This is an urgent and repeated appeal to the world to immediately intervene, in light of the recent stories of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian women by Israeli occupation forces during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Palestinian women are being displaced, tortured, killed and forcibly disappeared, while the world sits idle. Silence and inaction in the wake of these horrifying crimes amount to complicity.

Over the past few days, more horrifying testimonies and stories have emerged from Gaza of sadistic acts by Israeli soldiers, including torture, rape, and mass field executions at hospitals where civilians are seeking shelter, medical treatment and refuge.

Palestinian civil society and UN experts have sounded the alarm multiple times and reported cases of rape and sexual violence before and during this genocide. These reports continue to be deliberately and inexcusably ignored, including by prominent and otherwise vocal feminist organizations and figures.

The deafening silence of “Western” feminists and mainstream media in particular is deliberate and inexcusable, as opposed to their earlier outrage over Israeli allegations and misinformation, used to justify this genocide.

Many Palestinian women and girls who are survivors of rape and sexual violence are hesitant to come forward, due to the social stigma in a conservative society and the belief that Israel will not be held accountable for such crimes.

Israel is committing the most horrific war crimes, and weaponizing rape and sexual violence against Palestinians as part of its genocide in Gaza and assault on the Palestinian people as a whole, throughout all of Palestine. This is the result of decades of impunity, preferential treatment and lack of international accountability by the international community. Words are not enough to describe or stop this horror; action is needed.

We conclude this SOS appeal by reminding our sisters and allies around the world that our rights, our dignity, and our humanity are indivisible. Forsaking Palestinian victims now for political convenience would be an unforgivable betrayal to decades of sacrifice and feminist struggle.

We call for:

• The international community must employ all available tools of international accountability, including political and economic sanctions, to bring an immediate and lasting ceasefire and provision of unconditional humanitarian aid.

• States must immediately impose an arms embargo on Israel and honor their moral and legal obligations, including those pronounced in the Genocide Convention.

• States need to investigate and prosecute Israeli soldiers with dual citizenship implicated in these atrocities.

• The Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict must honor her mandate and launch an immediate investigation into the ongoing atrocities.

• Feminists around the world must sound the alarm globally on the unspeakable human rights violations taking place in Gaza, namely the sexual abuse and rape of Palestinian women and girls.

• Journalists and media outlets must do their due diligence in reporting on these stories through fair and unbiased coverage.

Signatories:

1. American Federation of Ramallah Palestine
2. Association of women’s Action
3. AWMR Italia - Donne della Regione Mediterranea
4. Bisan Center for Research and Development
5. Community Development and Media Center
6. Cultura è libertà una campagna per la Palestina
7. Enjaz Foundation for development
8. Filastiniyat
9. Human Rights and Democracy Media Center SHAMS
10. Institute of Women's Studies
11. Not to forget women society
12. Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)
13. Palestinian Women's Action committee
14. Rete Femminista Marche Molto+di194
15. Rural Women Development Society
16. Sinal do Vale
17. Singola
18. Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice
19. The center for defense of liberties and civil rights “Hurryyat”
20. The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH
21. The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development-PWWSD
22. The Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRDMENA)
23. Union of Palestinian Women Committees
24. Wattan media network
25. Women Media and Development
26. Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
27. رابطة المرأة العراقية
28. شبكة المستقبل الديمقراطية العراقية

We, at the Palestinian NGO Forum to Combat Violence against Women and all Arab women’s and rights organizations raise our voices loud and clear on the eve of March 8, to say: “Stop the onslaught and crimes against women and children in Gaza. Stop the crime of genocide, the crime of starvation and forced displacement”. So far, this aggression has resulted in the killing of 31,000 Palestinians, over 70% of whom are women and children. Two women are killed every hour , in addition to many others still under the rubble. There are women whose fate is unknown, after being taken away by occupation forces.

Who will restore normalcy for us Palestinian women after these atrocities?

We have always held activities on March 8. We had a long list of rights we demanded and others we were able to achieve. However today, as the women of Gaza are being annihilated, we stand the length and breadth of our homeland and our Arab nations, angry, in a state of revolution and in deep mourning. Our demand today is to halt the genocide in the Gaza Strip and to halt the reproductive genocide against our women. We declare this day the day of Palestinian women, as they stand hungry in long queues, waiting for insufficient aid, terrified of the skies above them, filled with missiles of death. This is for the women whose bodies are exhausted, in camps for the displaced and in shelter centers, for those raped in prison and for their naked bodies stripped at checkpoints. It is for the menstruating women who cannot find sanitary products and for those with high-risk pregnancies who are starving, displaced and bombed. It is for the women whose wombs may be removed for the simplest of medical complications and those whose privacy has been violated because of overcrowded tents and displacement. It is for the mothers who could die at any moment and for all women whose Palestinianism has crucified humanity at the altar, amid deafening Arab silence, boundless American support and the complicity of several European countries.

Nevertheless, we continue to appreciate all forms of Arab and international support and solidarity with the Palestinian cause, which shows respect for our people’s dignity. Widening this solidarity will further reaffirm the justness of our cause. Hence, we await more action and movements in solidarity of our right to demand an immediate end to the genocide in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem, to forge our way forward towards freedom, self-determination and the establishment of an independent and fully-sovereign Palestinian state.

Today, we Palestinian and Arab women, reaffirm the following on March 8 and every day forward:

- To put pressure on Israel to immediately halt its aggression and to hold its leaders accountable for their crimes in violation of international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention and all international laws and treaties, towards delegitimizing this occupying entity.

- To open the Rafah Crossing and all crossings to allow aid in and the wounded out for treatment

- To dismantle the land corridor linking Israel with some Arab countries supplying it with goods

Long Live Palestinian Women, who stand steadfast and resistant in the face of the Zionist aggression We speak in the voices of Gaza’s women and say:

Halt the genocide…halt the onslaught immediately!

In a recent statement, nearly five months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza, several UN experts confirmed the various reports and testimonies that have been coming from Palestinian women and human rights organizations for months now. In Gaza, women have been kidnapped and forcibly disappeared and placed in dire conditions in undisclosed locations. In the occupied West Bank, released prisoners testified on the horrific realities inside Israeli prisons and the widespread torture and ill-treatment where sexual violence is used as a weapon employed against both women and men. The targeting of women and girls with such atrocious crimes is targeting the most vulnerable, in an attempt to break and degrade the society as a whole.

The inaction and failure of the international community to stop Israeli crimes, namely the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and other heinous crimes all across Palestine for decades now has emboldened Israel to act with impunity. This allows Israel to continue committing horrific crimes against Palestinian women and girls, namely rape and other forms of sexual violence and torture.

The silence of “Western” feminists has also been appalling, given their earlier outrage about unsubstantiated Israeli allegations which were used to justify and commit the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

First and foremost, we demand an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional provision of humanitarian aid. In order to put an end to such heinous crimes and impunity, we reiterate the need for an independent international investigation into all crimes, especially sexual violence, followed by international accountability for the perpetrators.

As you are aware, there is currently a spreading global boycott of Israeli artists and arts establishments which we, as Palestinian artists, have endorsed.

Art, a powerful tool that has influenced the course of history countless times, is not apolitical. Unfortunately in Israeli society art has remained politically apathetic, lamenting Israel's historical and ongoing suffering whilst ignoring Israel's historical and ongoing culpability.

Like all Palestinians, as artists we are subject to the daily humiliation of your barrier-points, the random slaughter of your military actions, the denial of travel by your border police, detention without charge or trial in your prisons, closures and curfews of our cities by your army, continuing theft of property by your "settlers", and , as war refugees, the ongoing refusal to return home by your government. Meanwhile you have enjoyed the opportunity to create, rehearse and perform with relative freedom. We suggest that you utilize this freedom more responsibly. The Israeli government and mainstream press has been unwilling to criticize Zionism as an ideology for Israel. As a result of this, Israeli oppression of the indigenous Muslim, Christian and secular inhabitants of this region has become more and more extreme. We expect that you, as Israeli artists, therefore find the moral courage to research and reflect upon the impact of Israeli Zionism far more critically and directly than you have been willing to do thus far.

Vague sentiments for peace and against war are as useless as a speech by US President Bush on the topic. If you really are dedicated to creating a peaceful, just future, your commentary needs to directly address the way that political Zionism has effected the non-Jewish residents of this land. Evocatively share with your audiences the way Israel has dispossessed us of our property and held us under a brutal military occupation without civil rights for decades. If you do not wish to present this in your artwork, you may consider alternatives such as public statements that support the return of refugees and the end of the occupation, cancellation of your performances whenever occupied Palestinian regions are placed under curfew by your military, and a refusal to do your own annual service within the Israeli military.

It should be obvious to most of you by now that no amount of military force can promise or deliver Zionist domination over this region. Justice, peace and security will require a major shift in Israel's political goals and social conscience- one which recognizes the diversity of peoples inhabiting the region, acknowledges the United Nations Resolutions regarding Israel's duties and obligations, and accepts the damage caused by the quirky nature of Zionism. Such a shift, prompted by boycotts, brought an end to similar oppression in South Africa. As artists you are in a position to lead this shift, but unfortunately your artwork to date has failed to even attempt this. As such your art has become the Israeli government's mute mistress, drawing audiences away from any moral inquiry. So long as you continue to ignore the damage your state is causing therefore, we will continue to endorse the global cultural boycott of your artwork.

As Palestinian artists, we envision a future where every person from this region, regardless of religion or ethnicity, has their culture celebrated, just as it has been in centuries past. To reach this point, we must all enjoy equal civil rights.

Stop denying ours.

Nicholas Rowe, PARA-Culture (Palestinian Artists Resisting Apartheid-Culture)

It was destined to be a difficult meeting.

I had met Yair Vardi only once before, six years earlier in Ankara with Modern Dans Turkey, when he was a visiting choreographer and I was residing as a dancer. We rehearsed together amicably, though my strongest memory of that time remains an unspoken disagreement. "Never let them see your weakness!" he pointed to my hanging stomach in a scene I was performing with a bare torso. The aesthetic beauty of power had impressed him during his own distinguished career with Ballet Rambert in London. I wanted to show my character's heavy exhaustion, but silently edited this idea from the performance and kept my stomach in.

This meeting was going to be a very different one, however. Many things had changed. For three years we had been living less than 40 kilometres from each other; Mr.Vardi in Tel-Aviv directing Israel's premiere dance venue, myself in Ramallah in the Occupied Territories working with Palestinian dancers. Despite this proximity, we had not met again, during the years of the intifada or before.

It was turning out to be one of the hottest days of the Summer, and my shirt was thick with sweat when I entered the air conditioned offices of the Suzanne Delal Centre for Theatre and Dance. "Is Mr. Vardi in?" I asked a young man sitting at the front desk. "Who shall I say wishes to speak with him?" he smiled back with the effete enthusiasm of a part-time dance student. "Nicholas Rowe" "From?" "Ramallah." His chin raised momentarily as though waiting for the punch-line, then pulled in as he turned and moved wordlessly to the back of the office.

The clerk returned a moment later still smiling and asked me to sit and wait for two minutes. The settee in the foyer was very low, soft and suggested a lot of familiarity, so I thanked him but remained standing. He then indicated towards the water cooler and offered some water, which I gratefully drank from. The beating sun had burnt the back of my neck and left a dull ache in my forehead.

A few moments later I was told that I could come through, and Yair Vardi met me half way between his office and the reception hall. He extended his hand and asked "Nicholas?" "Yes, thank you for meeting with me. I don't know if you remember, we met once before, with MDT in Turkey, a few years ago." "With Beyhan's group?" "Yes." "That's right, you were the Australian dancer." He smiled. We were winding our way towards his office in the back. He was a little bit shorter than I had remembered him, and his complexion a darker, but he retained the wiry muscular stature of a life-long dancer. "Where are you now? Still in Turkey?" "No, In Ramallah." He paused and looked at me. Perhaps the desk clerk had thought it was a joke after all and decided not to mentioned it. "Ramallah?" "Yes." "There is dancing in Ramallah?" "Not so much these days." "My god! Was it hard to get here from there?" "Some three hours. Most of it at the military barriers." "They must hate us for this. Do they hate us up there? I can understand them for hating us." "Well, there's a lot of indignation, that's for sure." We had reached his office, he moved behind his desk, and we both sat down. "Thank you for seeing me on the spot like this. We never know which days your army will let us out of our houses."

He had swayed sideways in the chair, and his clasped hands pressed two index fingers against his lips. "But what are you doing in Ramallah?" Even with a pleasant tone, an Israeli accent with this question carried the echo of suspicious border police. "I've been there a few years now," I said, staring down at Mr. Vardi's desk. "I came to help set up the Palestine National Academy of Dance, but that's on hold since the intifada began. Now I work mostly in the refugee camps, running an arts relief program for children." "But there was dancing there before?" he was leaning back deeply in his chair and eyeing me sideways, his voice curious and incredulous. "Yes, I mainly worked with two groups, who are both trying to evolve a modern... "Men and women dancers?" "Yes, it's mostly an even split, and they are developing their folk dance into-" "Ahhh, folk dance." He visibly relaxed with this information and swung his chair to face me. "Yes, but they have been working for some years on developing a modern dance style based on Palestinian folk dance." "I would be very interested to see the folk dances." He nodded.

We stopped talking for a moment, his pause suggesting that this would be the time to bring up the reason for our meeting. I had been clutching a clumsy plastic bag since Ramallah, empty but for a magazine and an empty water bottle, and I shuffled with it under the table.

"I hear that you are hosting an international dance festival at the moment..." "Mostly not so international this year, not so many groups from abroad want to risk the security situation, all these bombings, and so on." He sighed, then added quickly "Not that I blame them for not coming." I nodded with him, and went on, "Well, from any of the groups performing, has there been any work that expresses criticism of the Israeli government's action in the Occupied Territories?"

Mr. Vardi stiffened a little in his chair, and paused. "Most of the artists here are just struggling hard to put shows together. The economy is terrible. You see this building around us, this centre, it is very nice, but we are really struggling just to hold it all together, financially. You know we are going through a very difficult time here as well, with the security, economically..."

"Yes, I can imagine." I tentatively placed one hand on his desk. "But your military is currently violating a lot of international laws. Millions of people are suffering terribly because of this, very nearby. Are any dancers here reflecting this?"

Mr.Vardi leant forward and ran his fore finger across the desk "Well, I'm sure that there are many artists who feel very critical of the current government. As director of the Suzanne Delal Centre, I am not in a position to give my opinions on this, there are many people -funders, governing boards- that I must answer to. So I can't present political opinions from this position. I can tell you that we all feel very sad every time innocent people are killed, on either side."

He swung his chair sideways again and winced at me through the corners of his eyes, suggesting that if I was just coming down to complain about the political situation and maybe get a response from him, that was it. Leaning forward, I opened the plastic bag below the table and withdrew the magazine.

"Actually, the reason I wanted to come and see you is not particularly pleasant." I lifted the magazine and moved it forward, hoping that he might recognise it and understand everything. He showed no recognition however, so I went on. "I have been helping to co-ordinate the international cultural boycott of Israeli artists and arts establishments, like the Suzanne Delal Centre. I wanted to come to you and explain why."

Yair Vardi's face did not move, but he kept me in his gaze, which I intermittently tried to return. I placed the magazine awkwardly onto his desk. "This is a copy of the June Issue of Dance Europe. In it there is an article I wrote which includes some interviews with Arab artists from around the region, discussing the boycott. It basically analyses why the boycott exists and what it hopes to achieve."

He leant forward across the desk and pulled the magazine towards him, turning it around. Frowning as he stared hard at it, he said softly "I haven't seen this magazine." As he flicked through the pages I moved forward and gently pointed towards the index and the page number of the article. We each mumbled some directions into the magazine as we scanned for the page, a brief respite as Mr. Vardi absorbed the confrontational nature of our meeting. Opening the article, with it's four boxed interviews, he leant back deeply into his chair and began to read it.

He looked up after a moment "There are no Israeli artists interviewed here. That's hardly fair?" It came out as a question, and his eyes looked over the pages at me, awaiting a response.

"Well, I did try to find an Israeli dance artist who was willing to criticize Zionism, but none were willing to-" "No, none would." "Precisely, and I didn't want to get bogged down on a debate over Zionism. This colonial idea- coming and setting up a state for just one group of people, pushing the rest out -it doesn't really interest me." Mr.Vardi continued to look at me impassively, so I went on. "What I did want to do...what I wanted to keep the discussion focused on, is- what should be done about it? How do we stop this colonizing, these settlements, and solve the problems this segregation has caused."

"But not even giving the other side a chance to speak..." He left the sentence hanging.

"I don't think that every time a Palestinian speaks about something, fairness demands that an Israeli must also be heard. A Palestinian opinion is valid on it's own, just as an African voice is valid without a European one to counter it. But more importantly, I wanted to look for an answer. Sometimes presenting two polarized opinions in a magazine article just makes the problem seem unsolvable." "And you think a boycott is the best solution?" he asked, his head hanging to the side doubtfully. "Well, you know how Arabs are often shown in the media, only using terrorism to get what they want..." He did not register this either way, so I went on. "This boycott is an example of non-violent protest that Arabs have been supporting for years. That, on it's own, I thought deserved attention."

He returned his gaze to the magazine and scanned a bit further. "You don't really say here what you want to achieve with this boycott." His manner was disarmingly patient, that of a school-master examining a student's homework. "I don't really see how stopping communication through the arts is at all helpful."

"The problem is that Israeli art itself is not currently helpful. It would be great if some protest art was happening, but Israeli artists have been a mute mistress for their government for too long. Keeping everyone entertained and not questioning the occupation, the refugees-"

"So you want only political art?" He countered.

"If artists don't want to create political work, they can always make public statements, supporting the Palestinian refugees and a military withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. They can cancel their shows in solidarity whenever Palestinian cities are placed under curfew. At the very least they can refuse to do the annual military service that they all do for the occupying army. So far however, none have."

"That's a little harsh." Mr. Vardi pulled his chin back reproachfully. "People here do care, you know. There are many Israeli dance pieces that express a lot of support for peace." "Yes, like Rami Be'er's Aide Memoire." I suggested. Mr. Vardi's eyebrows raised and he nodded to agree that this was a worthy example. "It's very popular, all over the world, a lamentation of war. I first saw it in Finland, of all places. Unfortunately, it doesn't at any point admit that the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company created and rehearsed the work in studios they had built over a Palestinian village, once the local population had been cleansed away. The exiled families are still alive, still living in a refugee camp in Lebanon and still want to return to their land. But despite international law, Israel and Kibbutz Ga'aton and even Rami Be'er do not want to let them back. Aide Memoire became a little hollow for me after that." Mr. Vardi breathed slowly and looked up at the ceiling before returning back to me. "These are very complicated issues-" "And so they need to be addressed, not ignored." "Yes, and co-operation through the arts can help bring these problems forward," he went on patiently. "It would be wonderful if we could have more artistic collaboration with the Palestinians, not less." He kept the article open on the desk and drew back from me, satisfied with this point.

"Of course it would. Palestinian and Israeli artists can gain a lot from each other. Only some sort of racist would doubt that, or need that proven. But when a soldier and prisoner dance together, you can't call it a collaboration. That's just something to help the soldier sleep better at night. After any show now, the Israeli will return to their home, well-watered garden and military duty, and the Palestinian will be returned to their refugee camp, communal well and military rule."

Yair Vardi furrowed his brow. Perhaps he had heard it all before. "I still don't see how having no communication at all is going to help. What do we do then? Just keep bombing each other instead?"

I leant forward and touched the edge of the magazine, shaping the corners of it's pages. To my left was a collage of photos of Mr. Vardi with his wife and child. They were very casual, personal photos, from birthdays and holidays and home-life. Between the photos and Mr. Vardi sat his computer screen, and it seemed that he would have to come to my side of the desk to see them.

"There is a middle path. Just because we aren't dancing together doesn't mean we can't talk." I looked back at him, wondering how to ever convince him. "Cultural exchange is very normal -but military occupation, home demolitions, deportations, ethnic cleansing- these things aren't. So we have to solve them first. One step forward would be for you, as Israeli artists, to start reflecting these injustices on stage. At least then rest of the world would be able to distinguish you from the problem."

Mr. Vardi took me fully in his gaze, which was very patient yet commanding.

"The Suzanne Delal Centre is reliant on government funding, and one of our guidelines is that we don't get involved in politics. We can not hold political meetings here. We are here to create art for the Israeli people, that's it. Do you want us to just destroy everything we have worked for? What would that achieve?"

He asked the question calmly, and the calmness of our meeting was becoming disquieting. I did not know if it was age, apathy, confidence or just the heat of the day that allowed Mr. Vardi to remain so listless. If he felt any fury or indignation at my charges, he gave no energy to expressing it. Let him rant then leave, I could see him thinking. I looked around his office and felt overwhelmed by how undisturbed it seemed. The walls were covered with posters of Israeli modern dance shows and past festivals, whilst the art centre where I worked had been trashed and looted on a whim by Israeli soldiers. This power imbalance made it so easy for us to slip into the roles of patient father and the zealous son. Did I have to drag him to Ramallah for him to see it? Would even that make a difference?

"These times demand some moral courage!" I breathed out hard. "If the Israeli media and government are not willing to question the morality of Zionism, your artists need to start posing some political questions that-"

"Any Israeli dancer that starts to get involved in political issues will lose their funding and not get to show their work anywhere." He replied, as though I seemed to have missed the point.

"It's not an easy situation." I looked at the dance posters around his office once more. All composed of beautiful bodies and innovative shapes, each trying to stand out more than the other. "I empathize with Israeli artists facing this problem. Really I do. No dancer or choreographer in the world would really want to have to deal with this, everybody just wants to get on with their art. But this military occupation is forcing us all to make sacrifices. For two years nobody in the Occupied Territories, myself included, has been able to choreograph or perform, because of the siege."

Perhaps out of pity at my impotent passion, he leant forward and tried to sound optimistic for the first time. "Maybe there is one possibility. We could arrange for a group of Palestinians, artists, students, whoever, to come down to the Suzanne Delal Centre to see a dance show, for free of course. It would be difficult, but we might be able to arrange it."

I felt very puzzled as I looked at him "And how would they get here? It took me four hours, and I have a foreign passport. They wouldn't be allowed past the first check points."

Feeling more comfortable, he waved his hand at this idea. "That would take some organizing, but I'm sure we could arrange some sort of bus and a pass from the military and..."

"It sort of misses the point though, doesn't it?" I cut in. He did not move, so I went on. "No Palestinian is going to want to do this. Be given "special permission" to allow them to leave their homes? For the privilege of being able to see an Israeli dance performance? To then be happily returned back through the curfew by Israeli soldiers?"

I thought of how Khaled Qatamish, the director of the El-Funoun dance troupe, would laugh at this. A month earlier he had received a knock on the door in the middle of the night. Before he knew what was happening he had been dragged in his pyjamas to the street and was being beaten by Israeli soldiers. Then, as his children and wife watched from the window, he was held in front and used as a human shield by the Israeli combat unit, as they moved on a house to house search. And of Omar Barghouti, a choreographer with the same company, whose home had been destroyed by a missile from an Israeli tank, and then, a year later, his new apartment had been filled with Israeli soldiers wanting to remove him and his young family and use it as sleeping quarters. And of Khaled Elayan, director of the Sariat Ramallah, who had only just been released from an Israeli prison after three months without charge or trial. Almost every male Palestinian dancer I could think of had, at some point, been imprisoned and tortured.

I looked back at Mr. Vardi, who still considered the idea in a positive light. "Some of them may be happy to come down here, but to tell you about human right's violations in the Occupied Territories, not to sit and admire Israeli art."

"Well, there could be some sort of after-show discussions between the artists, in which individuals could talk about different things. Very informal of course, we could not say that this will be any sort of Israeli/Palestinian meeting, but maybe, between themselves, after the show the artists might discuss things."

"There will be plenty of time for artistic meetings once we have sorted out the political inequality. This boycott is being taken to prompt political action from you, as Israeli citizens and artists."

"But we would lose all our funding if we did this!" At last his exasperation was beginning to show as his words became more punctuated. He did not want to have to repeat this last concept. "We would end up in Israel with no art at all, or only art from very pro-government artists."

"And perhaps that would be better." I leant back into my chair, breathed deeply and tried to think of how this idea could possibly be palatable to Mr. Vardi. "Sometimes I argue with people in the Occupied Territories who support the suicide bombings. One of the reasons they give is that these bombs at least make Israel remember it is holding millions of Palestinians under military rule in two large prisons called Gaza and the West Bank. They know of the wonderful concerts and shows you enjoy from abroad, the way you tour your shows internationally, and yet you don't even let them travel to the next town to visit a sick mother, let alone have a cultural life. Then you each join the army once a year, but pretend you are not part of the problem."

It seemed I had traveled into sacred area by attempting to justify the suicide bombings, as Mr. Vardi's face stiffened. I waved my hand vaguely and tried to return to my original point, to why I had come down here. "Hence, this boycott. Disrupting your cultural life is a non-violent way of gaining your attention. When international artists boycott you, they are at least acknowledging the abnormality of this situation. This takes the despair out of the Palestinians and prompts you, we hope, into some sort of moral inquiry."

Mr. Vardi closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows, and nodded slowly.

"Actually, one of the good things, possibly the only good thing, to come out of this situation is that more Israeli work is being created, and more audiences are coming to see home grown talent, because there is nothing else for them to see. So local choreography is going through something of a renaissance." Any empathy that Mr. Vardi might have had was ebbing away, and as he stood his stomach drew in and his chest swelled with resilience. The meeting was obviously drawing to a close.

"Well, if any of them want to learn about the situation..." I stood sadly, the empty water bottle sagging lightly in the plastic bag. "I would like to meet with them and introduce them to-"

"For political meetings, we can't help, but for something artistic like seeing a performance in the festival, that might be possible." He jotted down my phone number and email address for reference, but it was perfunctory.

"So long as you know that Palestinians artists are ready to talk about the problem, even if Israeli ones are not yet." I looked at him and this time his eyes moved down and away. As we wordlessly made our way to the foyer, Mr. Vardi's secretary beamed up at me, oblivious to the nature of our meeting. We bid farewell without any expectations, and I stepped back out into the searing heat of Tel-Aviv.

The journey up to West Jerusalem was uneventful. Stretched out across two seats, the air-conditioned Israeli bus made me forget about the sun again for forty-five minutes. Walking across to East Jerusalem through the old city was a disconcerting shock however, as though stepping out of a bubble into a much denser world. Within a minute crowds were pressing from all sides and noise accelerated. I soon found myself wedged into a stuffy minivan with a dozen others Palestinians desperate to get home before curfew.

At the first military barrier the Israeli soldiers showed no interest in checking ID, so we sped through. Then somebody said Ramallah had been closed early, which set of a babble of sighs, curses and mobile phone calls. The next barrier, at the Qalandia refugee camp, was imbedded in traffic. Palestinian workers stood in several lengthy and haphazard cues between concrete blocks and barbed wire, their shoulders hunched as they shuffled along beneath the gun towers. I joined one line, and felt very thirsty as my head seemed to press against the afternoon sun.

After 35 minutes I reached the shaded desk surrounded by Israeli soldiers. A blonde adolescent girl in heavy combat gear curiously thumbed through my Australian passport and passed it over to two of her colleagues, pointing at the emblem on the cover and squealing "Kangaroo!". Slouching under the weight of their M16's, they smiled at it. Looking up at me, one said "Why are you here? Australia is so beautiful!" then looked away. "So, where are you going now?" The female soldier asked, still smiling. One minute before she had barked "Go back! Go back!" in poor Arabic to an elderly Palestinian man. "To Ramallah." "Ramallah is closed now." She replied simply, as though it were a supermarket. "Nobody can go in to Ramallah." "Then I'll stay the night in Semiramis." I lied, referring to an urban area before Ramallah. "But what are you doing in Ramallah?" she pressed on, curiously. "That's where I live...With my wife." "She is Palestinian?" "Yes." "You met her here?" Holding my passport and a gun, she managed to ask this with a cocktail-party tone. "Yes." "So, why did you come here?" "So, why did you come here?" I sighed and smiled, trying to parrot her pleasantness. "I was born here!" she snapped, as though suddenly joining the chorus of a patriotic song. She asked the question again, this time as an Israeli officer "So, why did you come here?" "Don't know," I shrugged. To hell with it, I thought. I'll sleep in a ditch if I need to. But then she flicked her wrist to indicate I should move on, and listlessly called for the next in line.

From Qalandia I traveled in another crowded minivan to Semiramis. The sun was now low in the sky and one of the last passengers to disembark explained the safest route to Ramallah. I set off on foot across the hard stony hills, swinging the bag with the empty plastic water bottle and enjoying the pink hue on the small white cliffs. After an hour I reached the centre of town, which was deserted with all the shops shuttered. The sun had gone down, the moon had come up, and from one intersection I could look over dark hills south to the lights of Jerusalem and east to the lights of Jaffa. I snuck along side streets to avoid the patrolling jeeps and tanks, until reaching home.

My wife sniffled as I kissed her. She explained that her nose was still running from a tear gas canister that an Israeli patrol had lobbed outside a bookstore earlier in the day. In the background, President George Bush's neolithic gaze pressed out of the television set. She turned up the volume to see if he was explaining why Iraq needed bombing, but CNN were instead running an oddball story on how he is the healthiest president in US history. As he strutted across the Whitehouse lawn, his physical-workout regime was described. Urging young people across America to exercise more, his taut stomach and thick arms helped define for them the aesthetic beauty of power.