A stone throw away

It's a five minute walk but still a world away. Isawiya, one of the East Jerusalem neighborhoods that experienced clashes between the IDF and some Arab youth yesterday, is just on the other side of the hill. Yet, beside the coming and going of helicopters, life at home was the same peace and quiet we usually experience.

As a herd of international journalists gathered on top of a hill just down the street to cover the conflict, Jews and Muslims nearer by peacefully ate fallafel together. There was no media coverage of that though.

Like everyone else, I do have my opinions of things here, but even after living here for a while I feel I'm still in no position to publicly voice them. The unfortunate reality is that way too many of those so readily and vehemently mounting soapboxes seem to know even less then I. Politics here is far too complicated and dominated by biases and grotesque generalizations. What I will say is, when you watch news coverage from around the world please know what you see is a very small fraction of what's really going on... good and bad... it's only the 30 seconds of the exciting and obvious that makes the nightly news.