Just a reminder to all readers to check out my/our new blog, “Fair Policy, Fair Discussion”, which now has five or six posts that are quick takes on what we’ve been doing on our CNI study tour (“political pilgrimage”) around the Middle/Near East.
We’ve now had all the meetings and formal activities of the tour, and it’s been tremendous. We have a group of ten people, self included; and we’ve spent the past 16 days traveling to: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Palestine again (Gaza), and back to Egypt.
I’ve never been a tour director before. This one’s been a lot of hard work but also really rewarding.
Expect a lot more blogging about the tour, over there at FPFD, over the next couple of weeks. Thus far, I’ve had no opportunity to give justice to the immense richness of the experiences and personal encounters that we had.
We had with us a great young videographer, Dominic Musacchio, who’s taken many tens of hours of what looks like great footage. He’ll be making cuts of that over the coming days that we’ll post, or at least link to, on FPFD. We also have still photos that we’ll get up.
One of the focuses of the trip has been, of course, Gaza. Another has been Jerusalem, and the ever-explosive situation there. Another, that emerged over time and was sparked in particular by Dominic’s enthusiasm and the help of our last-minute Jerusalem volunteer Kate Gould, has been getting the views of young people. Dominic has what I think is some great footage from talking with and hanging out with young people in Jordan, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
So anyway, head on over there as soon as you can…