| Aug 16, 2005 - Israel and Jerusalem in particular
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 | | show all 7 | | Here we are in Jerusalem on the Ramparts walk (Dome of the Rock in background) | | The fearless Israeli soldiers on guard | | The Wailing Wall (important Jewish religious site.) | | |
| We found a cheap hostel (called the Palm Hostel) in an otherwise expensive city, just outside the Damascus Gate of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. I swear I want to write a play about the nutty cast of characters staying there and some of the interactions we have witnessed. First of all, it is Palestinian owned but they have a Roman Catholic sister running the place. She is your worst Catholic school nightmare magnified severalfold. There is a small sitting room into which everyone crowds and the sister titters about inserting herself into conversations (which usually result in confrontations) and lectures about Jesus. Her favorite is to verbally reprimand those who ask where each other are from because it "takes people backward and not forward where they really need to go." She is from South Africa, by the way, so has an almost proper British sounding accent matched with an intermittenly earsplitting tone. Her general mutterings indicate her intentions are to save Israel from it's ills, but her actions are slightly misplaced. There is an Australian couple who are Palestinian by origin and have an adorable three year old named Jenin...they are trying to get into Gaza to see his family but have been denied at the checkpoint (he used to be a political prisoner and married an Australian journalist to get out in 1999 and hasn't been able to see them since...he has also changed his name.) Other "characters" include Jose, who has long hair and fingernails and is from Puerto Rico (he also wears both a Star of David and wooden cross around his neck - Jew for Jesus? who knows...) and seems to relate best to Jenin the three year old and the t.v. in the sitting room. There is a Jewish woman immigrating (or is it emigrating?) from England who wore an orange t-shirt at the hostel (the color symbolic of Against the Gaza disengagement.) She is a little outspoken and given her fashion choice together with some of the company you can imagine this was a little tense. Paul and I renamed this place the "Hostile Palm."
Outside the hostel, I accompanied my beloved travel companion on his historical/Catholic pilgrimmage of the city. Jerusalem starting from the East has trash strewn streets where people finish their bottle of water or candy and toss the wrapper over their shoulder (hitting me in the head.) It is amazing some of the most important religious sites for the Christians, Jewish and Muslims are concentrated in this not-so-neat walled city square. Another phenomenon is the "Jerusalem syndrome", people dressed and acting as though they are Jesus or other religious prophets just wandering the streets of the Old City. There are uniformed Israeli soldiers (teenagers) standing around with machine gun in one hand and cellphone/popsicle/etc. in the other. Unfortunately, you can cut the tension with a knife at the religious sites. It took us two days to find our way to the Dome of the Rock (the characteristic gold dome of Jerusalem which is a Muslim mosque) given faulty directions and soldiers telling us it was "closed." Finally, a soldier told us "you don't want to go there, you won't come out...they'll kill you!" (We finally found the way and am happy to say we made it out just fine.) A little brainwashed? Maybe...
At this point you can understand this isn't my favorite place.
We joined our friends from the Palm Hostel (the Aussies) to see some of their Palestinian friends in Ramallah. We took a bus as far as we could go then plodded thru the guarded checkpoint and picked up another taxi, finally landing us in Ramallah center. The area itself looks like it could be Cairo, Luxor or some of the other Arab cities we've been to. We relaxed at a rooftop restaurant to have a sheesha and snack before continuing to their friends' house. Our friend's friends are a solidly middle class family with six children living in Ramallah. He owns a satellite dish company and they have a spacious, simply furnished home with a concrete roofdeck overlooking the diplomat section of Ramallah. In fact, we could see the where Arafat was holed up during the seige a few years back. This family was so hospitable serving tea, fruit, cake, juice and we enjoyed the sunset with them on their roofdeck. About 10pm we headed back to the checkpoint obstacle course to make our way back to the hostel.
While in Hanoi, Vietnam we met a lovely Israeli couple, Amir and Efrat and met up with them in West Jerusalem for an evening snack and beers. West Jerusalem has fancy restaurants with international cuisine, pretty and fashionable people and clean streets. It is like a different world within less than a mile and quite disturbing I might add (I know we have our issues in the United States.) Despite all of our questions about the state of things in their country, our fine friends took us in a for a night which was in perfect timing for when we needed a break from the hostile environs.
I'm at a loss for words at what I saw in Israel...settlers evicted from a territory the government (Ariel Sharon) once encouraged them to settle in, and walls going up around to contain the Palestinians who have no passports, voting rights and significantly less quality of life and not to mention the checkpoint hassles of moving outside their immediate areas. No doubt a historic time to be here. I'm trying to learn more about the history and issues here but am very disappointed at what I've seen. |
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