settlers as well. In al-Bireh, a Palestinian city north of Jerusalem, I met a woman named Umm Khusay, who had turned the front lawn of her house into a museum of the occupation, featuring a palm tree decorated with tear-gas canisters. As we walked up the steps to the front door, I could see a giant hole in one of the windows, recently broken by what seemed to be a stone. Khusay, a 48-year-old Muslim who was born in Michigan—she is an American citizen—but raised in al-Bireh, met us at the top of the stairs wearing a beige jilbab covering her from head to toe. All of her children are American citizens now. “I die here rather than have happy life in the United States,” she said whenneed to detox with a lot of strong sheesha,” Abdullah warned. About 800 Jewish settlers live in this enclave, protected by 650 or so Israeli soldiers and surrounded by 200,000 Palestinians, who are penned in by dozens of roadblocks and checkpoints around the city. The dreams of those 800 or so Jewish settlers shape and distort the lives of all the Palestinians living there. Hebron had a Jewish community until 1929, when the Jews were killed in a riot. In 1968, settlers came back for good. We met one of these settlers, Noam Arnon, near the entrance to a playground. He shuffled toward us in his sandals, resembling a kindly Jewish American grandfather. In 1972, at 18, Arnon decided to visit the settlement of Kiryat Arba. He kept