Tel Aviv strikes me as a alot of things. Beautiful, modern, lively, pedestrian-friendly...but it struck me most as romantic. You can spend an hour walking along the beach past restaurants, gelato shops, volleyball courts, marinas, playgrounds, work-out stations, ropes courses, the inevitable memorial statue, and really amazing sand. So fine. Everyone was out and about, biking, jogging, drum circling, eliptical-ing, eating, canoodling. Yeah, there was a lot of canoodling. I walked for three hours. Every five minutes or so I'd see something new and exclaim how unfair it was that Tel Aviv was so cool. I wonder how my West Bank experience would have been different if I'd done Tel Aviv first. I wonder what my Palestinian friends would think of Tel Aviv-Yafo. It bothers me that they're not allowed to visit the Mediterranean.

Tomorrow's my last day. I'm planning on visiting the Etzel Irgun museum for the Liberation of Yafo tomorrow, then I was hoping to find something akin to a Nakba museum for a counter-narrative, but there doesn't seem to be such a thing. I wonder if someday Nakba denial will be considered abominable, or at least politically incorrect. For now I am perusing the Nakba Archive.

Other things floating around the web:

First Planned Palestinian City Being Built
The PA is using Israeli firms to help construct the city of Rawabi, provided their materials don't originate from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This pissed off the settlers something awful. Haha!

On a more somber note, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy addressed the Alternative Information Center in Beit Sahour (missed that stop, whoops), saying that he sees little hope for peace because settlers remain the strongest voice for Israel.

"When it comes to the unofficial religion of Israel, namely security…the Israeli media has betrayed its mission. Many foreigners who come here are amazed to see how little the Israelis discuss their future, how little they know what’s going on a half an hour away from their homes, how little they want to know, how little they care."
...Read More

Some guy on a bike, born and raised in Tel Aviv, struck up a conversation with me and when I mentioned I'd been in Palestine for two weeks he asked, "What is that, like Gaza?" Hard to say how much of that was cluelessness and how much was collective denial that the West Bank is Palestine. I'm thinking both.

Thirdly...Am I Allowed to be a Palestinian Jew?-a great article on the oversimplified and dangerously dichotomous views promoted in Israel about Israelis and Palestinians, Arabs and Jews...in other words, a much-needed mindf*%k.

Finally, a picture from the Beitin demonstration. More will follow as I get in contact with my friends from France...