west bank
Tear gas over the soccer field
“You’re welcome to take it back home with you,” my Palestinian friend said as I looked at the US-made canister in my hand. “Actually, take all of them.”
When Israeli settlers meet West Bank Palestinians
“How had I not heard these stories and met these people, living 30 years right next to them?” asks Hanan Schlesinger. “How could it be?”
interview by Philip C. Maurer
What hope looks like to one Palestinian
Akram al-Waara sits in a refugee camp and makes art—out of tear gas canisters.
Can classical music come out of Nazareth?
Nabeel Ashkar has worked for years to bring Western art music to Arab young people in Galilee.
BDS: What Palestinians think
The BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement against Israel, which has gained some traction in mainline denominations, raises hotly contested questions. (See, for example, my article “Boycotting the boycott” and the responses to it.)
A particularly salient one: Do ordinary Palestinians support BDS? Do Palestinians in the occupied territory want more separation from Israel or more integration with it?
By David Heim
Boycotting the boycott: The problem with the BDS movement
The BDS movement posits that a just future for the Palestinians lies first of all in disengagement from and resistance to Israel. But does it?
by David Heim
A land divided: The internal conflicts of Zionism
Is the goal of Zionism a democratic Israel with a Jewish majority? Or rule of the entire land, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan?
Jordan tour: Our driver from Ramallah
In Jordan, reports are mixed as to just how good relations are between the Muslim majority and the Christian minority. What's clearer is that the stronger divide is between native Jordanians and the many Palestinian refugees.
The two locals we spent the most time with, our tour guide and our bus driver, represent both differences.
Anxious in Palestine
Palestinian parents don’t fret about drugs or drunk drivers. They worry that the Israeli soldiers will use their M-16s.