The television cameraman from Beijing had a few questions for me. We were sitting around and chatting at the Eshkol media center, waiting for the bus that was supposed to depart for Netzarim at around 2 AM - but actually left at 4 AM - and he started to ask me, in halting English, if I would mind clarifying a few things.

Sure, I said, thinking he wanted me to explain some aspect of Israeli society or politics. Like what?

Well, he said, I understand that Catholics believe in Mary. And Christians believe in Jesus. Muslims believe in Mohammed. Right?

Whoa. A theological conversation. Not quite what I expected.

Um, it's a bit complicated, I said. Catholics are Christians; there are different kinds of Christians, but they all believe that Jesus was the son of God, or a part of God. The Muslims believe that Mohammed was God's messenger; he was a prophet, but not a god.

I understand, said the cameraman politely, looking at me with eyes that clearly said the opposite.

Just then we were interrupted by the television reporter he was working with. She showed him a document written in Chinese, they exchanged a few words and then she went back to her computer.

The cameraman explained that the reporter doesn't speak English, so he helps her with the occasional translation.

Doesn't speak English? I asked. So how does she manage here?

Difficult, he answered, smiling weakly. Actually, we are based in Cairo because she speaks fluent Arabic. We were sent here to cover the disengagement.

B-but, if she doesn't speak English, and she doesn't speak Hebrew, then how does she understand what's going on here? (I wondered, but didn't ask).

Then he asked, So what do the Jews believe in?

Just in God, I answered.

And what is God?

The little map of the settlement says, "Welcome to Netzarim." The banner hung above says, "Israel will be victorious." This soldier was one of 300 who protected Netzarim, an isolated settlement of 64 families surrounded on three sides by Palestinians, year-round.

I've been writing a long post about What I Saw at the Disengagement*, but it's taking a little longer than I expected. I'm hoping to finish by Friday evening; until then, here are a few photos I took on the day Netzarim was evacuated. This was the last settlement in Gush Katif, and the residents had reached an agreement with the IDF: They would leave voluntarily, following a farewell ceremony in the synagogue, as long as they were all resettled together. The agreement held, and there was relatively little drama.


Just before 8 o'clock in the morning: the media set up in front of the synagogue.


These boys had just come out of the synagogue following shacharit (morning prayers). They stood and watched as the reporters gathered. The boy in the foreground pointed at the letters on a van belonging to a satellite channel and asked me in Hebrew, "What's TV?"


Ten o'clock: the soldiers arrive to carry out the evacuation, and are given their instructions.


Teenage girls arguing with the soldiers.


The Karkover family stood on the roof of their home and chanted psalms as the soldiers approached. One of the sons shouted, "How can you do this? We're not Arabs! Jews don't expel Jews!"


A family cries as the soldiers approach their home. The Israeli flag was hung while dozens of reporters watched. The words, "The Lord is God" were added to the flag; the man who hung it informed us that they were meant as a reminder to Ariel Sharon.


A resident escorted by soldiers to the farewell ceremony at the synagogue.


A female soldier plays with a little girl outside the synagogue, about an hour before the final evacuation. The older children and adults were saying mincha (afternoon prayers), which was followed by the farewell ceremony.




The Netzarim antenna, as seen from the Palestinian Authority military base just across the fence. I do not have a telephoto lens.

*Sorry, Peggy Noonan

The first time I went to Gaza City last summer, the time I went with Gal to interview some PA officials, I was accompanied by a local translator and guide whom I'll call Khaled. He was in his late twenties and spoke fluent idiomatic American English - which he said he'd learned while working as a barman in a southern European resort city. Khaled wore his sunglasses perched on his close-cropped hair, and he liked to quote the lyrics of American rap singers like 50 Cent. He also looked a lot older than his age, and he knew it. It's because of the shitty life here, he explained.

According to his story, Khaled was born and raised in Gaza but went to Europe in his late teens to work and study. He returned to Gaza in 2000, he said, because he believed in the promise of the Oslo Accords - the promise of peace and normalcy, and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He missed his home and his family, and he didn't want to lose his right of residency in Gaza as a result of a prolonged absence.

And now, he said bitterly, I'm locked in. Then he said longingly, but not angrily, I can't believe that, 10 minutes' drive from here, there are ordinary people sitting in cafes and living a normal life. And I'm stuck in this... (and here he just waved his hands expressively at the donkey carts and badly paved roads).

Khaled told me and Gal the following story about fear:

Shortly after he returned to live in Gaza, a few months before the second intifada broke out in October 2000, Khaled went to East Jerusalem to meet a friend who lived in the West Bank. He had never been to Jerusalem before, and he had never - he said - met a Jew who was dressed in civilian clothes.

After Khaled and his friend went out for drinks at a bar in East Jerusalem, they got in their car in order to return to Ramallah. But they took a wrong turn and found themselves in an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in West Jerusalem.

"I started to sweat real hard," said Khaled.

Gal and I didn't understand. "Why were you nervous?" we asked.

"Because," answered Khaled, "What if one of those religious Jews saw me and my friend, recognized us as Arabs, dragged us out of our car and beat us up or killed us?"

Gal and I were astonished. I think we even laughed.

That would never happen, we said. There are Arabs all over Jerusalem. Jews don't go around randomly beating up Arabs on the streets. Where did you get an idea like that?

A few days ago, I told this story to a friend of mine in response to a story she told me. This friend reads my blog, so I'll call her Hadas and hope she'll forgive me for not asking her permission before writing about our conversation.

A couple of months ago, Hadas went to the West Bank for the first time. She is 30 years old and was born and raised in Israel, but she had never visited the occupied territories. She has attended conferences devoted to co-existence with Palestinians abroad, she speaks several languages fluently and she has a graduate degree from Tel Aviv University. She is well-traveled, well-read and an all-round cool chick.

She drove in to meet a Palestinian journalist whom we both know as a truly wonderful guy - warm, open and incredibly generous. We both think the world of him, and for very good reasons. I'll call him Sayed.

Sayed and I spent the day in Gaza together in August. While we were walking through Jabalyeh, he asked if I was afraid, as an Israeli, to walk through a Palestinian refugee camp.

No, I told him, I'm not afraid. (and I wasn't).

Because you know that I would die before I'd let anything happen to you, right? said Sayed, very seriously.

Sayed met Hadas at one of the checkpoints near Ramallah, got into her car, and guided her into his city. Then, while they were driving around downtown Ramallah, which Hadas noted looked completely normal and quiet, he suddenly got out of the car and, without a word of explanation, walked over to a group of men who were standing on the street and began talking to them. Then he started to make calls from his mobile phone. Hadas was left waiting in the car, in a Palestinian-controlled city whose name is synonymous for many Israelis with the word lynch, and suddenly she began to shake with fear.

All sorts of thoughts went through her head - thoughts about politically-motivated kidnappings and killings. Images that we have seen on television and in the newspapers under banner headlines.

When Sayed returned to the car he saw that Hadas was terrified and immediately began to apologize profusely. He was a journalist, he'd seen a couple of contacts he wanted to speak with, and he'd just jumped out to talk to them. It hadn't occured to him that an Israeli who had never been to Ramallah would be afraid - any more than it occured to Gal and me that a Palestinian would be afraid to wander around a Jewish city or neighbourhood. And it certainly never occured to him that Hadas would be afraid of him - because they were friends.

Hadas and I were sitting in a cafe near Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv while she told me this story. We were drinking cappuccinos, a song by the Cocteau Twins was playing on the stereo, the barman wearing retro-frame glasses and a vintage shirt was frothing milk at the espresso machine, and we were surrounded by the trendy, leftist Tel Aviv bohemian types who populate the neighbourhood - writers, artists, actors and musicians.

I was so ashamed, said Hadas, as she smiled painfully. I can't believe I thought that Sayed would hurt me. Now I really understand how deeply the fear is lodged in our subconscious.

Once my bank account manager tried to call me on my mobile about my very scary overdraft, but she couldn't contact me because I was in Gaza and my mobile service provider doesn't extend its service across the Green Line. So she left a message, and the next day I went to the bank to sit down for a lecture about my dire financial situation and to try to sort things out. I explained that I hadn't been reachable the previous day because I'd been in Gaza.

"You were where?!" she shrieked. "Oh my God!" Turning to her colleagues sitting in the cubicles on either side, she yelled, "Orna! Rachel! Lisa went to Gaza!"

Orna and Rachel gathered around, clucking their tongues and shaking their heads and asking what in the world I was thinking about, wasn't I afraid to be in such a dangerous place, did my mother know I went to Gaza?

Listen, I told them, it's really not the way it looks on the nightly news. I didn't see any masked Hamas men walking around, no-one threatened me. Actually, I had a really good time. I had a great lunch at a seafood restaurant near the beach in Jabalyeh.

Ah, they said, but you went as a journalist! And you spoke English! You didn't tell them you were Israeli, right?

Um, actually I told everyone I was Israeli, I said. I spoke Hebrew to a lot of the locals, because they didn't speak English but they'd worked in Israel so they spoke the language. And I didn't wear a sign that said "journalist."

Orna and Rachel looked at me doubtfully. My bank manager asked me again what my mother had to say about the matter of my life-threatening day trip across the Green Line. They all seemed to think I had a screw (or two) loose.

For a couple of minutes I hoped that my perceived bravery would win me a break, and that my motherly bank manager would agree to extend my overdraft for a week or two. But noooo.....

We Jews and Arabs, we live side-by-side and we watch each other and we interact (sometimes) but we don't really know each other. We think we do, but we don't. Ignorance leads to fear, and too often fear does lead to loathing.

Jews read the breathless reports in the Israeli mass circulation dailies about drive-by shootings of civilians in the West Bank and they draw their conclusions about "those Arabs." Not the Arabs who carried out the shootings, but those Arabs. And the Arabs read in their newspapers about the Jewish resident of the West Bank who shot and killed four of his Palstinian employees for no reason, and they draw their conclusions about "those Jews." Not the Jew who shot his employees, but those Jews.

When I interviewed an assistant minister of security in the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah a couple of months ago, he asked why the Israeli media never reported the incidents of cooperation between the Palestinian and Israeli police. He gave us a two-page list of such incidents - just for the month of June. Each incident had the name and contact number of the Israeli police officers involved, and we were invited to call them to confirm the veracity of the report.

No sane person would try to deny that there is a lot of political violence in this region. What we do deny is that we are far too influenced by how those incidents are reported. Three-page heart-rending stories about how the widows of the two men who were murdered in the lynch five years ago are managing today does sell newspapers. A story about Palestinian-Israeli cooperation does not. So yes, we have a free and lively press. But let's not forget that a free press depends on its revenues to survive. And I really don't think that we're going to get anywhere around here until we learn to read between the lines, and to let the reporters and editors know that we'd like a more complete picture of what's going on. Otherwise we'll just remain convinced that the Other is a terrifying, murderous beast who simply cannot be trusted. Because he's one of those.

It's going to take me a few hours of sleep and a few more hours of thinking to process the day I just had. Highlights include...

Interview in Gaza City with (PA national security advisor) Jibril Rajoub at a fancy hotel restaurant; a surprise meeting with MK Ahmed Tibi at said fancy hotel restaurant ("please give your card to my assistant so that we can stay in contact"); interviews with the commander of security for northern Gaza; a long and revealing conversation with a Palestinian TV reporter who speaks fluent Hebrew, learned at Ulpan Akiva in Netanya; being interviewed for Palestinian TV news (I swear); a tour of a Palestinian military base that's just about spitting distance from Netzarim; watching Palestinian security forces being drilled on a parade ground that looked like a basketball court...

Racing to the Eshkol media center so that Gal can file his story before deadline from one of the computers there, and so that we can attend the evening disengagement press conference - this time with IDF Southern Commander Dan Harel; listening as Harel makes a statement that will be old news by the time I get to write about it here...

Seeing one of my favourite IDF communications officer - the charming, efficient, handsome and multilingual Yaron - covered in white paint that was thrown at him by radical disengagement protestors at Kfar Darom...

Bumming a ride back to Tel Aviv with a (very) well-known Israeli journalist and listening as he conducts evening roundup conversations/interviews via his car phone with practically every high-ranking police and IDF officer who is involved in the disengagement ("So, have you wiped the egg off your head yet?")...

Arriving back in Tel Aviv to the best damned news of the day: the humidity has finally declined, and I can breathe again.

Sort of.

(more tomorrow)

The journalists who wanted to enter Gush Katif on the morning of Monday, August 15 gathered at the Eshkol media center, near Ashkelon, on Sunday night. The place was packed with reporters from practically every country you can name - from South Korea to Abu Dhabi - but the very first person I saw was Rinat. She's in Neve Dekalim now, seeing everything first hand, and I am terribly jealous because I'm back in Tel Aviv and reduced to watching the evacuation on television.


On Sunday night the reporters at Eshkol signed up for various buses that were going to different settlements. The rules the army set were as follows: you choose a settlement, sign up for the bus that will take you there, and you stay there until the bus leaves. We were told that there was no option of travelling from one settlement to another but - as I later discovered - some reporters are more equal than others.

The settlements I visited in May and June were little suburban paradises of spacious private homes, lush gardens and large green parks. They were populated by solidly middle class families who were wealthy farmers or teachers, lawyers and architects. Most told me they had chosen to live in Gush Katif for the quality of life rather than ideology; with a couple of exceptions, they said they would not resist evacuation if there was really no choice.

Shirat Hayam was not like those settlements.

It was a collection of grubby caravans set up on a piece of beautiful beachfront property, just a few meters away from an Arab village. It was surrounded by a rusty fence, and populated by a small group of extremist families. Over the past month, the number of residents swelled from 40 to 150; the newcomers were religious right-wing teenagers from the more extreme settlements on the West Bank, from Jerusalem and from Brooklyn. They had pitched tents next to the caravans, and they were walking around barefoot, behaving as if they were at some bizarre happening - or a summer camp. For these kids, the summer of the disengagement was their Woodstock, and they seemed to be having a thoroughly good time.



We arrived at 5.30 am to conflicting, mute messages: there were rolls of barbed wire in front of the locked gate, but there was also a sign that said, in Hebrew, "I love you, my brother."




A few Israeli journalists had been staying inside for a couple of weeks, getting background and preparing for the big day. When we arrived, they were waiting. They ran up to the fence, pressed their faces against it and said mockingly, "We won't surrender! Tell them that the leftist Israeli media will never surrender! Oh and dude, do us a favour and organize some coffee, would you please?"


To be continued after I return from Gaza City on Thursday evening...

How do you put together a special supplement meant for the foreign journalists who have come to cover the disengagement, without using the word disengagement?

Yes, boys and girls, that is the task I was given last week. Um, let's see... "Historical political events"? "An important story"?

Welcome to the wonderful world of Israeli journalism: you have one week, no budget, no staff and no resources, but we trust you to create an interesting product. Which is why I contacted a couple of people I've never met and asked them to work for free. And lovely souls that they are, they both agreed.

Dan wrote a kick-ass insider's article on what to see and do in Jerusalem; and Orly let me use some of her gorgeous photographs for illustrations. You'll find the supplement at hotels in Tel Aviv and Jerualem from August 16. Look for the cover illustration of a larger-than-life photojournalist, heavily laden with camera equipment, sitting on top of a hotel and reading a newspaper.

So I finally put the supplement "to bed" at around 4 o'clock on Thursday morning, went to sleep just after 5 o'clock and was awoken by a phone call five hours later. A friend of mine wanted to know if I'd like to accompany him to to opening of an art exhibition in Bethlehem, where a couple of his photographs would be displayed. Oh yes, and would I mind writing the explanatory notes for the photographs before we set out, so that he could email them to the curator?

During the ride up to Jerusalem my friend, who is a hardcore leftist, pulled out his little Gush Shalom pin from his bag, which had a blue ribbon flying from its strap, and attached the intertwined Israeli and Palestinian flags to his shirt collar. I wrinkled my nose, because I am uncomfortable with the idea of advertising one's political beliefs, and muttered quietly, "Must you?"

The look he shot me was eloquent. Yes, it seemed that he must.

Checkpoint tourism

So we rode in a Palestinian mini-bus from just outside Damascus Gate to the checkpoint at Beit Jala. I'd travelled this way before, but then I was the only non-Arab in the van. So I was a bit, um, surprised to find that my fellow passengers included four Koreans. Turns out that they were here for some kind of peace march which was basically ignored by the media; practically every journalist in the area is focusing exclusively on the story in Gush Katif.

Alighting at the checkpoint, I almost ran into two American tourists who were standing on the pavement - both blonde, plump, sweaty and wearing baseball caps. One of them clutched a guidebook called "Let's Go Travel Guide: Israel and the Palestinian Territories." The woman looked at me and, pointing dramatically at the Israeli soldiers standing quietly, guarding the deserted checkpoint just a few metres away, said, "Listen, it's scary over there!"

In my cranky, overtired state, I judged this woman rather harshly. I thought she was silly. I imagined that she was going to go home to suburban America and tell her friends at the gym all about the dreadful Israeli soldiers oppressing the poor Palestinians. I had the impression that she was full of preconceptions and relishing the drama of seeing armed soldiers in uniform and checkpoints. So I was mean to her. I looked at her and said, "Sorry, I don't speak English."

My friend and I walked up to the checkpoint, showed our Israeli ID cards and my press pass to the soldiers, who smiled and said hello, and crossed over to The Other Side. We bought chewing gum (made in Romania, 1 shekel per package) from a little Palestinian boy who sold his stock out of a flat box hung from his neck, like a cigarette girl in a 1940s nighclub. We stopped a taxi and my friend asked the driver, in his broken Arabic (learned from the Sinai bedouin when he worked there as a tourist guide) to take us to Bethlehem.

Why are you afraid?

The driver smiled and said, in perfect Hebrew, "Where are you from? Tel Aviv? So speak Hebrew to me!"Once in Bethlehem, the driver stopped to ask directions to the exhibition. A group of men gathered around the taxi, each pointing in a different direction, until one man broke through and, waving an ID card, said, "I'm a tourist guide and I know exactly where you need to go. I'll ride with you and direct the driver."

On the way up, he asked us if we were Israelis. Upon hearing our confirmation he started to speak broken Hebrew, assuring us that it had been fluent once, before the checkpoints and the separation barrier were erected and Israelis could no longer visit the West Bank. I haven't spoken Hebrew for five years, he said, So I'm out of practice. He added that he had heard a few people speaking Hebrew very softly in the Bethlehem market. They're with your group, right? he said. Yes, I thought so. But they were afraid to be identified as Israelis, he said, laughing.
Why are you all so afraid of us?

The dialogue industry

The exhibition was held at the Lutheran church, a beautiful new building with a flower-filled garden and shiny, polished marble floors. It was curated by a young Palestinian woman with curly dark hair, who wore jeans and a T-shirt. She had studied with my friend at the Bezalel Academy in Jerualem, during that mythical pre-2000 era when Bethlehem was basically a suburb of Jerusalem and there were no walls, barriers or checkpoints. She and the pastor welcomed the small group of Palestinians, Israelis and western NGO volunteers. They spoke softly about a more hopeful future.

The pastor, a gentle-looking young man with small round glasses and a receding hairline, announced proudly that the church had mounted the exhibition without outside funding. We don't believe in this thing that I call the "dialogue industry," he said. We believe that if Israelis and Palestinians are to find a way to live together, we must look for resources at home - not abroad.

So we mingled and drank fruit juice out of plastic cups as we looked at the various exhibits. After awhile my friend and I decided to go find something more substantial than pretzels to eat, and wandered around until we found a little hole-in-the-wall selling felafal, hummous and salads. On the way we photographed wall posters of "martyrs," as well as some children who were riding their bicycles and eating ice cream cones. When they saw us they grinned and pointed at us, calling out, "Yahud! Yahud!" (Jew! Jew!) as they whizzed by.

So I laughed and pointed back, calling out, "Arab! Arab!" The kids circled back. They watched my friend take photographs and smiled at us, their white ice cream moustaches curving upward. They were too young to remember a time when Jews not wearing army uniforms wandered around Bethlehem, but they still knew what Hebrew sounded like. And they were curious.

The guys who made our felafel smiled too, and spoke to us in a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic. They didn't make a big deal out of having Israelis in their shop, just treated us with offhand friendliness.

Gush Katif - working the disengagement

While we were eating our felafels, my mobile phone rang. An American reporter had obtained my contact information from another journalist, and wanted to hire me to accompany him on interview rounds in Gush Katif on Monday and Tuesday, the first two days of the disengagement. That was, in fact, the third job offer I'd received from foreign journalists; I'd turned the previous two down because they wanted me to stay with them for a week and I had obligations in Tel Aviv. So we settled the terms on the phone, and I will be leaving for Gush Katif on Sunday night.

I am a bit nervous about interviewing people as they deal with the trauma of leaving their homes, and am bracing myself for some very painful encounters. To make matters worse, there is going to be a heat wave. Temperatures are supposed to hit 44 Celsius, and the humidity will be around 80 percent. What a recipe for frayed nerves.

Going home

The organizers of the exhibition had arranged for a minivan to take us back to Tel Aviv. While we waited for the van to arrive, a Palestinian police officer stopped to talk to us, and a crowd of children gathered around. We joked and smiled, and my friend took photos of the police officer - who was young, handsome and macho. As we passed through the checkpoint that separated Bethlehem from Israeli territory, I glanced back and saw a sign that said, in Hebrew, "WARNING! You are now entering Palestinian-controlled territory."

The taxi driver who picked us up from the drop off point in Tel Aviv said, "I hope you don't want to go to the anti-disengagement demonstration in Rabin Square. It's impossible to get anywhere near there." Then he and my friend started talking about basketball, and I let my thoughts wander as they did their male bonding thing. As we were leaving the taxi I said to the driver, So, are you going to call it a night and go home now?

"Are you kidding?" he asked mockingly. "I'm gonna make a ton of money taking all those settlers home." Then he winked and drove off.

Coffee in the bubble

We walked over to Gili's outdoor coffee bar on Rotshchild Boulevard, where we met up with friends who live in the neighbourhood and were out strolling or walking their dogs. It was a typically humid Tel Aviv summer night, and kids were out on their rollerblades and scooters, even though it was past 11 o'clock. The restaurants were full, and there was that holiday atmosphere that is so characteristic of Tel Aviv during the summer months.While we were drinking our cappuccinos, a friend leaned over and asked me if I was going to the farewell party at Ha'Oman, one of Tel Aviv's hottest new clubs. It was supposed to start around midnight.

No way, I said. I'm exhausted. Farewell party for whom?

For the owner, she said. He's going to jail for six months on tax evasion, and he's throwing himself a huge bash on his last night of freedom. How decadent is that?

One of the most popular songs on the play list at Evita, a gay bar on Yavneh Street in Tel Aviv, is the Arabic version of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." Click here to listen. It's called "Helweh Il Hayat" in Arabic.

I've been pretty down about the painful events of the last few days, so Gloria's declaration seems kind of...appropriate. ;)

I vant to disengage from ze disengagement.

Last Friday night Levontine, a trendy bar on - you guessed it - Levontine Street, threw an "engagement party."

The latest copy of Layla, a nightlife and entertainment magazine, has the word "Disengagement" emblazoned on the cover in big red letters, right below a moody black and white headshot of a sexy model with damp hair covering one of her eyes. A single tear runs down the model's cheek, ending at the corner of her pouting lips.

The contents of Layla, however are not about the disengagement. In the section called "Munchies," for example, there's an article called "Trash: how to get in touch with your inner bitch." It's about two of the women who were in the Israeli version of "America's Top Model" (which was truly trash), didn't make the final cut and are now trying to become hip hop singers.

But my favourite is an article that surveys the best bars on Lilienblum Street: "Where are the cheapest drinks?"; "Where is it most worthwhile to be Georgian?" (that's the Georgia in the former USSR, not the one with all the peaches); and ""Where am I?"

The caption on the photo of a bar called Lima Lima reads, "Would Azzam Azzam come to Lima Lima?"

And could someone tell me why I think that caption is so damned funny?