Blogs from Ramallah, West Bank, Israel, Middle East - page 2

We're not in a warzone Elliot: Okay so I imagine anyone out there paying attention to the media must have the impression that all Hell is breaking loose. However, paradoxically the West Bank seems to be relatively calm just now. Anyway, we're not in Gaza, Lebanon or Northern Israel, so we're away from the hairy stuff. This is not to say we are not having "interesting times." We've come back from Jericho now, which was HOT, but not too harrowing. I should have written about this yesterday, because today we went to the Palestinian village next to the wall to protest, and the Israeli army was not chuffed with us being there. If you're just interested in the protest, then scroll down, but I want to tell another story first, about something that happened in Jericho. ... read more

During my short stint in Jerusalem, one of the most memorable experiences was being able to spend a few hours over in the West Bank town of Ramallah. The trip started with a bus ride to the Israeli side of the security fence (read concrete wall). From there, a short walk to the Palestinian side and another bus to get to Ramallah. We arrived at around rush hour, and the traffic was fairly intense considering the limited space available for the buses to load. It took about 25 minutes to get to the center. I was surprised to see that the city seemed to be better off than many other parts of the Arab world. The explanation I was given was that the majority of NGO's and wealthy Palestinians live in the big cities, and that ... read more