It was actually "Hoomin Rongs, Ur Doin it Right".

That's what happens when a bunch of geeks who have just come from a Human Rights March and speak fluent LOLcat say to each other.

Yesterday was a busy day.

On the day of Israel's first Human Rights March; 21 activists were arrested in East Jerusalem for demonstrating against the eviction of Arab families in the Sheik Jarrah neighbourhood and bringing in Jewish families in their stead; Settlers vandalised a Mosque in the West Bank village of Yasuf, burning Korans and spraying graffiti to prayer rugs.

Just to contextualise the day for y'all.

My day was much better.

I got up early-ish in order to get to Tel-Aviv by 11 AM because that's when all the people were supposed to be gathering at Rabin square.
At first there were no contingencies I knew or felt a part of were there, so I was all awkward and just standing there.
Luckily a friend - who for the sake of this post I'll call "Phill" - arrived and he was also very surprised that our contingencies were lacking.

Then at around a quarter past 11 I suddenly saw multiple rainbow flags which made me happy, but they went to stand next to Meretz¹, the Party I felt utterly and completely sold out their voters in order to widen their base and get more supporters.

Yes, we're all very factional... well, at least I am.

Then a few minutes later more friends of mine from campus arrived along with the red flags, yep, I stuck around in my "This is what a feminist looks like" tank top, my Keffiya and picked up a red flag!
( This is where I ruminate on boring Leftists - sorta - party politics in Israel )

At around half past a friend with whom I hang out with at Uni - we'll call him "Jon" - arrived and I was so happy to discover that he brought his Pride Flag with him!
Some ass told him to not wave it around because there were other contingencies (that Hadash might not identify with) were also waving around rainbow flags.
"Jon" looked at him as though he's grown another head.
I snorted loudly.

It so happened that I ended up carrying the Pride flag because "Jon" ended up carrying a huge banner with another person and I handed the red flag I'd been carrying to a future Member of the Party (some eight year old kid, I'd say) and "Jon" and I ended up marching the whole way together.

Someone brought a solar powered boom-box and there was music in the streets!

Well you know what's attributed to Emma Goldman, right? A Revolution without dancing and a Revolution not worth having!, or rather: If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
Same-Same...

We finally got to the plaza outside the Tel-Aviv Museum - which right across the street from the IDF HQ (I laughed, it's just too sad) and there were huge amounts of people that joined for the speeches.
It was vast.

( About boring speeches and being moved by them )

Then there was music, more speeches, even more music, I found some geek friends, we ate doughnuts because it is Hannukah and we began to LOLcat.

( Footnotes )

It was amazing.

We were about 5000 people all in all.

I don't have time to report on it all, I may do so tomorrow.

All I can say is that it was awesome, I cried and I got a T-Shirt.

Happy Hannukah!

Hey, did you know that Yesterday was International Human Rights Day?

No?

I'm not surprised.

I mean, Human Rights, those are for people who aren't ME, right?

I'm being facetious but you have to admit that that seems to be the attitude.

Over the past few months The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has been working on, planning and today will finally be executing Israel's first Human Rights March.

I've marched for human rights multiple times over the years, but they always seemed to have a different moniker like: anti-war, anti-poverty, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, anti-occupation, pro-immigrant rights and more.

Today, it's All Of That.

I wonder... is anyone going to care this time as well?

Quoted and copied from Coterest: News, Analysis and Opinion from the Israeli Hebrew print and electronic media:
[Under the cut] is a rush translation of Ha’ir’s ("The City", a local urban mag that covers Tel-Aviv happenings) cover story.
No complicated conspiracy theories. Only a long catalogue of de-legitimization.

So here is one, small ask, do what progressives are the best at. Communicate. Get this story out.

( Anti-Semites:How human rights activists became public enemies )

I am in the opinion that Patriarchy and its siblings Heteronormativity and White supremacy are the roots of evil in our times.

Just in case any of you had any doubt about that.

I just came back from the "Stop Violence Against Women" march and it was good.
We were not that many, because this is a chauvinist country.
The speeches after were very inspiring.

I and a few others then went to get some supper at a pizza place. There was a whole lot of talk about political theory, uni studies, feminism etc.

In the end there appeared to be some kind of combat between neo-Marxist thought and Post-Modernism (of which there was a gross misunderstanding). It was very Bubbly in the sense that "we are living in a bubble", which I'm cool with seeing as us "bubble people" actually went to the march in order to raise awareness that violence against women - it happens, it's societal disease and it needs to be stopped.

There was also talk about Politically Correctness, a term and though process I abhor and how, even as an ally, I really shouldn't use words that do not belong to me. Call me old-fashioned.

Also, there's really no shame in admitting you're bourgeoisie if you, ya know, living that lifestyle. My politics are radical, but my life is liberal, that's the way it is, why should I hide it or be ashamed of it?

One of the girls we sat with had to catch the same bus as me and we continued to talk and oh my god it was awful.
Just so you know, she irritated me.
A lot.

I have a button (I have many) on my bag that reads "Sex is the Question - sex is not the answer - "Yes" is the Answer" (yes I know it's a play on the Nickleback lyrics) which to me is a sex-positive slogan akin to "Yes is Yes" which is just as valid as "No is No".
Anyway, this girl asked me about it and I told her the above and she said:
"You need to be careful with that term [pro-sex], it can be taken to mean you're pro prostitution and stuff like that"
I replied: "Well, I am pro-sex work and pro-porn"
And OMG!
I had never heard such cookie cutter Second Wave Paternalistic bullshit come out of someone younger than me - pardon the ageism, but that's impressive in a horrifying way!
I tried to say that sex-work isn't just human trafficking and crack whores and pimped women.
Her reply: It's all False Conciousness.
In my head I'm going - OMG!
I say: There's queer and alt porn.
She goes: It reproduces the same oppressive mechanism as mainstream porn. It's the same objectification.
I say: There's BDSM that enables you to play with the oppressive power structure and have a good time at the same time.
She goes: BDSM reproduces the power structure, why would you want to do something that humiliates you?

I wanted to kill her and myself.

I really couldn't talk to her any more, because really, it showed such a lack of understanding of what a power structure actually is, that hierarchy is a daily and hourly thing we live and work with our entire lives and that kink does not mean there isn't an actual partnership or that an unequal partnership automatically means there isn't consent!

Because that's what bothers me the most about the Dworkin and MacKinnon types - I really like the way they theorised Patriarchy and Phallocentrism, the tools they offer are awesome, also MacKinno is a brilliant speaker - but if you take their entire thesis you end up saying: women have no ability to consent in the system that we currently live, because there's nothing but False Conciousness.

Yeah, no thanks.

Today I accompanied a friend to one of the most expensive malls in the country - it's a five minute walk from the Uni campus - which is situated in one of the most up market neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv.

Completely unexpectedly, I bought shoes.
I do not simply walk into a shop and buy things on the spot.
It's simply something I do not do.

But for these, I was willing to be spontaneous.
They are, in the words of my father, Zooty!

Add to that, that I tried on pants I haven't fitted into for the past two years and they looked awesome!
I'm feeling pretty good.
In that utterly shallow, I really should be beyond this sort of sizeist thinking, kind of way.

Follow the link! Admire those puppies!

I was sitting at the bus station minding my own business.

A man of about 50-55 comes towards me and asks if it's all right if he smokes. I thought it was very (see, overly, for the society we live in) polite of him to ask and said "sure".

This was quite obviously a ploy.

He begins to tell me a story.

"I just couldn't sit at the other bus station. There was a girl there; dressed far too revealingly for me, her chest hanging out and short pants".

I'm staring at him as though he's grown an extra head. Instead his beard, peyot, kipah (yarmulke/skull cap) and tzitzit become glaringly obvious props for his forthcoming tale and story.

In my head, I'm screaming: "Why? Why is this man talking to me and regaling to me this bullshit story!?"

He continues (sans my loud thoughts that this man is a religious nut): "I ask [the aforementioned girl] do you believe in G-d?"

In my mind: "Mercy!"

He tells her words: "'Yes' she says and I ask you [that is, me and the universe in general most likely] if she's have said 'yes, but I sin', I could live with that... But dressed the way she is... how can she say that!?".

Meanwhile, I'm trying to understand why this woman (if she indeed exists outside this man's narrative) engaged with this man, seeing as I was doing my best to Not Engage with this person and his irrational tirade about how this woman's dress somehow marks her heretic - obviously I'm the best audience ever! What with my long jeans, trainers, long-sleeved shirt and high necked top underneath it.
If only we were telepathic, nay?

He goes: "She tells me her beliefs are simple. How can creation be simple?!"

How I wished I had a desk on which to bash my head and his continuously!

Throughout this entire time I'm dying for a bus, any bus to arrive to take one of us away! I'm also silent, grimacing from time to time and keeping away from him as much as possible while not leaving the bus stop - I really did not feel safe enough to tell to STFU... perhaps if there was another person there I would have told him to stop bothering me... but *Gah*, the situation just really did not encourage aggressive-aggression and I went for body-language instead.

"Creation can't be simple" this man says, "I tell her [still this very-well-could-be-fictional-girl] 'that table? You see it? Someone designed it, yes?' she replied 'yes'. So no tell me G-d doesn't exist!"

I was ready to throw up on him. I had been feeling queasy regardless, but I could have blown chunks over this.

He continued with this line of talk and thought for a good ten minutes, in addition going on to inform me that the Bible predicted Swine 'flu (o_O) and that according to Rabbi What-ever-the-fuck 14,5-and something are going to die because that's the Gimatric interpretation of the Hebrew letters of Swine 'flu (which are שפעת חזירים).

I actaully breathed a sigh of relief when his bus arrived and he was out of my life.

It was just too odd. I don't think I'd ever been proselytised to before. Obviously him asking me if he could smoke was a ploy to start engaging me in conversation.
Good tactic.

I now have a funny anecdote about Jewish fundamentalists... who are so different from all the other ones you encounter in the street (much to our annoyance)

---

Off Topic, but related to the fact that I'm home and talking about this.
I'm feeling queasy and at the last minute decided not to go the talk tonight, because I'd rather not be sick in front of people.
I'm disappointed, but hopefully I'll be able to catch the DAM people at a later date during their visit in the region.

As promised, more on The Man and the amazing concert last night.

First of all, the getting there. It was very much encouraged that people use public transportation because, well, parking would have been an issue.
The doors to Ramat-Gan stadium (where the concert was performed) opened at half-past five pm, I wanted to be there by at least quarter to seven or seven, since the concert was scheduled to start at quarter to eight.

Suffice to say, that is not what happened. ( Read some more on how we finally arrived to the stadium )
We walked into the stadium at twenty to eight, I hugged Tami and her folks (she was the genius who managed to actually get us tickets the night sales went live, damned lucky as this concert was sold out in a few hours), we found our seats, had two minutes to relax before the lights went out, the stage lights went on and there he was.

The Man and his Hat (Tami was taking pictures the whole time, I hope I get to show them to you).

What a charming stage persona he has, he was skipping! He said it was a honour to be here and that he was dedicating the concert to Bereaved Families for Peace as per my previous post, which got me crying, it was a very clever and non-confrontational way of bringing in the "issue" I suppose. I'm glad he mentioned it at least and didn't ignore the contention of him performing in Israel, because it is a big deal and Cohen is a very big name.

He then began to sing.

Being the dork that I am, I wanted to write down the songs; I always carry a pen, but alas I did not have a notepad so I quickly rummaged around and found a post card - it was this post card, so there was plenty room to write on both sides.
Oh! Before I forget! On the big screens which broadcast his performance, there were Hebrew subtitles to almost all of the songs, because lots of Israeli artists just wanted to be able to sing him in Hebrew so over the years there have been lots of translations.
Having the subtitles was just too great no to mention.

( The Song List with some of my reactions to them )

And then he sang the Passage from the book of Ruth: "Wherever you go..." which was amazing and then he gave another prayer in Hebrew. Amazing to hear that old fashioned Ashkenazi accent, as modern Hebrew accent is Sephardic... I was all very emotional, as is evident by the amount of tears I shed.

Cohen is probably one of the more evocative poets and singers of our time. I can honestly say that he's one of the artists that when I heard for the first time clutched my heart and pulled out my lungs. And it really was So Long, Marianne, because it was the first song of his that I listened to.

It was an amazing night and getting back home was far less dramatic than getting there. My dad I were gushing the whole way and it really was one of the best evenings of my life.

I love Leonard Cohen even more than I did. His gravely and deep voice is the kind of voice I always imagine myself having when I speak about something I'm passionate about, but it's so far from the voice I actually have which is more often than not high and strident... I can never modulate it to the depth that I want.

One other thing, Leonard Cohen has a grand, beautiful and very sharp aquiline nose (I have a nose fetish, really, I'm not kidding) and he's a seriously good looking (to me) man.
I think my dad kind of looks like him.
Yeah, I think my dad is handsome.
I think youngest daughters are supposed to think that, no?

I hope I managed to convey here what a powerful evening it was. That weird and awesome feeling of being intimate with thousands of other people.

I think I need another cup of coffee.

I just got back from the Leonard Cohen concert.

He (and his band and back-up singers) was amazing.

I love him more than ever.

Tomorrow, some cognizant thoughts and the song list (yeah, I wrote it down).

He dedicated the concert (and probably a portion of the proceedings) to The Parents Circle - Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace, which made me emotional to a degree that is really indecent. Crying at an announcement, good going Mel.

I'm also happy I went with my dad to this, he's loved Cohen since the 70's (how crazy is that) and we love so many of the same songs, almost all of them got an emotional response out of me.

It was mad, brilliant... I could have listened to him forever.

A Butch
It's starts like a joke you'd tell in a Dyke bar, except it happened in my dad's Pharmacy.
( So this Butch walks into a shop... )

A Clueless Teen
OMG.
Seriously.
OMG.
What has become of Israel sex-ed program.
Dude.

The other day a kid, no older that 16 or 17 walked into the pharmacy and asked to by the Morning After Pill (which is sold over the counter, no need for a script and it's known as Postinor) and I in my mind I was going; Buy some condoms. ( Eventually... he did )

J-Lem Pride
It was, in fact, quite uneventful, thanks to the heat (probably).
On the way to the park in which we assembled I saw some Religious Nuts with signs that said things like: "Abomination" and "Go Straight, for Family's Sake", but they weren't allowed to come into the park.
And that was pretty much it.
( No, not really )
We've still got a long way to go.

nurint met up with us after, which was great fun, as she actually lives in J-Lem and took us to a great restaurant and showed us around the City Centre.
She then carted us to our respective places, which was so great of her.
Thank you my friend!

All in all.
Pretty good week, despite not spending enough time with [Southern!Girl].
But that we can rectify.

Notes
(1)This lecturer has often spoken about Butch identity and the fact that she's never felt as anything other than a Butch Lesbian Woman... so I felt confident is saying that to that asshole guy.

I'm heading to Jerusalem tomorrow.

The main reason being Pride and the second reason being that my Eldest sister lives there with her family and she needs me for the evening/Friday morning.

It all worked out in the end (even though Exam season impinged on me being able to spend any significant time with [Southern!Girl] this week - which is her Birthday week, *curses*).
[Southern!Girl] and I will be marching with the everyone else.

Jerusalem Pride is different from Tel-Aviv Pride, or the tiny Pride in Haifa or even the one in Tourist Town Eilat.

Jerusalem, is not a united City.
It never was.
Nor, I fear, will it ever be.

But queers of every colour and creed live there.
The Jerusalem Open House is one of the few places in which Orthodox Jews, Muslims and Christians who are Queer can be out, attain information and actually feel the solidarity they so sorely lack in their "home" environments.

And this is contentious.

Because Jerusalem is a Holy City.

My sceptical brain thinks this is malarkey. My Jewish heritage says this is a part of my history. My Israeli mouth says "על הזין שלי" crudely "on my dick" which is an phrase loosely translated as "Fuck it".

I like it.

Yes, the march, is considered a provocation. Jerusalem Pride isn't a Parade. There are no floats, no advertisements, no scantily clad men and women revelling in their sexuality while people watch from the sidelines and will either join in or simply enjoy the scene.

Every time human rights are on the agenda it is provocative.

We are creating a scene.

Because the religions that make that City what it is are also a part of the power structure that demands that queers be quiet, be silent.
A silence that is so violent, it scars our bodies and our souls and has made this march so dangerous in the past (last year was the first time there wasn't any real violence committed upon the people walking), we can never forget that in 2005 three people were stabbed for "being queer and here".

It looks like it's going to be a quiet time this year as well.

It's the heat. June is not an easy month for day time events in Israel and Palestine. It's also being exposed to "immodest" people. Can't be contaminated by the "sex" we queers exude from just being in the same vicinity as straight people.
However, that is beyond the point. Religion and violence that is.

As Israel's Capital.
As a place in which LGBTQ people live.
We have a right to express the fact that there is still work to be done.
That we will not twiddle our thumbs while we are still considered "different" under the law.

That we protest the idea of normal.
There is no such thing as "normal".

There is only variety.

And in Jerusalem, ostensibly the most diverse city in Israel, we march for our human rights and with any luck, even have some fun doing so.

Good night. A Happy 40th Stonewall to us all! Yes, I know it's on the 28th... close enough!

My feet are killing me.

Pride was huge amounts of fun, met awesome people and quite a few of my very awesome friends.
The heat was oppressive and I slathered on sun-screening lotion quite a few times while I was out there.
My nose and cheeks still turned rosy.

The booths and organization stalls were great fun to wonder around.

[Southern!Girl] and I marched at first with the Bi-Trans-BDSM-Femme bloc, but ended up speeding up towards the floats and then ended up passing the Dykes on Bikes - who always pave the way, of course.

Pictured were taken and hopefully I'll be able to get some here.

I ended up snogging [Southern!Girl] as we walked and we were photographed then as well, we burst into laughter as did the photographer, 'cause we're just not used to kissing being a photo worthy thing.

My friend K and his Boyfriend came dressed up as Sex-Kittens.

Everyone looked great and I had tons of fun!

Not much else... ask me! :D

I'm in a park that provides WiFi.
For free.

Very far out I say.

But alas, I will not be live-blogging my Nevvie's party seeing as I'd actually like to participate in the celebratory picnic.

The weather is beautiful, breezy and cool, a wee bit cloudy but rain doesn't seem immanent.

We staked out a perimeter with ribbons and balloons and so far it seems to be holding out against the breeze.

The biggest problem is that under the trees that also make up a part of the perimeter are palm trees. And they are ripe.
Good smell since they're not rotting just yet.
They still manage to attract a fairly large amount of wasps.

Any way, I see the Birthday boy running towards me, so I'm logging off.

Happy 4th Shaul!!!!!

The eldest Sibling is in Berlin. Germany.

The Sibling-in-law (spouse of the sibling above) is in Copenhagen. Denmark.

Their children are staying in the Asylum. Arkham.

Jealous. Is what I am.

That's all.

Good night.

Just saw "Sleepless in Seattle" for the umpteenth time.

I love it.

I shouldn't. I don't believe this sort of thing happens in real life, it's also not my usual type of escapism. On the other hand, it being so fantastic (in the "fantasy" sense, not the "amazing" sense) it really does enable one to transcend their own expectations from reality.

I just witnessed my parents being all kissy-face.
And I'm quoting:
Mother:"When we met on [the place where they first met] and I shook your hand"
Father:"It was magic"

I'd be all awwww, if I didn't know they weren't just acting because of the movie.
In this case it's just a bit gross.

---

My nephew had a birthday party today, which was very nice. It was a beautiful day and practically the entire family came to spend an entire afternoon outside, lounging under a tree with freshly baked cup-cakes and watermelon (the boy's favourite food of all times, excellent choice in 35C degrees if you ask me).

Good day.

I woke up at an unspeakable hour this morning... looking at the time I'm updating it is still unspeakable.

I went with my uncle (to be known as Uncle D), Granny and Daddy to the air port to see him off, I'm staying in the Rainbow Nation for a few more days and staying with my other uncle (Uncle P) and his family, both are Daddies little brothers (is it still all right to call 50+ year old men "little"?)

In any event, yesterday being the last day of Daddy's holiday I got kind of weepy and annoying, I hope I didn't make things more difficult for him seeing as today is my birthday (yes, yes, many happy returns) I didn't want him to feel guilty.
Uncle P is taking out for a drive today to places called Kalks Bay (very pretty beach place), maybe Cape Point (where the two oceans meet) and it being the first clear day since I've arrived (remember I spoke of the mist and not being able to see a hundred meters ahead? It stayed that way from Friday until yesterday afternoon) I'll most likely be going up Table Mountain, which is my clearest memory of SA from when I was nine years old.

Will try and update again before I get home, but I make no promises.

I went to Bil'in today, as it was the three year anniversary for the struggle against the Separation Wall (which in that area is a fence) and to mark the half year mark since the Supreme High Court declared the path of the fence to be moved.
This hasn't happened and the weekly demonstrations have and will continue.

This was my first demo in the area so I stayed on the hill and didn't go into the wadi and as such avoided the actual "action" of being tear gassed and shot at with rubber bullets. Today twenty or so activists were injured (one had to be evacuated to hospital, thankfully there was Red Crescent presence) from the soldiers actions and one soldier was injured from a stone thrown at him.

I managed to take some pictures that weren't total crap with my obsolete Point & Shoot Digital Cam: ( Don't Miss Them )

We arrived there at about 11:30, began marching at 12:30, began disperding at around 15:00, I got home at 17:30.
Long, good and productive day, I feel.

23/02/08 10:25 - Edited to Add: Link to English Ha'aretz story.

Yesterday afternoon Mummy went to fetch the Jerusalem Kids, because they spent the weekend with us. I always love when they come here, it's great fun to be Auntie.

Today the 'rents came (sister and brother-in-law) and we all decided to go on a short hike at a really beautiful national park on the coast (Sharon Beach (Hebrew link), if you're interested). It was a beautiful day, sunny but not too warm with a gorgeous breeze moving the sea-air around. The view from the cliffs was amazing, if a bit nerve wracking with a three year and a six year old running around pretending to be Superheroes, Elephants and wrestling on the sand (yeah, they brought most of the beach home with us).
We weren't actually near the Sea (unless the ten second drop into the rocks counts as near), but the yellow sand and yellow/light brown calcareous rock were also breathtaking, especially with the sand flowers and plants which were lush and filled with juices (which the three year old managed to spread over his hand), there were also huge Aloe-Vera plants dotted around.

Robbie was also there and we all hiked together, it was a whole lot of fun, even though I didn't really want to go out, but Mummy mentioned that I only go out at night and am slowly getting the complexion of a vampire, which is worrying, seeing as my skin couldn't be whiter unless I was an albino (rosy cheeks and blush don't count, that's circulation).
Also, seeing as Robbie decided to forego a hat (who doesn't bring a hat to a hike at noon?!), Leigh fumbled in her bag and produced a silk scarf for him to wear as a bandanna; I took pity on him and took the scarf and let him wear my denim "Kova Tembel" (bucket hat), and I wore the silk scarf as a bandanna.
I don't usually wear scarves on my head, I feel I look silly in them, but Leigh assures me I looked like a Radical Religious Jewish lady, so it wasn't so bad :D

Oh! And Edited to Add - 20:21 I went to see Atonement with my friend Shira last night, excellent, highly recommended. Keira Knightly must eat something, dude! And James McAvoy is going to be a legend one day, if he doesn't die young like other we know *cough*HeathLedger*cough*.

Going to the movie again, this time with my siblings (and in-law).

Hey, it was free, plus time with the family. That's a good thing.

Olive picking was fun for the whole family, my folks didn't stay 'till the end, but that didn't matter, at least they came.
I picked, talked politics with a 20 year old anarchist and a 16 year old marxist... when did I turn into my parents where all I desire is to quietly live my life while trying my best not to opress anyone and make a little money to sustain myself, the other people were much the same as I... only significantly older - I felt very old around those two, and I'm only 22!

I thought I was going to go to the Teacher's Demo tonight, but I'm just too exhausted, I can barely look at the screen straight... though no doubt a piece of cake and a cup of coffee will make me feel better, getting on a bus and standing with a few thousand people complaining about our crappy education system doesn't seem to hot to me at the moment.

Next weekend there's a Take Back the Night March and that, no matter what I do that day, I will not be missing.

I'm not sure how to go about writing about the olive picking today.
I wanted to write something with meaning and stuff like that, but thinking about it, just writing about it most likely meaningful enough.

I didn't know anyone, but everyone was very nice and told me where to go and what to do. It was very sad, the olive grove is cut off from the villages beyond the Wall and only the land owners have permits to move into and onto the land with a donkey and a old tractor, so we were something like 30 Israelis and 6-10 Arabs.
There isn't any "modern" or "efficient" way to pick olives, you pick up a big stick and beat the tree branches until the olives fall down. Problem, the branches are so thick because no one can prune them... you need special permit to prune the trees.
So we hand picked almost all of the olives in the three groves we visited today.
The tarp we used was holey and so many olives fell through onto the ground, eventually we just used our sandwich bags to collect them and someone was smart and brought shopping bags with which we used as well.

The first grove we were in was just adjacent to the Wall and right next to a check-point, there wasn't anybody there except the soldiers on guard duty who pretty much ignored us, but border patrol came to see us in the late morning, they glared a little but gave no problem what so ever, so there were no clashes with authority thankfully.

Some of the trees were so full of fruit, but there was no way to shake them loose other than to climb up and put them in our bags, so up the trees I climbed like a monkey - I don't climb trees, I never liked to and I was never good at it, but these olive trees really liked me, I even sat on the canopy and accidentally hit the people below me as I dropped the fruit onto the tarp they used to collect the olives.

During our break, when I bumped my head on a low branch and fell on my ass (which was funny I'll admit, though a bit humiliating) the Arab man in charge of us, Osama, made us coffee, oh my GD it was so good and I was so caffeinated and energized after I was running around and climbing up trees like a crazy person!

I'm not sure how much we actually helped them, more than they would have gotten otherwise, but there were so few people and so many trees, I just feel horrible for the situation that Wall puts them through.

I came home dusty, dirty, brambled and feeling really, really good.
And tired.