Reflections from Palestine

We had a fascinating time in the West Bank for a month. It was really eye-opening and I'm now feeling the need to start processing all the different opinions and facts that we came across.

The Israel-Palestinian conflict was something that we learned more about whilst we were in Tunisia (see http://www.timerime.com/en/timeline/356787/Israeli-Palestinian+conflict/ for a timeline). Both because the plight of the Palestinian people is something that many Muslims and Arabs feel passionately about and because we met some interesting international friends also plugged into the issue.

Whilst in Palestine we heard some various opinions on a few key topics relating to the troubles. The main headings that I want to consider are:

*Two state vs one state solutions

*Violence vs non-violence

*The political 'on-the-ground' reality in the West Bank

*Optimism and pessimism

I'll come back here and tackle these one by one.