Update 3- Bethlehem et al
I am in Egypt for the first time in my life. Indeed, sitting at a bus station, waiting for the first bus to Cairo- which the man who works here reports to me, has broken down. So I'm here another four hours until the next one comes. I buy a ticket from the vendor, and he fishes the change out of his wallet. He charges me 10 Egyptian Pounds more than he should, but I'm not going to argue about it. I can take advantage of my newfound wealth of time to write about taking my first group of 'Jews et al' into Bethlehem.
On Thursday after Purim, I found myself in the Encounter office, where I introduced Cindy & Craig Corrie to the work done by Encounter. It was an interesting shidduch, to the extent that they have a large amount of respect for each other, yet in a lot of ways speak different languages to different communities. Rachel's story is such that she has become an icon for Palestinians, and for the movement for (Palestinian) human rights. A stark reminder that the occupation, at least in a few cases, also kills without regard to race or national origin.
Encounter is a very targeted project for religious Jews. It must address particularism as much as the Corries address universal values.
So anyways, after their interesting meeting, I ask Encounter staff if they know anyone who can a tour for me and 'Jews et al.' They give me a name and number, and I call him a couple of times until I get him on the phone. I talk over the design for an alternative tour for 7-- no, make that 9-- people.
"Is anyone in your group Israeli?" he asks me. Yes, I reply, after a moment's hesitation. "That's great," he replies. "Israelis definitely need to see what it's like here."
Friends, in case you are not familiar with the situation in Palestine, right around the time of Oslo*, part of a "peace process" was to "hand over" partial control of the West Bank to Palestinian administration and security. Palestine is a checkboard map of these three areas, starting with the most urban, progressing to the most rural: Area A (Palestinian administration/security), Area B (Palestinian administration, Israeli security), and Area C (Israeli administration/security). Note that you can read the word "security" also as "military control." Israelis are not allowed into Areas A or B; if they are caught entering, there is perhaps a 5000 shekel fine ($1500 US). Regardless of the intentions behind this law, which has been in effect only since around 2000 or so, is that Israelis can't go to Palestinian communities, safety aside. With the status quo, there is no chance of it "going back" to the way it was: in 1990, someone who lived in Kfar Saba could just drive into Qalqilya to buy vegetables.
So the way this affects us is that for the Israeli in our group, we have to be a little strategic, and take checkpoints from Area C back into Israel, and he has to have a story for the soldiers about where he was, and cannot say that he went to Bethlehem.
Onward, Jacob! This update is taking forever to get out. Here's the gist. On Thursday, everything got arranged, our host knew that most of us are Jewish, and since he is an activist, and a pragamtist, and thoughtful about how to create change for the people of Palestine, he knows that he needs to have good alliances with, and change the opinions of, Jews. He is perfectly happy that we are Jews. I'm just being a little redundant on this point because people ask about it so much.
On the other hand, the status quo of Palestine demands that we not publicize our Jewishness to people on the streets of Bethlehem, which was pretty much a non-issue for everyone; for more religious, or outwardly-identified people, they would have to put their necklace inside their shirt, or tuck in their peyos, or wear a hat to cover their yamika, you get the idea.
At 11 pm the night before we rendezvous'd and left for the Bethlehem area, I realized that daylight savings time was changing that evening... in Israel, at least. So, instead of meeting at 9:30 as I had intended, we moved the meeting time to 10:30 am, which would give people the same amount of sleep. After researching on the internet about whether or not Palestine was changing times when Israel was, I still was not sure about it, and read contradicting information. It turned out that they did switch times at the same time; I believe that in the Fall, Palestine Time* switches one week off from Israel, as a vestige of distinction.
We finally started meeting up at 10:30 am outside Damascus gate, and I ate hummous while waiting on everyone to show up. At 10:55, we headed out to find the 'service' which would bring us into Beit Jalla, a town in the Bethlehem area. We didn't get to our destination until noon; we filed out of the 'service' and met up with George, our fearless, funny, and quite opinionated guide.
First stop: Church of the Nativity. It was my third time there, and definitely the most crowded with other tourists. George spoke passionately about the negative effects of this type of Bethlehem tourism: no one even stays over night, people drive into Palestine, go see the church, then jump back on their buses heading for Israel. All people bring is their trash. They have a negative impact on the Palestinian Economy. He was upset that we, his guests, were being cut out from seeing the "grotto" at the Church by these long lines of people who don't help out the Palestinians: since he lives here, he should have priority in bringing friends to see the church.
George also indicated something that I hadn't noticed before: the bullet-holes through the stained glass in the upper reaches of the Church, as viewed from the courtyard in the middle of the church. From Israeli fire during the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. (the event that launched ISM from obscurity)
Next, we went to see the Wall. Over near Rachel's Tomb, in the northern area of Bethlehem, 26 ft. concrete wall snakes and travels in order to capture Rachel's Tomb on the Israeli side, so that Jewish visitors are able to see their holy site without the trouble of seeing Bethlehem, or any Palestine Palestinians for that matter. It's a
pretty ugly wall, as you might imagine, but there is cool graffiti on it and nearby, including works by the famed "Banksy," a British tagger.
At this point, we headed to Palestinian homes for lunch, split into two groups: vegan and otherwise. I told George that there were three vegans among us, but I didn't tell him that almost no one in our group would eat meat, so that caused a little bit of an issue. People worked it out. I ate with the vegans and wannabes in George's house, it was really sweet to meet his family, and eat with them. They were very nice to us, and welcoming. The carni-philes and associated people ate down the block at George's uncle's house.
After lunch, we heard a different George (with the same last name) speak about nonviolent resistance in the Bethlehem area in the past 20 years or so. I really liked this part of it. Some of us were succumbing to food-coma at this point, but most of us were alive-alert-awake & attentive. We asked some good, and hard, questions. Back in '04, I worked for a week or two in the same office as this George and another guy who works at the IMEMC (International Middle East Media Center, check out http://www.imemc.org)
Last on the tour, we went to 'Aida Camp (a refugee camp of around 10,000 people), and some young guys there told us about the place, and about some arts and cultural programs that they have for giving a positive outlet for the youth of the community.
Around 4 pm, George was heading for Ramallah to hear the Corries speak, and Mikey and Melissa went with him. The rest of us took another hour plus to go into a trinket store where I saw my friend Adnan who runs the place, and then walk through the streets of Bethlehem, where the fruit/vegetable market was closing up the last of its wares. We made it back to Beit Jalla, and caught a 'service' with barely enough time to make it back to J-Town for Shabbat. But we did.
And it was good.
My folks flew out the next morning, and I wandered around Jerusalem in a shabbat-inspired daze. What. a. world. I thought I was going to meet a friend for lunch, but I went to the wrong place, and some nice Brooklyn Jews took me in. We sang a lot of rounds, which was fun. I didn't talk about Palestine at all.
Perhaps for the next update, I'll write something about people's reactions to the trip, if I can compile some of them. I think that would be a useful thing for me.
I'm working on a song about Area C,
here's the chorus:
Area C, Area C
Everybody's Welcome in Area C
Area C, Area C
You Can Be From Anywhere in Area C
The tune is similar to the "Kit Kat bar" commercial.
Okay, yeah, and I'm in Uganda. That's right. As I speed by on the back of a motorbike, the children call out to me: "bye muzungu!" (muzungu=white person). The ones who don't run away screaming, which a couple do.
It's a little funny writing about Palestine, but still important. Actually, I've been talking about it with people here, including Ugandans, who are quite interested to learn about the situation.
I was also in Cairo for a few days en route to Uganda. It's really easy to find a copy of Mein Kampf there, in Arabic. If anyone needs a copy, let me know, they're like $3. Shabbat was interesting there... interesting like non-existent. I went to the Pyramids on shabbat. I've got friends living there, studying Arabic who were amazingly welcoming and great to spend time with, and while they like to talk shit about Egyptian food, I actually was pretty happy with what was available to me. I guess it's different if you live somewhere for two years, you don't get sick of it after two days. I'll write more about Cairo later.
Bye friends, hope to talk to you soon!
-Yakobo in Bulenga
Oslo- The Oslo Accords, back in the 90's
Palestine Time- There was a Darwin Awards story about some Palestinians who accidentally blew themselves up with a bomb intended for Israelis, because they got confused between Palestine Time and Israel time, and thought that they had an hour more than they actually did.
On Thursday after Purim, I found myself in the Encounter office, where I introduced Cindy & Craig Corrie to the work done by Encounter. It was an interesting shidduch, to the extent that they have a large amount of respect for each other, yet in a lot of ways speak different languages to different communities. Rachel's story is such that she has become an icon for Palestinians, and for the movement for (Palestinian) human rights. A stark reminder that the occupation, at least in a few cases, also kills without regard to race or national origin.
Encounter is a very targeted project for religious Jews. It must address particularism as much as the Corries address universal values.
So anyways, after their interesting meeting, I ask Encounter staff if they know anyone who can a tour for me and 'Jews et al.' They give me a name and number, and I call him a couple of times until I get him on the phone. I talk over the design for an alternative tour for 7-- no, make that 9-- people.
"Is anyone in your group Israeli?" he asks me. Yes, I reply, after a moment's hesitation. "That's great," he replies. "Israelis definitely need to see what it's like here."
Friends, in case you are not familiar with the situation in Palestine, right around the time of Oslo*, part of a "peace process" was to "hand over" partial control of the West Bank to Palestinian administration and security. Palestine is a checkboard map of these three areas, starting with the most urban, progressing to the most rural: Area A (Palestinian administration/security), Area B (Palestinian administration, Israeli security), and Area C (Israeli administration/security). Note that you can read the word "security" also as "military control." Israelis are not allowed into Areas A or B; if they are caught entering, there is perhaps a 5000 shekel fine ($1500 US). Regardless of the intentions behind this law, which has been in effect only since around 2000 or so, is that Israelis can't go to Palestinian communities, safety aside. With the status quo, there is no chance of it "going back" to the way it was: in 1990, someone who lived in Kfar Saba could just drive into Qalqilya to buy vegetables.
So the way this affects us is that for the Israeli in our group, we have to be a little strategic, and take checkpoints from Area C back into Israel, and he has to have a story for the soldiers about where he was, and cannot say that he went to Bethlehem.
Onward, Jacob! This update is taking forever to get out. Here's the gist. On Thursday, everything got arranged, our host knew that most of us are Jewish, and since he is an activist, and a pragamtist, and thoughtful about how to create change for the people of Palestine, he knows that he needs to have good alliances with, and change the opinions of, Jews. He is perfectly happy that we are Jews. I'm just being a little redundant on this point because people ask about it so much.
On the other hand, the status quo of Palestine demands that we not publicize our Jewishness to people on the streets of Bethlehem, which was pretty much a non-issue for everyone; for more religious, or outwardly-identified people, they would have to put their necklace inside their shirt, or tuck in their peyos, or wear a hat to cover their yamika, you get the idea.
At 11 pm the night before we rendezvous'd and left for the Bethlehem area, I realized that daylight savings time was changing that evening... in Israel, at least. So, instead of meeting at 9:30 as I had intended, we moved the meeting time to 10:30 am, which would give people the same amount of sleep. After researching on the internet about whether or not Palestine was changing times when Israel was, I still was not sure about it, and read contradicting information. It turned out that they did switch times at the same time; I believe that in the Fall, Palestine Time* switches one week off from Israel, as a vestige of distinction.
We finally started meeting up at 10:30 am outside Damascus gate, and I ate hummous while waiting on everyone to show up. At 10:55, we headed out to find the 'service' which would bring us into Beit Jalla, a town in the Bethlehem area. We didn't get to our destination until noon; we filed out of the 'service' and met up with George, our fearless, funny, and quite opinionated guide.
First stop: Church of the Nativity. It was my third time there, and definitely the most crowded with other tourists. George spoke passionately about the negative effects of this type of Bethlehem tourism: no one even stays over night, people drive into Palestine, go see the church, then jump back on their buses heading for Israel. All people bring is their trash. They have a negative impact on the Palestinian Economy. He was upset that we, his guests, were being cut out from seeing the "grotto" at the Church by these long lines of people who don't help out the Palestinians: since he lives here, he should have priority in bringing friends to see the church.
George also indicated something that I hadn't noticed before: the bullet-holes through the stained glass in the upper reaches of the Church, as viewed from the courtyard in the middle of the church. From Israeli fire during the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. (the event that launched ISM from obscurity)
Next, we went to see the Wall. Over near Rachel's Tomb, in the northern area of Bethlehem, 26 ft. concrete wall snakes and travels in order to capture Rachel's Tomb on the Israeli side, so that Jewish visitors are able to see their holy site without the trouble of seeing Bethlehem, or any Palestine Palestinians for that matter. It's a
pretty ugly wall, as you might imagine, but there is cool graffiti on it and nearby, including works by the famed "Banksy," a British tagger.
At this point, we headed to Palestinian homes for lunch, split into two groups: vegan and otherwise. I told George that there were three vegans among us, but I didn't tell him that almost no one in our group would eat meat, so that caused a little bit of an issue. People worked it out. I ate with the vegans and wannabes in George's house, it was really sweet to meet his family, and eat with them. They were very nice to us, and welcoming. The carni-philes and associated people ate down the block at George's uncle's house.
After lunch, we heard a different George (with the same last name) speak about nonviolent resistance in the Bethlehem area in the past 20 years or so. I really liked this part of it. Some of us were succumbing to food-coma at this point, but most of us were alive-alert-awake & attentive. We asked some good, and hard, questions. Back in '04, I worked for a week or two in the same office as this George and another guy who works at the IMEMC (International Middle East Media Center, check out http://www.imemc.org)
Last on the tour, we went to 'Aida Camp (a refugee camp of around 10,000 people), and some young guys there told us about the place, and about some arts and cultural programs that they have for giving a positive outlet for the youth of the community.
Around 4 pm, George was heading for Ramallah to hear the Corries speak, and Mikey and Melissa went with him. The rest of us took another hour plus to go into a trinket store where I saw my friend Adnan who runs the place, and then walk through the streets of Bethlehem, where the fruit/vegetable market was closing up the last of its wares. We made it back to Beit Jalla, and caught a 'service' with barely enough time to make it back to J-Town for Shabbat. But we did.
And it was good.
My folks flew out the next morning, and I wandered around Jerusalem in a shabbat-inspired daze. What. a. world. I thought I was going to meet a friend for lunch, but I went to the wrong place, and some nice Brooklyn Jews took me in. We sang a lot of rounds, which was fun. I didn't talk about Palestine at all.
Perhaps for the next update, I'll write something about people's reactions to the trip, if I can compile some of them. I think that would be a useful thing for me.
I'm working on a song about Area C,
here's the chorus:
Area C, Area C
Everybody's Welcome in Area C
Area C, Area C
You Can Be From Anywhere in Area C
The tune is similar to the "Kit Kat bar" commercial.
Okay, yeah, and I'm in Uganda. That's right. As I speed by on the back of a motorbike, the children call out to me: "bye muzungu!" (muzungu=white person). The ones who don't run away screaming, which a couple do.
It's a little funny writing about Palestine, but still important. Actually, I've been talking about it with people here, including Ugandans, who are quite interested to learn about the situation.
I was also in Cairo for a few days en route to Uganda. It's really easy to find a copy of Mein Kampf there, in Arabic. If anyone needs a copy, let me know, they're like $3. Shabbat was interesting there... interesting like non-existent. I went to the Pyramids on shabbat. I've got friends living there, studying Arabic who were amazingly welcoming and great to spend time with, and while they like to talk shit about Egyptian food, I actually was pretty happy with what was available to me. I guess it's different if you live somewhere for two years, you don't get sick of it after two days. I'll write more about Cairo later.
Bye friends, hope to talk to you soon!
-Yakobo in Bulenga
Oslo- The Oslo Accords, back in the 90's
Palestine Time- There was a Darwin Awards story about some Palestinians who accidentally blew themselves up with a bomb intended for Israelis, because they got confused between Palestine Time and Israel time, and thought that they had an hour more than they actually did.
Labels: israel-palestine
posted by Jacob at 10:59 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home