from Israel proper. At first, they lived in tents, but then began to build irregular housing - their living conditions are reminiscent of the colonias along the Mexican-American border. Add to that the military activity of fifty to sixty tanks, air support, and who knows how many soldiers, and you begin to get a picture of what life is like now.
Read MoreAt least the outcry from Israeli Holocaust survivors has been heard in response.
Read MoreCynicism is contagious.
Read MoreWe then headed off to the Beit al-'Azza (the house of mourning), in which families of the fifteen killed were receiving people. It was the third day after their deaths, as is traditional in Arab society for visitation and condolences. We drank our bitter coffee and left.
Read MoreThe lectionary was the story which most of us know as the Prodigal Son (interestingly known as "The Wise Son" in Arabic - because he returns in the end) from Luke 15.
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