za3tar

The recent influx of American journalists to the middle east covering Barack Obama’s tour has shown me their gross unfamiliarity of the basics of this world arena and its geography. Yesterday i posted about their confusion between Iraq & Jordan, two very distinct countries; one which they are occupying with more than 100k troops and is drenched in sectarian violence, and the other is a quite sovereign nation. You’d imagine they would know more about Iraq since they have so many people there .

Anyway, today Obama is visiting Israel & the West Bank. Ramallah is in the West Bank, and this area is usually referred to in news reports using any of the following terms: Palestine, West Bank, Palestinian Territories, or Occupied Territories. At least the term “West Bank” is very politically neutral. Not like this:

For God’s sake, you just said that you are sitting infront of the Palestinian President’s building

I don’t know these people, and i did not attend that graduation celebration. However this is a video of some people celebrating graduating from Birzeit University (BZU) that i found randomly on YouTube.

I don’t know …. but there is something nice about their singing and celebration. It sounds so sincerely happy.

Some pictures of my beautiful Ramallah. These were taken between July and October of this year.
This post with 11 pictures could be quite a bit for low-bandwidth connections … sorry …but hey, i haven’t posted in a while.

(that damn stupid wire !!!)

( a building enthroned )

( really nice ! )

Some random pictures from our garden (7akoora) back home.

… and the cat….

The cat looks down upon thy.

O’ so full of wisdom !!

I don’t know the exact classification of this type of art … i guess it is abstract art. … regardless … here are some very beautiful pieces by Yazan Khalifeh. I found these at RamallahUnderground.com.

Chain Free

Flesh in Harmony

The Nest