This latest post is a statement made by a young Israeli refusing to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is a bold and powerful statement. I was moved by his courage and wanted to pass it on. Also, there is a movement happening right now trying to get some Israeli youth out of prison for their conscientious objection to what the Israeli military and associated authorities are doing in the Palestinian Territories. -- Deema

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Name: Raz Bar-David Varon Age: 18

In a brief statement made on the day of her arrest, Nov. 3, Raz said:

I have witnessed this army demolishing, shooting and humiliating people whom I did not know, but have learned to respect their ability to go on dealing with these horrors on a daily basis. There’s supposed to be a good reason for all of this. This reason is supposed to be my defense. I feel like screaming: “This does not defend me! It hurts me!”

“At critical moments in history mythic sense tries to return to awareness in order to indicate life’s inherent capacity for renewal. When the end seems near and nothing seems to make sense anymore, the sense of myth tries to return to make sense of all the endings and to hint at ways of beginning again.” -- from The World Behind the World by Michael Meade

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A couple of months back, before I even knew that I would be going to Palestine with a circus or that the Olive Tree Circus even existed, I had a vision. A waking dream I guess one could say.

We had our first day of picking olives not too long after our Hebron tour. We went to a village called Al-Khader, an area to the south of Bethlehem. We came to the entrance of the farm, and the taxi driver could go no further. He dropped us off, and we walked along the narrow road up toward the farm.

On our way through rows of grape vines and jasmine bushes we passed some Israeli soldiers. They brazenly leaned against their military jeeps, snuggling their guns across their chests as a mother would to protect or baby her child. My body immediately reacted to the soldiers' presence. My stomach twisted. It was an uneasy atmosphere.

We walked toward the olive groves and met a group of 50 or so internationals. People from all over the world come to Palestine with the Olive Harvest Campaigne to help the Palestinians do the simple job of picking their olives. This has become quite a challenge in Palestine, since their land has been confiscated for the expanding Jewish-only settlements and the winding wall. So internationals come to witness and to shield because the colonizers are less likely to attack a foreigner than a Palestinian.

The night before travelling to the village of Bil'in to join their regular Friday protest I had heard horror stories about the ways in which the protests are disbursed. Everything from sound bombs, tears gas, nerve gas, rubber bullets, water hoses, live ammunition and physical beatings.

Bil'in is a small village located in the northern part of the West Bank. To reach the village, one must first travel south and then go up the windy and curvaceous mountain tops. This would normally take 30 minutes but took us 1 and a 1/2 hours because of checkpoints, Jewish only colonies and the wall. And when we passed through one checkpoint near Jericho a soldier asked us where we were going.

We told the soldier we were going to Jericho, as Bil'in is considered a hot spot because of all the activism going on there. Had we told him where we were really going he may have stopped us, searched us or interrogated us.

Growing up I remember hearing stories about the segregation in the United States between “colored” people and “white” people: the separate bathrooms, drinking fountains and businesses. And the divide of hate, lynchings and discrimination that accompanied it.

In my youthful naïveté, I remember taking a look around and breathing a sigh of relief that this kind of thing no longer exists. I remember going to the Holocaust Museum, and after walking through all the sad stories and gut-wrenching horrors, reading the sign that said “Never Again!” and feeling the same relief.

Well, since then I have learned that these things still do in fact exist. I’ve read the horror stories, seen pictures and video, but nothing prepared me for actually seeing with my own eyes.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it.” -- Mark Twain

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When I arrived at the border into Israel the first thing I noticed was how young the border police looked. They looked exactly like the people I had gone to school with at Indiana University. Same angst, the same look of "I’d rather be drinking," even down to the clothing and hair styles. Second, most of them were women.

It was strange. I immediately felt a sort of kinship and fear because of some of the horror stories I have heard about Palestinians being interrogated and made to feel like terrorists. So I kept breathing and envisioning an easy passage into Israel and then the West Bank.

I walked up to the first woman and gave her my passport. She looked at it and asked me where I am from. I told her my mother is from Jordan and my father was born in Israel (I decided not to say Palestine because this seems to make some Israelis mad, and I wanted to make my passage as simple as possible). She asked me where my father is from and I told her Zababda (a small town in the West Bank).

Bloomington was recently graced with the presence of musician David Rovics and spoken-word poet Attila the Stockbroker, each of whom provided their Vertigo audience with a lyrical mix of education, activism and art.

On Wednesday March 10th at the Vertigo Nightclub, APPLE (Activists Promoting Peoples Liberation Through Education) launched their No Voter Left Behind campaign, with Rovics and Attila, a glimpse of do-it-yourself democracy.