Ajnabi fii Filisteen (A Foreigner in Palestine)

There are days here, days like today, when occasional gunfire erupts across the city landscape even in the daytime. A Palestinian militant was killed last night somewhere in the old city. He will be immortalized on yet another street-side plaque commemorating the Palestinian martyrs, until it too is shot down by Israeli bullets. Most of the martyr posters and plaques are decorated with doctored photographs of the fallen hero: a face lifted off some innocuous family album and pasted onto a body with a more militant or defiant pose.
There are days here, days like today, when you walk down into the valley’s center with vigilant eyes and ears, hoping to discern the exact location of the most recent gunshots. But days like this are rare. The real intrusion into peace of mind comes on the calmer days, days of balmy weather and mild mannered greetings from acquaintances on the street. On days like those, you hear something, a rattling or a loud pop. Then you realize it is the heavy pounding of a jack hammer, or the backfire of a decrepit taxi, or the mischief makings of idle children, but in that single instant, you froze. And when the moment passes, in embarrassed gratitude you thank fortune that your fragile little life went on, sound and whole.