You know how if something was portrayed in a parody skit you'd say it was a lame joke on account of being too blunt, or in other words "you can't imagine it happening" - only it did? This a Weekday Holyland Update special charter flight, number 102009, leaving sane reality as you know it in favor of bittersweet irony amidst tribal madness.

Y'all know about the separation wall, yes? Israel is building a huge ugly part fence, part wall to keep out all the nasty suicide bombers and so on from coming across the green line (1967 border line). Problem is, Israel isn't building this wall on the green line, but rather a few miles east, chomping off another quarter million acres of Palestinian land, mostly olive groves of dirt poor villagers. 

So every Friday there are demonstrations at many of these villages, where the theft victims stage marches to the fence, to symbollically attempt to reach their land. It always ends with tear gas, the "skunk" (a contraption, guess what it does), and usually rubber bullets, salt bullets and sometimes live bullets. 

One of the main focal points of this super-just struggle against cynical land theft is the small village of Nialin, in the district of Ramallah. Sitting across from Nialin, with its edge-most condos sitting on land stolen from Nialin, is the settlement Hashmonaim. Hashmonaim is a religious settlement, but not rabidly so, which means they believe in the inherent superiority of those descended from a Jewish vagina, but don't foam at the mouth when discussing it.

Anyway, these nice people, who just wanted a nice house with a bit of garden outside the cramp of Jerusalem or Bnei Brak or even the settlement city Modi'in Illit (of which Hashmonaim is a suburb) - these nice people have a beef.

Turns out that the jack booted oppression of the neighbours from across the barrier has unfortunate consequences. Tear gas, you see, doesn't break for walls. It wafts over it, and keeps on a-waftin until it invades the windows and precious gardens of the poor settlers, who can't chill on the veranda no mo'. One thief indignantly told of how "last week the neighbor's boy came running and his eyes were stinging." No mention of the boys, babies, pregnant women and old people who get the same treatment in much heavier doses, from closer up, whichever way the wind blows, every single week for several years now. 

I ain't making this up. The settlers complained to the army. They don't mind the bullets, just the gas.  The army replied that all its efforts are dedicated to the defense of the "fence", which is vital to the defense of Israel. So the poor, sorely put upon residents of Hashmonaim will continue to share a small taste of Nialin's experience (sans bullets, night raids on homes, arrests, beatings and the ocassional murder... the theme park version). Maybe some sacred Jewish baby will inhale it by mistake and have to be rushed to the hospital, and that will produce pressure on the army to stop using teargas and chemical stink agents, which are suspected of abnormal rates of miscarriages and respiratory complications in the embattled villages.Then again, maybe they'll shoot more live ammoif they can't gas.

Alanis? That was your cue. 

Special video illustration: Different village (Bil'in), and over 4 years ago. If anything, the brutality at the demonstrations has only increased.