Category: Miscellaneous

How does anyone in this country pay for summer camp?

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Deseret News, 11 June 2021

I used to love summer: the heat, the beach, the afternoon thunderstorms, those sickeningly sweet, dye-infused, high-fructose corn syrup filled popsicles that suddenly appear in the grocery store. But now that I’m a working mom with two children, turning the calendar over from May to June fills me with dread.

It’s not because my kids are home for the summer — in fact, I wish I could spend several months on holiday with my children. No, I dread summer because of the cost of summer camp, which is obscenely, ridiculously expensive here in Palm Beach County, Florida, as it is in much of the country.

This summer, we will pay upwards of $1,700 per month to send our two kids to summer camp — $300 more than we pay for preschool during the year and $300 more than we pay in rent every month.

Sit with that for a minute: In a normal month, we pay almost the same amount of money for rent as we do child care. In the summer, we pay more for child care than we do rent.

But I want to make summer camp happen for my kids because, when I was young, I felt the pain of missing out. My parents couldn’t afford camp, so I often accompanied my dad, who was a janitor and lawn man, as he cleaned one sorority house and then cut grass at another.

For my help, he paid me a small wage. And while I did learn a lot about real life and hard work and responsibility — lessons that have served me well, of course — I sometimes think I missed out on some quintessential aspect of childhood: a true summer.

Like my parents, I could probably keep my kids home as I work now. I could plop them down in front of the TV with some sweet squeezy-pops in hand.

But I want their summers to be more than that. I want them to have fond memories of water play with friends and singing songs and immersing themselves in art projects that end up hanging on the walls of our home.

And so here I am, so worried about paying for summer camp that I’m tightening my belt — literally. For lunch most days, I’m opting for seltzer. Two birds, one stone: I save money and slim down for weekend trips to the beach.

That so many American families are struggling to pay for summer camp is a failure of both society and policy.

For school-aged kids, there are far too few free or low-cost camp options and not enough spots. It’s the rare summer camp that offers scholarships. And demand outstrips supply.

But don’t just take it from me. A new report by the Afterschool Alliance says the same.

The special report on summer camp, “Time for a Game-Changing Summer, With Opportunity and Growth for All of America’s Youth,” reveals that not only do Americans struggle with a lack of child care options in the summer months, but also that, as is the case with everything in this country, the issue is rife with economic inequalities (that often translate to racial inequalities).

An “increase in summer program participation,” the study notes, has been “driven largely by families with higher incomes, while unmet demand for summer programs remains high, especially among families with low incomes.”

“For every child in a summer program, another would be enrolled if a program were available,” the report notes. So that means that we need at least double the amount of spots that we currently have.

I asked other working moms about the summer camp conundrum and most said they spent the year saving for summer camp, only to start the new school year wiped out financially and beginning to save again for the next summer. Some who couldn’t afford summer camp talked of complicated schedules that involved swapping child care responsibilities with other friends with kids. Many mentioned that the YMCA offers summer camp on a sliding price scale but also added that the program filled up quickly; others felt their local YMCA programs were still financially out of their reach.

On the other end of the financial spectrum, I’ve got a colleague in New York City who would probably love to pay $1,700 a month for summer camp. In her neighborhood, summer camp runs $1,500 a week. Per child. With two kids, she would pay $3,000 each week, for a grand total of $12,000 a month.

From where I sit, my colleague is wealthy. But she and her husband don’t have that kind of money, so they’ve crafted a unique summer camp plan. They’re renting a house in Connecticut and sending their kids to day camp there — renting a house for the summer is actually cheaper than paying for New York’s programs.

This whole conversation applies to after-school programs, too. In the fall, my daughter will begin public school. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be off the financial hook. The starting bell rings at 7:45 a.m. and school lets out at 2:45 p.m., a little over half way through my work day. Her public school has no free after-school program. We will have to either pick her up or pay.

This is the case in much of the country: The Afterschool Alliance notes that for every kid in an after-school program, there are three waiting to get in.

I’m not going to blame the camps or after-school programs themselves. They have their expenses and their owners need to turn a profit (probably so they, in turn, can send their own kids to astronomically expensive summer camps and after-school programs).

Instead, I see this as a major policy failure. And though the Biden administration is promising free preschool for 3- and 4-yearolds, what about good, safe, high-quality summer camps and after-school programs for all of America’s children, regardless of age and income?

Without support, parents are left to figure it out on their own, often sacrificing their savings, if they have some. Moms sometimes abandon their career plans to take jobs that allow them to pick up their kids after school or have summers off, and then get stuck in what has been called the “pink collar ghetto” of jobs that allow us to work and take care of the kids.

I wonder how low-income and middle-class women and families will ever get ahead in this country that talks a lot about “family values” but does little to actually help us stand on our feet. And I wonder how America will remain ahead in the world without its women — half the population — fully engaging in the workforce because we don’t have the supportive policies we need to do so.

The summer camp conundrum — and other policy gaps — exact an unmeasurable toll. The psychological impact of running up against the other glass ceiling — that of unaffordable child care and the way women must scale back their ambitions accordingly — is devastating.

This is the type of thing that infuriates me to the point that I’ve considered throwing my hat into the political ring. AOC rode the whole “I’m a waitress from the Bronx” thing into office. Why can’t I take my “I’m a mom who’s outraged about how expensive summer camp is” platform all the way to D.C.?

I’m telling you, I’d do it … if only I weren’t so darn busy sipping seltzer and researching low-cost — or at least semi-affordable — summer camp options for my kids.


How a faith-based group you’ve never heard of is impacting American politics

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Deseret News, 31 May 2021

Although the next presidential election is still 31⁄2 years away, some Republican hopefuls are already taking tentative first steps that could, eventually, lead to the White House.

Top GOP leaders will be at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference, which will take place June 17-19 in Orlando, Florida, to court some of their party’s most important members — religious conservatives — and see how these voters respond to their pitch.

The list of invited speakers includes big names like former President Donald Trump — who has not yet ruled out running in 2024 — and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. Politicians that many see as the future of the Republican Party, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are also expected to make an appearance, along with lesser known but still important figures like Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, and Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-North Carolina, who is currently the youngest member of Congress.

Events like the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conference offer politicians a chance to deliver unfiltered messages directly to members of the public — helping to shape the national dialogue — as well as the opportunity to connect with potential supporters and donors, experts on religion and politics say.

Attendees leave the conferences energized. Back home, they start spreading the word about different political candidates and some become early organizers for future presidential campaigns.

To some extent, the “Road to Majority” and gatherings like it can make or break a Republican candidate’s relationship with religious conservatives, who play a key role in the GOP, said Mark Rozell, dean of George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

These events can be the start of a relationship between candidates and attendees that leads to cash donations, campaign volunteering and a supportive buzz — little things that make a big difference over time.

“It’s not the event itself — it’s the snowballing effect over time,” Rozell said, adding, “I would expect any presidential aspirant to show up.”

The Faith and Freedom Coalition was founded by Ralph Reed, a powerful religious and political leader whom Time Magazine once called “the right hand of God” in a 1995 article about his former organization, the Christian Coalition.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition, launched in 2009, aims to cast a wider net than Reed’s previous group. It seeks to serve not just Christian conservatives, but “values voters” of many stripes, Reed told The Economist in 2010.

By 2011, CNN was already calling the organization a “political powerhouse,” noting that “just about every Republican” who hoped to snag the 2012 GOP nomination would be present at the group’s annual conference that year.

However, the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s $50 million push to get out the conservative vote in 2020 failed to win Trump the reelection he was looking for. Now, they’re regrouping.

The goal of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conferences is not just to connect voters with Republican stars, said Tim Head, the organization’s executive director.

The gatherings also create “synergy and momentum” and impact the GOP’s policy plans, he said, explaining that state and local politicians — who are both speakers and attendees at such conferences — pick up ideas from organized presentations to casual chats in the hallways and everywhere in between.

“It’s very common that those organic conversations and presentations end up making their way into legislation,” Head said. “A Texas legislator ends up presenting on what happened in the (state) legislature this year and then we get a call from a guy in Tennessee, ‘Hey, can you get me in touch?’ or ‘I’ve been working on a bill.’”

In this manner, policies and legislation “spread like wildfire,” he added. “Conferences are a great way for these things to jump state lines.”

The Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conferences help steer the Republican Party, Rozell said. They enable GOP leaders to see what politicians or policies animate the religious conservatives in the crowd.

Religious conservatives, he explained, “have an outsize influence on Republican nominations — not only at the national level but particularly at the state and local level.”

And conferences like the “Road to Majority,” Rozell added, “have a significant impact on many of the leaders and supporters of religious conservative organizations.”

However, other academics are less convinced about the impact of such events.

For example, Clyde Wilcox, a professor of government at Georgetown University who used to attend the Christian Coalition’s annual conferences, says that, back then, there was little correlation between which politicians appeared at the event and who ended up becoming the Republican presidential nominee.

But Rozell believes the buzz generated by these conferences can begin to translate to a groundswell that could potentially carry a candidate to the White House.

“Money follows political support,” he said. “Being able to build a grassroots network of potential supporters and being a leader in the culture wars — that’s going to bring money.”

Raising credibility and visibility among the grassroots helps deliver “significant funds to their future campaigns,” Rozell added.

I’m Israeli. My husband is Palestinian. We fear we can never go home.

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

The Washington Post, 22 May 2021

Over the past two weeks, watching the escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories from my home in Florida has been horrifying and heartbreaking. I’m devastated by the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians, as I have been every time these clashes take place. But the level of intercommunal violence this month feels worse than anything in recent memory: street-to-street fighting, tear gas fired inside the al-Aqsa Mosquecompound, waves of Hamas rockets fired at Israeli towns, Israeli airstrikes devastating neighborhoods in Gaza City.

One moment, in particular, stands out in my mind: Last week in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, a group of Jewish men set upon a car driven by an Arab man, pulled him out and beat him. According to Haaretz, the man survived, but in widely shared video, you can hear commentators using the word “lynch” to describe the scene as it unfolds.

Any feeling person would have been disgusted and terrified, but as I watched the footage, I felt nauseated as I realized: He could be my husband.

I’m American Israeli; my husband, Mohamed, is a Palestinian from the West Bank. We met there, in Ramallah, but when we decided to marry in 2014, we knew the challenges we’d face legally, socially and economically. Because of Israel’s prohibition of family reunification between its citizens and Palestinians from the occupied territories, there’s a likelihood we wouldn’t be able to legally live together inside Israel. Shortly after we married in Florida, I submitted our marriage certificate to the Israeli Consulate in Miami to update my status, to no avail. If we ever wanted to live in Israel, other mixed couples told me, we would have to apply annually for a permit to reside together; and that even if granted, such a permit might not allow my husband to work inside the country. It’s not clear that we would be able to live in the occupied territories together legally — in his family’s building outside of Ramallah, in part of what’s known as Area A. Not to mention the cultural taboo: When Mohamed told his parents that he intended to marry me, a Jewish woman who immigrated to Israel, his father rejected the match, meaning that we wouldn’t be able to live in the family home anyway. We realized we had no choice but to leave the land we both love dearly. While my husband has been clear-eyed about the decision and has always said we won’t be able to go back until there’s peace, I’ve held onto the hope that we’ll return and raise our two children there, among family and amid the olive trees, limestone alleys, foothills and sea that we hold dear.

But the fighting this month has left me hopeless. I now feel that our exile is permanent, that going back isn’t an option; that my husband and our mixed children wouldn’t be safe if we lived inside Israel and that my life might be in danger in the occupied territories.

Of course, we weren’t thinking about any of this when we fell in love.

We met in 2011, when I went to Ramallah for a story. A fellow journalist introduced us, and we ended up working together on the piece. We kept in sporadic touch over the next year and a half, with Mohamed serving as my interpreter for a couple of other articles, including a heart-wrenching story about Palestinian families who’ve been split between Gaza and the West Bank. Little did we know that a few years later we would end up in a comparable situation, with Mohamed forced to leave his extended family in the West Bank to start a life with me.

By the time we began dating in early 2013, in addition to freelancing, I was teaching at a Palestinian university in East Jerusalem, Al Quds University. I lived, for half of the week, in the Palestinian village of Abu Dis. I was in my third year of studying Arabic. I felt some level of integration into Palestinian society that made me feel that anything, including peace, was possible, if remote. And the early days of our relationship only reinforced that. At school, my students and I read centuries-old literature from Islamic Spain, a time and place where Jewish and Muslim cultures nourished one another, flourishing together. Outside school, Mohamed and I had picnics in olive groves and sipped tea on a rooftop, overlooking the West Bank. From our spot, we could see all the way to Jordan. From that view, we couldn’t tell where one place ended and the other began.

But at the same time, my courtship with Mohamed and my work at the university were characterized by limitations and inequality. I saw how Jewish settlers were free to move in and out and through the Palestinian territories and checkpoints as though the Green Line didn’t exist, while Mohamed had to either apply for a permit or sneak through a hole in the security fence if he wanted to spend the day with me in Jerusalem. I felt this when I traveled to the university in Abu Dis or to Ramallah to visit Mohamed, using segregated transportation to move through the territories that are ultimately controlled by Israel. At the university, I felt the pain of my students, some of whose fathers and brothers were imprisoned under administrative detention; some of whose homes had been raided by Israeli authorities; some of whom had been in cars that were pelted by stones thrown by Jewish settlers. On more than one occasion, Israeli soldiers made incursions onto campus, firing tear gas and breaking windows.

We’ve been in the United States together for more than six years; my husband is now an American citizen. We’ve built a life here — a home, a small business, children. And even though I grew up in Gainesville, in some ways, the United States has never felt completely like home. If, let’s say, my current outlet decides it needs a foreign correspondent in Israel, I’d go in a heartbeat; if we decide we no longer want our children to grow up apart from their cousins; if we miraculously save enough money to retire; or if the laws in Israel change and we could live together legally and safely — and if the country stops its awful march to the right, we’d return.

But with each Israeli bullet or Hamas rocket, every report of destroyed Palestinian businesses or of a synagogue set on fire, all the ifs increasingly seem insurmountable.

A cease-fire has been in place since early Friday morning, but lasting peace won’t hold without tremendous, systemic changes. We’re beyond those superficial programs that bring Jews and Palestinians together in dialogue. Sadly, there aren’t enough friendships across ethnic lines — and even if there were, friendship isn’t enough. It’s not even enough to love each other: Mohamed and I love each other, but to preserve ourselves and our marriage, we had to leave his homeland, my adopted country. We live half a world away, safe from the latest round of bloodshed, but at root is the same issue: devastating and persistent inequality. Without addressing the laws that give Jewish Israelis privilege while stripping Palestinians of their human rights, there’s no way for Jews and Palestinians to live together peacefully.

I’ve read a lot of thoughtful, intelligent analyses about the most recent escalation, pointing to the raids at al-Aqsa, the evictions of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah or the awful incentives of Israel’s domestic politics. But all of these arguments trace back to systemic inequality, a two-tiered legal system that permits unchecked expansion of Israeli settlements and keeps Palestinians in a perpetual limbo of statelessness on their own land.

Yes, there’s violence from the Palestinian side. And yes, Palestinians have, over time, missed opportunities to exact and to make concessions. But consider how the peace process has become a farce. Consider how Palestinian homes are punitively demolished. Consider the unequal allocation of water resources in the West Bank. Consider the shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem that can keep some Palestinian children out of school or forces their families to scrape together the money to pay for private school.

The list goes on and on.

Inequality is what allowed me, a Jewish woman born and raised in America, to immigrate to Israel while my husband’s Palestinian brethren who fled or were expelled from the land can’t return. It’s why, as a mixed family whose story began there, we may never be able to return.

Is a ceasefire really a ceasefire if the fighting never ends?

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Deseret News, 21 May 2021

My husband and I watched with relief as a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas went into effect at 2 a.m. Israel-Palestine time on Friday. As I finished cooking dinner at our home in West Palm Beach, Florida, he shared footage with me of Palestinians celebrating in the streets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinians were hailing the cease-fire as a victory, my husband, who is Palestinian, explained, since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — after initially digging in his heels — had been forced to give up on a military campaign that accomplished next to nothing. Both Hamas as an organization and its individual leaders had survived. Soon, they would be able to reequip for the next inevitable round of fighting.

We’ve both lived through many moments like this before — the cease-fires that bring an immediate cessation of hostilities but accomplish nothing in the long term. Both Israelis and the Palestinians are trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of violence.

When I lived in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories from 2007 to 2014, I personally experienced numerous battles between Israel and Hamas: the 2008-2009 war known as Operation Cast Lead, a couple of brief escalations in 2011, then two more in 2012, including Operation Pillar of Defense, an Israeli military campaign that was launched just weeks after an informal cease-fire.

During Pillar of Defense, for the first time, a Hamas rocket reached Jerusalem, where I lived then. When the siren sounded, there was nowhere to go — my landlord used the bomb shelter for storage — and so I stood in the threshold of my studio apartment in Kiryat HaYovel, guessing that if our building was hit, structures like door frames would remain.

The last escalation I witnessed turned into the horrific and terrifying 2014 summer war known as “Operation Protective Edge.”

Almost all of these escalations — and probably others that my husband and I failed to remember when making the list above — ended with either informal or formal cease-fires. That should tell you everything you need to know about the concept.

Now the latest round of bloodshed has been paused with yet another cease-fire. I’m elated, of course, that the death and destruction wrought by both Israel and Hamas has stopped. But I also feel a sense of dread because I know that both sides are doomed to repeat this cycle unless the core issues are addressed.

Those problems, in my opinion, boil down to a simple concept: equality. Until Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights in the land, we will see cycle after cycle after cycle of violence. Countless escalations with ceasefires that are always temporary, that represent only a break in a never-ending blur of fighting.

Don’t forget Palestinian Christians

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Deseret News, 20 May 2021

Earlier this week, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians went on strike over Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza, violence inside of Israeli cities and efforts to evict Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

In the Bethlehem area, youth have gathered to protest outside of the large checkpoint known as “300” — where only those with an Israeli-issued permit may pass from the West Bank into Jerusalem.

Locals tell me that this month’s protests are far bigger than they were during previous escalations and that among the protesters marching from Bethlehem toward the checkpoint are Palestinian Christians, a group that’s rarely mentioned in coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The problem, Palestinian Christians tell me, is that the ongoing violence, which came to a cease-fire early Friday, Israeli time, is often framed as a clash between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims. In reality, the battles and protests aren’t about whether Judaism or Islam has a stronger claim to the land.

Instead, both Christian and Muslim Palestinians are pushing back against the Israeli authorities who they say treat them differently than Jews. They’re reacting to “73 years of injustice,” said Antwan Saca, a Christian Palestinian who lives in Beit Jala — a small town snuggled in the mountains outside of Jerusalem that blends almost seamlessly into Bethlehem, which is just down the hill.

Palestinian Christians like Saca argue that framing events in religious terms — that is, Muslim versus Jew — represents an attempt to carve up Palestinian identity in order to better “divide and conquer” the population.

Although Palestinian Christians are, in some ways, treated differently by the Israeli authorities than their Muslim brethren — for example, Christians who live in the West Bank receive hard-to-get permits to access Jerusalem during Christian holidays — when all is said and done, Israel still treats them as any Palestinian, they say.

“At the end of the day, the Israelis do not see me as a citizen, as an equal peer,” said Saca, who is currently director of the Palestinian programs for Seeds of Peace, and a community activist who has long worked in the area of peace, justice and human rights.

“I was married to a foreigner and at some point her presence (her visa) here was rejected. It didn’t matter that I’m Christian. Facing the system, I’m still a Palestinian,” he said.

While Palestinian Christians make up a tiny segment of the population in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories, they have long played an outsized role in the economy, politics and society — including a key role in the Palestinian national movement, even before Israel was established in 1948.

Prior to the establishment of Israel, local Arabic newspapers played a tremendous part in solidifying both a national identity and a consensus around the question of Zionism. One of the most influential publications, Falastin, was founded by Palestinian Christian Issa El-Issa. Khalil al-Sakakini was a Christian and an early and influential Palestinian nationalist. Edward Said, one of the world’s leading academics on the topic of Palestine and one of Zionism’s fiercest critics, was also a Palestinian Christian.

And Christian-majority Beit Sahour was at the heart of nonviolent resistance during the First Intifada, the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, with its 1989 tax revolt — residences’ refusal to pay taxes to the Israeli government.

Today, Christian institutions play a vital role in keeping Palestinian society afloat as it struggles economically under Israeli occupation. Not only do Christian institutions provide much needed jobs, but also many Palestinian hospitals are Christian, including Al Ahli hospital in the Gaza Strip.

Two days ago, the new Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem, the Most Rev. Hosam E. Naoum — himself a Palestinian — made a plea for the fuel needed to keep the generators at Al Ahli hospital running. Portions of the Gaza Strip are without power due to the Israeli blockade and bombardment, according to the Israeli human rights organization Gisha, and so without fuel and donations, Al Ahli hospital won’t be able to cope with the “crushing flow of injured and traumatized victims” streaming through its doors, the Rev. Naoum said in a statement.

He also called for “an immediate cease-fire” and for the United Nations and international community to “address the underlying injustices and grievances that have led to this latest unrest in a recurring cycle of violence.”

Other Christian leaders in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories have also expressed their support for all sides. On May 9, as tensions mounted, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem also issued a statement calling for an end to Israeli provocations in Sheikh Jarrah and at Al-Aqsa Mosque, remarking that the actions “violate the sanctity of the people of Jerusalem and of Jerusalem as the City of Peace.”

“The actions undermining the safety of worshipers and the dignity of the Palestinians who are subject to eviction are unacceptable,” the Heads of the Churches of Jerusalem remarked.

They concluded their statement by calling for the intervention of the international community “and all people of good will.”

The Palestinian Christians I spoke with believe the international Christian community has not done enough to respond to these calls. They feel abandoned and wonder why Christians around the world are aligning themselves with Israel.

American Christians, in particular, should be pushing back against their political leaders, who are some of the biggest supporters of the Israeli military, Saca said.

American Christians, he said, are not “carrying the cross as (Jesus) asked (believers) to do … they’re not standing up for justice and they’re not standing up to the oppressors.”

“How are you showing up with Christian values?” he asked. “How are you showing up and standing up for those undermined by power?”

Many American Christians support Israel as the Jewish homeland on the basis of religion. Sometimes referred to as Christian Zionists, they believe that Jews returning en masse to the land precedes the second coming of Christ. Often overlooked, however, is the presence of the Palestinian Christians who have lived there for centuries and the impact that today’s politics have upon their daily lives.

In the absence of international support, Palestinian Christians are standing up for themselves by hitting the streets to protest near the 300 checkpoint. Locals say that the Israeli army isn’t letting the demonstrators get far and is turning them back with tear gas and rubber-coated bullets, sometimes before the first stone has been thrown.

A young Palestinian Christian woman who lives in the neighboring village of Beit Sahour, which is home to Shepherd’s Field, tells me that, on a recent day, the tear gas was so heavy it wafted all the way to her family’s house, about a mile away from the checkpoint. The granddaughter of Palestinian refugees from Jaffa who were forced to flee their homes in 1948, she says the current escalation has left her too frightened to leave her house, let alone travel to Jerusalem — a place sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.

“This violence that’s happening in the streets — it’s very dangerous,” she said.

88 pieces made it into the ACCH’s biennial show

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Broward Palm Beach New Times, September 15, 2015

The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is a quaint yellow building with stately palm trees and well-landscaped shrubbery. Usually, it’s the art inside that’s controversial — not the politics surrounding the place. But over the summer, Jane Hart, who had been the curator for eight years, and who was instrumental in building the center’s reputation as a standout in the contemporary art scene, left the institution amid rumors of friction with administrators. As “an act of solidarity,” two high-profile curators who were slated to serve as jurors for a major upcoming art show likewise stepped down.

Though the well-loved Hart has not been replaced, the center seems to be managing fine so far with independent curators. Another well-admired denizen of the local art scene stepped in to save the day just in time for one of the ACCH’s most important shows: the Seventh All-Media Juried Biennial. One of the most significant art events in the state, Hollywood’s Biennial takes place every other year. Awards will go to Best in Show, First, Second, and Third places as well as Honorable Mentions.

Michele Weinberg is curating the show. Weinberg is the creative director of Girls’ Club gallery in Fort Lauderdale. She has designed a mosaic for Hollywood ArtsPark colored-asphalt crosswalks and sidewalks in Tampa, and murals for Celebrity Cruise Lines and for Facebook’s Miami offices. Lately, she’s been doing thought-provoking but playful pattern work with tiles and rugs.

For the Biennial, which has an opening reception on the evening of Friday, September 18, nearly 400 established and emerging artists from across Florida (the contest is open only to state residents) submitted their work for consideration. Of their 1083 entries—which ran the gamut from paintings, sculptures, performances, video, computer-generated images, and installations tailored especially for the site—only 88 pieces made the cut.

Weinberg explains that the jurors — including Elizabeth Cerejido, a former curator at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and and Marisa J. Pascucci, a curator at the Boca Raton Museum of Art — picked “the most realized” works, works that have some “sort of statement that’s gelled and is alive in that piece.” She characterizes the art included in the show as “risky and inventive,” and said that much of it “has a narrative to the storytelling.”

While the layperson such as myself might not always see the narrative, the works are provocative in the least. Justin Gaffey’s “Attached”—composed of steel, acrylic, string, and graphite on a wood panel—offers a female figure that partially obscured by red threads. The strings are taut, evoking a feeling of tension. The image asks the viewer to consider, perhaps, the nature of our relationships: do they support us or tie us down? Is the woman’s weight straining the threads? Or do ties that bind pull on her?

Molly Khorasantchi’s vibrant oil on canvas “Roots of Feelings 2” is slightly more abstract. A coiled orange line—its size inconsistent, its edges undefined—stands against a backdrop of assorted colors and shapes. Small blocks of geometric forms appear occasionally, emerging from an image that is at once chaotic and coherent.

Jane duBrin’s “posing” presents a haunting image rendered in vine charcoal on canvas. The portrait depicts a man or woman, eyes closed, facing the viewer. We don’t get details, only the contours of the person’s face. The effect is an ethereal image that reminds of the fleeting, transient nature of existence.

To this casual viewer, Eddie Arroyo’s work feels particularly relevant to the South Florida location of the biennial. The acrylic on canvas “1 NW 62nd Street Miami, FL 33150”—one of Arroyo’s intriguing “Miami Portraits” series—seems to offer some commentary on the South Florida art scene. Although it depicts a corner in Little Haiti, adjacent to Wynwood, the latter is referenced in graffiti that’s been hastily scrawled on the wall of a local business. Considering a portrait of place, which references another place, has a profound effect on the viewer.

Like other “Miami Portraits,” no people appear in this image. The only figures that are present in the series are those that are depicted in the street art or advertisements that are part of the landscape. It begs the question: is a Miami empty of its inhabitants still Miami? What is a place without its people?

Award winners will be announced at the opening reception and will receive cash prizes ranging from $2000 to $400. The reception will be held from 6:00 to 9:00 PM and is free to ACCH members. Non-members may attend for $10; tickets will be available at the door and credit cards will be accepted. The bar will be open and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Autumn Casey’s “Waiting in Purgatory but at Least There’s Chairs and it Feels Musical” will appear at the ACCH alongside the biennial. Casey’s installation includes video and sculpture and blends found objects with items from the artist’s personal life—resulting in an experience of “existential uncertainty,” according to the ACCH’s website.

Also on display will be the exhibition #acchfocus, consisting of 52 winning images from the ACCH’s 2013-2014 Instagram contest.

The Biennial exhibition will run September 19 through November 1.

The Nameless Islands

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Roads & Kingdoms, August 4, 2015

I’m in a kayak, alone and three months pregnant, paddling through jade water, trying to reach an unnamed island off the shore of Big Pine Key, Florida. The mangroves that have waded offshore—tangles of long grey legs topped with a mess of bright green leaves—point me towards a strip of beige sand. A smattering of white clouds, underlined with a quick brushstroke of grey, have been tossed against the blue sky.

Picturesque, quiet, meditative, it seems like the type of place where nothing could go wrong. Still, something about the scene strikes me as absurd—God forbid, something happens, what do I do? Call for help and say that I’m… where? In the water, headed towards a place with no name?

I push ahead, trusting not in God but Eric.

He’s the manager of the Barnacle Bed & Breakfast and, when I called a week ago, he assured me this trip was do-able. I’d spent days pouring over an atlas, comparing it to Google Earth, to find Florida’s last unnamed islands. Though there’s a surprising number in Florida’s waters, they seemed concentrated in the Lower Keys.

“Unnamed islands?” Eric said when I told him the purpose of my trip. “Hell, we got us some of those right out here.”

A native of Monroe, Louisiana, Eric’s got the accent to prove it. I imagined him gesturing to the Atlantic, which waits off of the Barnacle’s small, private beach.

“Shark Island, Bird Island, and Picnic Island,” he went on. “That’s what locals call ‘em, but they ain’t marked on no map.”

He put me on hold as he double-checked a nautical chart.

I wouldn’t be surprised if these were in a place like the Philippines, an archipelago of thousands of islands and poor infrastructure. But in the United States? In 2015? It’s hard to believe that things could still be in flux—that places could be without names, that an atlas says one thing, Google Earth another, a local a third.

But Eric came back and confirmed, “Yeah, they ain’t got no real names,” adding that they’re “close” to the Barnacle.

“You in good shape?” he asked. “Or, reasonable shape, even?”

“Yeah. I’m pregnant, but I’m a runner.”

“We got us some kayaks here. You can borrow one and paddle on out to the islands.”

As he lowered the vessel into the water that morning, Eric assured me that there was no way I could get lost.

But, “wait,” he said, just before I pushed off. I turned around. Eric stood on the dock in the navy blue basketball shorts, white tank top, and flip flops.

Everything looks the same out there, Eric warned. I could get disoriented. If I ended up in the wrong canal, I should pull my kayak ashore and ask anyone around for help.

“Everyone knows us. Worst case, if it’s too far for you to walk back, they’ll call and I’ll come pick you up.”

“Alright,” I looked ahead, towards the end of the canal. “Have a good day.”
Eric didn’t respond. I faced him and noticed his look of hesitation.

“You don’t really need to worry about this,” he began, “you’d really have to be tryin’ to get there…” But, whatever I do, I shouldn’t take a left and then another left because that would put me in the Atlantic, where there’d be nothing between me and Cuba but 90 miles of open water.

Now, as I paddle towards the channel Eric told me to avoid, I struggle to recall the details of our conversation. Was it left? Or am I not supposed to go right?

Read the rest of the article at Roads & Kingdoms

Presidential hopefuls in Ft. Lauderdale today; meet the underdogs

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Broward Palm Beach New Times, July 31, 2015

Today there’s a presidential candidate plenary — that’s a fancy word for “big meeting” — in Fort Lauderdale, and five candidates are going to be here to speak at the Urban League’s national conference.

Surely, you’ve already media-overdosed on Clintons and Bushes by now, so here are some details you may want to know prior to today’s event.

Martin O’Malley 

Floridians might not be familiar with Democratic hopeful Martin O’Malley. But O’Malley, 52, is no newcomer. He’s got more than two decades of political experience under his belt.

O’Malley began his political career at 28, when he was elected to the Baltimore City Council. After eight years in that position, he ran for mayor. Although he is widely credited with reducing crime in Baltimore — which was crime-ridden when O’Malley took the reins in 1999 — critics have questioned his “zero tolerance” policies and argue that he did little to improve quality of life for the urban poor.

In 2007, O’Malley launched a successful bid to become governor of Maryland. After two consecutive terms, he announced in May that he’s throwing his hat into the presidential ring.

Pointing at his weak showing in the polls thus far — O’Malley is behind both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — the Atlantic dubbed him “The Long Shot.” But as O’Malley himself points out, he was the underdog when he ran for mayor. And yet, he won.
Indeed, O’Malley’s platform is likely to appeal to Democrats looking for something left of Hillary.

His vision, as described on his website, would see America transformed: O’Malley emphasizes breaking the cycle of poverty by leveling the academic playing field with affordable child care, universal pre-K, and “debt-free” college for all. He’d like to break the big banks’ and Wall Street’s grip on the economy, wrench low-income Americans out of the cycle of poverty, and revive the middle class. He proposes raising the minimum wage, advocates for greater workplace equality for women, and calls for sweeping immigration reform that would “expand our tax base, create jobs and lift wages — benefiting our country as a whole.”

O’Malley also wants to fight climate change and protect retirees by expanding social security. His platform shows a greater focus on domestic issues than on foreign policy. National security, O’Malley argues, would be achieved not through military ventures but, at home, by strengthening the economy and the middle class.

Not to rain on anyone’s parade here, but the reforms O’Malley proposes are overly ambitious at best and wildly unrealistic at worst — depending on whether the House goes Democrat or Republican.

Major donors: It’s worth noting that O’Malley comes in 16th on the New York Times’ list of “Which Candidates Are Winning the Money Race So Far.” He has raised a paltry $2 million. Compare that to Hillary’s cool $47.5 million.

However, O’Malley has managed to woo a small number of Hillary’s potential fundraisers and donors. He could also find significant support in Hollywood, where, in some circles, Hillary isn’t considered liberal enough. Dixon Slingerland, who raised nearly $1 million for Obama’s presidential bids, is reportedly throwing his weight behind O’Malley.

“Prominent members of a Massachusetts Democratic fundraising network that boosted Barack Obama” have hosted fundraising events for O’Malley, the Boston Globe notes. And, setting campaign finances aside, O’Malley has already surrounded himself with key players who helped catapult Obama into the White House. This “long shot” could give Hillary — and Bernie Sanders — a run for their proverbial money in the Democratic primaries.

Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders’ name may sound more familiar to Floridians, as he’s spent some three decades in politics, beginning his career as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He went on to spend 16 years serving as Vermont’s congressman. He is currently in his second U.S. Senate term.
Sanders, who has described himself as a “Democratic socialist” in the past, kicked off his Democratic presidential campaign with a shindig on the shore of Lake Champlain. Ben & Jerry’s founders — who are Sanders supporters — were on hand, as was free ice cream. The event, which also included live music, is Sanders’ way of “trying to demonstrate he can mount a plausible campaign for the presidency without wooing the billionaires,” Russell Berman wrote in the Atlantic.

But I’d argue that the laid-back, grassroots launch was about more than fundraising. It also reflects Sanders’ platform-for-the-people. Like O’Malley, Sanders appeals to Democrats looking for something to the left of Hillary. But Sanders is doing better in the polls than O’Malley and has managed to raise a nothing-to-sneeze-at $15 million for his campaign.

Here’s where Sanders stands on the issues:
Sanders argues, correctly, that the American people are standing at a crossroads. We must choose between continuing “the 40-year decline of our middle class” and growing inequality versus fighting “for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment, and provides health care for all.” To stop the country’s “slide into economic and political oligarchy,” Sanders has proposed campaign finance reform through, among other things, supporting a constitutional amendment.

Sanders points out that not only is the gap between the rich and the rest of us growing but unemployment is higher than the official numbers. To combat this, he has supported an increase in the minimum wage and “opposed NAFTA… permanent normal trade relations with China… and other free trade agreements” because they take jobs away from Americans. Along with U.S. Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), Sanders sponsored the Employ Young Americans bill, which would see billions of dollars allocated to vocational training and jobs for youth.

Sanders wants to keep combating climate change; he also seeks to continue protecting workers’ rights to paid family leave, paid vacations, and paid sick time.

It’s worth noting that while O’Malley’s platform focuses on what he will do, Sanders’ website is cleverly written in the past tense — emphasizing what he’s already done in D.C. to begin addressing all of these issues.

Major donors: The American people. Ten million dollars of Sanders’ campaign funds have come from small contributions of less than $200.

Ben Carson
As an African-American, some commentators will try to draw parallels between Republican candidate Ben Carson and President Barack Obama. But they’ll be hard-pressed to find many parallels, professionally or politically. While Obama was a senator when he ran for president, this is neurosurgeon and writer Ben Carson’s first step into politics — that is, besides his sharp words at a 2013 National Prayer Breakfast.

Carson’s website trumpets his humble upbringing. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Carson grew up in poverty, raised by a single mother who didn’t finish elementary school. But it’s a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps tale: Carson worked hard in school, got good grades, and went on to Yale University. Later, he attended the University of Michigan School of Medicine and did his residency at Johns Hopkins. The American dream.

Today, Carson’s platform is unlikely to appeal to those who didn’t manage to get out of the old neighborhood in Detroit. Call him a conservative’s conservative (or a liberal’s nightmare). His website labels Obamacare a “looming disaster” and the Affordable Healthcare Act a “monstrosity.” Guess what his solution is: “More freedom and less government in our health care system.” This, he claims, we lead to “lower costs” and “more access.”

Yeah, tell that to the health insurance company I spoke to in 2006, when I was in graduate school, who told me it would cover “everything but” my reproductive organs for only $450 a month.

Carson says keep Guantanamo Bay open, affectionately referring to it as “Gitmo,” despite the human rights’ violations that occur there. Carson would like Congress to stop funding Planned Parenthood, likening abortion to slavery. And, in the wake of two separate shootings that killed two moviegoers in Louisiana and nine African-Americans in Charleston, Carson believes we must protect the Second Amendment, AKA the “right to bear arms.”

Major donors: While their political views are worlds apart, contributions to Carson’s campaign look surprisingly like Sanders’, with 80 percent coming from “donations of $200 or less,” the NYT reports (noting, however, that this is just a portion of campaign funds).

 

Demolition fears haunt Israeli neighborhoods

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Al Jazeera English, December 18, 2012

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last week that the state cannot extend its separation barrier through the West Bank village of Batir, located next to the Green Line that divides Israel from the Palestinian territories.

Petitioners argued the wall would destroy Batir’s ancient agricultural terraces and unique irrigation system, both of which are still in use today, shattering the ecosystem and villagers’ livelihood.

Meanwhile, though, another battle dragged on just a few kilometres away in Jewish neighbourhoods on the Israeli side of the Green Line. Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim, two communities visible from Batir, are also fighting the state to preserve their identities. While the agricultural terraces that characterised these areas before the 1948 war are long gone, as are the Palestinians who tended them, locals say there is still something worth saving here.

Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim are struggling against the Jerusalem municipality and investors’ attempts to gentrify the area. Their story is a microcosm of Israel – a state that was once socialist-leaning, a people that boasted “us Jews take care of one another”, has given way to rampant capitalism. New apartment buildings are mushrooming up all across the country, often on lands that were Palestinian-owned.

The Israel Land Administration (ILA) now controls Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim’s lots, which were just a handful of the tens of thousands of hectares of Palestinian land the state appropriated under the 1953 Land Acquisition Law. With the ILA’s blessing, the city has given investors permission to demolish some 900 apartments and build high-rises in their place. The new towers will include commercial centres and about 3,600 apartments that will attract more than 10,000 additional residents.

Meir Pele is the investor behind the first phase of the project, which will see some 250 apartments destroyed and 900 built on Nurit Street. Speaking to Haaretz, the Jerusalem municipality called it a “golden opportunity” for residents.

But those living there say the government and city gave the land away without their knowledge or consent. In some instances, they gave developers the green light to destroy buildings that include privately owned apartments. And developers’ plans are likely to push low-income locals out of their homes.

Mike Leiter is an Ir Ganim resident and activist. Leiter says that Pele is offering residents apartments in the new towers and will waive building maintenance fees for the first three years. But after that, residents will be subject to charges that will be unaffordable for many.

For developers to move forward, however, they must get residents to sign a contract saying they agree to the plans.

The city, which is struggling financially, stands to make a tremendous amount of money from the taxes the new residents will pay. The municipality, Leiter says, “is so hungry for this to succeed that they have let loose this [investor, Pele]. He’s threatening people that if they don’t sign, he’ll take them to court.”

Pele denies claims he is coercing people into signing contracts.

But whether Pele is pressuring them or not, the fact is many in Ir Ganim and Kiryat Menachem are Ethiopian immigrants who barely speak and read Hebrew. Under Israeli law, if a majority of those in the buildings designated for demolition sign, the developer can sue the holdouts, twisting their arm into agreeing.

“[Pele is] aggressively pushing people to sign a 68-page contract – 68 pages. I couldn’t sign that without a lawyer,” adds Leiter.

While a number of residents have signed, word quickly spread through the Ethiopian community not to agree to anything without an attorney.

A number of the buildings slated for demolition are in poor condition. Residents complain about a lack of insulation and leaky pipes that drip sewage. It’s a runaway process: Because the occupants are poor, they can’t afford to pay maintenance fees. And so the buildings continue to deteriorate.

Gabriel, an Ethiopian resident of Ir Ganim who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, immigrated to Israel 15 years ago. He managed to buy his apartment with a special government-subsidised mortgage that is offered to new citizens from Ethiopia. His home is one of those that will be torn down to make way for the towers.

“I want a new apartment. The building is falling apart,” he says. “If there will be an earthquake our building will crumble. When people go down the stairs, [those inside the apartments] can feel the building moving.”

However, he is concerned about the impact of the high-rises and the massive influx of new residents. The area’s infrastructure isn’t built for large neighbourhoods. The traffic in and out of Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim will be unbearable during rush hours, Gabriel and other locals say.

When asked if building maintenance fees might eventually drive him out of the new towers, Gabriel shrugs. “I don’t know what I will do. Maybe my financial situation will improve in the meantime.”

Desperate to provide his wife and baby girl with a safe home, Gabriel isn’t thinking about the long term. “I’ll solve today’s problems today,” he says. “Tomorrow I’ll take care of tomorrow.”

While Leiter’s building will not be affected by the plans – known as “pinui-binui”, or “evacuation-construction” – he is concerned about the impact they will have on Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim’s character.

Tensions between different groups of Jewish Israelis are common throughout the country, sometimes pitting secular against religious; Jews of Eastern European descent against those with roots in Arab countries; and immigrants against native-born Israelis. But Leiter says Ir Ganim is an exception to this rule, and that’s one of the reasons why the neighbourhood must be saved from gentrification.

The area is home to Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe; Jews who immigrated from Morocco, Egypt, and Iran; Russians who came to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union; recent arrivals from Ethiopia; and American-Israelis such as Leiter, who has lived in Ir Ganim for more than 30 years.

“What’s beautiful about this neighbourhood is that we have three elementary schools and there’s a big population of Ethiopian kids and they all go to the schools here,” Leiter says. “It’s not like other places [in Israel] where we hear on the radio that they’re not letting [Ethiopian] kids in.”

Ethiopian Israelis face widespread discrimination in Israel. In 2010, British journalist Jonathan Cook revealed that Israeli doctors were pushing Ethiopian immigrants to take Depo Provera, a birth control shot with a wide range of side effects.

Last week, Israeli journalist Gal Gabbai reported that Ethiopian women are being coerced into taking the drug and, in some instances, are not being told the shot is for birth control.

Ir Ganim is a rare bright spot, a place where most, Leiter says, “make an effort” to get along regardless of their ethnic background.

Gabriel’s take on coexistence among the various ethnicities is less than rosy. “There’s racism here … I didn’t expect it in a state where the people went through so many problems all over the world. I didn’t expect it from a people who experienced racism themselves.”

While Gabriel doesn’t think developers’ plans constitute discrimination, many believe the city and businessmen have targeted the area because the population is disadvantaged.

“It’s a [population] transfer,” Leiter says. “They’re pushing out weak people. We say, as a community, we want these people here.”

The Jerusalem municipality and ILA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Israeli settlers lured by subsidies

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Al Jazeera English, August 23, 2012

It is the stereotypical image of an Israeli settlement: a man with sidecurls and skullcap, and an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. A mob uproots olive trees and harasses Palestinian farmers. A mosque is set ablaze in a so-called “price tag attack”, retaliation for a slight – real or perceived.

But surveys have found that many, if not most, of those who moved to East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank are not driven by ideology, religion or politics. They have been lured by government subsidies that significantly lower their cost of living.

Bar Malul, 21, lives in the West Bank settlement of Ariel and works at the health food store in the town’s commercial centre. As she weighs freshly ground coffee, Malul explains that her parents moved the family from Israel to the West Bank 15 years ago, “because it was comparatively cheaper than other places”.

A sign in Ariel advertises four-bedroom homes starting from $200,000. In Tel Aviv, the same amount of money buys a two-room apartment in Kiryat Shalom, a poor neighbourhood in the south of the city.

The settlements are also appealing to young families. The Israeli Ministry of Education spends more per pupil there than it does in Israel proper. According to the Israeli non-governmental organisation Peace Now, the ministry invests about 8,000 Israeli new shekels ($2,000) a year on every student over the Green Line – the pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank. That is nearly double what it spends on a pupil inside Israel.

Most of Ariel’s residents are here for economic reasons, Malul says. “There are a lot of Russian [immigrants]; the majority are Mizrachim… a small amount are Ashkenazim.”

Both Mizrachim, Jews from Arab countries, and recent immigrants crowd around the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Ashkenazim, Jews of Eastern European descent, are generally more affluent. Under greater financial pressure, the Mizrachim are pushed toward the settlements and Israel’s less desirable peripherial areas. The Ashkenazim tend to cluster towards the centre of the country. The daughter of a Tunisian father and a Russian mother, Malul reflects on this trend.

Now, Ariel residents say prices are rising. Evgeni Siprmov, 29, emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the Israeli city of Petach Tikva with his parents in 1994. He moved to Ariel four years ago to study at the settlement’s college. He was also drawn by the low cost of living.

“The food was never cheaper but the rent, yes, it was cheaper,” Siprmov says as he sits at a green plastic table outside a kiosk and cracks open a can of beer. “It used to be that you would pay 400,000 [Israeli new shekels, or $99,875] to buy a small house here. It’s 600,000 [$149,813] now – the same as Petach Tikva.”

Siprmov, who just finished a bachelor’s degree in economics and has yet to find a job on either side of the Green Line, adds: “There is no true [free market] competition here … It’s all cartels.”

Inside the Green Line, Israelis struggle to keep up with runaway housing costs, high taxes, and increasing food, gas, and electricity prices on relatively low wages – which sparked last summer’s “social justice” protests. But, rather than investing in affordable housing inside of Israel, the state has instituted austerity measures and is giving more to the settlements.

According to the Israeli financial daily the Calcalist, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has increased spending on settlements by 38 per cent. Peace Now reports that 2011 saw a 20 per cent rise in settlement construction. And the number of settlers has grown by 4.5 per cent in 2012.

While Ariel is quickly becoming unaffordable, it still holds some economic appeal.

Yusuf Jaber, 23, lives in a nearby Palestinian village and works at a restaurant in Ariel. Education and job opportunities are limited for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Many like Jaber are left with no option but to work on the settlements built on Palestinian land, which pose a threat to an independent Palestinian state.

Jaber says he’s less concerned about politics and more worried about making a living. He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter if the [residents] are Palestinian or Jews – it’s work.”

Lea Gal, 57, is an alternative medicine practitioner. She lives in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, but spends an hour and a half each day commuting to Ariel. An immigrant from Russia, Gal explains, “I speak two languages [Hebrew and Russian] and that’s needed here.”

While the economy squeezes them out of Israel proper towards work and homes in the West Bank, small numbers of ideological settlers have begun moving back. Some relocate to Jewish-majority areas in hopes of radicalising Israeli society, and harnessing more support for settlements. Others have moved to mixed areas, where Jewish Israelis and Palestinians live in relative harmony, in order to assert a Jewish presence.

In south Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighbourhood, a small group of former West Bank settlers have been instrumental in whipping up anti-African sentiment. Sharon Rothbard, a Shapira resident and historian, says the settlers’ move to the area is an attempt “to build a coalition” on both sides of the Green Line.

As economic pressure grows, settlements expand, and the Israeli public drifts to the right, prospects for an independent Palestinian state fade. When asked if she believes settlements are an obstacle to peace, Malul expresses her disagreement with a curse. “No,” Gal says. “The [Second] Intifada started in 2000 and there was nothing here.”

While Ariel was founded in 1978, nine years before the First Intifada, many of the settlers interviewed echoed Gal’s sentiment: settlements and occupation were both a response to the Intifada.

Ariel residents agree an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is unlikely. But they find a one-state solution just as improbable. Gal says while she is opposed to evacuating Israeli settlements, she is also against the evictions of Palestinians. According to the United Nations, the rate of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian and Bedouin homes and structures in the West Bank has increased in 2012, resulting in the “forced displacement” of more than 600 Palestinians – about half of them children.

The Palestinian villages of Susya and Zanuta are under threat of imminent demolition, and 1,500 Palestinians who live in an area the Israeli army calls Firing Zone 918 face eviction.

When Palestinians are displaced, it is usually to make way for expanding settlements and infrastructure. “What is there to do?” Gal asks. “Throw thousands of people from [the West Bank]? It doesn’t matter [whether they’re Palestinian or Israeli], it’s impossible.”

Malul agrees, adding Palestinians should be able to move freely between Israel and the Occupied Territories. “They were born here and I was born here … they should be able to enter, too.”

Malul admits, however, her views are not necessarily representative of most settlers, or mainstream Israeli society. “It pains me to hear ‘death to the Arabs’ … and at the checkpoints when [soldiers] take them off the buses. [The Palestinians] are good people … they’re people who want to work, who want to make a living for their families.”