Vision

We have been on the ground now for a week and we have encountered a number of extraordinary people: the family farming on a hilltop surrounded by encroaching Israeli colonies: the psychology expert who glows when he talks about the promise of permaculture; the Jaffa city council member committed to a future for his community that lets distinctions of ethnicity fall away in the interest of a better existence for all its residents; the professor who directs the Palestine natural history museum; the guide who led us back into the past of a ruined village whose proposed future is contested by the children whose families were forced out in 1947; the farm couple who—facing the emissions from Israeli chemical companies built on the doorstep—who nonetheless created a wonder of organic, self-sufficiency; a defender of children, women and men unfortunate enough to encounter the claws of Israeli legal system; one of the architects of the boycott, divestment and sanction campaign; and, the tour guide who rides with us as we crisscross the West Bank and Israel.

The striking thing about all these people is their positions about their commitments. They invest 120 percent of themselves in creating new visions of what the Palestinian future might be like. Hardly naïve, each deliberately chooses not to run, not to fight, not to despair, but rather to resist by raising their chins and going forward driven by their visions of better life inside—and outside— the occupied territories.