The idea was to go into the office early for 2 radio interviews, and come back to Patricia’s to rest and to get ready for the evening. At 11 am, after 3 radio interviews, we were speeding off to the Al Jazeera offices for a television interview in Arabic. Nira and I watched from the control room, which was VERY exciting while Barbara, Reem and Patricia were interviewed. Their poise and confidence in front of the camera amazes me. The interviewer was trying to provoke a political discussion over Obama’s recent comments on a united Jerusalem for the Jews. Barbara answered : « You are doing just what men do ! You take one phrase and try to pin us down into a confrontation. We have many, many, many disagreements. We are here because we want a better world for our children, and to do that we have to start talking to each other and working for a better future. «  Of course, she said it much better than I do. You must try and read some of her articles.

It is now 12h30, and we race home (Patricia ran every yellow light on the way) and gobble down a pizza (at Reem’s request). Somehow we make it back to the House of Sweden in our evening clothes and ready for the Wall Street Journal interviews followed by the the rehearsal of the performance.

The performance : Thanks to Patricia’s theater connections dating from her playwriting days, she was able to arrange for 5 wonderful Professional actresses to read excerpts from the book, while the corresponding women’s photo was projected on a large screen at the back of the stage. Barbara, Reem and Nira also participated. How it brought to life again the voices of the women that Patricia and I had heard for the first time only a year or 2 ago ! You couldn’t hear a pin drop in the auditorium – everyone, the actresses included, was moved.

The reception and dinner was very festive. Reem was very impressed by the guest list. She hadn’t expected to meet the Ambassador of Egypt and the Chargé d’Affaires of the PLO Mission ! The modern House of Sweden was the perfect venue, and again, beautiful Pat ended her speech with a song. And before we knew it, we were back at home, tired but happy.

At lunch time, we had a box lunch at the office for the staff and some invited guests to meet the women. Everyone was fascinated and moved by Reem’s story. Remember, she is the elementary school principal in Hebron. Her school is situated Inside the checkpoint and adjacent to three especially intransigent Jewish settlements. It’s a military zone. In the past the children were harassed on the way to school. Reem told them never to fight back or to throw stones, but to call for help and take a photo. She would also solicit help from the Israeli authorities whose trust and respect she has gained throughout the years. Today her children feel a little safer.

And then it was off to the mall. Reem had to buy a laptop for her school. It seems the one advantanage of having the school within the ‘Israeli territory’ is the free internet access, unlike in the rest of the city.
Another lovely dinner together at Patricia’s, a discussion of what everyone is wearing to tomorrow, and we were off to get our beauty sleep.

Patricia has invited 2 of the Israeli and 2 of the Palestinian women in the book to come to Washington for the Peace X Peace book launch/annual fundraiser. Nira Lamay, Louise Brody, the book designer, and Reem Alshareef (who is still stuck in Amman) and I are staying at Patricia’s.

Barbara Sofer and Jumana Odeh are staying with friends and family. They joined us for brunch today. Barbara is the recipient of the Search for Common Ground 2008 Eliav Sartawi Award for journalism in the Middle East. And Jumana was awarded the Nobel Prize for Children at the UNICEF House in New York just last week. One of the best parts of working on this book with Patricia was getting to meet such great women. Oh, and Nira heard today that she finished her Masters Law Degree from Northwestern and Tel Aviv with Honours!
The discussion was at times heated – need I say it ? Strong, intelligent, passionate women from both sides of the conflict, each with different experiences, different histories, different realities. But each one let the other speak her truth. And when things got rough, Pat Morris was there to remind us that « we are the ones we have been waiting for ».

I left to the Dead Sea (the Jordanian side) to participate in a retreat for the staff of the Jerusalem Center for Women. I arrived at the Marriott Hotel around 2:00 pm and I stayed in my room until 8:00 pm to finish some work and preparation. Then I talked to Memo and my family and I told them that I’m doing well and I missed them all.

I went to take my dinner with the director of the JWC and then returned back to finish some work. I discovered that Reem Al-Sharif – the Palestinian woman who was interviewed in Sixty Years, Sixty Voices who was supposed to fly to Washington DC this morning for the DC book launch — missed her flight. She will go to the main office in Amman tomorrow to see what she can do, but unfortunately I cannot help because I will be busy tomorrow with the retreat. I hope everything will be O.K and that Reem can make it tomorrow.

Tonight is my last Blog, I have to say that I enjoyed it too much and I felt that I have a special relationship with every woman, and every man and all the people around me and all the people who believe in peace.

Will miss you all but I promise I will be around if you need me
Rula

After that I brought Humos and Falafel with Arabic bread and return back home to prepare the Friday Breakfast for my parents and my sister Rana and myself.

I’m preparing to go to Jordan tomorrow morning. I am going to the Dead Sea for the Jerusalem Center for Women yearly retreat for 4 days. I will return back Wednesday but I will stay in touch and will write my last Blog from the Dead Sea.

By the way, my aunt called today from Canada and she told my other aunt that she saw a piece of news about the 60 Years, 60 Voices in one of the newspapers a few days ago and she wanted to get a copy. I will send her an email to tell her to go to the website to buy one!

So happy that more and more people will be able to see and read our book, and I’m so proud that I was part of the team who did this .Thanks my dear Patricia and want to ask you ONLY one question: What is next after the Book?

We worked from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm at the workshop and then returned back to finish other work , writing reports and collect evaluation forms and see what the participants wrote in the evaluation forms and what they said about the workshop .

Back to the book . . . I got 3 phone calls and 2 emails today, all of them first thanking the Book team for the great work and then asking for copies. I told them that I will leave to Jordan for 4 days to attend the staff retreat with the Jerusalem Center for Women and then next week I will call them and arrange to give them copies of our book.

Today, I was told that my visa to Poland was issued and that I will leave between the 8th of December and the 15th of the same month to visit Poland. Now they are preparing my schedule for the visit and I’m so happy that I will be able to talk on behalf of the Palestinian Women and their needs, I will try to meet with Women Organizations and will address the needs of the Palestinian Women in general.

Thanks GOD , I was able to spend few hours with Memo today.

Tomorrow is Friday, my day off , I need to stay with Memo and I need to help him in Mathematics and I will try to finish few things related to the work. I need to reply to some emails and send few reports to Justvision about my work in the last week.

Other than that, I was working from home. My mother was tired and she needed me next to her, so I decided to work from home all the day. Oh, I forget something important. I met today with the Polish Representative who introduced me to one of his colleague who wants to start a youth exchange project, the meeting was excellent and I enjoyed it very much. By the way, my dear friend — the consulate — brought Sixty Years, Sixty Voices and he has told his colleagues to take it and to have a look at it. We discussed also my visit to Poland that will begin on the 8th of December for one week.

Then, I worked for nearly one hour to prepare some books for different people, various women who were interviewed and books for three universities.  I will prepare more tomorrow .

I feel tired because I didn’t sleep well last night because I was sitting next to my mother all the night, I need to go to bed early. Good Night and GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

When I said earlier that my day was long day , I meant it , because today wasn’t like other days or wasn’t like any usual day. I just returned back — its 10:00 pm Jerusalem time — and I was working, talking and meeting with different people, with different groups and discussing different issues all day.
During the day, it was a workshop about facilitation skills and it was partnership with Justvision and Al-Tareeq , a local Palestinian NGO. In the evening it was screening Encounter Point – a film that was produced by Justvision and then after the film it was a Q&A. I enjoyed it and the questions were so inspiring.

By the way some people that I met today, who have already had the chance to see the booktold me they need more copies . . . and that they’ve told other friends and colleagues about the book who want them too.

I felt today that I did a lot of lovely work, inspiring and fruitful. I enjoyed my day and wish you all the same.

Memo – my son , I missed you today and I know I wasn’t able to spend more than 20 minutes with you , sorry Mama , I will try to finish my work tomorrow earlier than usual and I promise you I will spend all the afternoon with you.

So I met Elana and then ran back to Beit Hanena were I live to pick Memo, my son, from his school.

I get an email from Salwa Hudieb, the Palestinian Deputy Minister of Women. She thanked me for inviting her and said she wasn’t able to attend the Book Launch in Ramallah because she was in New York. She just returned and she asked if I can provide her with three copies of the book, of course my answer will be only one copy for her and another copy for the Ministry of Women.

My aunt came to visit us and she was so happy to see the book and she bought one copy. After taking lunch with my family, I went another time to Ramallah to attend a meeting. This time it was with a Palestinian business man who came to the West Bank from the states and he want to start a youth program and he was told that I could help him with that. It was a good and fruitful meeting.

I returned back home around 7:30 pm and spent some time with Memo before I started a conference call with my colleague at Justvision in the Washington office.

This is all for today, allow me to leave you and to say good night.

Elana sent me an email and asked for more copies of the book and for the copies that Patricia signed for the Israeli Women in the book who were not able to attend our Book Launching in Jerusalem.

So I went to the storage place in the West Bank to get a few boxes (each box contains 10 heavy copies of the book) and I returned back home and was planning to call Elana and take the books to her. . . but really, after the launches and all the work this week, I felt tired and did not have the energy to go.  I sent her an email and told her I will meet her tomorrow.

Good News, I have been working for the last few weeks to finish our registration form with the Palestinian Ministry of Interior  — I mean the registration for the Jerusalem Center for Women – (I was elected last July as the chair person of the board) and today I got all the papers I need to open an account in the bank for the center and to start the real work. Thanks GOD and thanks to all the board members – my colleagues who supported me and who worked with me together to finish all the legal documents.

Tomorrow, Monday, my week will start.  To tell the truth, I don’t want to remember that tomorrow is the beginning of my week . . . I have a lot of work, meetings and preparation for screenings and workshops that I have to prepare and many things that need to be done before Thursday.

Good Night for tonight and God Bless you all.