I meet Shehada at his home early in the morning and we set off with his friend and neighbour, Isa, in the direction of Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city. It should by rights be a half-hour drive: Hebron is

I return to Ramallah from Taybeh, beer and wine in tow, to find Shehada, the Palestinian violin maker from bus 18, waiting for me outside the Al-Wehdeh hotel. He is here to take me to his home in the Old

The most famous section of the Israeli-West Bank separation barrier is also the shortest: the eight feet tall concrete slabs festooned with anti-Zionist graffiti, the vast majority of it written, somewhat tellingly, in languages other than Arabic, make up only

The first thing that strikes you about Jerusalem is its specificity. Tel Aviv could be almost any beachside city in the world. It reminded me of Surfers Paradise, or a toned-down version of Venice Beach, while the guidebooks all seemed to