Strange Birds above Abu Dis

East Jerusalem [17 April]--It is a disturbing indication of my acclimation to the militarization of everyday life here that when a group of Apache helicopters began bearing down overhead in a closed village where no one is allowed to be on the streets, what first came to my mind were Lauri Anderson lyrics and second, whether there are batteries in my camera. Then, of course, the fact that i may soon be under aerial rocket attack establishes itself as a reality and yet, something about the obscenity of it all and knowing that this is hardly surprising to the people we are interviewing, seems to block any sense of real fear.

Fortunately, they did not bombard us and the journalists I was translating for agreed we should continue on into the center of the town. About an hour later I received my second dose of teargas within 12 hours, having been at the access road to another closed village in East Jerusalem in the middle of the night, where some inexperienced soldiers quickly reached their limits in a relatively non-aggressive confrontation by Palestinians who had been waiting for over 14 hours to get to their homes.

The situation in East Jerusalem is becoming quite tense. The invasion in Abu Dis, the 400 year old hilltop village I was in this afternoon, is part of a broader strategy to bring the war here into everybody's holy city, while across the Green Line, Israelis were treated to fireworks and concerts in commemoration of their Independence Day. Sharon may be flaunting plans for withdrawal to the international media hungry for "the latest developments," however the reality here is clearly not withdrawal but rather, a rearrangment of where the tanks and gunmen are located.

As the blockaded workers last night sarcastically pointed out, their village, `Isawiya, is now Camp `Isawiya, in the tradition of Israeli forces rustling 10,000 people out of their homes like cattle, under the guise of searching for one lone "terrorist" while media and human rights workers are prevented entry as the soldiers loot and bulldoze.