It is now 4:05 am and it it the first time since my arrival that the has been a period of longer than five minutes that I have heard no car horns, instead just the call to prayer and silence. I am on my night shift at the house that I am camping outside of to currently help safeguard, and aside from the patrol of an Israeli officer a few times an hour it is rather peaceful. A little background on the house, in 2001 a three person Palestinian family live here in East Jerusalem, the mother and father in one half of the apartment, their son in the other. It was that year that the father had a serious heart attack and was hospitalized, naturally the mother and son were with him at that time. When it came time to return to their home they were shocked to find a settler family living in half of their apartment. It seems that an organization had given the family the rights to the home. Since then the Israeli government has offered the Palestinian family up to 11 million sheckels to leave the house, but the family resovled that under any circumstance, or for any amount, they would never leave the house. The house has therefore become sort of a symbol then, of solidarity, a place that holds community meetings to garner support and has so far been successful in a loyal battle against the much wealthier and influential settler's group. Hung around on the walls of the patio that we sleep on and the husband and wife often spend their days recieving people on plastic chairs with endless amounts of coffee and cigarettes, are posters and paintings announcing to all that come here that "we will never leave". In their lawsuit the family has tried to assure that the current settler isn't jailed because as I was explained today the settler families kind of become pawns in the game in this situation, being rotated out every other year or so anyway. The current eviction of the settler family is on the ninth of november, though there is a large chance that another family will simply move right into the house and begin the process again.
Overall the situation seems to be, like so many other situations here, an eternal struggle, though it has been successful in bringing together a community that cannot watch East Jerusalem get taken from the arabs who live here. I was able to watch one of their meeting tonight and even through the language barrior it was a powerful thing to watch.
Tomorrow night it is back to the hostel so that I can wake up early on Wednesday to be taken to Ramallah for training. Hopefully it proves to be as interesting as last night, which was an evening spent discussing the cyclic and rather fickel political state of German fascist and anti-fascist movements with a group of German anti-fascists from a commune style city center in Germany(the eldest of whom was the spitting image of Karl Marx), among other things. The conversation naturally shifted to the conflict, as I am sure most conversations held late night at the faisal hostel do.
Well, that is all for now
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