Our last day. Today the group has a day to explore Jerusalem. Last year, we had been denied entry to the Dome of the Rock on the grounds of not all being Muslims. We were told that you either have to enter through the Israeli controlled gate in the Wailing Wall ‘Plaza’ or, if you don’t want to enter under Israeli authority, you have to get permission from the Waqf – the administrators of a trust fund for Isalmic sites. So this year Yabous, our Palestinian partner, organised our permissions from the Waqf.

We arrived at Bab al-Sbat and were met by the Waqf’s representative. But, on our way in, one of the Israeli soldiers seemed to change his mind. Claire Messud writes more extensively about it in her author blog. But basically the next two hours are taken up with trying to get in to the tranquillity of the Haram. After arguing for half an hour, we walked round to the other gate, the Israeli controlled, metal detector flanked gate. We watched a group of settlers hurried in past us, while we were kept stood in the sun. At one point the police officer lost his temper at having his photograph taken and pushed Brigid Keenan, a festival board member, who nearly fell down some stairs.

At first people can’t understand why we wouldn’t be allowed in to see the mosques. What security issue could there be? But it isn’t security – it’s a desire to make it impossible to relate to the Palestinians as a civilized people, to only be able to see them as wretched and downtrodden. But if there’s one characteristic shared by all the Palestinians I’ve met, its dignity, a refusal to just be victims.

Anyway, eventually we left. The day was spent in Jerusalem, exploring, shopping etc.

We were scheduled to be on stage at the Palestinian National Theatre at 7pm. At 6pm the army arrived and shut it down. Again. So we moved to the British Council. A video can be seen here.

Once in the lovely garden of the British Council, the night went very well. The Basel Zayed group played in between bouts of readings, the weather was perfect, and there was no doubt that a week of cultured resistance had been achieved. Until next year….

Al-Khalil: “the intimate friend.” Where the mosque and burial place of Abraham, the khalil, or friend, of God lies.

Now, 400 settlers occupy the centre of al-Khalil and threaten the Palestinians with actions, grafitti and song. In 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish Settler opened fire on the worshippers in the mosque. He killed 29 before the people killed him. God did not intervene. Israel did. It divided the mosque: 63% for the Jews, 37% for the Muslims.

These 400 settlers are protected by 1500 soldiers and 101 checkpoints that strangle the centre of this ancient, busy, holy, thriving city. The settlers, mostly from Brooklyn, do not stay for long - they are shipped in and organised in one or two-year rotations. Settlers in other parts of the West Bank come to stay, to fight until Israel extends from the Euphrates to the Nile. But life in al-Khalil is unbearable. Even for a settler. So the city is occupied in shifts.

What used to be the most populated Palestinian city is now a hollow shell. The streets are empty, the shops are closed down, the army moves through every street, the people, disarmed, cannot fight. Some streets are empty because only settlers are allowed to walk on them. Some are empty because, if you loiter on them, settlers from windows above will shower you with shit and piss. Some are empty because half the shops have been sealed shut by the military and the other half can do no business in these circumstances. The empty streets are covered in Hebrew graffiti. One door reads: “prepare for revenge.” The town is being slowly, systematically, strangled. There used to be 18 routes in to the mosque’s central square. Now there is one. To pray you have to walk through a tunnel of wire that channels you through two metal gates, a metal detector and two elevated soldiers with their guns trained on you. Five times a day.

And it is here that you can see the designs the Occupation has for Jerusalem, for Nablus. Here we can see the future. As settlements encircle each ancient Palestinian town, as houses in East Jerusalem are demolished and tunnelled under, as the commercial heart of Nablus is closed down and isolated - this is the fate that awaits all of Palestine. If the world does not come to the rescue.

Today the group split up. We had timed the festival to arrive just after university exams, but because of the assault on Gaza, schools lost three weeks and all exams dates moved forward. So we found ourselves arriving in Palestine right in the middle of finals. But Birzeit and the Arab-American University in Jenin were insistent that we manage something.

So half the group headed to the Birzeit campus and the other half drove up to Jenin.

The road for Palestinians to Jenin, once a direct, single one that took you through Nablus to the plains of the north, is now a winding track that creeps beneath wider, faster, Israeli-only roads that have been cut through the hills. In two hours we passed through four checkpoints . We were pulled over at one. The bus driver warned us all that we should say we had come from Jerusalem if anyone asked. No one did.

In Jenin, we split again, with Ahdaf, Raja, Suad, Suheir, Jamal and Nathalie going to take workshops at AAUJ while Michael Palin and Henning Mankell headed to the Freedom Theatre. After seeing three sketches from a play the students have in development they ran through a series of workshops. The enthusiasm of the students was genuinely exhilirating at times.

Meanwhile, at Birzeit, a morning panel was held with Abdulrazak Gurnah, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Claire Messud and M G Vassanji before the authors split into small workshop groups. The students had chosen the titles themselves and signed up for the classes that ranged from The Role of Fiction in Creating New Political Realities to Guantanamo After Obama.

In the evening we were in the garden of the Sakakini Centre again. This time without any wind issues. And the place was overflowing with people who had come to see Suheir Hammad and the Edward Said Conservatory’s Sama’. For anyone that has seen Suheir perform before you have to click on the video below...

After the drama of yesterday we were well prepared for the potential tranquility of a walk in the Ramallah hills with Raja Shehadeh. We got on the bus and headed through the Wall and Qalandia checkpoint and north to Raja’s house. After a brief introductory talk we took the bus out to middle of a valley – to the start of a walk Raja had chosen that would keep us as out of of sight of the army and the settlements as possible.

The walk was slightly more challenging than people had been expecting – we dropped down into the valley then slowly scrambled up the other side, finally reaching a qasr: a solid16th century stone structure that used to house workers and crops during the summer agricultural months.

We moved back down and through the valley to reach the village where the bus was to pick us up. On reaching the outskirts, we fanned out on to the new tarmac in front of us. But we are quickly called back, behind a barn. An Israeli watchtower looms on the crest of a hill in the distance and we are advised to stay out of its sight.

We had a few problems checking in to the hotel, as seems to happen rather too frequently in Ramallah , but managed it eventually and people headed to the home of Dr. Saleh abd el-jawwad and Islah Jad for drinks in their garden before moving to the Sakakini Centre.

The night’s event was held in the garden of the centre, and though it was a windy at times, it is a wonderful setting. The night passed with an atmosphere of calm and ease that had been so missing in Jerusalem, and as with the combined comedic forces of Michael Palin, Suad Amiry and Carmen Callil it was a night that brought us back to feeling like a literature festival. This night didn’t insist on being dominated by Israel and by occupation. Though they are never far away, just having the choice of when to talk about them felt empowering. Which shows just how totally consuming, mentally, this occupation is.

The team set off for the border from Amman bright and early, having landed at 12.30am the night before.

On arrival at the border, four were held back: Suheir Hammad, Ahmed Ghappour, Robin Yassin-Kassab and Anil Karim Vassanji were kept waiting for a total of five hours (until the border closed) before being allowed in to the country.

The bus arrived in Jerusalem at 5pm, leaving just enough time for a sandwich and a glass of juice before heading out to the Palestinian National Theatre for the opening reception at 6pm.

And at 6.10pm around 15 Israeli soldiers marched in, declared the event over and told everyone to get out. After a few of minutes of protest and confusion the the French Cultural Attaché declared we could move to the French Cultural Insitute – saving the day. And so followed a mass move down the road.

Chairs were hurriedly arranged in the garden of the Institute and a speaker system was set up but we weren’t able to transfer our translation facilities. Which lost us some of our audience. For the first half hour three police vans loitered outside, but they left eventually and left us to get on with the evening. After which it was only really the noise of a passing wedding that interrupted things.

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