This is my last blog post. I have been thinking about it for quite some time now. And however ridiculous the idea might sound to you, it has been great fun for me. Early in my stay in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) I noticed that quite a few stores had “top” in their names. Right outside the apartment in which I have been living you can for example find the two stores, “top house” and “top hair”. What is this, I asked myself. Just a coincidence, or are there abnormally many “top”-stores in the occupied Palestinian territories? So one day among days (as they say in Arabic) when Lars and I bought tobacco for our argileh in “top smoker” and Marie gave me an avocado also labeled “top”, the project was born: Documenting as many “top” things as possible!

The project has now come to an end, and the result you can see in this, my very last, blog post. 29 “top” signs from  different places in the occupied territories: Hebron, Beit Sahour, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Qalqiliya and Nablus. Many people have been involved in this project, and I even was pulled over by the police in Qalqiliya when photographing “top cars”. I had a hard time making him understand what I was doing, but he also had a hard time explaining why the sign “top cars” was a military installation, which could not be photographed.

And so it ends: thirty times “top” for the occupied Palestinian territories! But why do I keep on writing “the occupied Palestinian territories,” instead of the West Bank? Because in spite of the suffocating occupation and shocking injustices in the oPt, it has been toP to be here.

Saturday of light, or the “Sept an-Nur” which is is called in Arabic is, according to the traditions of the Orthodox church, an annually miracle taking place on the Saturday proceeding Easter Sunday. According to a random internet page it is “[a] great miracle given by God only to the Orthodox church”. This statement sounds rather exclusive, and reflects nothing of Marie and my experience of the celebration in Beit Sahour in which we participated. There were thousands of people in the streets waiting for the patriarch to bring the light from the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. And as far as I’m concerned the Orthodox were accompanied by both Catholics, some Muslims and at least two Protestants from Norway. Some people always try to highlight division among the Palestinians, be it between Muslims and Christians or Catholics and Orthodox. Division was not what I experienced. But rather a festive, loud, crowded celebration of the Easter miracle. If you want to read more about it check out Marie’s blog here.

This is a picture of a girl taking a picture of me in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron. I had it coming for me since I document most things I see at the West Bank, and I admit that I sneak-shot quite a few pictures of this charming girl inside the beautiful mosque, where Abraham is believed to be buried. The phone she uses as a camera is by the way the exact same phone I use for work back home. Isn’t that something! For me this photo says at least one thing about the world and one thing about the West Bank.

About the world: Cell phones have become something almost everybody owns, and since many of them include cameras, very many that wouldn’t necessarily buy, or couldn’t afford a camera, now has one. One consequence for me is that I (as a privileged, relatively rich, Norwegian boy with a camera)  am no longer only the photographer, but also the photographed. What does that tell me? I am not quite sure, but maybe that I am equally “exotic” to them as they are to me, and now we have the same possibility of capturing our “exoticness” on film.

About the West Bank: For those of you who have been in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron you know that there are quite a few Israeli soldiers you have to pass through to be able to enter the mosque. This time was no exception. The West Bank is just full of soldiers interfering with most aspects of life. I have never before been exposed to so much military presence. And even in this rather funny situation where a little girl is taking a picture of a foreigner with her camera in a mosque, there is a soldier supervising the process. His big gun in his right arm is not covering up his very curious expression on his face. I wonder what he thinks about the photo she takes of me.

Last week many things happened in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that were covered in the international media. However there is often a tendency to overlook how the big political decisions affect the people in the streets. I will present to you one story.

Joe Biden, the vise president of the United States of America visits Israel for some days. He is there to express his support to Israel saying that there is “no space” between the US and Israel on Israel’s security (BBC). During this visit Israel announces it’s plans to build 1600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo in the occupied East Jerusalem. This makes the American administration very upset, and Hilary Clinton, minister of foreign affairs, strongly rebukes Israel for this unilateral move possibly harming the peace process (BBC and Haaretz). At the same time Palestinians are demonstrating in the streets of East Jerusalem and other places in the occupied West Bank (Haaretz). Everyday they see that the Israeli occupation is expanding on their land, making life more and more difficult. Demonstrations are often met with great force from the Israeli side. Is it a necessary evil to stop Palestinians from throwing stones? Or is it a strategy from an occupying force to strike down as hard as possible on opposition? You can read about my own experience with participating in an non-violent demonstration in Oush Ghrab here. So frustrated Palestinians are taking to the streets, voicing their fatigue with the situation. Some throw stones, most of them do not. The result is that the Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak announces the closure of the entire West Bank for “security reasons” (Haaretz).

The girl in the picture is living in the West Bank. She is studying environmental studies at the Ben Gurion University, an Israeli university. Marie and I passed her at the Gilo 300 checkpoint separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem. We overheard her saying to the soldier: “please, I have to study.” So we turned back and asked her what was going on. The soldier would not let her through because of the military order closing the West Bank. She showed us the Israeli permit that allows her to cross the checkpoint, but there was no exception for Palestinians studying. “I can’t do anything at home”, lamented the other girl, “because my computer is at the university”. As we stand there trying to express understanding of their frustration, some tourists pass right by the soldier. The curfew is evidently only for Palestinians going to Jerusalem. Maybe there would be trouble for Israel if they treated foreigners the same way as Palestinians. We turn to leave, wishing them all the best, when the soldier all of a sudden tells them “you can study here”. I almost lose it. The anger in me boils up. Isn’t it enough that these girls are denied their right to study? Do they also have to be ridiculed? Where is the respect and the understanding from this soldier’s part that what his government is doing is harming other people?

Is this not collective punishment? Palestinians are punished as a group. Tourist visiting the West Bank, internationals volunteering at the West Bank and settlers breaking international laws by living at the West bank are all allowed to travel as they please to Jerusalem and back. But Palestinians are not. This girl missed classes at the university (what if she had an exam?) because of this closure. Her academic freedom was limited because the Israeli state decided to shut up criticism from an occupied people.

The last two weeks I have been traveling together with Marie, my parents and two of their friends throughout Israel and the occupied West Bank. Two weeks is obviously not enough time to see and experience it all. But we have done our best. We have covered many religious places both to the Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians. We have seen historic places dating back as far as 10,000 years. In the West Bank we witnessed the ever tightening rope of the occupation in many different ways. As foreigners we were met with both respect and hospitality by locals, and disrespect and seemingly nonsensical behavior by the Israeli military. On the “Via Dolorosa” we tried to imagine what Jesus must have gone through two thousand years ago, and in the checkpoint to Bethlehem we experienced the humiliation Palestinians have to go through today.

I had the chance during this stay to visit the place where Jesus is believed to have given the Sermon of the Mount. These words must be some of the most beautiful words in the entire Bible.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who morn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

To me these words are not only beautiful, but a foundation of my faith. I do not doubt that the people in my picture also marvel when they read the Beatitudes in their Bibles. Why wouldn’t they? Are not these words a great comfort to us all? I would think so.

But on two of the people’s sweaters I read the logo “Ahava”.  A famous Dead Sea product. For me this is a grieving contrast to the Beatitudes. Jesus says “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” but Ahava is a symbol of the injustice that takes place in the Holy Land. A cosmetic product, whose name means love in Hebrew, but which is in reality a stolen produce by every international standard, since  its ingredients are taken by the occupying power from the occupied territories.

I’m not sure if they know what they are supporting. I don’t think most of the religious tourist that come to Israel every year know what is going on. But I think that we as Christians ought to know. I think that we must seek the knowledge that enables us to choose between what is right and what is wrong. I think that this is our mandate. And I know that Ahava has nothing to do with love.

You can read more about this product here.

Today I have been tear gassed and sound bombed.

A peaceful demonstration was planned after church from 11.30-12.30  in Beit Sahour in a place called Oush Ghrab. Parts of this area is public Palestinian land, but a major part is privately owned. During the period 1967 to 2006 there was an Israeli military camp that made it illegal for civilians to be there. In 2006 the military left and a community center was build on the land to prevent the land from being confiscated again.

Oush Ghrab is the only place left for expansion for the whole Bethlehem area. The rest is encircled by either the wall, settlements or bypass roads. If anything is built by the Israeli occupation there, it would mean that the last door of this open-air prison would be shut. (The definition of a prison is “a place or condition of confinement or forcible restraint”.)

I am at the moment reading the autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. The efforts put down by him and his followers to end racial injustice in the US are inspiring. His commitment to a nonviolent struggle in the face of so much violence baffles me. Their strength and endurance was remarkable. I cannot keep track of how many were killed, or how many times Dr King was imprisoned himself. They suffered for their cause because it was just, and their commitment to nonviolence came from the depth of their faith.

Nonviolence does not mean to be passive in the face of oppression, and it is effective according to Dr King: “It is effective in that is has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses, It weakens his morale, and at the same time it works on his conscience.” I have a dram that nonviolence will have the same effect on those who commit injustice also here.

The number of demonstators was about fifty, both young and old, men and women, Christian and Muslims, Palestinians and internationals. Some of the slogans on our banners went like this: “Let us resist the presence of occupation in Oush Ghrab” and “Every effort in resisting the settlements and military tower in Oush Ghrab”. We had walked no more than two hundred meters before several military jeeps arrived , and armed soldiers came out telling us to disappear. Nobody intended to leave the Palestinian owned land, but instead questioned the legality of this order. A priest started his prepared prayer, and people said the Lord’s Prayer out loud. Minutes later tear gas and sound bombs were thrown among the people, so as to state that force does not need arguments or legality.

We came unarmed, with nothing but our internationally recognized right to be there, and we were met with brutal force. Slogans of justice was met with weapons. Prayers of peace with tear gas and sound bombs. Innocent children with stern faces of soldiers taught to disrespect. But we will not give up. There is no time for despair and no time for fear, except for the illegal occupation, for it will end.

Watch a clip of the demonstration on youtube here, and read Marie’s blog about tree planting in Oush Ghrab here.

Some days ago I had the great pleasure of attending a poetry reading at the YMCA of East Jerusalem. Maybe poetry reading sounds too static. It was more like a play, a monologue with a few props, like books on the floor, a water bottle and two white walls.

I didn’t understand everything. Mahmoud Darwish, who wrote this poem (a book long) has a rather extended vocabulary. So my brain couldn’t comprehend it all, but my heart took it in. I sat there on the edge of my chair, stunned by the beauty of the Arabic language, and thrilled when I understood longer sequences of the monologue.

The poem which is set during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982, is bound to change the way you drink coffee. The language with which he describes the process of making the coffee is brilliant, and witty. It tells you not to take the five minutes of coffee break for granted:

“I want the aroma of coffee. I need five minutes. I want a five minutes truce for the sake of coffee”

أريد رائحة القهوة. أريد خمس دقائق. أريد هدنة لمدة خمس دقائق من أجل القهوة

But there was no time for coffee because there was no truce: “One second is not long enough to open the water bottle or pour the water into the coffee pot. One second is not long enough to light a match. But one second is long enough for me to burn.”

The bombings of Beirut ended and Mahmoud got his coffee. How happy am I not for that!

“Now I am born. My veins are saturated with their stimulant drugs, in contact with the springs of their life, caffeine and nico­tine, and the ritual of their coming together as created by my hand. “How can a hand write,” I ask myself, “if it doesn’t know how to be creative in making coffee!” How often have the heart specialists said, while smoking, “Don’t smoke or drink coffee!” And how I’ve joked with them, “A donkey doesn’t smoke or drink coffee. And it doesn’t write.”

Sometimes I doubt. I have to admit it. I doubt the goodness in people.  I doubt people’s ability to show empathy towards their sisters and brothers. I know that this is because of my own lack of empathy, and my own lack of showing goodness and understanding for other peoples’ opinions.

I have had a tough week, starting last Sunday. But this is to start off in a negative way. I should say: It’s been an encouraging week,  because I have met quite a few people who were willing to listen to the stories they were told, see with their own eyes, and approach something with their heart, and not with their ideology.

A group from the Young Christian Democrats (KrFU) visited the Joint Advocacy Initiative. For two days they were introduced to the occupation seen through Palestinian eyes. I do not say the Palestinian side, because there is no such thing. If you were to mention one dichotomy it would be between right or wrong, against international law or with international law. To think otherwise is showing a fundamental lack of understanding of the diversities of opinions of both parties.

But it’s been a tough week as well. Some of the comments I heard hurt me profoundly. Anger flared up inside me, and I stepped on people. On several occasions I had to ask for forgiveness.  Because I crossed the line. I didn’t show respect. I didn’t want to try to understand why they said what they said. And this is not acceptable.

At the same time some of the comments were disturbing. Approaching the situation insisting that all Palestinians are aggressive terrorists, and that all violence from Israel is acceptable. Or that Palestinians have no right to live where they have lived for thousands of years, because they are not Palestinians, they are Arabs, and all Arabs are the same.  I wonder when we learn to close our heart to certain situations? Am I my brother’s keeper? Kain asked God in Genesis 4:9. The answer came from a little boy who was asked whether the person, whom he was carrying on his back, was heavy: “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”.

In the picture you see a valley belonging to the city of Beit Jala. A valley filled  with olive and almond (blossoming) trees. I understand why the Palestinians are attached to their land apart from the fact that many live of it: It’s beautiful! What grieves me however about this valley is that it has a death sentence hanging over it. The route of the wall is planned to cut straight through my picture. Uprooting the trees in its direct path and making the rest inaccessible to Palestinian farmers. A tragedy for them, and a tragedy for the nature.

And it just struck me: Some Norwegians go bananas when it comes to destroying nature for one or another reason, like the proposed electricity line over one of our fjords (also very beautiful). I wonder if their also care about what’s happening in Beit Jala?

A couple of weeks ago I took part in a trip to the southern Hebron hills. This is an area at the West Bank especially troubled by the settlers. I have written another blog post about this area before, when I first visited the city of Hebron. Read about it here (and check out the comments. They are interesting). You can also check out what Marie wrote about our last visit here.

I think what disturbs me the most every time I visit this place is the desperation of the situation. Other places at the West Bank is it possible for a moment or two to forget about the occupation. This is not the case in Hebron city, or in the southern Hebron hills.

Many of the kids in the picture have to go through the separation barrier, which at this place is a fence (it is not any more pleasant than the wall, even though it sounds like it),  to reach their school. This is not because they live inside Israel, but because 80 % of the barrier runs inside the West Bank, separating Palestinians from Palestinians. This can be a tough start of the day. The kids which come from the village Imneizil, where the school is situated, live in shacks. Unlike the settlers some hundred meters away, the inhabitants of Imneizil are not allowed to build any concrete structures. For security reasons probably. The school couldn’t obtain permits to expand, but did it anyway, so now it is threatened to be demolished.

People are scared in this area. Children are scared when settlers throw stones at them, shepherds are scared when settlers harass them, or shoot at them, and even the Israeli soldiers are sometimes scared  when the settlers threaten them. And I am scared that it might be too late to tell people here that there are good Israelis. That the world cares for them. I am scared when I think about the world views that these children might have when they are grown-ups, after being treated like this for such a long time.

Christmas celebration at the West Bank was not like I had imagined it. This does not mean that I didn’t enjoy it. In fact I enjoyed it a lot, or I am still enjoying it.

I like the way so many of the streets are lit up by different coloured lights. I have heard that some other non-seasonal street lights had to be turned of in order to save some electricity. That’s a fair priority, if you ask me.

On the 24th of December there seemed to be a continious parade going on the whole day. Lars and I have endured many Friday and Sunday mornings, which are the days off, listening to scouts practicing drums and bagpipes. Now we know what they were preparing for. And even though I still find both those instruments a bit invading, I must admitt that they were getting a hang of it in the end.

I had a great time standing there in Bethlehem watching the parade go by. Maybe feeling more like I was celebrating the Norwegian national day, instead of Christmas. Never the less people were having a good time together. It seems to me that Christmas at the West Bank is much more a public celebration, than I’m used to, where people from different faiths, and from many different countries, partake. This makes it easy to come as a foreigner and join in.

So come to Bethlehem next year, and be a part of it all. Maybe the scouts will be even better at their bagpipes! I only hope that they wait just a couple of Fridays befor they start practicing again..