ASIA!

View From Jerusalem to the Palestinian West Bank in a larger map

*The white dotted lines indicate the demarcation between Israel and the Palestinian-controlled territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

THE PALESTINIAN FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE

For six days the Palestinian Festival of Literature will bring some 20 international writers – western and Arab – to the West Bank. There they will be meeting with students and people who live in the area, in conversation.

theasiamag.com follows the festival as it sets off from Arab East Jerusalem to the West Bank, going through Ramallah, Jenin, Bethlehem, Hebron and back again. What are they thinking, what are their lives like?

Reality Check or How to hold a festival under occupation 

"You can't escape politics here."

Acting class in Jenin with Monty Python's Michael Palin

Crossing the Qalandia checkpoint into Israel

Hanging out at Hebron University

Of printed words that close the festival

Learning about matters of faith on a Jewish holy day

THE TUSSLE FOR TERRITORY

This series of three stories looks at the issue of land in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a special focus on the city of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as territory annexed from them during the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel maintains that Jerusalem will not be divided, and has cut it off from the Palestinian-controlled West Bank with the erection of a security wall.

If and when the peace talks between the two sides continue, the status of Jerusalem will be paramount, and control of this holy city may come down to quite literally the situation on the ground and just who owns how much of it.

 

Dot-p-s, because any sovereignty you can get counts 

The Israeli-Palestinian Numbers Game

There was an old woman who lived in a tent

 

HEBRON – THE BIRTHPLACE OF TWO PEOPLES

This is Hebron, where the Jews and the Muslims find their common ground in their shared patriarch Abraham. From him was descended Issac, father of the Jewish people and Ishamel, from whom came the Muslims.

This week we revisit Hebron, the town in where the two warring peoples have to live closer together than anywhere else in the West Bank.

 

One way Israeli, one way Arab

Hebron - where the Jews and Palestinians met and parted ways

The Chinese-Arab connection

 

OTHER STORIES:

Cheat Sheet: Palestinian Territories

Cheat Sheet: Israel