Last day in Jerusalem

Saturday.
Even on this day, the day I was leaving to return to Australia, I was challenged by events that took place around me. These are my last three snapshots.

Snapshot One: Body-Search

There is a ledge outside the Jaffa Gate to the Old City where you can sit and face West Jerusalem. I sat there; reading and watching the people filter past. It was Shabbat and dozens of the faithful filed past me on their way to the Wailing Wall. Beside me was a man enjoying the sun and around us milled tourist groups waiting to see the Old City. Two security officers - one in police blue and the other in soldier green - came and stood by the entrance to Jaffa Gate. I was reading and didn't see them stop a man walking past. Suddenly the man beside me looked around, stood up and walked away. His sudden movement disrupted me from my reading and I also looked around and saw that the security officers had asked the man they had stopped, who was Arab, to remove everything from his pockets and allow them to search him. He placed everything on the ledge before lifting up his shirt and turning around so that they could see if there was anything on his chest or back. This searching and questioning all took place publically, in front of the tourists and the passers-by and me. When the soldiers found nothing they told the man that he could leave. He gathered his things, straightened his shirt and walked away.


Snapshot Two: A Hurled Can

Nablus Road is a busy street in East Jerusalem; it ends at Damascus Gate and goes up to one of the two Arab bus stations, where the buses to Ramallah leave from. My sherut to the airport was to pick me up outside the Jerusalem Hotel opposite. On my way up from the Old City, carrying all my bags, I saw an Orthodox family walking towards me heading towards the Wailing Wall to celebrate the end of Shabbat. Some young Palestinian men were walking past talking loudly; one of them had just finished drinking from a can. They turned and saw the family and upon registering their Orthodox clothing, the one with the can took it in his hand and threw it at the father of the family. He missed. This took place publically, in front of the commuters and the passers-by and me. The father said something to his family and they all kept walking quickly onwards, not even looking at the young men.


Snapshot Three: Driving Past Razor Wire

The route the sherut took to the airport brought us partially into the West Bank. I'm not sure why we took that route, but suddenly there was razor wire on the side of the road and security fencing. I looked out at the hills that had become so familiar, saw some yellow servees in the distance, and even saw a sign pointing in the direction of Ramallah, and I realised that I did not want to leave. I wished with all my might that we were going to follow that sign, but we drove on. After a few minutes, we passed through a checkpoint (whose purpose is to make sure only Israelis and Internationals use the road - no Palestinians) and drove back out of the West Bank into Israel. We left the rolling hills behind us.

I was going home.

From Jerusalem to Ramallah

I feel the difference immediately and the tension leaves my shoulders: I am in Ramallah again and my body knows it. Gone is the tension of the Jerusalem Old City streets; gone is the stress of not knowing whether to say 'shalom' and 'toda' or 'marhaba' and 'shukran'. I'm back in familiar territory and I love it.

But I'm not alone.

It begun mid-last week. I was sitting at breakfast and I heard D. discussing his plans to go to Nazareth: 'I'd love to go to Ramallah or something, but I can't go alone,' he said. Immediately I volunteered to take him.

D. is from a Zionist family - he said that if his family knew what he was doing they would disown him: 'Well, not really, but you know what I mean.' I did.

I brought him into Ramallah last Tuesday and I returned him back to Jerusalem safely. We walked the streets, we met my Palestinian friend M., we saw the tomb of Arafat at al-Muqata and we had a drink at Stars and Bucks. It was a beautiful afternoon. In the old city of Ramallah, which is below the main centre, little children played and called out greetings to us.

D. described the experience of Ramallah as 'shattering', and I think that that sums it up in many ways. We have such a negative view of the Other that to discover their human face and kindness shatters our perceptions and our sense of right.

I know that much of what I have experienced in these weeks in Israel has been very hard for me - the racism, the Zionist discourses, and the arrogant unfeeling attitudes towards Palestinians - but I had expected that. These things have shaken and distressed me, but they weren't shattering. If anything, they confirmed impressions I had built while in the West Bank.

What I have found shattering is the insight into Israeli suffering. I cannot discount this suffering merely because they are Israeli; that would be ludicrous and immoral. However, recognising and accepting this suffering has been shattering for me. It would be so much simpler if the situation here was completely one dimensional, if things were essential in nature: essential good versus essential evil. But that's fantasy.

I have spoken with and heard from a number of international lawyers here about the occupation, the Palestinian Territories and the siege on Gaza, and I have been challenged. I have discovered that many of my previously held ideas about the status of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in international law are potentially problematic. I have been looking at this conflict through a telescope, but one must remember the rest of the world when applying international law to any situation.

I have also heard from people who have friends and family members in Israeli military uniform - I have a friend in the Israeli military uniform. This has been shattering.

I have been given an insight into the suffering of the Israeli population, but I still see a difference. To my mind, the Israeli population have the power and agency to rectify their situation, to ease their suffering. They have an autonomy that the Palestinians, as a population subjected to long-term belligerent occupation, are lacking.


I returned to Ramallah again on Saturday - and once more I was not alone.

This time two others had joined me: A. was volunteering with the ambulance service in southern Israel and had been throughout the siege of Gaza; and M. was from my course. Once more we wandered the streets of Ramallah, passed the children playing in the old city, met with my Palestinian friend, ate some Palestinian falafel and hummus, visited the tomb of Arafat in al-Muqata and took a drink at Stars and Bucks. At one point M. received a call from his mother and in answer to her question said that he was in Jerusalem. He said that he would probably tell her the truth about being in Ramallah, but not now - later.

On Racism at Breakfast

An hour ago I was at breakfast, sitting at a table with three others. It was lovely. I had been missing this, this easy socialising, but then came the question: 'What are you doing this weekend?'

I tried to dodge it, but finally had to answer: 'Tomorrow I'm going to Ramallah.'

'How can you spend Shabbat among Arabs?' asked J.

'She's not Jewish,' said S.

'Oh.'

Once more I was an outsider. I disliked my religion (or lack of) being spoken about without my consent, but I had become used to that. The conversation among us continued onto other subjects until another girl, D, approached the table to ask about the logistics of getting home after a Shabbat dinner that they were all invited to. It was suggested that she should take a taxi - but should make sure it was a Jewish driver.

'Why?' I asked nonplussed.

It was explained to me that it was safer to be with Jewish drivers than Arabs, who could kidnap you - supposedly it had happened in the past.

'I've never heard of that,' I protested.

'Yeah well, still, I prefer to have a driver of my own kind, I would not want to give money to someone who hated my kind,' said S. The others nodded in agreement. While she spoke, one of the staff of the place where we're staying was clearing the tables around us - he was Arab.


I had thought that I was beginning to fit in here, but how can I fit in among people who think in such a way? How is this thinking politically acceptable in Israel, and yet if someone was to say something like this in Australia it would be unquestionably considered racist. I know that this sort of thinking is not unique to Israel, but I've never been in a place where it is so openly expressed and acceptable in conversation.

I remember that in Palestine it used to distress several internationals (including me) when Palestinians would mix up 'Israeli' and 'Jew', thereby blaming the 'Jews' for the occupation, rather than the 'Israelis'. But when we addressed this, the Palestinians would always correct themselves and apologise: 'it is not the Jews we are fighting with, it is the Israelis,' they would emphasise. The convolution of Jew and Israeli is insidious, and appears at times throughout the Palestinian liberation movement and is a major issue, but where it sprouts, it is recognised by most for what it is: racism.

So there is an inequality here: what makes racism and discrimination against Arabs (particularly Palestinians) so much more acceptable among people? What makes this racism less racist? I don't understand.

Meeting Settlers

My first week at the Hebrew University was difficult. Few people spoke with me as I do not belong to the Jewish communities that they belong to. Fewer people spoke to me when my ties to the West Bank became known.

Many times during the breaks between my classes I would sit alone in the hallways and keep to myself. My solitude attracted one of the girls in my course who sought me out because she was also in the periphery of the group. She was observant in her Judaism and wore long skirts and a head-covering. While she could tell immediately I was not observant, my loose clothing and long-sleeves may have led her to believe that I was at least conservative. She had not heard about the time I had spent in the West Bank, though it did not take long for it to become apparent and I thought that was the end of it. We disagreed with each other on almost every point and it seemed that she no longer wanted to associate with me. But after a few days, she was once more smiling at me and seeking me out as I waited alone for our lectures.

I knew that she planned to immigrate to Israel (make 'Aliyah') and I knew that she was currently in the process of finding a community to live in as she wished to live in an observant community somewhere in the country. What I did not realise straight away was that effectively this meant that she was planning on moving into one of the settlements.

Today, our final lecturer did not appear, so after 45 minutes we decided to leave. During this time, this girl and I spoke.

I have met and spoken with settlers before. At the end of last year I even visited a settler in his settlement. It was not an experience I enjoyed but one that I took because there was an opportunity to do so. The man that I met was kind and hospitable towards us. At first I was challenged by him because he was so different from what I thought a settler would be (he spoke Arabic and lamented his inability to make friends with his Palestinian neighbours). But then he showed us an article that he had written offering a 'solution' to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians: he suggested that the Palestinians are all moved to Iraq. His 'reasoning': Iraq needed help to rebuild and the Palestinians could easily fill that role. He thus fulfilled the 'settler stereotype' I carried in my mind.

But this time it was different. The girl from my class, M., was an Australian and my age. She spoke and looked just like my old housemate in Sydney. The only difference between us was her headscarf and her skirt. Even her name is very close to mine.

She described to me the reasons that she wanted to move into one of the settlements: her love of the landscape and her love of the communities there. She said that if she could find a community and environment like the ones in the settlements within Israel ('within the fence,' as she put it), she would move there immediately, but there isn't such a place. She said that she understood the international law arguments about how settlements are illegal, but why shouldn't she move to the place that she loves when it's there available to her?

Her description of her love of the landscape and the feel of the environment struck a chord with me, because I also held this love. I love the rolling hill tops that are throughout the West Bank; I love the olive trees and the rock and the desert. When I go to Ramallah and walk around the outskirts, away the hectic central streets, all the stress and tension leaves me and I'm filled with love for my environment. This place is intoxicating, it sinks into the skin. But the thing that separated this girl and me is that when I dream of living here, I see myself living in a Palestinian environement, speaking Arabic in the streets. She imagines herself in a rural observant Jewish environment, a gated community, speaking Hebrew with her neighbours. And I know that there are many people in the world you share dreams like both of ours - Palestinian refugees dreaming of returning to their family's land, and Jews of the Diaspora dreaming of living in their holy land.

Both these dreams take place in the same land, but they are separated by check points, razor wire, watch towers and soldiers. Can they ever be reconciled?

Faces in Prison

On Monday my course had an excusion to an Israeli prison up north of Tel Aviv. Due to the size of our group, we were split into three groups and taken to different sections.

My group was first given an introduction to the prison by the education officer and then an intelligence officer spoke with us.

According to the intelligence official, around 60% of Israeli prison inmates are Arabs, and this was immediately apparent. Outside, Arab families waited to see their loved ones - small children ran around as if in a playground, but their games involved standing in front of the prison gates when they opened for as long as possible before guards with M16s came out to escort vehicles filled with prisoners out of the compound. The windows of the vehicles were covered in bars and mesh, but you could see fingers poking through the gaps and just make out shadowed faces peering out.

Israeli prisons play a double role - as well as holding those convicted of crimes (and housing those awaiting trial), they also hold people held for security reasons; "terrorists", mostly from the West Bank.

We didn't see the "big terrorists" (as the adults were called), but we were taken by the cells of the "little terrorists": those aged between 14 and 18. These boys and young men are held in Israel, despite their families living in the West Bank. I wondered how often their families were given the necessary permission to come and visit them.


Snapshot: Silent Faces, Staring Eyes

We were taken into an open cemented area, like the rest of the prison it was cramped and in bad repair. We were shown a small 'classroom' (a grey room with a few plastic chairs) and then were then taken to see a small basketball court. As we passed through the one section to the other I suddenly realised that the cells opposite the classroom were filled with silent young faces. The faces stared at us expressionless and emotionless. Some hands grasped at the bars of their cell doors. Their eyes took in everything about our appearance but gave away nothing of what they were thinking.

Those faces haunted me.

Whilst in the West Bank, I met many people with fathers, husbands and sons in Israeli prisons, as well as several men who had spent time there. But what I remember most is the mothers showing us photos of their young sons. I remember how much those mothers suffered at the thought of their sons so far from home.
And suddenly I was seeing their sons.

‘Safe’ and ‘Unsafe’ in the Old City

At breakfast I was talking with a few students about the Old City. I said that I found the streets to be tense and the others were surprised at this comment.
‘Where in the Old City do you mean? Do you visit the Arab Quarters?’ one of them asked. I nodded.
‘Well that’s why: they want to kill you; that’s why you find it tense.’
After a moment of shock, I tried to explain that I had been there several times and I had never felt threatened, but I was repeatedly cut off with assurances that it was dangerous and we shouldn’t go there. They were not interested in seeing and experiencing the other side. For them, the Jewish Quarter was the Old City.

After breakfast, I decided to live dangerously: I took a bus to the Old City. There were several aspects of danger to my trip: (1) I was alone; (2) I was travelling on a bus; (3) the bus had several stops in Arab areas; and (4) my intended destination was the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. All these things we had been explicitly warned about. Needless to say, I returned to the campus (where I am staying) unharmed.

Like me, a number of the students are ignoring many of the warnings we have been given, but many are not. Several who had originally planned to visit certain places have rethought their plans, which had seemed so harmless yet now seemed full of dangers. I find this regrettable. I understand that there are reasons behind the warnings we have been given, and that things have taken place in the past which substantiate them, but it’s just another way to separate and alienate people. The barriers here are not just physical (in the form of the separation barrier that we can see from campus, cutting off the West Bank), they are also mental.

I went from Mount Scopus to the Muslim Quarter, I bought some mint and sage from a Palestinian woman, I looked through some of the shops, and then I left again – all without being stabbed or threatened. The only comment directed at me from anyone was ‘asalaam iw-alaykum’ (‘peace be upon you’).

Looking at the Layers

There has been a shift.

I’ve stopped looking at the more right wing elements of the group I’m in and am peering through the layers around me. I was unfortunate to have found myself in a room full of people of one frame of mind on my second night here (the talk on Gaza); because it led me to believe that I was alone among a homogenous group, when this is not the case. There are always a myriad of opinions out there, even if they are not so obvious at first. I am fast realising that Israelis are as divided as Palestinians on the political issues, as are the Jews of the Diaspora.

I have spoken with people who refuse to refer to the West Bank as anything other than Judea and Samaria, but I have also spoken with people who have expressed a desire to see and experience the West Bank, though usually this desire is restricted to Bethlehem, as that is generally considered the easiest and safest option. While a desire to see the West Bank does not necessarily mean that the people expressing this desire oppose the occupation or the actions of the Israeli government in the Palestinian Territories, it does demonstrate a willingness to see the other side, and this gives me some hope.