Jim and I went to Bethlehem For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We weren't planning on working but we ended up doing some exploratory stuff with Zoughbi and Elaine Zoughbi as long as we were there. 

I had designated this day as the day I would finally catch up on e-mail.  Still have about 100 to go but I am going to call it quits for tonight. I was able to finally get through the Ha'aretz articles and other useful resources that Michael sends me.

Today Jim and I went up to Bethlehem to talk to people there about how CPT might change its focus in Palestine.  One of them made the useful suggestion that we should ask villagers how they would use a team of three people for one month.  What might keep team members busy every day regarding their struggle that did not include relief and development.  If they could not think of a way to use people everyday to challenge violence, then that would probably mean that it was not a great location for a team.

So it's Sunday again, and I can't decide whether the week has flown by or whether it seems I've been here for a long time.  It does seem like ages since I blogged.  Not doing a good job at all of keeping up on e-mail.  Something more pressing always comes up.  Generally, we're continuing to talk to Palestinian partners in the Hebron/Bethlehem area and planning trips to the Nablus area and Jordan Valley.

With the closure of the Hebron project this summer,  CPT decided that it should send an exploratory team to explore other locations in the West Bank that were facing violence and where Palestinians were organizing against the Occupation.  That goal morphed into a "refocusing" project that would help develop a healthy, unified Palestine team in At-Tuwani and possibly other locations.

This morning, I got a call at the orphanage, where I spent the night, saying that there was a home demolition in Hawuz. Tarek, our project support coordinator, me, an Italian woman, Giovanna, who's been staying with Zleekha and speaks almost no English, and John, a Bluffton student who wants to spend a week working here in August, went to the site and found that the building had not been demolished, but soldiers had ransacked seven apartments in the building. So we got back for a short centering worship. John went to work on editing the video

 

Well, I've kind of been fuming all day about the police telling me that basically everywhere that settlers set foot, CPTers are not allowed to go. I realize that most of my anger comes from the fact that Michael's friend Victor took a two hour bus ride from his home in Israel to meet me and learn about the work and basically had to turn around and go right back. I guess it taught him about the situation in Hebron, but it was still disappointing. We talked to the Ecumenical Accompaniers this morning after the incident and find it disturbing to hear the police

So I'm back at the Hebron apartment. I was kind of disappointed to learn I'm going to the orphanage tonight instead of sleeping in my "own" bed (interesting how fast things can become "home" here.) Marius and Tarek appear to be all right. As is the case with lots of stories here, we initially got some details wrong with the killing in Beit Ummar. It was a 17 year old boy, not a 13 year old, and one report has him painting the house with his father and another has him throwing stones. Marius said that Beit Ummar elders intervened pretty forcefully. Crap.