The Ultimate Olive Tour

Via RH:
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Prologue:

Siraj is a non-governmental non profit organization based in Beit Sahour, Palestine. Siraj aims to create links between Palestinian people and people from around the globe through educational tourism, interfaith and ecumenical dialogue, culture and youth exchange programs...Siraj Center recognizes the historic roots of the Palestinian people through showing the cultural identity for the people of Palestine and reflecting it through all the organized visits for tourists in Palestine. Siraj Center, also means to support the Palestinian economy by asking the tourists to stay their longest time with the Palestinian people in hotels or with local families, means spending %90 of their time in the West Bank.

And here it is (errors and style preserved):

Fair Trade Olive Harvest 2010

Travel to Palestine and Israel, and learn how fair trade cooperatives are restoring hope and providing economic alternatives to a population under occupation. Harvest olives with Fair Trade farmers, use organic farming practices, witness the community building strengths of Fair Trade cooperatives, and cultivate a greater appreciation of Palestinian traditions, food and people.

01 OCT 2010 : Day 1: Arrive TLV Airport
Evening meeting and Global Exchange and partners welcome, Olive Harvest Briefing. Stay overnight at a local hotel in Jerusalem.
02 OCT 2010: Day 2: Jerusalem
Breakfast at the hotel and tour with Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, focused on land, resources, water rights, tree destruction, house demolition and an economy paralyzed by occupation. Tour of the Old City, including Via Dolorossa, Al Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall. Visit with Sunbula Fair Trade, an organization working to promote a number of West Bank co-operatives. Dinner and overnight local hotel in Bethlehem.
03 OCT 2010: Day 3: Bethlehem and Beit Sahour
Breakfast at the hotel Travel to Beit Sahour, learn about Bethlehem-area crafts at the fair trade Holy Land Handicraft Cooperative Society. Visit the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People and hear about non-violent forms of resistance and their media project, IMEMC. Tour the Old City of Bethlehem, walk along the Apartheid Wall. Drive south to Hebron and visit the old city, including the Ibrahimi Mosque and meet with Hebron Rehabilitation committee. Dinner will be at Artas village outside of Bethlehem including a folk dace performance dabkeh. Overnight in our hotel in Bethlehem.
04 OCT 2010: Day 4: Ramallah and Bilin, Nablus and Sabastya
Morning departure to Ramallah drive to Bilin and meet with the society of Friends of Freedom and Justice and hear about the one going Non violent resistance against the wall. Drive to Nablus and Walk through the Old Town and the Old Market. Visit ancient spice mills, tahini mills, nut roasting houses and bakeries using local products. Visit Sabistya village, North of nablus and see the roman ruins in the middle of olive country. Dine at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the ruins. Meet with home-stay farmers after dinner and stay in Sebastiya.
05 OCT 2010: Day 5: Sabistya village
Olive Harvest in Sebastiya. Spend the day with host family on farm, having lunch in the field and dinner at host family home. Learn farming and traditional cooking practices and share stories about their daily lives. After dinner visit an old stone press in town with the host family, where the village gathers to press olives all night in preparation for the harvest. Stay overnight with host family in Sebastiya
06 OCT 2010: Day 6: Jenin
After traveling to Jenin, tour the Canaan, the bottling factory, showroom and office to learn about their programs. Tour an organic farm in Burqin and hike to the ancient stone-age presses in the olive orchards. Visit the Jenin Refugee Camp and meet for a workshop with Freedom Theater. Enjoy a group dinner and cookout in the Women Cultural Society center in Jinin. Meet with home-stay farmers after dinner and stay in Jenin or Rumana.
07 OCT 2010: Day 7: Jenin
Spend the day with host family on the farm, having lunch in the field. Talk to host families about their lives in Jenin, the effects of the occupation on daily life and farming, and their preparation for the yearly Olive Harvest. Stay overnight with host family Bilin.
08 OCT 2010: Day 8: Bilin and October fest in Taybeh
Work in the field with the people of Bilin, hear about the on going struggle using non violent resistance. In the late afternoon drive to Taybeh and participate in the Taybe October fest organized by the Taybeh beer brewery. Dinner in Taybeh. Overnight in Ramallah.
09 OCT 2010: Day 9: Ramallah-Jerusalem
After breakfast in the hotel, visit Addamer, a prisoners' rights organization. Meet with the PLO Negotiations Support unit and talk to Palestinian officials.
Drive back to Jerusalem, and have a late afternoon meeting with the Alternative Information Center, a joint Israeli/Palestinian educational and reporting group. Dinner and overnight in Jerusalem.
10 OCT 2010: Day 10: Negev
Early morning drive to the Negev Desert to meet with Bustan L'Shalom, a joint Israeli/Palestinian organization working to create self-sufficiency fair trade projects for Bedouin communities, and to bring awareness to land confiscation and house demolitions taking place in the Negev. Return to Jerusalem for an overnight stay at our hotel in Jerusalem.
11 OCT 2010: Day 11: Jerusalem and depart
Morning Departure from Jerusalem – guesthouse check-out and transfer to airport.
The Cost of: 8-12 participants $2150; over 12 pax $1900 and that includes everything besides the airfare and tips (see below for more info).
Price Includes:
• Double room accommodations with host families and guesthouse
• 2 meals/day (lunch excluded)
• On-ground transportation
• All program activities
• Honoraria to all host speakers, organizations and communities
• Trip leader(s), guide and translator
• Reading materials
• GX membership for one year
• International airfare, tips and personal expenses are not included
• Single room requests not typically granted. Please inquire with coordinator

Hey, there are some olive groves in Shiloh, with an olive oil plant.

Another American Jew Who Is "West Bank" Crazy

No, not one of those right-wing Brooklyn born types.

Another.

I just find it so hard to comprehend to thinking and perceptions of those on the Left.

Here's something from a Ha-Ha-Haaretz profile on an American Reform Jew who supports Meretz and who know acts as counsel for Arabs in Bil'in:-

In Jerusalem she discovered the hidden world, for her at least, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In those days, before the second intifada, she found a common language with Meretz activists on the Mount Scopus campus. "I met my first Palestinian friend then, Sari Abu-Ziad, the oldest son of Ziad Abu-Ziad, who was a minister in the Palestinian government then. He told me about his childhood, what a checkpoint was, what it meant to feel like you're living in a prison, what it's like to be an Arabic-speaker in Israel, how frightened he was. He studied at the Hebrew University. This was before the 1999 election. We gave out stickers that said 'With Barak There's Hope.' We believed that things could change. That year I plunged deep into the conflict, and it broke my heart."

Yes, Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza have had a difficult time. Checkpoints, feelings as if you are in a prison, speaking Arabic, etc.

I won't even go into the security reality but just ask Ms. Emily Schaefer:

So, you met this subjugated and oppressed Arab where?

At the Hebrew Univeristy?

A student, right?

Wow, that Israel - so bad.

Saudia Arabia Has A Problem

Sometimes I get inquiries why I include items of fashion on my blog if it is mainly a political blog.

Well, sometimes it become relevant:-

Saudi Arabia's religious police have arrested 10 "emo" women for allegedly causing a disturbance in a coffee shop, Al-Yaum newspaper reported on Saturday.

The coffee shop owner in the eastern city of Dammam called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to complain after the young women, dressed and made up in the "emo" fashion, apparently began disturbing other clients.

The religious police then called their parents to come and collect the women, and to sign pledges that the girls would not repeat their ostensibly offensive un-Islamic behaviour and dress.

'Emo'?

The trend is characterised by wearing skinny black jeans, tennis shoes, colourful T-shirts bearing the names of emo bands, heavy make up and sharply chopped and sometimes radically coloured hair-dos.

Emo = "emotional hardcore"

Emo has been associated with a stereotype that includes being particularly emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angst-ridden. It has also been associated with depression, self-injury, and suicide.

But, then again, there's always Rima Faikh, Shiite Miss America, as a role model:

Meet Alei Ayin

There is a small, very small community in the Shiloh Bloc named "Alei Ayin" from the verse in Genesis 49:22:

Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain

בֵּן פֹּרָת יוֹסֵף, בֵּן פֹּרָת עֲלֵי-עָיִן

The house, the sheep pen is in the background:


The visitors:


A nearby vineyard:


A Jewish presence, a simple one, in the Land of Israel.



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Let's Bury Some Pagan Bones

I was delayed and detoured Thursday when I discovered that a "burial ceremony" was taking place at Shabbat Square. Bones from the Ashkelon archaeological site were being reburied and here are the posters announcing the event







Hebrew report with video.

Demographic Determinants

Here's a pithy presentation by Yoram Ettinger on the issue of the "demographic threat" from his recent visit to Australia:-

...there is a Jewish majority of 67% in the combined area of pre-1967 Israel and Judea & Samaria and a 60% majority west of the Jordan River (including Gaza), compared with a 33% and a 8% Jewish minority in 1947 and in 1900 respectively.

The robust Jewish demographic tailwind and Arab demographic headwind are demonstrated through the absolute annual number of Jewish and Arab births in pre-1967 Israel. While the annual number of Arab births stabilized at 39,000 during 1995-2009, the annual number of Jewish births surged by 50% from 80,400 in 1995 to 121,000 in 2009.

The number of Judea & Samaria Arabs is artificially inflated by 66%. It is 1.55MN and not 2.5MN. Thus, the World Bank documents a 32% “inflation” in the number of Palestinian births, a substantial erosion of the Palestinian fertility rate and a significant escalation of Arab emigration from Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Documented entries and exits via international passages feature a 20,000 net Arab emigration from Judea & Samaria in 2009, 17,000 and 14,000 in 2008 and 2007 respectively and only six years of net-immigration since 1950.

The significant decline in Arab population growth rate has been caused by an intensive family planning campaign, an unprecedented reduction of teen-pregnancy, a swift urbanization process, an all-time-high divorce rate and median wedding-age, an impressive expansion of education especially among women and enhanced career mentality among women.

In contrast with international demographic standards, the Palestinians include some 400,000 overseas residents in their census. They also include 250,000 Jerusalem Arabs, who bear Israeli I.D. cards and are therefore doubly-counted: as Israeli Arabs by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics and as West Bank Arabs by the Palestinians...

A Mosque Is Coming to the City But Sex-In-The-City is in Arabia

Ground Zero may be getting a mosque, but over in Arabia:-

...there are just seven days to go before the UK release of Sex And The City 2...The girls are back: Carrie Bradshaw and the gang hit Abu Dhabi in Sex and the City 2. Now their second cinematic outing sees them swap the streets of New York for the souks of Abu Dhabi.

...Courtesy of Samantha's wealthy potential client, the foursome are sent on an all expenses-paid jaunt to Abu Dhabi...

But bringing Les Girls over there presented a problem:-

Neither Dubai nor Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates would agree to SATC2 being filmed there ('Abu Dhabi was like: "You know, the UAE is not really ready to have four sexually liberated American girls filmed here,"' says King), so filming was done in Morocco as a stand-in.

Says Cattrall: 'To transport these emancipated new-millennium women to a world that has not changed, in a lot of ways, since Biblical times was a fascinating idea.

'You'd think a Muslim country would not embrace a show like this, but they loved Samantha, they loved the show, they understood what we were doing.'

The decadent West has more than one meaning, I guess.

Ever So Succinctly

Melanie Phillips interviewed:-

Kathryn Jean LOPEZ: What is the “Middle East Witch-Hunt”?

PHILLIPS: Medieval witch-hunts involved singling out certain women as scapegoats and then killing them for crimes of which they were innocent but of which they found themselves incapable of proving their innocence because the case against them was rigged. In Britain in particular, but also in parts of Europe and on American campuses (see the Mearsheimer/Walt calumny), there is an obsessive malice toward Israel which goes far beyond reasoned debate and has become a pathological scapegoating of a nation.

The treatment of Israel by the left-wing Western intelligentsia is unique in its irrationality and moral and historical inversion. It takes a nation that is the historic victim of aggression and blames it for jeopardizing peace in the region and causing Islamic extremism worldwide — despite demonstrable evidence that this is simply untrue. It accuses Israel, wholly falsely, of “apartheid” and ethnic cleansing when Israeli Arabs have full civil rights and the Palestinian population has increased many times over — and when Jews are excluded from parts of the Arab world (including the putative state of Palestine).

It takes a nation that has been under exterminatory attack for six decades (nine, if you include the Palestine Mandate) and insists that it make compromises with its attackers, even as they continue to attack it. And if any Jew dares protest at the manifest injustice, lies, and bigotry in this unique delegitimization, they find themselves accused of “dual loyalty” or being part of a covert global conspiracy to put the world at risk.

...Jew-hatred, as I prefer to call it, can surely never be eradicated. But the lies that currently fuel it — lies about Israel’s behavior, the history of the Middle East, and so on — should be publicly confronted and exploded. Similarly, the ways in which the blood libels about the Jews pouring out of the Arab and Muslim worlds are poisoning minds not just in that world but in the West should also be prominently discussed, along with the continuity between the Arab/Palestinian agenda and that of the Nazis, whose allies they once were.

One of the main problems is the silence of Israel on this mass derangement in the West, and its failure to challenge it forensically and systematically. This has left an intellectual vacuum into which bigotry flows. While the irrationality of Jew-hatred cannot be defeated by reason, there are many in Britain and the West who are not natural bigots but are actually people of high-minded conscience, who have merely been indoctrinated with falsehoods about Israel that are never publicly challenged. Some of those people, at least, can certainly be reached by addressing their ignorance.

[....]

The Naked Nakba Truth

In a "Nakba" story, the BBC quotes one former Jerusalem resident saying:-

"I don't want to throw anyone out on the streets but I have to have people recognise the right to my property...This is my home - and I go out as a stranger. Why? I need someone to explain to me."

Why?

Because your people followed its leadership into a war to eradicate the Jewish state - and lost.

What's so complicated?

The Jewish people were granted the right by an international body, the League of Nations, to reconstitute its historical homeland but first, TransJordan was put off-limits and then in 1937-39, a series of Partition proposals were made which the Jewish leadership was willing to accept in part but rejected by the Arabs.

In 1947, the UN recommended another partition which the Arabs, as noted, rejected.

You don't fool around like that and not expect to pay for your mistakes.

That's the naked Nakba truth.

So, Religion Plays No Part In Their Kidnapping?

The three hikers:-

Who are the US hikers?

The three Americans who have been detained in Iran since the end of July are friends who all attended the prestigious University of California, Berkeley. Iran says Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal had "suspicious aims" when they crossed the border into Iran while hiking in Iraq's Kurdish region and intend to put them on trial.

Debbie Schlussel points out their politics - radical and anti-Israel it would appear.

This source asserts all three are...Jewish.

Or not.

Satire Is True, At Times

At a time when widespread polling data suggests that a majority of the U.S. populace no longer trusts the federal government, a Pew Research Center report has found that the vast majority of the federal government doesn't trust the U.S. populace all that much either.

According to the poll—which surveyed members of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches—9 out of 10 government officials reported feeling "disillusioned" by the populace and claimed to have "completely lost confidence" in the citizenry's ability to act in the nation's best interests.

The Onion

A Matter of Imagination

NYTimes Promotes Civil Disobedience

In this editorial:-

Four young immigrant students risked everything on Monday when they sat down in Senator John McCain’s office in Tucson and refused to leave. They were urging passage of the Dream Act...

Good immigration reform needs a good bill, and the administration and the president and Democratic leaders haven’t yet offered or convincingly fought for one. The fight for reform is stalled. It could be simple acts of protest that ignite a fire. Half a century ago it was young people, at lunch counters and aboard buses across the South, who help galvanize the movement for civil rights, and to waken more powerful elders to injustice. The disobedient students in Arizona, and four others who walked to Washington from Florida this spring to press for the Dream Act, want the opportunity that others take for granted: the chance to earn college degrees, to forge better lives, to fulfill their potential in their home country. These are dreams that to them are well worth the risk.

I Just Had To Laugh - And Then Cry

Found this item:

According to a Peace Now survey, about 77% of the almost 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank said they had moved there mainly for economic reasons. There is a large percentage of these “quality of life” settlers who register themselves with the government as living in West Bank settlements, but who do not actually live there full time.

If you visit some of these types of settlements during the middle of the day, you will find that the schools and streets are empty. There are actually not many people who live there full time. Instead, they enjoy the economic benefits of being registered as living there without the hassle of commuting from Israel to the settlements for work and without the security risk of living in occupied territory.

Palestine Monitor (Palestinemonitor.org) is currently working on a story to find out how many settlements are actually inhabited full time. So watch for the story in the next couple of weeks.

So empty-headed.

And from the same "journalist":

Two Settlers Injured by Palestinian Fire

On Friday, two young female settlers were injured as their car was fired on when they were driving in the same area that the Palestinian boy was killed...I was very surprised. It’s not common for Palestinians to shoot at settlers or soldiers because most Palestinians do not have guns…just stones...They [the Imad Mughniyeh Group of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades] also said that the attack symbolized their rejection of the indirect peace talks that have begun between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership. I don’t blame them because so far, every time there are peace talks, the Palestinians end up making all the compromises and fulfilling the demand s of the Israelis, while the Israeli government gives nothing, and usually takes more land and more concessions from the Palestinians.

Such an immoral journalist.

EU MEP Hypocrisy

I was sent this report (Kippah tip: BT) and something caught my eye:-

The EU parliament's most senior foreign relations personality has quit an official trip to Israel next week because he said his fellow deputies are plotting "anti-Israeli propaganda."

Italian centre-right MEP Gabriele Albertini, the head of the parliament's foreign affairs committee, outlined the reasons for his decision in a private email to Silvio Gonzato, an EU official, dated 13 May, and seen by this website.

...Mr Albertini said most of his fellow deputies on the delegation are biased against Israel and that their plans to visit Gaza could undermine peace talks.

...Mr Albertini singled out German centre-right MEP and former European Parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering for criticism. "The honorable Mr Poettering wanted to convene a press conference to censure the conduct of the Israeli government before we start our journey, to the applause of those present [at the meeting]!" the Italian member said.

A member of Mr Poettering's office told EUobserver that he is "very pro-Israeli" but also "critical ... as far as the settlements are concerned." He added the German deputy "is of the opinion that the Israeli government cannot tell the members of the European Parliament whom they should see or not."...

Well, if the German is critical, why doesn't he come and visit a Jewish community, like Shiloh where I live, and perhaps learn something he didn't know previously?

And if you want to, thank MEP Albertini: gabriele.albertini@europarl.europa.eu

NYTimes - Better Later Than Never

The story from last Sunday, which I blogged here, finally made it into the NYTimes.

Here.

The story?

Oh:-

Bulldozers, accompanied by Hamas forces and police officers who beat residents with sticks, razed at least 25 houses, including some concrete structures here in Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza.

Itamar Marcus & PMW in Huffington Post

Here.

Nice work.


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Water Archaeologically Comes to Jerusalem

A discovered aqueduct


A spectacular arched bridge that was part of the ancient aqueduct which conveyed water to the Temple Mount was exposed recently in archaeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority conducted near the Sultan’s Pool



Yehiel Zelinger, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said...“The route of the Low Level aqueduct from the time of the Second Temple, beginning at Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem and ending at the Temple Mount, is well known to scholars..."The upper part of Gai Ben-Hinnom passes between the two sections of aqueduct where the Sultan’s Pool was built as a reservoir for flood water. In order to maintain the elevation of the path along which the water flowed, a bridge was erected above the ravine. Two of the original nine arches that were in the bridge were currently excavated to their full height of about 3 meters”.




“The bridge was built in 1320 CE (in the Mamluk period) by the sultan Nasser al-Din Muhammed Ibn Qalawun, as evidenced by the dedicatory inscription set in it; however, it was apparently constructed to replace an earlier bridge dating to the time of the Second Temple period that was part of the original aqueduct”.

Miss USA, A Shiite Muslim, Gets Ready To Pray

I noted the victory of Miss Michigan, Rima Farikh, in the Miss USA competition here.

I knew you wanted another view:-





That is a sajjāda, a prayer mat, yes?


Could this be her first promotional appearance?

Don't Feel Bad About Doubting Police Versions

You don't need to automatically believe any police version of a possible crime.

Really.

For example:-

An attorney for the family of a 7-year-old girl slain during a weekend raid at their Detroit home says video footage contradicts the police department's version of events...footage shot by the A&E crime-reality show "The First 48" shows that police fired into the home at least once after lobbing a flash grenade through a window...that contradicts the police department's explanation that an officer's gun fired during a confrontation with a resident inside the home...

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