The next morning Muhammad Zeidan arranges for someone to meet me in Afuleh and take me to Umm al-Fahum, where a permanent demonstration tent has been set up to obstruct the intended demolition. I take the bus to Afula, about 45 minutes. There two men from Umm al-Fahum meet me. They brief me over coffee. This is the last day of the grace period given by the authorities for the owners to destroy their own house. The house dates back before 1948, possibly to Ottoman times, and should by rights be conserved as a national treasure.

They take me on a tour of Umm al-Fahum, the largest Palestinian population center after Nazareth, and once one of the richest. They explain that a moshav (Mi'ami), was set up on land belonging to Umm al-Fahum in 1963. The moshav is on a hilltop abutting the southern flank of the village. Up there you can see across to the West Bank village of Areen - one reason why the authorities want to stop Palestinian habitation in this area. Another is that the inhabitants of the moshav do not want Palestinians living near them, demand an 80 meter 'security belt' of 'Arab free land'. And to protect their goose farm there's a decree that houses may not be built nearer to it than 160 meters.

Recently a road was cut here, right through the section of this rural town closest to the Mi'ami moshav. Houses standing within eight meters on each side of the road are doomed by law to demolition. Abu Ra'ed's home is one of them. An additional accusation reported by settlers from the moshav is that he recently repaired his house without a permit. The men from Umm al-Fahum say that all Abu Ra'ed did was repair a leaky roof, and put in a bathroom. But in this area - 'grey' according to the Koenig Report - all home repairs are forbidden. They point to several newly built houses also threatened with demolition. Several have paid heavy sums, not for permits but for delays in execution - a handy way of adding to state funds.

They say there are only 30 households in Mi'ami moshav on whose account, supposedly, so much distress is being caused.

The large solidarity tent set up next to Abu Ra'ed's home has been there for twenty days. People have been coming from all over the area to express their support. As 'D-day' approaches, some have taken to sleeping there. Men are sitting around a bedouin-style coffee brazier with jugs. I meet Sa'id Ighbariyyeh, a relative of someone I met when I visited Umm al-Fahum in 1980, who was a founding-member of the political association, 'Ibna al-Balad'.

Abu Ra'ed is there, a middle aged man whose face is burnt dark by the sun, wearing a keffiyeh. He and his wife are originally from Lajon, destroyed in 1948, and came as refugees to Umm al-Fahum. He has worked all his life as a manual labourer, saved enough to buy this land and house for his son. It's he who tells me the original house -- stone walls and wooden beams overlaid with 'tibin' -- dates back to Turkish days, though it was added to later. He tells me that Palestine used to be known as 'barr ash-Sham' (the wild part or hinterland of Damascus). He also gives me a gem of a sentence that goes straight into my notebook because it fuses the material and ideological elements of having/not having a country: "It's the homeland that gives you bread".

By now Umm Ra'ed has returned from shopping. I enter the threatened home, find her there with Ra'ed, his wife and children, her daughters and a younger son. All join in the recording, making it lively if sometimes indistinct. They say that many houses in this area have been destroyed. If home-owners refuse

to demolish their own house, the Army comes at night, surrounds the area, beats people and throws them out. No more time is given to remove belongings. In Ma'awija (or Ma'awarija) people clung to the walls as Israelis destroyed the house. Similar demolitions are planned for all areas where there are Arabs. It's a policy of transfer.

It's interesting how far Umm Ra'ed is from being the home-bound, timid housewife. She speaks as the one who worked and saved and bought this house. It's her work and her sacrifice that are threatened. But the cat and mouse game imposed on them by the authorities is a terrific strain. On top of the anxiety, as long as the threat goes on she is bound to provide the demonstrators with hospitality.

Umm Ra'ed begins speaking:
"I'm satisfied, all the time I'm satisfied. From the day I bought here [ie this house], I bought, I paid money, my husband, my children, from our property, it exhausted us. We bought this house and another large house. I relaxed. A large home, two large homes! I have a taboon for bread, Arabic bread. [This house] was built in the Turkish period. I deprived myself and my children, every penny I saved I put towards building a house for my children, a future for my children. They [ie. the Israeli authorities] want me to stay in my small house in Umm al-Fahum. Where would my children go? I bought them - I reduced my spending, I cut down on each penny so I could build this, and stay, me and my children in it. Me and my children. A future for my children. I found a bride for my son - they wouldn't let me enlarge it. I educated my son and got him married. They wouldn't let me add to the house, they left me in two rooms. Whenever I came to paint or clean it, to clean it with water, they used to say I'm building. But I wasn't building, nothing was built on to it. They kept coming to look at it, the Israeli engineers. We closed it by making a door and windows, and a kitchen. That's what we did. Not a thing did we add to it, not even one block of cement. Nothing! All this I suffered. For two or three years I've been harassed, crying, afraid. I've been very afraid, afraid for my children. I - two weeks, twenty five days I have been sleepless. Every hour. All the time. They're coming, they're not coming. Running to and from the tent, for those who enter the tent, with food and drink..."

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The men who have been guiding me say there are other women in Umm al-Fahum who have migrated here from the 'unrecognized villages' - would I like to meet them? But I feel it's time to get back to Nazareth to arrange tomorrow.

Later the same day, I hear the authorities have decided to delay demolition of Umm Ra'ed's house until April 22 - a method of wearing out the resistance.

In Nazareth I meet up with a friend whom I first met and interviewed in 1980, Zuhayra Sabbagh, poet, photographer, librarian, cultural activist, herbalist, and mother of the singer Reem al-Banna. She always has lots to tell. Recently she helped make a film about the destroyed village of Saffourieh. The cultural youth club she ran, 'Feneek', has been axed by the Municpality. We eat a quick Chinese supper together. According to the rules of the Convent, I have to be in before 9pm.

I have Rawiya's Saffouri's phone number from another friend from an earlier visit, who is president of the Prisoners' Defence League. He was in the demonstrators' tent today at Umm al Fahum, giving an interview to a journalist from al-Ittihad. I ask him if he has any women prisoners on his list. I phone Rawiya from Nazareth and she gives me an appointment for tomorrow. She lives in Shafr Amr.