Page 33 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

from Jericho to Ramallah, from the Gaza border to Tel Aviv.
In Jerusalem, with Israeli elections looming, we engage with the views of a left-wing Israeli journalist, a centrist Jewish author with Muslim dialogue partners, a controversial Arab- Israeli candidate on the campaign trail, a right-wing veteran Middle East commentator who sees no viable peace on the horizon, and another political correspondent dubbed ‘the most optimistic man in Israel’.
At Yad Vashem we are plunged into the darkness of holocaust history. At the Center for Israeli Innovation we are dazzled by Israel’s entrepreneurial chutzpah. It is no small miracle that a fledgling nation of traumatised people, surviving genocide and several wars of self-defence, has managed to reinvent itself into a leading start-up nation.
Inside the West Bank the view is just as complex. At the Palestinian Authority government offices we are greeted by a foreign ministry official but assailed with a hard-line lecture on all Israel’s sins. An hour later we are hearing the strikingly moderate views of the Deputy Prime Minister. We have already been exposed to painful scenes at Aida refugee camp, the controversial Israeli security barrier (‘wall’) and Qalandiya checkpoint.
Making our way through the bustling streets of Ramallah, advertisements for Palestinian fashion and fine-dining juxtapose the charred remains of yesterday’s protest. A short drive later, the modern marvel of Rawabi rises from the ancient landscape. Rawabi is Palestine’s first master-planned, environmentally-sustainable city, under construction for 40,000 residents, the brainchild of a multimillionaire American-Palestinian.
The many faces of this land and its peoples never cease to surprise. Our Israeli-Palestinian guide ably navigates the diverse
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