The afternoon was remarkable not because a citizen journalist from San Francisco was given access to an area beset by clashes between Palestinians and fundamentalist settlers. Rather, the story behind the story was the pair of former Israeli soldiers who gave me a look intothe treatment of Palestinians as second-class citizens in the occupied territories.
On Monday I received this update from Manekin via a Facebook email: "It is a bit hectic here because of Gaza. Both Yehuda and I are still doing our thing, though the settlers have been making it increasingly difficult to do the tours. When we are allowed to enter, more than 70policemen protect us from settler violence."
Western journalists typically skim along the surface of the Middle East, covering the day-to-day outrages -- Hamas cowardly firing rockets at Israeli civilians, the Israelis responding withdisproportionate force in Gaza -- without ever reporting on some of the underlying tensions that escalate into open hostilities. Above, then, is not a polished documentary about the treatment ofPalestinians under occupation but rather a slice of life in a troubled land on a single afternoon.