There exists an enormous ocean of opinion in regards to the Israel/Palestine argument. One Israeli I met wisely concluded that you could argue strong enough for either party and have people convinced either way. So I am not even going to entertain the thought of talking about the background of the Israel/Palestine debacle, I will just present an account of my experience there.
While in Israel, I really wanted to take a trip to the 'west bank' Palestinian territories. Going there alone would be time consuming and require several different modes of transport (a bus to get to the border, a shuttle from the border, and then another bus from there), I really did not have the time or patience to deal with the whole process of it. So I opted for to take a political tour that would provide all the transport and make it easy. The tour went to Bethlehem and Hebron; and would also make a stop at the Bethlehem Church for us to look around and see the place Jesus was born. It was the perfect tour for me – it killed two birds with one stone!
There were only 8 of us on the tour, so we were able to really get to know each other over the course of the day. We were picked up in Jerusalem by a small bus and driver who drove us through the border and to the house of our Palestinian tour guide. Then we got out of the bus and got into a different van and met our tour guide. As a Palestinian, he is not allowed to go to Jerusalem, so he has to employ someone else to pick the tour group up and drop them back.
Our first stop was the Bethlehem church. We were met at the church door by another tour guide – an expert on the church. He knew the church very well and told us fascinating information about it. He hurried us downstairs to the cave where Jesus had been born. We were wondering why he was in such a rush, then he explained that they were expecting a large group of pilgrims and they were going to do a mass in the cave so it was going to be closed to the general public. We got into the cave just in time – in fact, we were the only ones there (for about 5 seconds).
The cave was cozy and serene. It was interesting to learn that in that very cave they had buried all the babies that had died as a result of King Herod's command to slaughter all the Bethlehem-born infants under the age of two.
Another cave had been excavated right beside it. For many years a Catholic saint had lived there, translating the Bible. He is buried there.
We left the caves and explored the rest of the church. The church is the oldest church in the world. It is interesting because it is a sacred place for so many different denominations within Christianity, and the church building itself is owned by about three different denominations. As a result, there have been many disputes over renovation/restoration decisions. The largest stalemate lasted from the 15th century until very recently. In the end the government stepped in and so the much-needed renovations could begin.
Saying goodbye to our tour guide, we headed back to the van and the political part of the tour commenced. It was not a pretty picture. Israeli soldiers have imposed restrictions on the freedoms of the Palestinians, and basically they can do whatever they like. They make it very difficult for the Palestinians to travel and move about. There are checkpoints everywhere. Sometimes there are multiple checkpoints on the same street. It is really hard to describe it. Imagine you are a pedestrian walking down a main street of your town. Now imagine that as you are walking, you are passing army soldiers wielding powerful machine guns who can ask you questions, check your ID cards, inspect you, beat you up, arrest you, or simply deny you admittance at their absolute discretion. So if they are in a charitable mood you may walk the entire stretch of road uninterrupted, or else if they are having a bad day, you could find yourself beaten and lying in the gutter. Some checkpoints are small boxes where the soldiers just watch you. Others have metal detectors. Others are turnstile gates. We visited one refugee camp where at one stage the only entry/exit point for the entire camp was one turnstile. There were over 12,000 people living in the camp, so the simple matter of going outside of the camp to go to work became a huge process where people had to line up for hours and hours. That has now changed for that camp, but the reality of lining up and being restricted still remains.
The border crossings from Palestine to Israel are testament to this. For the Palestinians who work across the border, they must budget for 4-5 hours of waiting in traffic to get through to the other side. Morning and night. People begin lining up at 4am in order to be at work on time at their office which is 30 minutes away. I met a traveller who was staying on the Palestinian side. One day she had a meeting in Jerusalem at 1pm. It was meant to take 1 hour to get there. She caught the 10am bus and was still stuck in the bus waiting at the border at 3.30pm. These are the everyday realities that we simply cannot fully begin to understand.
We visited the huge dividing wall that 'protects' the people. It is menacing and blanketed with barbed wire. Many artists have come and created political murals or painted messages of peace over the wall.
We visited downtown Hebron. It is a ghost town. Most people have been chased out of town or else their properties and houses have been taken and occupied by Israeli 'settlers'. The 400 settlers live in these former Palestinian homes and terrorise the remaining Palestinians with verbal abuse. Settlers living on the first floor teach their children to sit outside on the balcony and fire BB pellets or spit on the Palestinians walking the streets below. They throw trash, large chunks of concrete, human urine, raw eggs – anything that could belittle or humiliate the Palestinians. Shopkeepers have had their goods ruined by the trash and eggs hurtling from above. Many have shut up their shops and have left. Some shopkeepers stand up for themselves and have banded together by installing sheets of chicken wire over the footpaths to catch the debris thrown by the settler children. The chicken wire is bent and buckled from the weight of the debris that have been tossed. It is hard to believe that this happens everyday.
In the short time that we were in Hebron we bore witness to multiple injustices. Twenty minutes before we had arrived in Hebron a settler child had attacked a Palestinian child and had cracked open his skull. Later on, we personally witnessed a young child of around 7 years old being arrested by Israeli soldiers and led away to the Army headquarters. I do not know his 'crime', but our tour guide suspected he had probably disrespected the soldiers or had been walking in an area he was not allowed to go.
We sat down for lunch at the house of a Palestinian family. After lunch we sat outside and were talking and telling jokes. A local man sat down and joined in our conversation. Two minutes later some soldiers indicated that he had to leave – apparently he was not allowed to be on that street and so he had to move on. As we were sitting we saw some UN Observers walk past. They patrol the streets and take pictures of any abuse that happens to the people. Our tour guide explained that the Observers are even used to walk Palestinian children to school because the parents are not allowed to access the school's street, and if the children were not chaperoned they would be attacked and verbally abused by the settlers. Even the children are subjected to all this!!
As a visitor with a foreign passport, I felt like I was at a concert with an All-Areas-Access card. We were untouchable, we were free to go anywhere. But it was so different for the Palestinians. There were streets that even our tour guide could not take us – he would give us the information and then wait nearby while we took a look around. The town was so strange because it was so empty and devoid of life. It was like the scene in a horror movie. Everything was empty. Bullet holes decorated many of the building facades. No-one was on the streets. Everyone, both settlers and Palestinians, were basically barricaded away in their homes.
Our tour guide explained a lot about what he had seen and experienced. He shared stories of how the soldiers would pick on certain people and force them to stand against a wall for hours and hours, and how they would arrest people for no reason and then incarcerate them for 6 months (or longer!). He told us that every time he travels overseas he is detained and interrogated for 4 hours. He is so used to it that he builds that extra time into his travel itinerary.
He showed us how the soldiers and settlers try to demean and humiliate the people and make them feel inferior. But the Palestinian people are determined to not let their behaviour erode their selfworth. The Palestinian people are extremely warm and friendly. They are very open and are generous hosts. Whatever your views are, if you are in Israel, you should make the trip across the border to Palestine and meet the locals and experience it for yourself. Don't listen to those who tell you that it is dangerous and to avoid it. Go and see for yourself what these people are living through every day. The Palestinians are often portrayed as dangerous and violent but that simply is not true. They are seeking only peace. They are not resentful towards Israelis – they recognise that it is only a few extremists who are making their lives miserable, just as it is only a few Palestinian extremists who gave them all a bad name.
This is not the past – this is the present. This is not just a place where injustice happened in the past, this is where injustices are being lived out every day – right in front of my own eyes! I have visited many places filled with recent tales of injustice – Sarajevo, Berlin, and Budapest for starters – but that was all in the past. This is happening right now!
We exited through the last turnstile checkpoint back to the van. We drove in silence back through the border to Jerusalem. As we drove away I looked back and for one last time read the massive warning sign which reads:
This Road leads to Area “A” Under the Palestinian Authority. The Entrance for Israeli Citizens Is Forbidden, Dangerous To Your Lives And Is Against The Israeli Law.
I drove away with mixed feelings. Rage. Fury. Sadness. Sympathy. Admiration.
But most of all, I just had love and heartache for these wonderful people who have had their freedoms restricted and who live their lives subject to such frustrating regulations.
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