We have been driving all morning over land that looks like California desert, by turns moonscape - how can anything grow on red rock? - and lush with cactus fruit and date palm and, in lieu of Joshua trees, olive trees, which we will see later in cultivated rows, lush and green, but along the roads they are gnarled and dusty, with leaves that appear weightless and soft. I don't know if they are soft. We do not stop to pet the olive trees. We do stop to look at the guardhouse at Nablus, we get out of the van and listen again to how Palestinians are cut off from their land by edict and by force, and because we have gotten out of the van and maybe because one in our party wears a headscarf, Israeli soldiers block our vehicle with theirs and ask, what are you doing here? Where are you going?
T2 Israel: The Olive Trees
We have been driving all morning over land that looks like California desert, by turns moonscape - how can anything grow on red rock? - and lush with cactus fruit and date palm and, in lieu of Joshua trees, olive trees, which we will see later in cultivated rows, lush and green, but along the roads they are gnarled and dusty, with leaves that appear weightless and soft. I don't know if they are soft. We do not stop to pet the olive trees. We do stop to look at the guardhouse at Nablus, we get out of the van and listen again to how Palestinians are cut off from their land by edict and by force, and because we have gotten out of the van and maybe because one in our party wears a headscarf, Israeli soldiers block our vehicle with theirs and ask, what are you doing here? Where are you going?