* * *Appeared in last week's Cherwell: * * *

As we tear down Highway 1 to Ben-Gurion International, the plastic cup that Jalal hands me is both flimsy and scorching. Somehow, his brother is brewing coffee in the backseat for everyone in the car. I struggle not to spill as the cup wilts in my hand. Barbed wire flies by my window as we drive alongside Israel’s “security fence,” or “apartheid wall,” depending on your politics. Taking advantage of the scenery, I ignite a brief fraternal argument over the appropriate name for the barrier. A few hours ago I didn’t know either of these men, but after spending the past six weeks at a news agency in the West Bank I’ve learned that in this place one can make fast friends so long as coffee or tea is provided.

One of the first people I shared a cup with was a protester in Bethlehem: I arrived in Palestine just as it joined the “Arab Spring”—the wave of youth-driven, democratic uprisings that began in Tunisia and is now blistering Syria. It is now referred to as the March 15 movement, to commemorate the first day of demonstrations. Rather than calling for the abdication of a dictator as in Egypt or Libya, the youth of Palestine demanded reconciliation between the secular Fatah party, which controls the West Bank and the recognized government, and the rogue Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

The young protester who treated me to a mug of Turkish syrup voiced his desperation in between sips: “This split between Hamas and Fatah has held back our struggle for a Palestinian state more than any Israeli policy could hope to do.” Having arrived at the movement’s beginning, I suppose it was only fitting that I left as its demands were finally reached. A few hours after I touched down at Heathrow, the two parties signed a unity deal in Cairo. Netanyahu is fuming, and my friends in Manara Square are celebrating.

Shopping for ceramics with a friend in Hebron, we ended up having tea with the shop’s owner, a man named Munir. Hebron is a city in the southern West Bank that provides the worst example of what Jewish settlements have done to the dynamic between Arabs and Israelis. The city has been partitioned into H1, governed by the Palestinian Authority, and H2, a section of town colonized by a small group of armed settlers and fully occupied by Israeli forces.




Shuffling around the streets of H2 I'm sure that my friend and I underwent the same bewilderment as any visitors to Hebron. It is known as the "sterile zone,” a euphemism that fails, since it fully conveys the numbness of one’s surroundings. The barricaded shops, the abandoned schools, and the glares of the settlers—some all too happy to finger the triggers on their chunky firearms—briefly placed us somewhere other than planet Earth. Eight hundred illegal residents have turned this section of town—population 30,000—into an urban husk.

In the middle of our tea break, a fight broke out in front of Munir’s shop, between some young settlers and a Palestinian boy; within seconds an IDF jeep rattled into view and the tussle was over. “That one, with the pink hat,” croaked Munir as he pointed, “he is around here often. He causes trouble.” As he spoke I watched the boy he identified, who was spitting at not only his Palestinian nemesis but the Israeli soldiers who had broken up their fight. Munir lowered his hand and went back to stirring his tea in silence.

Halfway through my stay actor and director Juliano Mer Khamis was murdered outside of his home in Jenin in the central West Bank and home to the most destitute refugee camp in Palestine. I had hoped to have a coffee with Juliano before I left. Having seen his film Arna’s Children a few days after arriving in Palestine, I made a plan to visit Jenin where he ran a theatre and drama school for Palestinian kids. Instead I ended up writing up a report of his assassination. On the evening of April 4 a masked gunman stepped in front of Juliano’s car, a few feet away from his home, and opened fire. While the wave of reports on his murder subsequently referred to him as “Arab-Isreali”—his mother was Jewish and his father Palestinian—Juliano once stressed that he was “one hundred percent Israeli, one hundred percent Arab.” Far be it from me to ignore his specification.

Juliano was much loved by younger people in the camp, where he erected a professional-grade theatre with all the trimmings for youths that knew only the poverty, violence and boredom of the refugee camp. But at the same time, among the godly and the literal-minded he was deeply hated for his productions at the Freedom Theatre, many of which empowered Palestinians children to reject religious and societal subjugation as well as Israeli occupation. In a recent interview, he candidly and humorously predicted his own assassination. He announced that he would die from a bullet fired by someone “very angry that we are here in Jenin,” then with a theatrical scowl and a forbidding voice, “to corrupt the youth of the Islam!” Though the investigation of his murder is not yet closed, that is most likely exactly what happened.

Not content with the demise only one innocent activist, a little more than a week later a Salafist group in Gaza kidnapped and hanged Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni in an abandoned house in Gaza City. The group in question was considerably to the right of Hamas and among other things demanded that the government release its co-religionists from prison. By the time the police in Gaza reached Vittorio’s body, however, it had been lifeless for hours, long before the Salafists’ deadline.

A few days after Arrigoni’s death I attended a vigil at Bethlehem's unity tent. There were calls for perseverance and there were calls for blood. There were tears for both Vittorio and for Juliano, from those that knew them and those who did not. A colleague of mine delivered a eulogy in short bursts, as another speaker translated her words across the circle of mourners. I scribbled them on the back of a magazine for a story on the event due later that night.

Soon a doctor in the crowd, a native of Palestine who spoke to us all in English, ended his own tribute to Vittorio with a crackling voice as he began to talk about the recent murder of his friend Juliano. He suddenly spoke very slowly, and the candle in his hands started to quiver: “We will continue to do our best, to end all the violence here...to win ourselves a normal life,” until his features withered and he began to sob, “so we can finally stop things like this, from happening anymore.” With the doctor in tears, most everyone around me began to weep. He had touched a nerve connected not only of Vittorio’s death, or Juliano’s, but the entire tragedy of Palestine in all of its confusion and violence.

At that moment I nudged my friend and fellow intern Carlos, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head, before nodding in the direction of a coffee stand nearby. I nodded in turn and we started toward the cart. We had a lot to discuss.

Spent the evening at a vigil for Vittorio Arrigoni at Bethlehem's March 15 Youth Coalition "unity" tent. There were calls for perseverance and there were calls for blood. There were tears for Vittorio and for Juliano Mer Khamis, from those that knew them and those who did not.

The parents of Rachel Corrie, the American student who was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer during the second Intifada, arrived halfway through the proceedings. Her mother spoke and quoted Coretta Scott King, gently urging everyone to remember that while at this moment "the pain is sharp and overwhelming, the cause we are fighting for is larger than the grief caused by the death of our loved one.”

A colleague of mine delivered a eulogy in short bursts, as another speaker translated her words from across the circle of mourners. “Vittorio was a big person, in every sense of the word. He was a tall, strong man. He used big words. He had a big smile. And a big heart.”

“He did his work under the banner: ‘Stay Human.’ For him this meant to always be struck by injustice, to be moved by it, and to act against it. We will not be deterred from continuing the work that he did—certainly not by this crime, which does not at all represent the Palestinian people.”

A doctor in the crowd, a native of Palestine who spoke to us all in English, ended his tribute to Vittorio with a crackling voice as he began to talk about the recent murder of another famous peace activist, his friend Juliano Mer. He suddenly spoke very slowly, and the candle in his hands started to quiver: “We will continue to do our best, to end all the violence here...to win ourselves a normal life,” until his features withered and he began to sob, “so we can finally stop things like this, from happening anymore.”

Finally, one man, when he was asked to speak, did so without tears: “I am not going to be as nice as everyone else here. I am not going to light a candle. I want blood.”

“In the second Intifada, anyone around who killed a fighter or a resistance figure, they would be hanging from a street lamp the next day. That is what happened. That is what the murderers of these men deserve. And that is what they will get.”

It is another dark night here. I’ll be at the bar.

I've just finished editing a story on the murder of Italian human rights activist Vittorio Arrigoni. This morning his body was found hanging in an abandoned house in Gaza City. He was killed by a Salafist group called Mohamed Bin-Mosliemah. The Salafis attempted to use him as a bargaining chip; they demanded the release of their co-religionists from prison; Hamas has claimed that security services found Vittorio's body hours before the deadline.

Vittorio was in my opinion not only a dedicated friend of Gazans but also a fabulous writer. In this space I think it's appropriate to remember him for his unflinching yet humane writing style:

At this point, the doctor bends towards one of the boxes, and opens it in front of me. Inside are mutilated limbs, arms and legs from the knee down or entire femurs, amputated from the injured who had come from the UN Fakhura School in Jabalia, more than 50 victims until now.

Pretending I had an urgent phone call, I take my leave of Jamal; in fact, I head to the toilet, double up, and vomit.

Considering the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis only a few weeks ago, right now the ranks of Palestinian solidarity are being dealt a crippling blow.

Today I had the terrible job of reporting on the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis.

Juliano was an Arab-Israeli actor and director who spent the past five years offering the youth of Jenin an alternative reality. He founded and ran the Freedom Theatre, a drama school and community theatre in the middle of the Jenin refugee camp, where any child could become a part of plays, films, and art which they otherwise would never have known.

His mother Arna, an Israeli Jew, lived in Jenin throughout her life and in the 80s erected a similar venue called the Stone Theatre; it was built during the First Intifada and perished during the Second. Juliano produced a documentary about her work called Arna's Children. But I believe that Arna's son surpassed even her great efforts in developing the Freedom Theatre and placing art into the hands of children who've known only violence. That was no romantic ambition; it was a struggle, as the story of Yussef makes clear:





Today a masked man walked up to Juliano as he was leaving his home and left him with five bullets in his chest. One of Juliano's colleagues watched him die and was injured from the fire herself.