mmm dates.. i always forget to write them down...
here are some pieces of my mind:

A LOVE LETTER TO A SUICIDE BOMBER
your ciggarette smoke in my mouth. i see a thousand reflections in the crowd. it is as if i am in the holocaust musuem again, staring at mirrored candles. i was tired until i saw you all, until i felt the energy and struggles of my people mixed with the tears of the dead sea; the lava of the gollan; rainbows in the galalee; kings and queens of the desert democracy, the paradox of the jewish state. post-modern klezmer ska sticks in the air and people jump everytime the drum goes BOOM, and people jump anytime they hear BOOM. diaspora consciousness constantly replaces itself.

-=-

today we take jerusalem, we drink its wares of high holy holy hee and let it all go down. we are running on top of international time, soaking it all in. people are so so so welcoming here and everyone asks us to call it home. yest3erday i arrived in east jerusalem and imerged into a state of culture shock. after a week of zionist brainwashing i arrive in a place where just saying the word israel is verging on offensiveness, yet everyone tells me that i am home! no wonder there are so many jewish ISM'ers! where else can jews and arabs break hubus together besides palestine? after a day of heavey training and lectures, food, coffee, ciggarettes, and tea we arrived at a hotel covered with pictures of baby jesus. we stayed up late watching videos off the office's laptop..... people being shot at, children throwing stones, interviews with families... we are going to marda tomorrow and it seems like a neat place... they used to have a permaculture institute there but it was closed due to shooting from settlers., the wall is being built right through their village and there have been a number of soldiers and bulldozers coming in and uprooting olive trees over the last few days. i know that the village has contact with the international womyn's peace service so that is very cool. i think i will volunteer with them the next time i come to palestine!

when i saw the wall for the first time i was not struck with any emotion. it looked like any other wall; obstructing the view of the neighbours yard, tall monolithic stone structure full of hope and mistrust. bukra in shalla. a wall stuffed with hope and prayers; a wall which made soldiers weep; a wall which crumbled with canon; in shalla in shalla. bukra in shalla. today the wall is growing and dividing; cutting off families, creating ghettos; eating olive trees and children. eretz israel lives only in the dreams of the warsaw ghettos. we will create a circle, to keep them out and maintain our kingdom. history repeats itself while fractals form in my heart. remember when we were strangers in egypts land.

right now i am on the birthright israel trip and boy is it intence. it is absolutely beautiful here but i keep on thinking about who was here before we came and settled the land. before i came to israel i was very against the idea of a jewish state but since i have been here i have learned more about the history. i think that it is so crazy that boats of jewish immigrants were turned away in so many countries. in many ways we had no where to go, we couldn't even return to our homes after the holocaust. anti-semitism didn't just end after world war II. i think that things are a lot more different now days and i feel safe calling myself a jew in north america. europe and the middle east are a different storey it seems. i was thinking about buying a star of david necklace but then i realized that if i wore it into palestine i would probabley get spit on. that is more complicated than just straight up anti-semitism though, as israel annexed around 780,000 palestinians from their homes and killed many innocent people. it is wierd because when ever i read about the creation of the jewish state i have always read them as TERRORISTS but here they think of them as revolutionaries. it is sad because before the creation of israel it seems that the middle east was very friendly to jews, especially compared to europe. anyways if anyone lives around here and wants to take me in i need a place to stay SOON so i would appreciate a couch to sleep on. if not hostels are cheap too, but i don't know if i can leave my bag there or what? anyways, that's all for now. peace out bredren.

about to get on a plane. i think i have JAPhobia even though i am the biggest JAP to ever walk the planet. turns out i have posse in israel right now. who could have thunk it? i am crossing my fingers that the International Solidarity Movement will return my email so that I will know where to go. Kibbutz Lotan never replied to my email and Samar's email address bounces. I am sure everything will work out in the end.