Apologies

I haven't been updating you on my travels all that much of late, mainly due to limited internet access and exhaustion. I'm in Ramallah now, the cosmopolitan heart of the West Bank... and local bourgeois culture, and all the international organisations, and wifi cafes (yay!!). I went to a protest at Tulkarem today and will be going to Nablus tomorrow for the rest of the week.

The protest was interesting. Picture thousands of kids marching with UN flags (to represent the UN resolution of 1948 that attempted to create a Jewish and Palestinian state side by side). They were marching towards Jaffa, a town just south of Tel Aviv that is now impossible for Palestinians to reach. It was never meant to reach that far, only to the wall as a symbolic gesture. The kids got a little carried away, some started getting dangerously close to a sniper tower and throwing rocks. At one point I ventured close to where the kids nearest to the tower were until I noticed an Israeli soldier waving his rifle. I realised I was a lot taller than most of the kids and would've probably made an easy target. So I decided to courageously to walk back a bit. In the end a teacher came and waving a plastic stick herded the kids away from the wall. I'll post pictures as soon as I get a chance.

Earlier in the week I finally managed to interview a former big wig political adviser who is also an ultra-right wing settler. He was very approachable and... avoided properly answering every question I put to him. At least I got his phone number. I've concluded that, when I get back home, I'm going to buy a speaker phone and a hundred phone cards and do a lot of over the phone interviews.