This essay describes my first full day in Palestine, back in 2000, during the first month of the second intifada. It was a very eventful day.
I wake up and turn on the TV. CNN reports Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat met last night and agreed on a disengagement plan. The Israelis will pull back from clash points, thus the Palestinian children won't have anybody to throw rocks at, thus a few days will go by without funerals, thus maybe the peace plan can recover.
Maybe I'll be going home soon, I think to myself. At breakfast, the rest of the crew had also heard the news. We decide to check out the closest clash point and see if the agreement between the leaders has filtered down to the ground.
At City Inn, on the outskirts of Ramallah, for the first time in a month, the road is open. The Israeli jeeps are gone. Rocks and burnt tires litter the road; the store at the bottom of the hill is selling cigarettes and soda pop again. Kids wander around aimlessly, the absence of their enemy seems to disorient them.
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