Before this becomes too much of a “I was there, see me waving” blog, I wanted to post this article because I — literally — was in Umm al Fahm yesterday to document this confrontation. I’m not waving.
Luckily my boss Jafar, co-worker Adam and I left before they unleashed the tear gas. Even though we’d come in the morning, when protestors and the right-wing settlers were just lining up, Jafar already had the three of us split up to decrease the chances of “all of us getting arrested.”
Oddly, despite the recent bomb attempt in Haifa and riots yesterday, it’s not more frightening to be in Israel. Nor is it as exciting or dramatic, as captured in the Times headline. Before going out to take photos, I was charging our video camera and calmy eating hummus, tuna salad and bread with mint in a local cafe. The owner was telling me about how the last time he’d been in contact with a Chinese girl, it was 2001 on MSN. Needless to say, I had an awkward distraction before the cannisters of tear gas exploded.
How I feel is: so this is what it is to be on this side of a headline. My whole week in Israel has been about stripping Institutional illusions. The Press, the government, the EU and ambassadors. It’s not that I have less respect for these bodies. But before working at Mossawa, I’d always taken for granted their official status. The Press was an impentrable, magical body whose ways were mysterious and all-knowing. It was strange to be in Umm al Fahm yesterday morning and see Jafar, a former journalist, exchange chuckles with the foreign correspondants responsible for that Times image. It made me think how these repoters, too, are probably eating ramen off the floor of their dank Tel Aviv apartments.
We had to leave Umm al Fahm early, to the consternation of Jafar and Adam, because we had a meeting with the Swedish Ambassador. She was a nice woman, and outfitted in tons of bling. (The Swedes). But it just made me suddenly see the EU for what it is. Not an Institution, but simply a group of legally savvy humans. The meeting was less interesting for me in terms of the analytic depth than the political dance I was able to observe. It was intimate, over coffee, tea, and biscuits. But a formality.
I’m going to write an actual post soon on what I’m actually doing in Israel. But for now, please keep reading and keep praying.
