Today is Women’s Day. In response to the call by the Director General of UNESCO, I decided, yesterday, to appoint Nahed Abu Toumeh as director for Al Quds Educational Television, for one day. I didn’t realize when I wrote the memo that Nahed would take the issue so seriously. She really got excited, came to work early dressed with a skirt and ready to take on the job very seriously. I was very happy for her and tried to be very supportive. She made decision, called for meetings, invited the press and gave the idea real meaning. Continue Reading »

I left Amman very early to get to Ramallah for some work and a few interviews. My parents in law also wanted to go to Palestine and stay in Jericho. We left Amman at 7:30 and things went smoothly. My father in law, Odeh a Jordanian who lived many years in Jerusalem has a special love for Palestinians who he says are energetic and have an entrepreneurship spirit compared to many Jordanians who he says are lazy. Continue Reading »

The invitation I received from the US embassy was very simple. You are invited to coffee with Senator John Kerry. I looked at the invitation twice to be sure that the name was correct. I was invited to meet with the former presidential candidate.

I arrived at the well guarded US embassy in Amman and was surprised about how quickly I was allowed in as soon as they found out my name which they compared to a list of invitees. They ushered me in without much of search (I walked through a metal detector that seems not to have been on a very high sensitive gauging) and was not even asked to give up my cell phone. Continue Reading »

I start this day with a previously arranged meeting with the former Jordanian foreign minister Marwan Muasher who is now deputy prime minister and minister for administrative affairs. He welcomes me in his huge office in the prime ministry and I can’t help but ask him if in fact he agrees with the description that his ministry is a super ministry as the head of the EU in Jordan describes it. Continue Reading »

Tuesday November 30th   2004

This week was scary and hard on the road. It began when I made a visit to some relatives who live in the old city of Ramallah. I had gone to deliver a package for them from Jordan and to pick up a package intended for a Jerusalem family who they can’t deliver because they  are not allowed into the city which has been annexed by Israel and therefore according to Israeli law Palestinians living outside the city are not allowed to visit it unless they have a permit (which is hard to obtain). Continue Reading »

March 14, 2004

Luxor, Egypt

I have been invited to participated in a US-Arab media conference scheduled to take place in the southern Egyptian historic city of Luxor. The trip from Amman to Cairo on Egypt Air is an early evening flight but from Cairo to Luxor is flight past midnight. At the Cairo Airport I try to use my Jordanian passport to enter Egypt but the passport control officials refuse. They are a little perplexed when I tell them that I have a US passport which gets an automatic visa. I explain to him that I want to enter an Arab country with my Arab passport. He turns me over to the Security official who immediately rejects my request because I don’t have a prior visa and tells me to use my US passport. Continue Reading »

Seoul, South Korea, March 23, 2004

No GSM service, No English

As soon as an outsider arrives in South Korea you notice two things. Barely anyone speaks English and there is no GSM roving signal. Both are simple examples of the recent history of the isolation of South Korea from the rest of the world. This is not because of lack of technological sophistication of this far east country. On the contrary it is one of the more advanced technological countries. Its cell phone system is almost entirely domestic. S. Korea and Japan are the only developed countries that have a non GSM service. The educational system in Korea is also very well developed. High school students study from 8am till 9pm and then go home and study. The rumor in Korea is that High School students rarely get more than four to five hours of sleep. Travel and connections with the rest of the world is also rather new. Koreans were not allowed to travel outside south Korea until 1987. Continue Reading »

It is 8:50 a.m. on Tuesday, November 14, and the phone is ringing off the hook. My cell phone reads 6 missed calls. I must have overslept. I was up late the night before working on the script for a documentary about how Palestinian children and adults are trying to cope emotionally with the violence all around them. The last call on my cell phone is from a colleague, Hania. She is waiting for me in my office. I dress quickly and hurry to the office. I had asked Hania to help with an academic collaboration with a professor from Northern Texas University. The professor had heard me speak on the American National Public Radio about our special television programs aimed at helping traumatized Palestinian children. He had sent me an email saying that he had never heard of research done on people giving emotional support, especially children, while traumas were actually taking place. Usually the trauma in the US is short lived, and the emotional support takes place afterwards.  Continue Reading »