9 November It was inevitable that at some point Jewish settlements in the West Bank would endanger even the trees. This was the thought I had as I was driven through the northern part of the West Bank on a field trip organised by Oxfam, which is working with Palestinian NGOs to help local cooperatives improve their agricultural practices and open up local and international markets to them. The villagers told us that tens of thousands of olive trees have been uprooted to make way for the construction of the Israeli separation barrier. By the time the barrier is finished, in a few more years, one million trees will be caught in the no-go area between it and the 1967 armistice line. On the way back our driver tells me he worked for a number of years for the Israeli bus company, Egged. "Most of these buses you see going to the settlements travel with very few passengers. They charge little so that what they make can hardly cover the cost of the fuel they consume." While the life of Palestinian villagers is made difficult, that of the settlers is heavily subsidised to encourage more Israelis to settle.
The driver then tells me: "Last week there was going to be a war on Gaza but it was averted at the last minute." I asked him how he knew this. He said: "An urgent message came asking me to drive immediately to Gaza and bring back all of Oxfam's international staff. When I got there I found that all internationals were being evacuated. But it wasn't possible because Hamas closed its side of the border and wouldn't let them out."
19 November Today I am in far away Edinburgh, and was determined to give myself a break from the rigours of life under occupation only to end up being bombarded with bad news about yet another Israeli invasion of Gaza. This has happened a number of times before and makes me nervous about going away.
I just received an email from Eyad Sarraj, a psychiatrist who lives in Gaza city. He writes: "The worst enemy of Zionism is peace. This is why Israel killed Jabari, the Qassam leader who agreed and installed the latest truce three days ago …" This is how he ends his message: "As I finish writing the whole neighborhood is shaken with successive Israeli bombing. It is 3 a.m. There are rumours about a new truce, but remember, Israel kills peacemakers, with love, Eyad."
My most distressing thought is that Israeli weapons are being tried out on our people. This will boost sales for the Israeli armaments industry enabling Israel to develop more weapons that will need to be tried out in future wars. When will Israel discover that peace can be lucrative too?
21 November I arrive in London and go to see the play, Arab Nights. The note from the director, Poppy Burton-Morgan, invites viewers to "a world of djinnis and demonstrations, of romance and revolutions". I am one of six writers from the Arab world invited to write a tale using the vehicle of the Arabian Nights to reflect on what is currently going on across the Middle East.
The one I enjoy most is by the Lebanese artist, Tania Khoury, "Tale of the Dictator's Wife", featuring Asma Assad and her obsession with expensive shoes. She is played by Dina Mousawi, who goes on ordering one expensive pair after another on the internet by punching with her long legs the images projected over the wall until the words "account blocked" appear on the screen.
In my tale, "The Two Djinnis and the Wall", I let loose my imagination and have a Palestinian hiker who has been stopped at an Israeli checkpoint tell of his dreams of a new reality in the region to a female Israeli soldier detaining him while his backpack is being searched. She had claimed she did not understand Arabic, but when he finishes she asks: "Will I ever be able to travel to the places you speak about? My family comes from Aleppo." I hope writers can serve the cause of peace by provoking people's yearning for it. Aren't new realities created by first imagining them, making what is possible in art thinkable in life?
26 November Back from London yesterday afternoon. Fortunately during my absence some good rain has fallen. The garden looks refreshed. The bougainvillea is still in bloom. To have survived six months of utter drought, what resilience! And with just a bit of water it and the other shrubs revive and come back to life.
29 November The celebrations began long before the vote was taken at the UN in favour of the Palestinian Authority's new status as a non-member observer state. Schools were dismissed early and government departments closed hours ahead of the usual 3pm. By late morning last Thursday, people in every town and city of the West Bank were raising Palestinian flags and making celebratory speeches.
30 November I just read that the Palestinian minister of communications will be seeking full membership for Palestine with the Universal Postal Union. If successful this might mean that we might finally get a post code. We'll no longer need to write 0000 where a post code is required and will stop being the zero people four times over, all thanks to the UN vote. I went for a walk in the afternoon. Yellow signs with black writing have been pasted on billboards by the Fatah Youth movement. They read: "Warning! This is illegally occupied land, State of Palestine, the occupier must leave immediately."
In the evening a post-show discussion of a locally produced play, The Station, reveals that the young are strongly divided. Some want the Palestinian Authority to be dissolved, the occupation brought back and resistance resumed. Some think the way of Hamas is the only right one and most lament how most people are so restrained by their private debts to the banks that they will not get involved in public issues.
At a reading in Jerusalem of my book, Occupation Diaries, my old friend, David Kretzmer, who has written a lot about the Israeli High Court, is in the audience. Afterwards he tells me he does not agree with me that the court is to be blamed for the failure to de-legitimise the settlement project. Had they tried this the Israeli government would have restricted their jurisdiction to hear cases against the settlements. But he does agree with me that the settlers now are so powerful they practically control the government. This has been proved by Netanyahu's insistence on going ahead with his plans to complete the encirclement of Arab East Jerusalem by building the E1 settlement despite strong opposition by Israel's allies including the US.
Perhaps our occupiers have not seen yet the sign posted by the Fatah Youth Movement.
11 December Well, Israel just invaded the "capital" of our new state. I was awakened last night by the sound of gunshots. It turned out that the Israeli army has invaded Ramallah (recognised under the Oslo Accords as Area A with full Palestinian jurisdiction and so out of bounds for Israeli soldiers).
Israel it seems is bent on continuing to provoke the Palestinians in the West Bank as it is doing in Gaza, where the Israeli army is making almost daily incursions despite the truce.
I wonder whether my friend Hani will hear this news and change his mind about coming on his long awaited Christmas visit. For months he's been fretting over the reception he would receive at the Tel Aviv airport, whether he will be allowed in or deported even though he now holds a US passport. His family are Palestinian refugees from 1948. He was born in Jerusalem and lived as an adult in the United States. He's never been involved in politics. There is nothing Israel can hold against him except that he's a Palestinian. His last email was not encouraging. He writes: "A friend from London gave me an idea of the type of questions I will be repeatedly asked. I am not at all sure I can withstand that."
Perhaps now that Palestine has been recognised by the UN we should place on hold the right of return and work instead on securing from Israel the right of Palestinians just to visit their newly recognised state.
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