MIDEAST DIARY

In 2003, just before the outbreak of the Iraq war, The Christian Science Monitor sent me to the Middle East to tour the region and bring supplies (including a satellite phone) to one of our reporters. While in Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Territories, I wrote a series of online dispatches. You can read each of them on the Monitor's site, or read them all right here.

Mideast Diary: [Day 1] [Day 2] [Day 3] [Day 4] [Day 5] [Day 6] [Day 7] [Day 8]

DAY ONE
By James Norton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
1-29-03

Logan International Airport, Boston

It's a long way from Boston to Jerusalem.

For the past year, I've served as The Christian Science Monitor's Middle East editor, working with reporters stationed halfway around the world.

Most of the time, assisted by e-mail, international long distance, and thick stacks of patience, we're able to understand one another.

But it's hard not to be conscious of the distance between my desk and the crowded streets of Cairo. Or the Israeli settlements that dot the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Or the palaces of Iraq.

And from the US, it's easy to forget that just beyond the suicide bombings, Israeli incursions, Al Qaeda operatives and rumors of war, there's an entire population that keeps waking up every morning and trying their best to lead a normal life.

Tonight, I'm heading to Amman, Jordan to bring some cash and gear out to the Monitor's Middle East correspondent, Cameron Barr.

I'll be spending a week traveling through Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Territories, tagging along with Monitor correspondents as they follow the news. I'll also gamely attempt to keep my wits about in one of the world's most politically and culturally complicated regions.

As an amateur historian and longtime observer of the region, I'm comfortable talking about Mideast politics and policy. But having read about the fear that so often prevails in the West Bank and the streets of Jerusalem, the idea of actually strolling through either has me on edge.

But our reporters do it every day. And I'll be doing it this week. I hope you'll join me for the trip.

DAY TWO
1-30-03

Air France Flt. 325
Boston to Paris, Paris to Amman

I'm flying out to Amman on Air France, an experience that bears repeating. French is a lovely language for mundane flight-related information; to these unsophisticated ears, an announcement about upcoming turbulence sounds like an invitation to spend a romantic summer on the Riviera. And then the plane shudders like a broken milkshake machine.

And the airplane food — so often an oxymoron on American carriers — is fantastic, offering a mind-blowing choice between veal sauteed with wild mushrooms and provencale-style tilapia.

I plan to save the menu as a souvenir. And order the tilapia.

On the Paris to Amman leg of my journey, I sit next to Khalil Gulzar, a young insurance consultant from Toronto. He wears an untrimmed beard combined with a neat pinstriped dress shirt and slacks, a full-color English-language pamphlet about the hajj tucked into his breast pocket. Khalil is on his way to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj in Mecca, a pilgrimage all Muslims are required to make at least once in a lifetime, money permitting.

We quickly start chatting; without little prompting, he tells me about his understanding of Islam, which he emphatically describes as a religion of peace. What about the Sept. 11 hijackers, who killed in the name of his religion?

"The people who [committed Sept. 11] who had Muslim names are not even Muslims," he says. "Killing of innocent people is against Islam. Killing yourself — suicide — is not permissible. So either way, it's against the beliefs of Islam."

Khalil, who moved to Canada from Pakistan seven years ago, speaks highly of Toronto's multiculturalism, and of the relative tolerance of Canadian and US cultures. But for him and his friends, he says, the mood has shifted since the attacks. He has friends with professional degrees who can't get jobs because of their Muslim names, he says. And because intolerance and the unlawful detention of Muslims is rising, he adds, many skilled professionals are returning from the US and Canada to their home countries.

"I believe the US and Canada are very good societies and that the general public are very good people. But now that [the US] has broken its own laws, Muslims are fleeing back to their own countries. These are doctors, engineers, architects — people who helped build the society."

But Khalil is most worried about young Americans, whom he sees as particularly vulnerable to anti-Muslim sentiment. Education about Islam's true beliefs, he says, is needed to teach non-Muslim American young people to exercise tolerance.

"The young generation have heard so much about the bad side [of Islam]," he says. "We need to educate society again."

Conservation soon turns to Iraq, and the possibility of war. "It's just to get control of the oil fields," he says. "They couldn't find any weapons of mass destruction. And even if they produced some for their own defense, that's their right, like Canada or the US."

At the end of our talk, he excuses himself to pray, bowing his head to tray table in front of him. I turn my eyes up toward the flight's movie screen just in time to catch Goldie Hawn trying on a particularly form-fitting sweater. It seems likely that I'll see more such contradictions before my trip is over.

Amman Airport

Nabil Khatib, a driver who often works for Cameron and his wife and colleague Nicole in Jordan, meets me at the airport. It's the first time in my life I've been met by someone holding up a sign with my name on it, and in a new country, after 16 hours of travel, it's a welcome sight.

We chat about the weather (it's a pleasant 65 degrees F) and Boston's bonechilling winter soon comes up. "Ah, but Boston is nothing like Chicago, or Detroit, or Madison, Wisconsin," says Nabil.

Madison? That's my hometown. Nabil, a retired airline pilot, often flew into Chicago and would drive up to Madison to visit his son at college. We soon start talking about our favorite places to eat.

"Do you know the restaurant where they make the chicken wings?" he asks.

"BW-3?" I reply.

"Yes! That's it!" he says.

Everyone says it's a small world, but this strains credibility.

DAY THREE
1-31-03

The Ruins of Jerash

Cameron and I meet for breakfast at the hotel, before heading off to the ancient ruined city of Jerash, one of Jordan's most popular tourist attractions.

Known in Roman times as Gerasa, the city once boasted 15,000 inhabitants and thrived from 333 BC until the beginning of the 3rd century AD.

Nabil is busy, so Cameron and I take a bus up to the ruins. Instead of Nabil's usual fee of 25 Jordanian dinars (about $35), we each pay 375 fils — about 50 cents. The discrepancy between the tourist and local economies becomes jaw-droppingly clear, and I begin to understand why locals can rarely afford any of the food and services made so readily available to Western travelers like myself.

The bus's final destination is the modern city of Jerash, where the local people who overwhemingly fill it are headed. While it lacks the privacy and comfort of Nabil's splendid car, the ride is is relatively smooth, and it drops us off within a minute's walk of Hadrian's arch, a massive stone gate erected in 129 AD to commemorate the visit of the emperor.

The ruins are spectacular. We walk along a long stone road, flanked by massive corinthian columns and rutted by the passage of ancient chariots. Chipped mosaics and intricate stonework attest to an imperial reach that once stretched from Rome to the Near East; it's easy to imagine the empty streets flooded with merchants and citizens.

Arches and crumbling stone gates sprout tufts of green and brown vegetation as nature slowly erases the massive traces of an obsolete empire.

Few tourists interrupt our wanderings as we explore the remnants of temples and plazas. Jerash is largely empty of foreign visitors, and the few postcard hawkers we encounter are dispirited, lobbing one or two desultory pitches before retreating. The shadow of war has made Jordan unpopular among tourists. It's difficult to know precisely how many families typically earn a living at the ruins when they are flush with Western visitors, but few could be doing so today.

Still, the trip is awe-inspiring, even if it seems to me that the site's many holes and tufts of tall grass would be perfect hiding hiding places of venomous, journalist-biting serpents. Cameron skillfully heightens my tension level by referring to a passing police vehicle as "the local snake patrol."

The Taxicabs of Amman

The simple act of cabbing it in Amman can be an eye-opening experience. Many taxis play (or blast) Radio Sawa, the US-sponsored station that mixes Western pop hits with America-friendly news bulletins relevant to the Arab world. There is something distinctly surreal about listening to Bobby McFerrin croon "Don't Worry, Be Happy" while watching people herd goats.

The road back to Amman from Jerash is a cornucopia of sights that might look ordinary to Jordanians, but are a far cry from a flat Midwestern landscape. A boy gathers firewood on a steep, scrub-covered hill. Little caves — hollowed out, looking eerily like tombs — stare down from the rising landscape. A single stooped man in a red and white keffiyeh walks the land with his cane. Everywhere, people are out on the land — hawking small bananas, watching over roadside pottery stands, pacing through fields of construction-related debris, or just sitting by the side of the road, killing time or hoping for a lift.

Back on the streets of Amman, ambiguity about America (and Americans) is a distinct theme. One cabbie talks happily about how his brother moved to Boston to work as a Pizza Hut manager, saying that he himself hopes to move to the US in order to learn "perfect" English. But without qualification, he adds that he won't leave Jordan — he loves his parents too much. Besides, he says, his work — which includes a graveyard room service gig at the Intercontinental Hotel — is too good to drop.

Another cabbie slips in a tape with "The Gambler" on it after Cameron and I hop into the car. The beefy, bearded man stares meaningfully at Cameron for a moment before asking: "Do you know who this is? It's Kenny..."

"...Rogers," I supply.

"Yes, Kenny Rogers!" During another pop song, he sings along, passionately addressing the "I love you" chorus to Cameron, who somehow fails to respond in kind.

But at the end of the trip, he charges us 2 Jordanian dinars, which is double the typical fare. If he'd truly loved Cameron, he would've cut us a deal.

DAY FOUR
02-01-03

Crossing the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge

Getting from Amman to Jerusalem is my agenda today. Over breakfast at the hotel, Cameron and fellow correspondent Scott Peterson seem to view the trip over the bi-national bridge with a slightly unnerving level of familiarity and schadenfreude. Scott even takes the special trouble to mention the possibility of a body-cavity search.

I assume he is being humorous. It is not entirely possible to tell.

By the time I arrive at the Jordanian side of the bridge, I am sufficiently rattled that I lose my primary wallet. My decoy wallet — the one with a negligible stack of local currency that I purchased specifically for this trip — rests safely in my pants pocket, as the wallet containing my press pass, credit cards and driver's license toodles merrily back to Amman.

Stumbling into the Jordanian side of the compound, I am slightly dazed. Porters offer their services. Arab men in uniform stroll around, looking for malcontents. Signs are mostly in Arabic, with some English hints printed next to select bits of the compound.

I suddenly have a vivid understanding of how it must feel to be a recent immigrant to the United States. My language skills are useless, I stand out like a flaming badger, and my life's progress — represented here by my small, easily misplaced passport — is, literally, in the hands of total strangers.

Fortunately, everyone is perfectly nice, and I'm shunted from my cab to a passport-control office to a bus that carries me and a small cadre of fellow travelers over to the Israeli side of the bridge.

The difference between the Israel and Jordanian sides is like night and day. Security — embodied by M-16s, rolling luggage belts and metal scanners — is rigorous. My every possession is scrutinized.

In Jordan, cabbies, soldiers, shopkeepers, and the everpresent hovering clouds of waiters and porters are male. In Israel, the women are standing right behind the desks, sporting extremely professional attitudes and packing heat.

Something about my shambolic nature piques the curiosity of Israeli security, and I'm taken aside into an extremely well-lit room with plain white walls, and a somewhat impatient — but clearly quite serious — Israeli security officer.

"Who do you work for? Why are you visiting Israel? Why did you get your passport the day before you traveled? Can you really turn them around in 24 hours? Who are you staying with? Why do you have a book on Islam and these buttons featuring the Al-Aqsa mosque [a mosque in Jerusalem that symbolizes the intifada] in your bag?"

I cheerfully answer the questions as fast as they come, positively glowing with innocent intent. Then:

"If you work for a newspaper, do you have a press pass?"

Of course. It's right here in my... it's here... under these souvenirs... behind these books... here in this backpack... it's. In. It's in my wallet.

My wallet is not in my bag. My wallet is probably entering downtown Amman even as we speak.

Inexplicably, this doesn't phase my questioner. He shrugs, and I'm free to go. Reprieved! The young women who stamp my passport out are very nice, and one of them even talks to me about wanting to be a journalist. "It's my dream," she says. I'm far more encouraging than I probably should be, and I make my merry way through the rest of the security maze — only to end up on a 40-minute taxi ride to Jerusalem's Damascus Gate, a bewildering knot of pedestrian and automobile traffic.

But eventually, I settle in Jerusalem. The wallet is in an Amman hotel, quietly awaiting my return. And I look forward to whatever may come next.

As long it doesn't involve a bright white room.

Café Paradiso, Jerusalem

I meet Nicole Gaouette, another of the Monitor's staff correspondents in the Middle East, for some sandwiches and tea. The roast beef and pesto sandwich is fantastic, and but for the Hebrew that drifts through the room — and the security guard out front — it's easy to imagine myself back in Cambridge, Mass.

Then the phone rings: Israel's first astronaut, flying on the US space shuttle Columbia, has perished during the spacecraft's disastrous reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

It's a tragic moment for Israel and the United States. My next mission is to read up on astronaut Ilan Ramon, his mission, and his special place in Israeli society and help Nicole work on the story for Monday's edition of the Monitor. And I've only been in town for about an hour.

DAY FIVE
02-02-03

The Columbia is down

The explosion of the Challenger was a defining event for many Americans. For me, like so many others, it's a "flashbulb" memory — I can remember running home from school to tell my mom about it, to her initial disbelief. The event seemed unthinkable, and impossible.

Space disasters — like space travel — bring people together like few events can. Astronauts are stand-ins for all of us, treading where we can only dream of going. And with the possible exception of American television, there's seemingly nowhere on Earth where the idea of people in space fails to fascinate.

The sadness of the event aside, I'm glad for the chance to go out and talk to some Israelis and get a sense of what they're feeling. Strolling around the affluent Yemin Moshe neighborhood, I talk to a handful of people: a retired medical secretary, an Arab-Israeli cab driver, an American studying Talmud and Torah, and a political science student. Without exception, they're saddened by the loss, friendly, talkative, and - #151; this surprises me a little - #151; very hopeful.

"Every mission has a risk. If you don't take the risk, you don't get big things," says Cila Widlansky. She is enjoying a beverage on the sunny outdoor terrace of Jerusalem's gorgeous YMCA building, and is surprised, but happy to accept my invitation to talk. "We hope that in the future we can try it again and do it successfully."

In the face of daily disasters, who could get by without resilience?

Jerusalem by night

In the evening, after a restorative siesta, I meet up with Ben Lynfield, one of my favorite Monitor writers. A regular contributor on topics including the complicated minefield of Israeli identity and the plight of Israeli Arabs, Ben is a writer I've often enjoyed long phone chats with, so meeting him in person is a treat.

We meet downtown around 8:30, and I'm somewhat surprised to see that the place resembles Dubuque, Iowa on a Sunday night. Stores are shuttered, few pedestrians walk the streets, and the area feels haunted. The failing economy and fears of more bombings have both contributed to the area's hibernation, Ben says.

At his suggestion, we snag a taxi and head down to East Jerusalem, looking for a place to grab a bite to eat. On the way down, Ben and the driver engage in a very spirited back-and-forth in Hebrew. Are they arguing about directions? Chatting about the weather? Debating the fare? Street Hebrew in Israel can come mile-a-minute and intense as a waterfall, so I'm not particularly perturbed; but I'm curious.

"What was all that about?" I ask as we arrive at the restaurant, an Arab place called Pasha's.

"Oh, he didn't understand why we wanted to go to an Arab part of town," says Ben.

"Ah," I reply. "So, is that typical of people to say that? Or totally unreasonable?"

"Neither," says Ben as we stroll into the mostly empty eatery.

Pasha's has lost favor with its Israeli clientele — we're the only non-Arabs in the restaurant, which is probably only 25 percent full. However sensible or insensible their fears may be, however, Pasha boycotters are paying the culinary price. The hummus with meat, baba ghanouj, olives, bread, and lamb kebabs are amazing, and we leave with smiles on our faces.

DAY SIX
02-03-03

From Jerusalem to Qalqilya...

Today, I'm set to embark on a trip to Qalqilya, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. It has been reported that due to the rapid construction of a security wall that will hug the city like a noose, Qalqilya itself is in danger of becoming a casualty of Israeli security policy.

I set out with a driver, and with Samir, a friend, translator and assistant to Cameron Barr and Nicole Gaouette, the Monitor's Middle East correspondents. Fluent in Arabic and Spanish, Samir also speaks clear, nuanced English, and his buoyant confidence quickly puts me at ease.

Which is good. Because I'm heading to an interesting bit of turf.

On my way, informed by a stack of BBC and Monitor articles, some sage advice from Nicole, and my own nagging sense of insecurity, I try to get a mental jump on the people I'll be interviewing.

They include:

1) The governor of the Qalqilya district.

2) A farmer whose land is in jeopardy of being destroyed by the Israeli wall.

3) The brother of a suicide bomber.

During the ride, I chat with Samir about his experiences as a Palestinian from Bethlehem, and he echoes many of the news stories I've read and edited about the region. But it's the little details that stick. Travel is hard, so his son regards the rare trip out of Bethlehem as a voyage to another world, he tells me. "Small horizons," he says, shaking his head. And he says he would love to take his family overseas on vacation, but the hassle of getting the proper paperwork and clearance means that the trip would be more agonizing than therapeutic.

As an American, I can drive east or west for thousands of miles before hitting a barrier, and when I finally do, it's an ocean. My passport is good for travel nearly anywhere in the world. The roads I drive on everyday are safely in American hands. The anxiety and regret that Samir and his friends deal with daily are things I've never had to grapple with; growing up, my biggest challenge to free movement was probably the highly irritating series of tollbooths between Madison, Wisc., and Chicago.

Of course, it's easy to consider the constriction of Palestinians and overlook the way Israelis feel in an East Jerusalem restaurant. Or walking through a crowded pedestrian mall. Or even thinking about traveling to most Arab nations. There are places they can't or won't tread, and the conflict has left them with smaller horizons as well. The thought makes me sad, an emotion I'll become deeply reacquainted with as Samir and I traverse Qalqilya.

As we disembark from the cab, two competing porters and a crowd of young hangers-on swarm the car, hoping for a crack at a few shekels. Much to their disappointment, the only bag is my small backpack. Our trip from the checkpoint to a Qalqilya taxi takes only a couple of minutes, but it requires a stroll through a narrow concrete and barbed wire tunnel meant to control the movements of pedestrians.

It's an unpleasant tunnel.

In town, the streets are grungy, but shops are open, and people move freely through the city. Tattered political posters plaster the storefronts and metal shutters. As an American, my eyes are drawn to an illustration of Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein standing side-by-side and saluting — copies of it cover many of the buildings in downtown Qalqilya.

We head first to the offices of Gov. Mustafa Malki, an official of the Palestinian Authority and a Yasser Arafat appointee. The building, coming apart at the seams, is bracketed by barred windows. Except for the massive framed photograph of Arafat that smiles over the reception room, the building feels more like a rundown insurance office than a citadel of political power.

Before Samir and I are let in to see the governor, we wait in a room with a couple of city officials, who work at battered desks, shuffling colorful Post-it notes from stack to stack while chain-smoking cigarettes. Tea is served, and Samir swaps jokes with the officials in Arabic. Bemused, I straighten out my questions before heading in to meet the governor himself.

Coming into the governor's office — considerably better appointed than the offices of his underlings — I clutch two notebooks, my open backpack, a cellphone, and a cup of tea. Only with great difficulty do I manage to set my things down in a semi-organized fashion in order to shake his hand.

Gray-haired, but vigorous and focused, the governor is one of the first formally dressed men I've encountered in the Middle East, decked out in a suit, tie, and sweater vest. He speaks Arabic to Samir in a lucid, powerful manner that sometimes swings over into an impassioned harangue or a staccato recitation of facts and figures.

I ask him about the health of his governate, which includes the roughly 40,000 residents of Qalqilya and 40,000 people in nearby villagers. The prognosis is bad.

"Israeli Arabs have been restrained from entering," he says, thereby depriving the town of valuable business. "Agriculture has been heavily damaged. The curfew has stopped farmers from reaching their land."

Over the course of the interview, he unspools a litany of problems: Land has been confiscated. Medicine is running short. Poverty has become endemic and is worsening as the tight constriction of the town cuts off commerce and travel. Not having the resources to verify his remarks as he makes them, I just jot down the words and hope that things aren't as bad as he says.

The streets, however, seem to echo at least some of his message. The stores are open, but few people are shopping. For most of the trip, our car — borrowed from the governor — is the only one on the road. Youngsters gather large bundles of sticks, donkeys pull carts from house to house, and ragtag crews of men stand around idly. A looming disaster, however, is not in clear evidence; people seem to be dressed relatively well, no one seems particularly interested in begging from us, and goods seem plentiful.

We are soon at the Qalqilya side of the Israeli wall, standing in a field of cabbage as a local farmer tells us about the impact that a planned 100-meter "safety buffer" will have on his livelihood. "It will be disastrous," he says. Sure enough, the extension of a 100-meter kill zone from the wall would wipe out most of his crops, and since the wall loops around the city's north, west, and south sides, it would have ramifications throughout the city.

Even as we speak, the wall glowers over us, a long gray bulk flanked by a patrol road. Samir says that armed soldiers might be watching us even now. Press card or no press card, I feel suddenly unhappy about chatting it up in the cabbage patch.

Our next stop is houses the Israelis have demolished. Demolished homes are amazing spectacles — towering rubbish piles that lean in upon themselves, squashing and smothering the broken walls that once sheltered and shaped their inhabitants. Bits of tile and paper and plastic protrude from the rubble. What was once a home is now dust and debris.

One of the ruined houses, according to one of our minders from the governor's office, was demolished on top of its owner, the town's Palestinian Authority head of intelligence.

Suddenly, it's time to talk to the brother of a suicide bomber. We arrive at the house; by Qalqilya standards, it's really pretty nice.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asks Samir.

I am not. But he thinks a five-minute visit is well-advised, and I agree. It's a long way from here to Boston, and I don't know when I'll be back again.

The bomber's brother is young, handsome, and intense. Between questions about his brother's attack on the city of Kfar Saba in March, he takes time to joke around with Samir and the minders who have tagged along with us from the governor's office. He talks about how his brother was always a devoted Muslim, and how he had joined Hamas with a clear conscience.

Any regrets about his brother's death?

Only that more Israelis weren't killed. More Arabic, more chatting, more laughter.

The bomber's brother serves us some fruit juice.

By the time we are done with the interview and back on the street, I am ready to leave Qalqilya.

...and from Qalqilya to Jerusalem

On the trip to Qalqilya, we stuck to the Israeli side of the green line that separates the Israelis from the Palestinians, crossing over just before we entered the town. But on the way back, Samir has the driver bring us through the heart of the West Bank. On the Palestinian side.

It's an interesting trip. It's easy to look at a map and think: "Ah. I understand. Israel is for Israelis and Israeli Arabs. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are for Palestinians."

But the facts on the ground make that less true.

Israeli settlers are often called "facts on the ground" because their long-term presence on a patch of soil gives Israel's government a negotiating chit and, some would argue, a more valid claim to a piece of previously Palestinian-controlled land. And driving back to Jerusalem through the West Bank, it's easy to see facts on the ground almost everywhere I look.

Settlements sprawl across hills. They crown the tops of ridges, one even boasting a waterslide painted in the gaudy shades of red, blue and yellow. They flank older Palestinian towns, uniform blocs of neat, modern, suburban comfort facing off against the ragged boxes and semi-occasional Alice-in-Wonderland mansions that dominate the Palestinian areas.

Roads seem to be the key, however. Roads to Palestinian sections are sometimes blocked by giant piles of rock and gravel — Samir says these are dumped by Israeli troops. Palestinians need permits to travel, and in times of crisis these can be easily choked off to shorter and shorter time periods, or restricted entirely.

On these roads, the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) has staked out its turf. On one stretch, a black sign sporting a white eagle symbolizes the authority of a particular Israeli unit. On another, a white snake serves a similar purpose. Colorful real estate signs, written in Hebrew, flank the road. An expropriated Arab house, now crowned by a tall antenna and sporting a giant menorah, serves as a de facto military outpost.

I've read and edited a number of stories about the constricted roads, and the galaxy of Israeli settlements that is expanding across the West Bank. But seeing the words brought to life, in bricks and mortar, is a powerful experience.

And then, before I realize what's happening, we're crossing back into Jerusalem. Our Palestinian driver uses his fluent Russian to talk to the Israeli guard, who is thrilled to hear his native tongue again. We're through. We're back to Israel.

Out and about in the Beast of Burden

As evening falls, I am truly exhausted, and behind deadline on my online diary. I therefore blow everything off and help an old friend, the AFP's Jean-Marc Mojon, move into a new apartment. The new place is a crazy sort of space that looks one-of-a-kind — niches and strangely curved white ceilings make it feel like a cross between a Bedouin tent and a cave. It's going to look great fully decorated.

We haul his stuff over in a an armored Land Rover with plate glass windows, a loaner from his office. The windshield and sides of the monstrous beast have "TV" printed on them with masking tape; "TV" is the local shorthand for "I'm a journalist of some sort, so please don't shoot at me."

After about an hour of heavy lifting, we stop by a cafe and catch up. It's been a great night in Jerusalem.

DAY SEVEN
02-04-03

A trip to Hebron

Under the glowering chill of a Jerusalem winter, I hit the road with the Monitor's Mideast correspondent Nicole Gaouette, assistant Samir Zedan, and a remarkably affable Dutch reporter named Ferry Biedermann.

We're heading down to the Palestinian governate of Hebron today to look at the 22 houses and other structures demolished this week by Israel.

Though officially under curfew, Hebron teems with traffic and commerce. Someone comments that there seems to be an awful lot of people on the street, and Samir chuckles. "They're all out seeing what the curfew looks like," he says.

We make our way first to the offices of Areef Al-Jabari, the Palestinian Authority governor of Hebron.

While more comfortably accommodated than his colleague in Qalqilya, the governor shares a laundry list of problems that sounds very familiar. Israeli curfews are strangling the town. The poverty level has hit 65 percent, up from a pre-intifada high of 20. Unemployment is at 70 percent, with 40,000 workers with Israeli work permits barred from their jobs, he says.

It all goes back to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, explains the governor, and I notice Ferry twitching in his seat. "I don't think we need to get into all this history..." he says, but the quiet remark is unable to dam the coming waterfall.

As the interview plunges more deeply into the shadowy labyrinth of bygone eras, I flip through a colorful pamphlet called "Hebron Daily Suffering in Pictures." In it, house demolitions and the Israeli military presence are conveniently catalogued, photographed and vividly described for the benefit of the international press.

Suddenly, everyone's attention jumps from the conference room to the street below. We run to the windows. Israeli armored cars are cruising the streets, loudspeakers barking out orders in Hebrew.

People must get off the streets, say the soldiers.

As our interview breaks up, Nicole, Samir and Ferry split their time between figuring out how to get out to some of the demolished houses, and bemoaning our lack of flak jackets.

"You're not wearing one?" Ferry asks the robust Samir.

"No, no, that's just an undershirt," he says.

"So that's all just you under there?" asks an incredulous Ferry. Samir laughs, but I just glance out at the quiet streets.

After a short chat, we decide to take our "TV"-marked pressmobile out on the road to find some of the ruined houses and talk to some of the 200 Palestinians the governor tells us are now left homeless.

Hebron is a maze. We find ourselves parked near a garbage-strewn field while Samir chats up a car full of German journalists in an effort to get a sense of where we should go next.

As we sit, quietly contemplating the hardscrabble interior of Hebron, the car's cellphone leaps to life. It's the Monitor's Mideast correspondent Cameron Barr, calling from the airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. After chatting with Nicole for a while, he breaks off to have an impassioned exchange with an invisible and inaudible waiter. "Pad Thai," we hear Cameron say. "And Beef Carpaccio."

Groans spread throughout the car — it's past noon, and all we've had since 9 a.m. is tea... and coffee. For the next 45 minutes, I can taste imaginary Pad Thai. It's really delicious.

Ten minutes later, following a series of directions from a Palestinian who has lost his house, the four of us are ducking under grape arbors and scaling rocky bluffs. I'm beginning to feel the freezing conditions, and it threatens to snow.

"Nothing like a nice pre-lunch stroll to get the appetite going," I suggest.

"Pre-lunch? More like pre-dinner!" hoots Ferry. Sadly, he's right.

Nicole photographs the three of us trudging along, instructing us to "work it" as we grin and make our way toward what we hope will be a story.

We eventually arrive at the home of a Palestinian environmental official who greets us, and brings up onto his property. His English is good; he taught at the University of California, Davis for two years as a guest professor. But international connections have done nothing to protect his property from Israeli bulldozers. His concrete chicken coop is leveled. He brings us back to a house that he had been building for his nephew — it's now a pile of shattered stone and twisted metal. The windows on his elegant main house are broken, the shattered glass and hurled rocks dotting the tile of his patio. A settler attack did this, he tells us. He later shows the ruins of the house to a group of International Red Cross officials who have come to assess and certify his property's destruction. A reservoir — already mostly full of water, and big as a swimming pool — is next, he says.

Up on the hill, no more than a half-mile away, an Israeli settler leaves his house and hops onto his tractor. He rides under the watchful eye of a nearby Arab house that has been seized by Israeli troops and turned into a guardpost.

The Star of David flaps from the roof of the house.

Arab and Jew, cheek to jowl: This is how it is across the West Bank. Any potential political situation will somehow need to put the glass back in the windows, and keep the tractor's rider safe — or move him back within Israel's pre-1967 borders.

COMING HOME
02-05-03

The long trip home

Traveling home is a seemingly infinite process. I leave for the Allenby/Hussein bridge to Jordan at around 11 a.m. today. I don't get home to Boston for another 33 hours.

Once on the Jordanian side, I have to wait until 4:25 a.m. flight to Milan, Italy. So I check into the airport hotel and watch Colin Powell's speech at the UN. BBC World picks up the event in full, and I find that Powell's multimedia presentation nicely complements my room service plate of delicious little filo-dough and meat pastries.

The hotel waiter (bringing me my second plate of crunchy delicacies) spots me watching the speech and asks "How did it go?" I do my best to summarize, and imply that diplomacy seems to be triumphing over the push for war, at least for now. But shaking with emotion, he says "We cannot have a war. It will be terrible for Jordan!"

He storms out, and I feel self-consciously American.

Hours tick by after the Powell speech, and I can't wait to get home. There are souvenirs to be distributed. Stories to be told. Fat, comfortable blocks of sleep to be enjoyed.

But I can already tell that I'm going to miss being in the Middle East.

Conversations seem twice as vivid, and the terraced rolling land is steeped in Biblical beauty and ancient nuance. Everyone I meets seems to have a story and be willing to share it.

And the food!

Then again, I'm looking forward to returning to a place without checkpoints.

Arriving in Boston after 19 hours of flying and laying over, I'm absolutely drained, and relieved to be home. No more Mideast intrigues for a little while; no more suicide bombers, no more Sharon, or Arafat or ancient hatreds. Just the calm of sleepy Boston.

I hop into a cab, heave my luggage into the trunk, and begin the final leg of my trip home. The driver and I chat for a little while, and he's excited to hear that I've been in the Middle East.

"Where are you from?" I ask the cabbie.

"Lebanon," he says. Within minutes, he reveals that he's a Maronite Christian, and has been personally involved in street fighting in Beirut. He has sized up the prospects of Hizbullah should there be a war in Iraq. We talk about Syria's involvement with Lebanon's government. Grudgingly, fighting through the cobwebs of sleep but nevertheless fully engaged, I sound the guy out on Mideast politics.

It has been a good trip.