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Date:Tue, 16 Sep 2003 15:37:02 -0600 Top of Form
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Greetings all, i hope this finds you well. i am great, this is more my
speed than beating my head against the wall back home. {don't worry
mom, i can't get citizenship, there are 5 million Palestinians in line in
front of me-smile}.

i left Jerusalem today, came to Bethlehem. i honestly
never thought i would be in the real Bethlehem, its not a place i really
thought of as still existing, just tones of Sunday skool, ya know? nobody in
sunday skool told me about this situation, to be sure.

i am staying in a refugee camp in Bethlehem, its called Dheshir {Tu-hay-sha} in which refugees from the initial creation of Israel have been living for 55 years. they came from villages around Jerusalem and have been here since. here i am staying in a community center, but most kamps apparently don't have such places, this one has got its act together and is effectively networking with internationals to.......well, survive i guess.

clear your head and listen to this.....there are over 11,000 people living here on less than two thirds of a square kilometer, {a kilometer is about two thirds of a mile}. AND, its not considered one of the really bad ones.
i haven't toured the kamp yet as i got here late in the day, but will
do tomorrow. Farmers without farms is the basic idea. when i arrived
they were unloading bags of UN wheat, 15 minutes before that i was driving
thrugh affluent Jewish areas of Jerusalem, fast food, fancy food, anything you
want.
i crossed my first official checkpoint today to come in here, its not a
supertight one for internationals as the Church of the Nativity is
here and tourists used to come alot, but to other parts of the city.
Palestinians cannot approach the checkpoint, much less cross it. they are trapped here, literally, and have been for 3 generations now. i must've dozed off when Peter Jennings was telling this half of the story. i'll tell you in
no uncertain terms that the people here are genuinely some of the nicest
i've ever met anywhere. you can't ask people to see or use something, say a
pen or a lighter, because they will give it to you and refuse to take it
back. they really appreciate the international presence. i had some
incredible conversations this afternoon, many folks here speak English {englizi} and are particularly interested in me as an American, wanting so badly to understand why we accept our gov'ts policies in this neck of the woods. they take great pains to re-iterate that they do not hold us
accountable for US imperialism, but would would be thrilled were we to get off our butts and stop it. imagine this,: some of them feel sorry for us because we actually believe the lies of our government, whereas people in most other countries might have to go along with stuff, but never actually believe it.

they wanna know whatsup? how far will it go?what am i supposed to tell them?? "what
did we do to America, all we did is get removed from our land?" these
aren't global players, folks. got some good points though. our {American people}naivete is killing hope for large swaths of the developing world.{my words}
Anyway, this area was under full occupation until '95, now its just
surrounded and largely cut off, always prone to incursions. the first
lengthy conversation i had today was with a Palestinian Christian,
about 60, his wife has M.S. and he can't pay to treat her due to the lack of an
economy in almost any sense of the word.
He was a real nice guy, just a guy, ya know? his wife is in pain and is
gonna die. the walls of this community center are painted with beautiful murals, many of which portay people from the kamp who have been killed during the Occupation, almost half of them under 12 years old.
i will tour kamp tomorow and write more,then i have a chance to meet a
{the} big guy in regional Arab politics thursday, at some sort of lil' white
house....{pick it up??} . so, that should be interesting to say the
least. i'll take a photo . sorry this update is getting cut short, there is
a guy waiting for computer . so much more to say after tour tomorrow, i'm
sure. miss you all and appreciate your support so much.

Yours In Struggle, Ben