How to Interview a Palestinian Nonviolence Activist: A Traveler’s Field Guide

✈️ The First Ten Minutes Changed Everything

I sat on a low wooden stool in Abu Karsh’s courtyard in Beit Sahour, just east of Bethlehem, hands wrapped around a chipped ceramic cup of cardamom coffee that smelled sharp and earthy. Sunlight fell across his weathered hands as he folded a single sheet of paper into a crane—slow, deliberate folds—then placed it gently on the table between us. Interviewing a Palestinian nonviolence activist like Abu Karsh isn’t about extracting soundbites; it’s about learning how to listen in real time, with your whole body. That first ten minutes—no recording yet, no notebook open—wasn’t protocol. It was practice. He’d told me earlier: ‘If you come with a list, you’ll hear only what fits the list.’ I’d flown to Amman, taken a shared taxi to Jerusalem, then walked the last 4.2 kilometers down Wadi al-Nasara, past olive groves and stone walls patched with graffiti and dried jasmine vines, all to sit here—not to document, but to witness. This is how to interview a Palestinian nonviolence activist: not as a journalist on deadline, but as a traveler willing to recalibrate pace, expectation, and silence.

🌍 The Setup: Why This Trip Happened

Three months earlier, I’d been editing a piece on grassroots peace initiatives in conflict-affected regions when a footnote caught my eye: a reference to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)’s early documentation of nonviolent resistance in the South Hebron Hills 1. Then came Abu Karsh’s name—mentioned not in headlines, but in a 2019 oral history archive hosted by Birzeit University’s Center for Continuing Education 2. His work wasn’t tied to any single organization. He taught conflict transformation through storytelling, ran youth workshops using puppetry and local folklore, and coordinated weekly olive harvest accompaniment with international volunteers. Nothing flashy. No press releases. Just persistent, localized action.

I booked a flight to Amman not as a reporter, but as someone who’d spent years writing about budget travel—and realized I’d never written about travel that required more than good hostel hacks or bus schedules. This trip demanded different preparation: understanding movement restrictions, verifying entry protocols for Jordanian visa holders crossing into the West Bank, studying local norms around hospitality and time, and learning enough Arabic greetings to avoid starting every conversation with an apology for my accent. My backpack held a solar charger, two notebooks (one lined, one blank for sketches), and a small bag of dates from a shop near the Roman Theatre in Amman—intended as a gift, not a transaction.

🗺️ The Turning Point: When the Map Failed

The turning point arrived not at a checkpoint, but at a roundabout in central Bethlehem. My navigation app froze mid-turn, rerouting me toward a road marked ‘Closed’ on a faded blue sign—no explanation, no alternate path suggested. A young man selling sesame rolls from a bicycle cart paused, wiped flour from his wrist, and pointed toward a narrow alley behind the Church of the Nativity’s eastern gate. ‘Abu Karsh? He doesn’t live where maps say,’ he said, smiling faintly. ‘He lives where people remember him.’

That moment exposed a quiet truth: digital tools optimize for efficiency, not relational geography. In places where addresses are often described by landmarks (‘next to the fig tree’, ‘past the blacksmith’s door’, ‘where the old school bell used to ring’), precision becomes secondary to presence. I’d relied on GPS, but what I needed was orientation through memory—through people. When I finally found the courtyard, it wasn’t because I’d followed coordinates. It was because a woman sweeping her threshold recognized my hesitant pause, nodded toward a stone archway draped in bougainvillea, and said, ‘He’s waiting. He knew you’d arrive late. Time here bends.’

The conflict wasn’t logistical—it was epistemological. My training as a travel writer had taught me to prioritize speed, accuracy, and replicability. But here, reliability meant showing up consistently—not just once, but over days—learning names, accepting tea without asking why it took twenty minutes to pour, noticing how light shifted across the same wall at dawn versus dusk. What went wrong wasn’t the plan. It was the assumption that planning alone could carry me there.

🤝 The Discovery: Not a Monologue, but a Dialogue

Abu Karsh didn’t speak in soundbites. He spoke in layers—first in Arabic, then translated by his daughter Layla, who joined us on day two after finishing her shift at the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Ramallah. Their translation wasn’t word-for-word. It was interpretive: softening certain phrases, adding context where direct equivalents failed, pausing when a concept—like sumud (steadfastness)—carried weight no English term fully captured.

We met three times over five days. Each session began the same way: shared coffee, a question posed not to elicit an answer, but to open space. On day one, he asked me, ‘What did you leave behind to come here?’ Not ‘Where are you from?’ Not ‘What do you write about?’ But what I’d set aside—comfort, certainty, control—to be present. I admitted I’d left behind my usual rhythm: the dopamine hit of ticking off itinerary items, the reassurance of confirmed bookings, the illusion of full autonomy. He nodded. ‘Good. Now you’re ready to see.’

Sensory details anchored each visit. The smell of woodsmoke from the clay oven where flatbread puffed and blistered. The rasp of his voice when he sang fragments of a mawwal—a traditional vocal improvisation—while sketching protest routes on scrap paper. The cool weight of a smooth river stone he handed me on day three, saying, ‘This is from Wadi Fukin. We carried these stones during the 2014 land defense. Not to throw—but to hold. To remember weight.’ I kept it in my pocket for the rest of the trip.

I learned that nonviolent activism here isn’t defined by absence of violence, but by presence of alternatives: alternative economies (cooperative olive oil presses), alternative education (story circles instead of textbooks), alternative archives (oral histories recorded on analog tape, stored in basements). One afternoon, Layla showed me a ledger—handwritten, bound in leather—listing every international volunteer who’d stayed with them since 2007. Not names only. Next to each: their skill (‘taught carpentry’, ‘translated poetry’, ‘fixed the rainwater tank’), duration, and one line describing what they took home: ‘Learned how to wait without wasting time.’ ‘Saw how laughter builds walls stronger than cement.’

🚌 The Journey Continues: Beyond the Interview

Leaving wasn’t clean. I’d planned to stay four days. I stayed six. On day five, Abu Karsh invited me to accompany a group of high school students from Dheisheh refugee camp to Al-Khader village for a joint planting day. We traveled by shared van—no schedule, just a driver who knew the route by the rhythm of potholes and the shade patterns on the asphalt. Inside, students passed around a thermos of mint tea, debated whether to plant almond or carob saplings, and corrected my Arabic pronunciation with gentle teasing.

At the site—a terraced plot reclaimed from rubble—we worked side-by-side: digging, placing roots, tamping soil. No speeches. No cameras. Just sweat, shared gloves, and the quiet satisfaction of physical labor rooted in continuity. A boy named Tariq, sixteen, showed me how to wrap young stems in recycled plastic to deter pests. ‘Not perfect,’ he said, holding up a slightly twisted strip, ‘but it works until we find something better.’

This wasn’t ‘voluntourism’. There were no certificates, no photo ops, no curated outcomes. It was participation governed by consent, reciprocity, and humility. I contributed soil, not solutions. I asked questions only after doing the work. And when I finally recorded our formal conversation—on a simple voice memo app, with permission—I did so only after we’d already spent hours together without devices. The recording lasted 47 minutes. The real interview lasted 132 hours.

💡 Reflection: What This Experience Taught Me About Travel and Myself

I used to think ‘deep travel’ meant going far—remote islands, high-altitude villages, places with minimal infrastructure. This trip taught me depth isn’t measured in kilometers, but in thresholds crossed: the threshold between observer and participant, between curiosity and commitment, between taking and receiving. Budget travel, I realized, isn’t just about saving money. It’s about allocating resources wisely—including time, attention, and emotional bandwidth. Staying longer cost more in lodging, yes—but saved immeasurably in missteps, misunderstandings, and missed nuance.

I also confronted my own privilege—not abstractly, but concretely: the ease with which I could cross borders others couldn’t, the safety net of consular support, the unspoken assumption that my presence was neutral rather than political. Abu Karsh never asked me to ‘take sides’. He asked me to see sides: the side of the farmer whose land was declared ‘state land’ overnight, the side of the soldier enforcing orders he didn’t write, the side of the teacher adapting curriculum under siege. Nonviolence, he explained, isn’t passive. It’s active witnessing—holding multiple truths without collapsing them into a single narrative.

Most unexpectedly, I learned that ethical travel isn’t about perfection. It’s about repair. When I mispronounced a place name, I apologized and repeated it. When I asked a clumsy question, I listened closely to the correction—not just the words, but the pause before them. When I felt overwhelmed, I sat quietly instead of filling silence with chatter. These weren’t grand gestures. They were daily practices of accountability—small repairs in real time.

📝 Practical Takeaways: What Readers Can Apply to Their Own Travels

Language matters—not just for utility, but for posture. Learning five key Arabic phrases (marhaban, shukran, min fadlik, ma3lesh, izzayyak?) signals respect before you utter a word about politics or purpose. Don’t aim for fluency. Aim for humility in attempt.

Photography requires explicit, ongoing consent—not a one-time yes. I carried printed photos from previous trips to share—not as proof of credibility, but as invitation to reciprocity. When Abu Karsh declined to be photographed, I put my camera away and sketched instead. That sketch, later gifted to him, became part of a community mural in Beit Sahour’s youth center.

Accommodation choices carry weight. I stayed with a family-run guesthouse in Beit Jala, booked directly via email (not third-party platforms), paying in cash upon arrival. Rates were transparent, meals included, and income stayed local. Hosts appreciated advance notice—not for ‘special treatment’, but to coordinate cooking and space respectfully.

Finally: budget constraints shape ethics. Choosing cheaper transport (shared vans over private cars) or simpler meals (home-cooked over restaurant) isn’t just economical—it often deepens access. Drivers, shopkeepers, and neighbors become interlocutors, not background scenery.

🌅 Conclusion: How This Trip Changed My Perspective

I returned home with fewer photos and more questions. My notes contained more silences than quotes—spaces marked ‘pause here’, ‘listen again’, ‘what’s unsaid?’ The biggest shift wasn’t in what I wrote, but in how I listened: slower, lower, less eager to resolve. Travel, I now understand, isn’t about arriving at answers. It’s about cultivating the capacity to hold complexity without rushing to simplify. Abu Karsh’s work endures not because it made headlines, but because it made space—space for grief, for memory, for stubborn joy. That space, I learned, is the most essential terrain any traveler can navigate.

❓ FAQs: Practical Questions After Reading