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Voices of Conflict Posted: February 27, 2007 With Agi Mishol in the Farmlands South of Tel Aviv: "And Then I Heard the Boom" After spending days in the inland hills, we come to the flatlands and farmlands south of Tel Aviv to the home of Agi Mishol, one of Israel’s best-known poets. She and her husband run a farm here. As we walk among the peach trees – some have just started to flower – she tells me that from here she could hear bombs going off in Gaza, only about 30 minutes away. It’s so peaceful here that it’s hard to contemplate both the peaches and the chaotic conflict nearby.

Posted: February 26, 2007 Mixed Moments from a Day in the West Bank To get to the West Bank we drive along a long stretch of depressed blocks, lots filled with rubble and pockmarked streets. To our right is a gray concrete structure, maybe 25 feet high. To Israelis, this is a security fence, built during the Intifada to keep suicide bombers away from the streets of Israel’s cities. To the Palestinians, it is a punitive wall that encloses them and narrows their territory.

Posted: February 23, 2007 Samih al-Qasim, in Rama: "Today, a Book Is Answered by a Gun" The village of Rama sits high on a hill in the northern Galilee and, Samih al-Qasim tells me as we look out over the valley below, is about 3,000 years old. We are standing on his patio looking out over the town and beyond to miles of olive groves stretching into the distance. If Taha Muhammad Ali was the humble shopkeeper, Samih al-Qasim is the cultured aristocrat.

Posted: February 21, 2007 In Nazareth, With Taha Muhammad Ali, "Half Shopkeeper, Half Poet" We leave Jerusalem early this morning, heading north through the dry hills and Biblical landscape of the Jordan River Valley. After about an hour, the world becomes green, then green and yellow – the wildflowers are coming out in the Galilee. About two-and-half hours after our start, we climb the twisting road up the hill into Nazareth. We’re here to talk with Taha Muhammad Ali.

Posted: February 19, 2007 Encountering the "Echoes and Layers" of the Middle East It was a long way to travel to attend the theater. Seven hours from Washington to Frankfurt, another three and a half hours to Israel. Arrive, pick up the bags (minus the case containing lights that got left behind in Frankfurt), pile into an overstuffed minivan, and then head straight to the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv for an evening performance.

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