Andy's arm makes it onto the front page of the Maan news website

The importance of last night's events of course attacted media attention and lots of people taking pictures. As I was at the front, near the candles, and holding a banner I was caught by the camera's:

http://www.maanimages.com/ShowImage.php?photoid=52678

Well, just my arm holding the placard. That would be the one that is different to the other two! We all regard Maan News as our most important news outlet but it is still quite strange to read some of the headlines on there. Things are added as they happen and being here we are often already aware but oftentimes we read about things we had no idea about. This is mainly news about the IDF raids. Nablus at night is a different place from Nablus during the day. As most of the raids occur during the small hours, inside the refugee camps, we are rarely affected in the Project Hope apartment. For this reason we aren't out in the street after 11pm.

This change between night and day is also reflected in the policing here. During the day it is the Palestinian Authority police and at night the IDF. This is one of the many absurdities here. If the IDF have a raid they tell the police to go home and they are then without any authority. Though I have been told that Nablus is much quieter with the new PA police force from what I have seen of them they just seem to do more of the IDF's dirty work. Checking ID cards etc. People have this enough at the various checkpoints located around the city so I don't know why Palestinians are checking other Palestinians as they drive their cars around the city.

'Security' I have discovered is a favourite word of the Israeli's. It's a word that covers every eventuality. If you don't have a reason or more likely don't want to say your reason for doing something just say the reason is 'security'. They are untouchable anyway though so I don't know why they bother. As an article on the AlJazeera news website today clearly demonstrates:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/08/2008813164823716764.html

A tank crew kill a journalist by shelling his car but will face no charges. They weren't able to differentiate between him holding a camera, a mortar or a rocket launcher so they killed him. Perhaps in that case looking at the giant TV and Press stickers all over his care might have helped to clarify things.

At first I thought the situation here was Kafkaesque - mindless bureacracy that ruined and controlled peoples lives without their knowing the reason why. You want a permit to travel- Refused. Why? You don't know. They don't have to give a reason. Now I realise that the exact opposite is true. Everything has been thought out quite brilliantly. From the 'security' wall that now actually traps 200,000 Palestinians in 'Israel' because they are on the wrong side of it (so how exactly does that make you more secure?) to playing the victim when you are actually the aggressor.

It annoys me so much that the only image people have of the region is children throwing stones at tanks. Partly because no one ever seems to ask the question why they would do this and partly because what they get back is much, much worse- tear gas,sound bombs, live rounds. The same with the martyr's or suicide bombers. No one asks why someone might feel so desperate as to blow themselves up. The media has done yet another fantastic job of distorting the reality to serve political ends. How about a picture of settler children attacking a palestinian home or spitting at an old person in the street? How about a picture of their parents spurring them on and then attacking the IDF when even they find the situation too warped? Or how about showing what the Palestinian people and their culture are genuinely like. Not the extremists that don't represent the majority.

I have read a few different books in my time here that have helped me to learn as much as the sitaution here has. I've come to realise, or believe, that things don't change because everything can't be compressed into an easily digestible soundbite or slogan. This is what people want though. Easy, uncomplicated solutions. This is what people want so this is what their governments deliver. So it probably is true that people get the government they deserve. No one wants to look at the evidence or delve deeply to make reasoned decisions they want a quick fix.