Well dear blog visitors, I’ve arrived in Ramallah. For some of you who I’ve just been emailing, some of this might look a tidge repetitive. I’ve already copped to being an insatiable at the art of self-plagiarism.

Am here safe and sound as a pound in Ramallah. It’s just after 2 a.m. Jumped into a flurry of press release and report work. Right now am faxing one about Huwaida getting arrested with a bunch of folks today for protesting the Bil’in wall construction.

As I was trying to get over jet-lag at a friend’s home in Jerusalem this morning, folks were already on the go, protesting the annexation wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in. ISM cofounder Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American from Michigan was arrested along with a Bil’in man named Tamer Al Khatib, a couple other yanks, a Dane and a couple Israelis. I won’t rehash it all here since it’s already been rehashed at the International Solidarity Movement website. If you want to know more about what this “separation barrier” will be doing to the people whose land it’s being built on, take a look at this little rundown on the issue. Estimated at costing around 2.5 million per mile, the project still falls well with the means of a nation receiving billions in U.S. taxes each year. D.C doesn’t seem to be tight with the purse strings at all unless a single mother’s involved.

Anyway, Tamer is one more in a growing list of Palestinians from Bil’in facing a military court. Abdallah Abu Rahme and Akram Al Khatib, members of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall have been in detention at Ofer Military Base where Tamer now is since their arrest during a non-violent demonstration Friday, July 15. While Huwaida and company get to meet a nice civil judge to discuss the situation and what their rights are, these folks, who are subject to a military court system and can be locked up for days without access to representation. Yet it’s these people who launch these ideas and invite foreigners over to participate. The message is clear. You’ll likely get a slap on the wrist for the same thing that could cost a Palestinian her or his freedom, health or life.

Even though they are treated at about the same level combatants are, People in Bil’in have maintained a nonviolent struggle against the wall that’s cleaving their village. Earlier this month, on the one-year anniversary of the International Court ruling that the annexation barrier is illegal, demonstrators in the village were met with tear gas, sound bombs, and rubber bullets.

Anyhow, going to learn my way around Ramallah for a little while tomorrow and see that sights such as they are. Ramallah has a lot going for it that some other towns in the West Bank don’t have access to. One is a large international population, which I have to think tempers how much the occupation seeps into daily life here. You can’t be that indiscriminate with so many eyes on you. Nablus, Jenin, everywhere in Gaza could use the same. You would think any road map worth a lick or that someone actually wanted to succeed would make human rights observers on both Israeli and Palestinian lands a sticking point.

Don’t think I’ll be staying at the media office as earlier planned. Though I seem to have it to myself for the time being, it will be overrun by people pretty soon . I’m going to check out an apartment shared by a rotating group of foreigners who work for various different organizations and think I’ll head that way if it’s a little more homey. Or might look to share a place with some locals which seems like a good idea to me. It’s hard and easy living here. Travel, heat, assholes with guns, the occasional strange, apocalypse hound are a little wearing, but as soon as I got here I was immediately welcomed by people living in this building and given all the food and coffee I could stand and the comforts of home.

I wouldn’t say the place is full of creepy end-timers, but it just goes to figure I’d find the one that’s here on my first day. This guy who I initially took for a settler but actually turned out to be some American just dressed like one and sporting tons of orange ribbons (it’s this whole anti-disengagement/support the gaza settlements campaign) started trying to sell me a wood back-scratcher on Jaffa Street and then segued into this long rant about the end times coming, conveniently, during my trip here. He pulled out all these old books of maps (not of the middle east, but of Wales) and printed pages from paranoia websites and then explained how Bush and Co. are really satan spawn bringing about the end of the world and how we need to bunker down and prepare. I told him that I agreed Republicans are an especially sinister people, but that that was the extent of our probably agreeing on pretty much anything.

Anyhow, am signing off for the night. More scintillating commentary to come, inshalla.

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