Back from Palestine

"How was it?" they ask me after I came home from a trip to Palestine. What can I answer them? Revolting?

There's this lady director of a day care center for the elderly who tells me about her son who came home after a night in Israeli detention. He tried to hide the bruises on his arm. It was only after one day that he dared to tell his mother they had beaten the shit out of him.

In the middle of our meeting about the project we have to stop. Some eight Israeli intelligence agents are waiting for me in the hall. Their pistols can be seen under their shirts. "We have to search this place and you have to leave immediately," one of them tells me. They don't like witnesses. Two soldiers with M-16s are standing guard at the gate.

The director of a preschool, a gentle grandmother, tells me she sometimes feels like killing an Israeli soldier. She tucks in the shirts of two of the children. "Aren't they cute?" she asks me smiling.

Me: "What did you do before you started to work here?"
He: "I was in an Israeli jail."
Me: "For how long?"
He: "Eighteen years."
Me: "That's a long time!"
He: "It's like a dream, a part of my life I skipped."

In the evening Condoleezza Rice is on CNN. She announces ex-World Bank president James Wolfensohn's new role in the "peace process". A serial killer asks a pervert to take care of her little sister. How much more of this bullshit are we supposed to swallow?

(Some pictures are here)