Taybeh brewers host Bavarian-style Beer festival in Palestine

Micro-brewers in the West Bank have laid on a Bavarian-style Bierfest, one of the least likely keg parties hosted anywhere. It's the third annual celebration in the Christian Palestinian town, which has been stymied by Israeli checkpoints and travel restrictions. The big festival hosted by the brewery's owner, Nadim Khoury, has attracted thousands of visitors to his village to taste the best (and only) beer micro-brewed in the Middle East.

The only route in and out of the village is controlled by an Israeli military checkpoint, there for the protection of three settlements lying east and west of the village. Taybeh residents and their wares need special permits to use the roads.

"Because of the Israeli occupation we wanted the Oktoberfest to open up Taybeh to the outside word, not just the brewery but all our fellow producers, so people will come here and taste our wonderful beer and see other products," said Mr Khoury, a Palestinian-American.

The brewery had prepared extra kegs ahead of the annual beer-fest
Taybeh - which means "good" and "tasty" in Arabic - makes three varieties of beer, the original Gold, a stronger Dark (which is 6% alcohol) and the latest addition to the stable, Amber, half-way between them in body and strength.

Mr Khoury is currently testing a way of producing alcohol-free beer, which means he will be able to sell in more conservative Muslim areas in the West Bank and beyond.

The beer is brewed using a 500-year-old German purity law which allows only four ingredients: malt, hops, pure water and yeast.

Martin Asser, a beer-swilling roving reporter from the BBC
described how

a young man who has come from Ramallah confides to me that he is a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant offshoot of the Fatah faction.
A shy young man explained why he - a Christian - wanted to join the quasi-Islamist group, branded a terrorist organisation by Israel and its allies for a string of suicide bombings in Israeli cities.

Then he looks down at the glass of beer in his hand, and around at the smiling crowds, and says it is the first day he has been truly happy for many years.

Izzy Bee will drink to that!

Teenage Bride nabbed as bomber-to-be

Among yesterday's terror arrests was a teenage bomber-bride from Nablus, who was picked up at dawn with six others in a raid on her West Bank refugee camp. The story of this potential "femme fatale" from Palestine is troubling. She may have been trying to escape a dismal arranged marriage by pretending to be a terrorist. This morose wanna-be martyr could hardly be called feisty or drop-dead gorgeous. From all indications, the girl's preference would be to curl up and die.

Newlywed Najwa Hashash, just 19, despaired of married life with her increasingly feeble bridegroom. The honeymoon was definitely over, because the teenager was required to do the chores of a nurse and orderly along with the housework in cramped quarters. She was desperate to find a way out. Her husband, much older, had little chance of recovering from his debilitating illness according to this article in Ynet. Najwa was arrested yesterday by IDF paratroopers, after rumours circulated during the past three weeks that she planned to strap on an explosive belt and cross the closest checkpoint. Earlier, she'd been detained by the Palestinian Authority and released after questioning. Apparently, they deemed Ms Hashash incapable of anything so hush-hush.

In fact, Najwa's neighbours inside the Balata refugee camp in Nablus suggested that the bride had the blues and spread this malicious gossip herself, hoping to be arrested and jailed as a potential suicide bomber. It was just an escape gambit which would leave her "honor" intact and spare her being murdered if she managed to run away from a bad marriage. But others reckon that a recruiter for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades took advantage of her misery and persuaded Najwa that if she planned to end her life, she might as well take out some Israelis with her. Why not be glorified as a martyr and get a stipend for her family? (Unsurprisingly, the al-Aqsa Brigades deny any contact with her.)

The Israeli army raided West Bank houses at dawn Tuesday and hauled Najwa in along with two dozen other terror suspects in an ironic twist to Palestine's annual Prisoner Day. They'd released 500 inmates in a good will gesture the previous afternoon, although at least 7600 more-- including 362 children and 82 women-- still are in lockup inside Israel. About ten per cent are held in protective custody indefinitely, without charges against them.

The IDF is not expected to be lenient with Najwa, and there is little hope that she'll be tried quickly. They say Palestinian women are increasingly taking an active part in the conflict, including kidnaps and stabbings. Motives don't really matter. Two of five suicide bombers last year were female, and one was a grandmother. IDF and Shin Bet forces recently arrested 19 Palestinian women suspected of terror activities against Israel. Ten of these women were allegedly affiliated with Fatah and the remainder with Islamic Jihad. Violent female militants are not the only threat. Women tend to serve as messengers, and frequently carry cash for militant groups. So did Najwa accomplish her plan by getting arrested? Did the IDF thwart a deadly attack or enable an adolescent scheme to replace the lonely prison of marriage with actual jail time? Was this girl ever an actual threat?

('Suicide Barbie' blonde bombshell poster is by the conceptual artist Simon Tyszk.)

Veiled Threat

Increasingly, guerrilla girls and grandmas are taking up arms or wiring themselves to explosives--which must further fuel the boom in body-scanning equipment sold to border security. Whether taking part in rooftop sit-ins, or marching together as human shields for trapped fighters, or even converting themselves into walking bombs, these feminine furies on the far side of the security wall now are a force to reckon with. At this desperate level, no military solution seems feasible.
To come to grips with this trend, read Rory McCarthy of the Guardian on Palestine's empowered sisters, mothers, and martyrs.