http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns Observations from the Holy Land and beyond from Robert W. Gee, Middle East correspondent for Cox Newspapers. en-us bgee@coxnews.com 2008-12-19T13:33:09-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Observations from the Holy Land and beyond from Robert W. Gee, Middle East correspondent for Cox Newspapers. The square piece of cotton cloth is folded once to make a triangle and placed over a skullcap, held in place by a doubled black cord of tightly woven black goat hair and sheep’s wool. It is designed to... http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/12/19/a_palestinian_symbol_and_globa.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns The square piece of cotton cloth is folded once to make a triangle and placed over a skullcap, held in place by a doubled black cord of tightly woven black goat hair and sheep’s wool. It is designed to... 9596403@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-12-19T13:33:09-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/12/17/christmas_lights.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns Over the decades, as their numbers have dwindled, Christians have become mostly silent in the din of the conflict over the Holy Land. Even their church bells are often drowned out by electronically amplified Muslim calls to prayer and sirens... 9537003@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-12-17T10:48:13-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/12/12/holy_tomatoes.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns I grew my first garden this year. It turns out the sun, or the soil, which more than one visitor pointed out is holy, worked to my advantage. Or, call it beginner’s luck. I harvested a bumper crop of... 9437603@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-12-12T11:40:57-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/12/09/another_holiday_and_more_good.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns In the land of religious holidays — it seems like someone is celebrating something every other week here — there is one thing that binds together the faithful: food. Don’t let the extra prayers fool you: most holidays in this... 9356003@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-12-09T12:18:49-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/11/20/one_place_two_histories.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns While there was no conclusive archaeological evidence of the second temple, our Israeli guide Amir Cheshin told us, “We know it was there.” There is the western retaining wall — Judaism’s holiest site — and “those boulders over there.”... 8956303@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-11-20T07:49:27-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/11/17/blaming_the_victim.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns Tawfiq Jamal is an Israeli, an Arab and a Muslim. He helped found a community center for coexistence and two Jewish-Arab day care centers in the mixed city of Acre, his hometown. His neighbors are Jews, and for years,... 8879603@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-11-17T15:02:32-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/11/14/who_owns_hummus.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns Greece is to feta as Lebanon is to hummus. Not so fast, says Uzi Ginati, an Israeli hummus gourmand, who has run a popular restaurant in Netanya for the past 21 years that only serves hummus. The Association of... 8832103@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-11-14T13:44:54-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/11/11/my_olive_harvest.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns My olive harvest proceeded this past weekend without incident. I filled a large stainless steel bowl with black olives from the tree outside my office window. A neighborhood orange cat joined me. This contrasted from the experiences of many... 8743303@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-11-11T11:17:26-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/11/09/an_eviction_in_jerusalem.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns The neighborhood was stirring this morning. The Israelis came in the middle of the night, they said, and evicted Fawzieh and Mohammad Kurd. The family has lived in the same home since it was built, legally, in the 1950s.... 8696603@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-11-09T14:11:36-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/11/07/change_they_can_believe_in.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns The buoyancy of Barack Obama’s message has yet to reach these shores. Palestinians and Israelis don’t agree on much, but they echoed each other this week in the wake of Obama’s victory: Change is not likely here. Skeptics all,... 8661503@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-11-07T13:51:56-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/11/04/i_voted_today.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns Six weeks ago, I called the elections office in the county where I’m registered to vote. Voting was simple: Just print out a federal form from the Internet, complete it and drop it in the mail. Wait a couple weeks... 8551003@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-11-04T15:41:45-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/10/30/exit_poll_mccain_in_a_landslid.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns The room was packed this morning. The television cameras were rolling. The first exit poll of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, we were told, was about to be released. And the findings: McCain 76 percent; Obama 24 percent. An... 8424503@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-10-30T12:46:06-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/10/27/like_a_pogrom.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns They came in the middle of the night, like a river of black-clad troops, she said. They smashed the windows, barged through the door and handcuffed the occupants. Then, the bulldozers came and crushed the house. “Like a pogrom,”... 8320703@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-10-27T13:07:47-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/10/24/of_camels_and_pyramids.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns What would the pyramids be without camels? Egyptians were asking themselves just that this week after officials announced that camels would be banned from the Giza pyramid complex — Egypt’s No. 1 tourist attraction — as part of a... 8263403@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-10-24T11:27:32-05:00 http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/entries/2008/10/23/the_rest_of_cairo.html?cxntfid=blogs_olives_thorns Since I was last in Cairo more than four years ago, the city seems in many ways a more difficult place. There are more people and more cars, more grime and more noise — and more desperation. While the mall... 8222903@http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/olivesandthorns/ 2008-10-23T09:49:34-05:00