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UK architects, planners and other construction industry professionals campaigning for a just peace in Israel/Palestine.

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Tuesday
Nov022010

Murderous Planning

Poor planning and a lack of investment by the Israeli government are the responsible for the grim situation that the city of Lod (Lydda) finds itself in.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/murderous-planning-1.322383

2 November 2010

By Hillel Schocken 

The government is looking for the solution to the problem of Lod under a street lamp. After a handful of Border Policemen, who were brought there in the wake of two murders, failed to prevent another murder and an attempted murder, the prime minister himself came to the rescue and two days ago brought a comprehensive plan for government approval.

The Public Security Ministry will run the "City Without Violence" program in Lod and carry out projects to establish a situation room, complete a network of surveillance cameras, construct a monitoring and control center with advanced technology, and draw up an enforcement plan for illegal construction. The Social Affairs Ministry will add five slots for social workers. The Culture and Sport Ministry will allocate NIS 800,000 (for two years ) for cultural activities, and the Minority Affairs Ministry will transfer about NIS 3 million for activity earmarked to advance the Arab population. The Tourism Ministry will prepare a preservation plan for tourism in the old city, and the Transportation Ministry will implement transportation projects to make the city and its environs more accessible. A real End of Days scenario.

But the solution to the problem of Lod is located far from the beam of light emanating from the government street lamp. All the abovementioned steps are like aspirin for a chronic illness in the area of planning, which is the responsibility of the Interior Ministry and the Housing and Construction Ministry.

Since the capture of Lod Israeli governments have turned it into the country's junkyard. First they caused the destruction of the old city and replaced it with housing projects. The old city's destruction robbed Lod of its beating heart - a city without a center is a dead city. Later, in the best Israeli planning tradition, new neighborhoods were built with only an incidental connection to the city, and the satellite neighborhoods of Ganei Aviv and Ganei Ya'ar were promoted; their developers tried to refrain from having them identified with Lod, in an attempt to attract a well-to-do Jewish population. But very soon the bluff was discovered and property values plummeted.

Currently the Lod municipality, the Interior Ministry and the Housing and Construction Ministry are promoting a plan to expand the city's area of jurisdiction by annexing thousands of dunams of agricultural land. Acting Mayor Ilan Harari says that "within the confines of the city there are no new areas suitable for developing a large residential neighborhood. Attracting a strong population to Lod could help a great deal in changing its image," (TheMarker, October 21 ). His predecessors made similar statements when they initiated the construction of Ganei Aviv and Ganei Ya'ar, and Lod's image only continued to deteriorate.

The government preferred to invest in new cities. Modi'in and Shoham, both within 5 to 10 kilometers of Lod as the crow flies, have created attractive alternatives for an affluent Jewish population, and Airport City is developing as an attractive employment alternative.

The solution for Lod can be found within the present municipal boundaries. The city, and mainly its center, look like after a bomb attack. Housing projects for the poor are scattered randomly in open and neglected areas. The city is crying out for a massive "evacuate and construct" urban renewal project while at the same time there should be denser, multi-functional construction and investment in the public space. In the short term, it's easier to flee from the problem and build on available agricultural land. The problem is that a high price will be paid in the future, in both blood and money.

Had Israeli governments invested in Lod - and also in Ramle and Acre - a quarter of what they invested in building cities and communities from nothing in the territories and within the Green Line, they would have prevented turning the mixed cities into centers of poverty, backwardness and crime.

All those who are partners to this ongoing planning failure should consider themselves partners to the murders that have taken place, and those to come.

The writer is an architect who teaches at Tel Aviv University and a founder of Merhav - the Movement for Israeli Urbanism.

Tuesday
Oct262010

Living next to the settler neighbors from hell

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/commentary-and-analysis/1678-living-next-to-the-settler-neighbors-from-hell

Wednesday
Sep152010

1948 and Israel’s deceptive bargaining position

http://www.benwhite.org.uk/2010/08/20/1948-and-israels-deceptive-bargaining-position/

24 August 2010

The refrain from Israeli politicians and the country’s allies and apologists is familiar: There can be no peace deal until the Palestinians “recognize” Israel as “a Jewish state.” While this can sound reasonable to the casual listener in the West, this demand actually points to critical flaws in the “peace process” and the way in which the international community approaches the Palestine/Israel question.

This is because such a demand, and understanding why it is so unacceptable to Palestinians, means going back to 1948 – when hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, their inhabitants forbidden from returning by the new Jewish state — and throwing the spotlight on two groups of Palestinians that the so-called peace process has ignored or marginalized: the refugees of ‘48 (and their descendants) and the Palestinian minority that’s left inside Israel. The unpleasant reality is that Israel as “a Jewish state” means the permanent exile and dispossession of the former, and the colonial control of the latter.

In the West, even talking about Palestinian citizens inside Israel risks confusion, since for so long they have been referred to as “Israeli Arabs” or “Arab Israelis.” This is a formulation intended to obfuscate their Palestinian identity, a discursive erasure symbolic of far more brutal methods (some of which are described below). The lack of attention paid to the issues faced by Palestinians in Israel by Western politicians and pundits is unfortunate, since their historic and contemporary reality radically undermines the well-worn cliché that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

The Palestinian minority (around 20 percent of the population) are those who managed to remain inside the Jewish state after the expulsions of 1948, events described in Arabic as al-Nakba, or “The Catastrophe.” With their society shattered — at least 85 percent of Palestinians in what became Israel were expelled — the minority was then subjected to military rule until 1966. This martial law combined with legislation passed in the Knesset to effect what is perhaps the defining dynamic in the relationship between the Jewish state and its Arab minority: land confiscation.

By the mid-1970s, the average Arab community inside Israel had lost between 65 and 75 percent of its land (see, for example, Ian Lustick’s 1980 study “Arabs in the Jewish State”). Policies that nowadays most people associate with Israel’s regime in the West Bank — seizure of Palestinian land in order to build Jewish settlements — have been routine inside Israel with regards to the Palestinian minority. Since 1948, around 1,000 Jewish communities have been created in Israel — but not one Arab town. Arab municipal communities make up 2.5 percent of state land, though the Palestinian minority has grown seven-fold.

The legislative and legal processes that the Israeli state implemented in order to expropriate the land of the Palestinian refugees also meant that some citizens — about one in four of the Palestinian minority — became known as “present absentees.” This means that their property was confiscated even though they remained in the borders of the new state. Meanwhile, across Israel, tens of thousands of citizens live in “unrecognized villages,” a result of planning and zoning by the state that categorized land as non-residential despite the presence of Arab villages. Many of these communities can be found in the Negev, where Bedouin Palestinians live unconnected to basic utilities, and at risk of home demolitions.

Just recently, the entire unrecognized village of al-Araqib was destroyed repeatedly, at the same time as the Israeli Knesset approved legislation intended to legalize and facilitate Jewish farms that had been established in the Negev. The context here, as well as in the Galilee, is the strategic aim of “Judaization”: increasing the Jewish presence in regions of the state deemed to have “too high” a proportion of Palestinian citizens. In the words of Haim Yacobi of Ben Gurion University, it is a “[project] driven by the Zionist premise that Israel is a territory and a state that ‘belongs’ to, and only to, the Jewish people.” Yeela Raanan, of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages, surveyed the ruins of al-Araqib and said: “Redeeming the land is part of the Zionist project. Any land held or claimed by Arabs is a problem.”

A political party or movement that calls for more of the “right” people in a particular area because there are too many of the “wrong” people is rightly considered fanatical. Yet in Israel, this has been policy at a state and local level for over 60 years and it is part of mainstream discourse to talk of the Arab minority as an intrinsic “threat.” Netanyahu, as finance minister in 2003, described Palestinian citizens as a “demographic problem.” Last year, Israel’s housing minister declared it a “national duty” to “prevent the spread” of Palestinian citizens, since in the Galilee “populations that should not mix are spreading there.”

To document all the ways in which Israel’s regime of control keeps Palestinians as second-class citizens is beyond the scope of this article: It is far deeper and more systematic than the “complaints of discrimination” that the likes of the BBC and CNN tack on at the end of news items. Take “selection committees,” for example, which decide who gains admission to small communities based on criteria like “social suitability,” a setup that operates in hundreds of agricultural and community towns (over two-thirds of all the towns in Israel). Its use as a tool to exclude Palestinians has been made more explicit recently, with legislative efforts intended to “allow the rejection of Arab residences in small Jewish communities.”

This is only one of a recent rush of racist bills in the Knesset (the indispensable Adalah have also compiled a list of “10 Discriminatory Laws”). The same Knesset has stripped Arab MK Haneen Zoubi of parliamentary privileges, by way of punishing her for participating in the Gaza flotilla. Zoubi was almost physically assaulted in the chamber, as she faced cries of “Go to Gaza, traitor.” Other Palestinian members of the Knesset received an e-mail from MK Michael Ben-Ari announcing that “after we take care of her [Zoubi] it will be your turn.”

In Israel in 2010, human rights defenders are persecuted. Three months ago, Ameer Makhoul, director of Arab NGO network Ittijah, was snatched from his house in the night, and for almost two weeks, prevented from meeting his lawyers. A year before, Makhoul had been told by a Shin Bet agent (Israel’s domestic intelligence agency) that “next time” he will “have to say goodbye to his family since he will leave them for a long time.” In 2007, the Shin Bet confirmed they would “thwart” those who “harm” the Jewish character of the state, “even if such activity is sanctioned by the law.” As Makhoul’s wife, Janan Abdu, told me in Haifa recently, her husband had become well-known for what he has been saying about Israel — “the land regime, citizenship issues, what’s happening in the Negev, about the contradictions between being ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic.’”

This is the question that many Western media outlets won’t touch, and most politicians dismiss with platitudes. The Palestinians in Israel are forgotten, particularly in terms of the international community’s peace process, despite — or realistically, because of — the way in which their struggles relate to what happened in 1948 and the meaning of creating a Jewish state in Palestine. This is the conversation that needs to take place, and increasingly is, from academia to activists. Talking with Haneen Zoubi at her home in Nazareth, the MK made an observation that needs heeding in Washington: “Israel’s treatment of its Palestinian minority is the more credible test of chances for a comprehensive peace.” So far, it doesn’t look good.

Wednesday
Sep152010

Amira Hass: Like a plane without a pilot

Haaretz – 4 May 2010

www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/like-a-plane-without-a-pilot-1.288246

Even if not one more Jewish home is built in the occupied territories ‏(including East Jerusalem‏), the enormous apparatus of domination continues to operate there with an inner logic of many years’ duration. It moves along by itself, like some huge aircraft without a pilot.

Amira Hass

Amira Hass

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unjustifiably draws fire for policies that move ahead without his involvement. The Jewish intellectuals, who suddenly saw the darkness and were terrified, should know: Even if not one more Jewish home is built in the occupied territories ‏(including East Jerusalem‏), the enormous apparatus of domination continues to operate there with an inner logic of many years’ duration. It moves along by itself, like some huge aircraft without a pilot.

Prime ministers come and go, negotiations stop and start, new coalitions form, and this apparatus has a life of its own. It preserves and develops the privileges of the Jews in Greater Israel. It sets the boundaries of the Indian reservations. When it wants, it links them; when it doesn’t, it cuts them off. Its will is done: unemployment of 52 percent or 19 percent, population density of villages and cities, diameter of water pipes, the number of days that one must wait before receiving lifesaving medical treatment. If the natives want to, they can go on living in the reservations; if they don’t − let them leave.

Take, for example, the demolition order that was posted on April 26 on a structure in the community of Umm al-Kheir in the South Hebron Hills. The standardardized form was signed by the inspection subcommittee of the Civil Administration’s higher planning council. The order informs us that it was posted by one “Carlo” in the presence of the “Operations Officer of the Hebron D.C.O.”. We can guess that they were accompanied by soldiers. We know that sharp-eyed inspectors have located the offending structure.

The head of the Civil Administration, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, probably doesn’t know that the assembly line he is in charge of produced this order for the demolition of “a concrete toilet structure of about 3 square meters.” Netanyahu certainly has no idea at all. But the order encompasses an ancient Israeli philosophy that prohibits Palestinians from building toilets, digging reservoirs to collect rainwater or connecting to the electricity grid in more than half of the occupied territory.

The soldiers have internalized the philosophy, and they take it home with them, to Israel. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, the prohibition against hooking up to electricity sabotages Palestinian children’s ability to learn. Neither the cessation of construction in the settlements nor the proximity talks, starting today, will prevent this act of sabotage against children’s education that the Israeli apparatus carries out as a matter of course.
Actually, not an apparatus, but a gigantic factory. Not one assembly line but many.

Behind one such assembly line are the planners. They are architectural geniuses, graduates of the best schools in Israel, who invented mazes like the dual, separate road networks for Palestinians and Israelis ‏(particularly Jews‏), or the separation fence/wall that excels at disconnecting crowded neighborhoods from their lands, their past and their future.

The fence is ugly and horrific, more so than the Holyland project. The mazes of separation create resistance to them. And then the apparatus puts another assembly line to work: the military court system.

Graduates of Israeli law schools, in the reserves or the career army, are conscripted in order to make it clear to the natives that resistance is painful; they send them to prison and levy heavy fines. Then, they export the philosophy of oppression to civil courts and college classrooms in Tel Aviv.

Behind the assembly lines are representatives of the entire people of Zion, hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers. Each of them has a personal interest in the continuation of the apparatus, even if that interest is wrapped in national or security cellophane. Netanyahu is not the only one responsible. He alone cannot stop the huge pilotless plane. There are a great many people in Israel who should be forced to erase the programs of the apparatus of domination and destruction, before it turns on its creators, its operators and those who profit from it. All of us.

Saturday
Sep042010

Walking in Palestine

Palestine is synonymous with violence, but politics takes a back seat on this extraordinary new walking route where the people are welcoming and the countryside stunning

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/sep/04/palestine-walking-middle-east

Kevin Rushby

4 September 2010

Douma  
Field day … a farmer reaps wheat by hand near Douma, above the Jordan Valley. Photograph: Kevin Rushby for the Guardian

There was a moment of silence. Then the Palestinian youngsters marched in front of us and I thought to myself, this is where they sing about being martyrs and dying glorious deaths. A gentle breeze swayed the mulberry tree. On the far ridges of the mountains around Nablus, the lights of the illegal Israeli settlements twinkled. This village, I knew, had seen 2,000 acres of olive groves taken by those settlers, plus several lives. An older girl called the group to order then, in English, they launched into their chant.

"I'm a red tomato, you're a green tomato. You're a little cucumber..."

Everyone started to laugh. A walking holiday in Palestine. You've got to laugh really. I laughed a lot on that walk. And this in a part of the world where something horrible is always happening, be it shootings in Hebron, attacks on aid flotillas, or separation walls and rocket attacks. In the middle of such madness, laughter is the most unexpected and valuable pleasure, one that people seize at every opportunity.

Map of Palestine

It was perhaps appropriate that I started my hike in the far north of the West Bank, within a few miles of a hill called Megiddo, where Pharoah Thutmose III overwhelmed the Canaanite king Durusha in about 1457BC, thus beginning the legend of Armageddon, the site of the Last Battle. With my guide Hejazi, I walked through peaceful fields of wheat past other ancient sites, exploring Roman tombs lost in undergrowth and watching storks circling overhead on their migration north. Our first major stopping point was Jenin, a town whose name is tied inextricably to violence and death. Despite its reputation, however, Jenin turned out to be a friendly market town of Palestinian farmers, a place to gorge on strawberries and almonds, washed down with carob juice sold from huge ornamental brass urns.

I walked around the souk in a bit of a daze. How could reality be so different from expectations? Certainly, the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes from the second intifada, but the martyrdom posters were all faded by the sunshine and people wanted to shake hands. The carob-juice seller adjusted his Ray-Bans and grinned: "Why not join me on Facebook?"

There are several long distance footpaths in Palestine, but the one I was following was the Masar Ibrahim al-Khalil – literally Path of Abraham the Friend of God, simply the Masar for short. This new route stretches across the Middle East, starting at Abraham's birthplace in Sanliurfa, south-east Turkey, and winds south through Syria, Jordan and Israel. Eventually, it could stretch all the way to Mecca, linking existing paths associated with Abraham, and new routes. Its purpose is to promote understanding between different faiths and cultures; it's also intended "as a catalyst for sustainable tourism and economic development". In places the path barely exists yet, in others it is well-worn, but everywhere it needs a guide. Hejazi was my man in Palestine, a person of unending cheerfulness and optimism.

For a Muslim, Hejazi tells me, the idea of a path named after Abraham is attractive since the great patriarch is revered as the "father of hospitality". To Jews and Christians, he is equally important – the starting point for monotheistic worship. The Masar, I discovered, is not some do-gooder peace initiative, but simply a great way to see the landscape and meet people.

The path makes no attempt to follow Abraham's original route, even if such a path could be discovered; rather it links sites that bear legends and folk tales about the man. Our first major site was south of Jenin at Jebel Gerazim, a mountain that stands above the ancient town of Nablus and affords astonishing views west to the Mediterranean and east to the hills of Jordan.

On the summit of the mountain is a tower built by Saladin and some fine, if neglected, Byzantine mosaics guarded by a group of Israeli teenage soldiers. Further down the hillside, we could see the houses of that renowned Jewish sect the Samaritans, a group that still has more than 700 followers.

"The reason the Samaritans revere this place," Hejazi explained, "is because they believe Abraham came here and built his first altar in Canaan."

It was a well-chosen spot to view what Abraham wanted: territory. "Unto thy seed," said his God, "will I give this land." And that was very generous of the Lord, all things considered. Except, of course, that all things had not been considered: previous inhabitants and the sheer fertility of Abraham's seed, which includes not only the 12 tribes of Israel but the prophet Muhammad via Ishmael, fruit of Abraham's union with the serving wench Hagar. And what about all those cousins from Noah's brothers? If Abe's God had spent a few moments considering, he might have foreseen problems.

That evening we stayed in Awata, a village near Nablus where the children sang about red tomatoes. There were tales of horror and violence too – there is no escaping the bloodied history in this land – but it never became overwhelming, as I'd expected. Hassan, our host, was keen to enthuse about the Masar: "It was like a light coming on here," he said. "We got connected to the outside world and that makes us feel hope. Everyone in the village is always asking about when the next walkers are coming."

Like most Palestinian villages, Awata has long since burst out of its ancient walled settlement and sprawled along the hill. But what is fascinating is that, amid the concrete and graffiti, there are sudden glimpses of an ancient world. When we chatted about water resources, Hassan jumped up and hauled open a trapdoor under our feet. Below us was a vast echoing cavern. "It's a Roman water tank," he explained. "We've got three of them."

After a huge feast of chicken, freshly made bread, pickles, salads and yoghurt, Hejazi and I bedded down on mattresses in the living room and slept.

Next morning we started out at 8am, meandering through olive groves and wheat fields. Scents of Persian thyme, wild sage and oregano drifted up from beneath our tramping feet. We stopped at a spring to drink delicious clear water, then pressed on, meeting other walkers as we climbed through meadows of scarlet poppies and butterflies to Jabal Aurma, a bronze age fortress. One of the shocks of doing this path is that the countryside is lovely. Travellers have been returning from the Holy Land with scornful appraisals of its beauty for many centuries. Herman Melville is typically bleak: "Bleached-leprosy-encrustations of curses-old cheese-bones of rocks," he wrote. The image of an ill-fated land has proven hard to budge.

On top of Jabal Aurma we discovered six vast underground storage rooms carved from solid rock, presumably to supply the fort during prolonged sieges. There is never any doubt in Palestine that this land has been a chaotic crossroads for civilisations, armies and tribes for a very long time – that is what makes it fascinating and worth exploring.

Later that day, we emerged on the edge of a grand escarpment looking down to the Jordan Valley, around 800ft below sea level. The wheat fields around us were tiny rocky terraces splashed with the yellow of wild dill. It's a difficult place to farm, and we came across Shakir Murshid with his wife and six children busily harvesting wheat by hand. On a sage bush nearby was the complete shed skin of a viper.

That night we stayed in Douma, a cluster of old stone dwellings long since overgrown by the straggling concrete of modernity. Rural life, however, was pretty much the same as ever: woodpeckers tapped at the trees, wheat fields surrounded the houses and men rode past on donkeys. We spent the evening by a campfire listening to locals sing and play homemade flutes. The patch of flat ground where we had built our fire turned out to be a Roman wine press, empty sadly. Once again we slept in someone's living room, under the eyes of family martyrs.

Our third day took us further south near the springs of Ain Samiya, now a water source for Jerusalem. We spotted chameleons in the bushes, whistling rock hyraxes and huge flightless crickets, then clambered up a delightful gorge, taking narrow shepherds' trails along the cliff face. By evening we approached the village of Kufer Malik, a place that was to hold perhaps the biggest surprises. The first came at a huge hacienda-style house, where the whole family came out to invite us in for coffee. "Do you speak Spanish?" asked the husband. "I learned it in Columbia."

Kufer Malik, bizarrely, is a little enclave of Latin America in Palestine. When we found our hosts for the night, the old man of the family, Hosni al-Qaq, explained: "In the 30s when times were hard here, my uncle decided to seek his fortune in America. He ended up selling shirts in Columbia, then got a shop and then a supermarket. He became very rich." Hosni smiled ruefully. "My father on the other hand stayed behind and was killed in the first intifada."

"And did other men go?"

"Oh yes, lots and lots, and then they spread out into other countries. There are now more than 800 descendants of this village in Brazil alone."

The effect of this exposure to the outside world on Kufer Malik has been electrifying. The men are hard-working and ambitious; the women assertive and independent-minded. Hiba, our hostess, had been to the Côte d'Azur to see what it was like. "We camped on the beach in Nice," she said proudly. "It was lovely."

So was her cooking: roast chicken, rice, vegetables and musahn, a flat bread cooked with sumac and onions.

"What would you do if a Jewish person came to stay?" I asked.

"No problem," they all said eagerly. "We've had one Jewish lady from America already and another from Brazil. Everyone is welcome here."

After dinner, the men sat out in the yard smoking shisha pipes. When they spoke Spanish, they looked like pure Columbians to me: all macho body language and grand gestures. When they spoke Arabic, they were Palestinian farmers again.

Our fourth day took us to Abu Taybah, home to the West Bank's only brewery – owned and run by a Palestinian Christian family (there are around 55,000 Palestinian Christians). After a glass of deliciously cold lager we moved on, walking down Wadi Qult to the marvellous fourth-century cliff-side monastery of St George, then on to Jericho.

The end of the Masar comes in Hebron, whose old city has been a dangerous flashpoint over the years. Zionist settlers have seized buildings in the market area – which has to be roofed with netting now to prevent rocks and rubbish raining down on shoppers. All of Abraham's progeny want a piece of the action here and the mosque has been forcibly divided to create a Muslim and a Jewish section. On one side, I found Indian Muslims praying and taking photos; on the other Jews from New York and Tel Aviv were doing the same. The Tomb of the Patriarchs, of course, looks pretty similar from either angle, though neither community, sadly, ever gets to see that fact.

Out in the street a shopkeeper invited me to have coffee. He was sitting with Micha, a former Israeli soldier turned peace activist, a young freckle-faced man with a friendly smile. What had convinced him to adopt what many Israelis see as a traitorous approach?

"Small things. It started when I was a soldier, talking at checkpoints to Palestinians, seeing what the settlers were doing, and what we were doing to protect them."

At that moment a Palestinian lady came over. They introduced themselves. "So now you work for peace?" she asked. "But I have to ask: did you kill any Palestinians?"

Around the shopfront where people were taking coffee and chatting, everyone froze. There was a long silence while Micha considered his reply. "I'd rather not say."

"I think you should," the woman said. "For any reconciliation, you have to."

A murmur of agreement passed through the small crowd. Micha thought again. "The truth is, I don't know. At Abu Sinaina we did shoot, but it was from far away."

"At Abu Sinaina? Then you killed at least five."

There was a pause and then Micha nodded. The Palestinian lady smiled. "You are welcome at my house. You must come for lunch."

They exchanged addresses and Micha promised that he would visit.

What is remarkable about the Masar walk is that religion and politics mostly take a back seat, allowing ordinary people to climb out of the foxholes of prejudice and suspicion. When that happens, Palestine becomes so much more than a brief and violent television news clip. I saw gazelles running on hillsides, tasted the local cuisine and enjoyed conversation on everyday topics. I climbed down inside bronze age burial chambers, tracked hyenas into their lairs inside Roman tombs and lay on the benches in Nablus's marvellous Turkish baths, discussing the best way to pickle olives. The problems of Israel's land-grabbing tactics remain: the wall is still standing and unsmiling teenage soldiers at checkpoints demand to see passports.

The Masar is not for those who want private rooms or special treatment. It is intense and sometimes emotionally draining. There were moments when I felt rage about the injuries and injustices. But, more than anything, this was a life-affirming and exhilarating experience that will stay with me like few others.

Way to go

Getting there

Jet2.com flies from Manchester to Tel Aviv, from £99 one way. A four-day walk along the Masar (abrahampath.org/palestine.php), including guides, home-stay accommodation and meals with families, costs £400pp (or £570 with two nights in Jerusalem and one in Bethlehem). Tours are run by Palestinian operator, the Siraj Center (+972 2 274 8590, http://www.sirajcenter.org/, email michel@sirajcenter.org).

Further information

Check the Foreign Office website (fco.gov.uk) for travel advice on Palestine.

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