:D Sorry guys! I fully realized that it has been a long time since my last post. I'm not going to bombard you with apologies or excuses, but it has been a very eventful time away from the blog. I almost don't even know where to pick up from because so much has occurred. But me sitting here blabbing about how much has been going on isn't going to help either, so I'm going to try my best to cover as much as possible while still remembering that you probably do not want to read my experiences for the rest of your lives (I will try my best to keep it short and sweet). Currently I am aboard a bus to New York City to visit a friend who is in a similar program to The Washington Center at New York University so I will have plenty of time to gather my thoughts. By the way, travel between these two cities is relatively cheap (I a round trip ticket for about $40) so if you are ever in DC you should think about traveling to other major cities.
  

Israel-Palestinian Conflict:

I have been spending a great deal of time while I've been in DC working around this issue. It all started with a seminar that we had for the International Affairs Program at TWC that was focused on the conflict. From there, one of the program advisors was trying to organize an advocacy group to go and speak to members of Congress about proposing a two-state solution to the conflict. In case you are not familiar with the conflict (and I don't at all seek to demean your intelligence), Wikipedia actually gives a decent summary of the conflict. Now, I do not condone using Wikipedia for any other purposes outside of a wide, general perspective on an issue, but it will work for just a basic overview. Anyway, I am going to be taking part in this opportunity along with a handful of other talented interns from The Washington Center. We are going to get started with this project pretty soon, but in the meantime, I have also participated in some other events focused on the conflict.

One night, we had the opportunity to host a group of Israeli students at The Washington Center headquarters. A couple of people from The Washington Center participated in an intense dialogue with the Israeli students. We also had a Palestinian participating on behalf of TWC so it was very interesting. Needless to say, with the Israeli students being so close to the conflict and with fighting and debate occurring right in their backyards, they were extremely emotionally tied to the conflict. Mostly everyone had a lot to contribute to the discussion. Although minds might not have been changed, it definitely opened my eyes to the reasons why the Israeli public might support an idea that is deemed unnecessarily stubborn by the international community, namely the settlements in Jerusalem and other issues "halting the peace process." After the discussion, none of us wanted to go home. We had all listened to each other politically, so now we wanted the opportunity to personally get to know each other. We went to this bar in the Dupont Circle area and enjoyed some drinks (and cigarettes for everyone that was from the Middle East). All in all, it was a GREAT night!

TWC students with our new Israeli friends! Great night!
 

Professor Josef Olmert

All the way from a predominant family in Israel comes Professor Josef Olmert. He currently works as an adjuct professor at the School of International Service at the American University. He is the brother of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (the Prime Minister before Netanyahu). I first encountered this man at my job at the Potomac Institute. He came and delievered a speech at a seminar we were hosting. Although I had some fundamental disagreements with some of his positions, I thought he was a very engaging speaker. He was speaking on the changing environment in the Middle East, which unless you have been living under a rock, you have witnessed as well. Obviously the regime to follow Mubarak in Egypt will likely be less sympathetic to Israel, which is something about which Professor Olmert expressed concern. I will not use my blog as a forum to express my political opinion (unless, of course, someone else discloses theirs first, which I fully welcome in the comment section). Anyway, I decided that I wanted to further engage this man in dialogue after listening to the Israeli students, so I sent him an email. Surprisingly, he got back to me rather quickly and we had a short discussion on the events in Egypt and what he believed the US role should be concerning the events.

Professor Josef Olmert

How do you know you're in Washington?

Finally I am going to conclude with my newly invented section (yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself for coming up with it). Thursday I left work to go to an event that was previewing a UN sponsored video, The Terrorist Who Came Home, of a young man from Algeria who was previously subjected to extremist ideals of Islam and terrorism, but is now seeking to become reintegrated into civil society. It is part of a campaign to seek to use more "counternarratives" in order to deal with the problem of radicalization among the youth in similar locations. I thought the video was ok, but was not as powerful as I think they wanted it to be. Especially since I read the book Son of Hamas, which is a direct narrative of the experiences a former extremist dealt with in becoming radicalized. I highly recommend that book to anyone who is interested, by the way. Anyway, I will let you be the judge of the video. I thought it was ok. (by the way I hope this link works, I've never tried it before, sorry guys if it doesn't). I would love to hear what you think about the video! Just in case the embedded video doesn't work, I will add a hyperlink to the website where u can find the film: The Terrorist Who Came Home

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Well, after the film viewing was done, I had the rest of the day off from work. It was only 2:00 by then. So since I haven't really done many touristy things, I decided then was the perfect time to do it! So here are some pictures, accompanied by some nice comments, since I am sure you have seen all of these buildings/monuments/really cool things before ;) Enjoy!

The Washington Monument. Looks like something straight from my study abroad trip in Egypt. Must be a masonic thing ;)

I thought it was interesting that Secret Service rides around in cars maked Secret Service. I dont think you service is any longer a secret (a little fun play on words :))

This wall of stars marks the countless lives that were lost in the Vietnam and WWII. Each star represents a certain number, I can't exactly remember the exact figure...sorry...

This is my friend Abe! Known for holding together the Union during the Civil War...among other fabulous things! By far one of my favorite monuments!

Am I off center or is the fountain off center? Could be me lol, but nevertheless...I think this is someone's house maybe?! I wonder what their gas/electric/water bills run them!