Sayed Kashua

Shabbat morning, a nice day, an opportunity to take the hike I've been postponing for years.

When I entered the Jewish world, meaning when I started to work for Jewish bosses, who were usually older than me, whenever there was something I was asked to do, but didn't want to, I said 'Insh'Allah,' which is the politest word I can use with someone who is older, to say 'I don't want to.'

That's it. I've decided to leave Haaretz. We'll start with the paper, and with luck we'll then send out feelers about leaving the country.

Sometimes I am grateful to God that I live here, and politics, wars, checkpoints and planes divert my attention from the real painful problems.

I noticed a large photograph of me pasted on the driver's door, and below, in Arabic, English and Hebrew, the words, 'Not authorized to enter.'

I'm not one of those people who gaze in the mirror and say "I'm so fat" or "I need a nose job." No, what's disturbing about my appearance is my lack of awareness about it.

This feeling began when they stuck an Arab on the TV show about fat people, and then a model, and a family-swapping mother, and with the Super Nanny and, of course, the war troubadour Mariam Tukan.

In his new book, Dr. Hillel Cohen says that the Arabs of East Jerusalem have lost much of their desire and will to fight for the deteriorating city and its Arab identity. In the battle of force and power, Israel is winning.

For an hour and a half I stared at the blank screen and by then I was seriously missing my old study at home, where at least I had the option of escaping to the television. I had to go outside, into the city, to look for a story - or for something to drink at least.

I can no longer write at home. As of this week my room has officially become a children's room.

I don't like to write about politics. Even though I'm an Arab. I realized long ago that I hardly understand anything about it.

For two days now I have been sitting at the computer without a word coming out. My head is bursting from nerves and the kids are keeping their distance from me, because I have the look of a madman in my eyes.

When the Dead Sea [which in Hebrew is literally called "the Salt Sea," although in Arabic it is "the Dead Sea"] turned into a dry ditch, Army Radio turned into Amman Radio.

'Four to five vacations a year?!,' my wife protested. 'On holidays you take us to Tira, and you call that a 3,000-shekel vacation?'

'What are you talking about, anyway?' I found myself berating the writers sitting next to me. 'Do you understand that you are revoking the Law of Return? You are leaving no justification for the state's existence!'

I've thought about it and this mutation known as an Israeli Arab has to become extinct.

A plan to stop drinking and driving is complicated by a coincidence involving an Arab taxi driver and a Jewish friend.

The music fades. The cellist draws the bow across the strings in a final sweep. Silence. I stand up and applaud vigorously, then look around and see that no one else has stood up.

Behind the mantra, 'Residents of Tira and Taibeh drive recklessly' lies another truth. An exclusive scoop.

In my condition, a performance by a young rap band may be the best therapy. Or maybe not.

My short career as a freedom fighter

Sometimes just one day is enough to dampen the intensity of the humiliation of a morning after a night of drunkenness.