I'm sitting on the floor in a mall in the basement of our hotel, accessing wifi. It has been a vey busy trip and we're finally coming to a close. Those students who are returning on the group flight will leave tomorrow morning while nearly half of us have extended our trips and will be leaving within the next few days and weeks. This has been, by no means, an easy trip and we've had a good amount of cynicism and incredulousness on the part of the Mac students.

The stress and awkward feelings culminated last night in a productive and heated discussion following a lecture. Let me first begin by pointing out how little content there has been on our trip, as well as an almost complete lack of discussion and intellectual curiosity. On our second to last night together as a group, a prominent reporter from the Jerusalem Post came to speak to us. His introduction mentioned that he had been called "one of the most positive people regarding Israel." He proceeded to paint an unfailingly pro-Israel view, expressing the opinion that Israel had every right to act however it wanted in the Middle East as a result of its superiority and position as the sole democratic nation in the region. It became more and more clear how right-leaning he was and by the end of the 25 minute talk - regardless of yh fact that nearly one third of our group was openly sleeping - the six Mac students were fully engaged and seething. Five out of six of us asked questions, some more provocative than others.

The reporter did not exactly answer our questions and after the lecture we were joined by two other students from our group for what turned out to be an hour long discussion. The discussion itself was nothing out of the ordinary, but the simple fact that it was happening on this trip was extraordinary. I will write more later, but hopefully this should make the point obvious that this trip has utterly lacked content, discussion, and substance. I will write later, as we travel from friend to friend.