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	<title>Yalla Journal</title>
	<link>http://yallajournal.com</link>
	<description>A Youth Response to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict</description>
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		<title>Something&#8217;s Got to Give</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By Melanie Takefman

Until recently, Israelis could ignore the Occupation. People led normal lives: they drank their coffee and ate breakfast in the mornings, drove their kids to school, worked from 8-5, and went hiking on weekends. People did reserve duty, and some had relatives or friends who were killed in the line of duty or in terror attacks. But a majority, it seems, was able to keep the “conflict” neatly tucked away.
In recent years, something deep inside the Israeli consciousness has begun to rumble. Life is hard, really hard, now. ...]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2012/01/24/somethings-got-to-give/</link>
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		<title>Moment Outside Conflict</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The kids make a huge advance which elicits a loud “Khalas!” from one of the soldiers, and the kids slow down their pace. Two soldiers go up to them now and all of a sudden, they are actually talking. Some young men approach and join in. As if they are all human. And it is almost possible for Anita and me to forget what the military uniforms and guns mean and to see only young people talking to each other. ]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/12/07/moment-outside-conflict/</link>
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		<title>Innocent Bystander</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Standing at a bus stop, the bricks of the Old City hovering on the horizon and a deadly heat radiating off the highway pavement, I boarded a minibus that 20 minutes later had me face to face with the wall – yes, that wall – on the edge of Bethlehem.  Disembarking the vehicle and walking (tentatively) toward the massive structure, complete with rusted barbed wire and ominous towers, I passed through the series of indoor turnstiles and ramps that landed me in a queue line.  I knew these places existed, and equally knew the vitriol-strapped arguments surrounding them: security fence, separation barrier, land grab, open-air prison.  Call it what you will because in this moment, standing in the stark reality of a hot-button issue, I’m not thinking about semantics.]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/11/23/innocent-bystander/</link>
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		<title>Occupied Senses</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Dipping bread, fresh from the oven

Olives, from our garden, pressed to oil

Biting goat cheese

And chilled watermelon

Red, White, Green, and Black

Palestinian evening]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/10/18/occupied-senses-2/</link>
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		<title>Our Jerusalem</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I thought I knew this city.  Countless times in past years I have walked through its narrow alleyways on tired feet, on anxious feet, on feet crowded by the presence of many others.  I have walked here, past these thick limestone blocks on my way to buy a book from the silver-haired clerk, on my way to pray at a wall currently a hopeful remnant of something greater, on my way to read in a quiet corner, unifying text with its origin.]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/10/11/our-jerusalem/</link>
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		<title>Dispersion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am caked and soaked
In the debris of the Diaspora
Its banality hangs off me
Like rusting anchors underwater
Like heavy clothing rack hangars

Monotony lulls and deceives
Ennui engenders apathy
Here in this idyllic paradise
Knowing only the peacetime season
Ticking according to civilization’s clock]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/09/11/dispersion/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>She Holds Her Window</title>
		<description><![CDATA[She will walk on a somewhere
to breathe onto this new flag,
she will bet for a glimpse of your eyes
for this land of senile sensation,
she will turn her back, cover her tracks
to forget her nude body,
she will ask her heart for a moment
for a scene of this walled time,
she will burn slow foreshadow
of the auction of a broken welcome,
she will envy this inbred nation
to embrace her chained son.]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/08/08/she-holds-her-window/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Who Wants to Dance with Bashir?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The recent nomination of the Israeli movie "Waltz with Bashir" for an academy award has sparked much debate about how it depicts Israel to "the goys". The movie is an animated journey into the director, Ari Folman's recovered memory of his experiences as a soldier in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/06/26/dance-bashir/</link>
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		<title>Who Are We Fooling?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I can never find it in me to accept the names Ashkelon, Bersheeba or Ashdod. I still refer to them by their Arab names: Asqalan, Beir al sab’ and Isdud. And however hard I try, I can’t find it in me to feel much sympathy for the civilians who live in these towns.To me, Palestine doesn’t symbolize anything, since I don’t identify with it religiously or ethnically as do most Arabs. But it represents one of the greatest injustices in modern history, not unlike the holocaust.]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/06/06/who-are-we-fooling-2/</link>
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		<title>A Brain&#8217;s Vent: Israel and Palestine</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I used to think I was completely unbiased towards Israel and its affairs. After all, I have lived my whole life in Canada. Although I have been raised as a Jew and a Zionist, my parents are well educated and have taught me to believe that clarity and politics never coexist.]]></description>
		<link>http://yallajournal.com/2011/05/29/a-brains-vent-israel-and-palestine/</link>
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