The life and times of a grump

8th January 2012

Post with 5 notes

Palestine 2011 - 2012

So, this is a few days late. This is entirely the fault of a TV show that I ended up watching two and a half seasons of in three days. I know. This is going to be part travelogue, part thoughts on the situation and part rant about whatever annoyed me. I premise this by saying that whilst of course I had an opinion on the situation before I travelled there, the main opinion I had was that I didn’t know enough about the situation for my opinion to be worth squat. After a week there, that hasn’t really changed, but it has certainly refined my thoughts. But still, I am just an outsider, and certainly no expert. Anyway, the week was never supposed to be a trip in ‘solidarity’ with anyone or a fact finding mission - it was a holiday with my friend. So we start at the airport…

Why do people rag on EasyJet all the time? They charge you for sandwiches. So what? I fit in the seat, I wasn’t carried stuck next to a child and the service was fine. Really don’t get it. Enough of that.

First night was the disaster night. Flight landed at Amman airport at about half 8 - after an hour going through immigration and the like, it was obvious to the taxi drivers that the border was closed. Sadly, it wasn’t that clear to the border guard Cisco had spoken to who told him that the last bus would leave at 10:15pm. A 30 dinar (roughly £30…) trip proved that to be wrong. So, an extra 20 dinar got me back to Amman and $170 got me what was basically the last hotel room in Amman. 

$170 sounds expensive doesn’t it? Apparently though I was in one of Amman’s 5* hotels so that should be fine. It was a Holiday Inn - how that counts as 5* anywhere other Hell I’m not sure. Irregardless, it got me a room with a phone, which was the most important thing of all, as I had had no communication with Cisco since leaving the airport two hours before, who expected me to have arrived across the border quite a lot earlier. After making new plans for his Dad to rescue me the next day (which he did - hero!) I grasped the chance to turn this problem into an opportunity by seeing a city I didn’t think I’d see.

The romance of the situation possibly got my hopes up - trapped in a strange city, full of new sights, smells and sounds, new languages and foods - all very exciting. I headed out to see the city and after a 5 minute walk, careful to avoid the coverless manholes and to not breath through my nose lest the petrol fumes overtake me, I made it to what looked like a small shopping area, complete with food places! Sort of. I was well catered for if I wanted pizza, burgers or doughtnuts. Not so lucky for those seeking a taste of the local area. And when I say “made it to”, I am slightly exaggerating. The glittering lights and greasy smells (I assume - the petrol fumes were still in danger of shortening my life significantly) were across a busy, 6 lane road that I had no way of crossing. All there was on my side was a Chevrolet dealership and a billboard for whatever pec-stacluar film Ryan Reynolds is in at the moment. My dreams were ended. I went back to the room, ordered an $8 sandwich from room service and watched football from the UAE. 

This is a pretty long passage, but I just want to be sure you all understand what a fucking toilet Jordan is. If any Jordanians are reading this, please, I mean no offence. I’m sure the crass Americanisation and car-crazyness are not what you want in your land. But my God, Amman is horrible. It has all the stink of America and none of the smooth, brainless anaesthesia that American Americana also has. Sad.

Anyway, the border. So, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy getting across just from what Cisco had told me. In short, I went through four different check points just to get from Amman to Ramallah. The two things that stood out the most for me was the massive amount of waiting, and the complete disparity between how Palestinians were treated and how pretty much everyone else was treated. This was even more obvious on the return leg. Fully expecting it to take another 2 and a half/3 hours (like the journey from Amman to Ramallah, when I was treated like a Palestinian), it actually took about 45 minutes. Though I paid the same amount of money, myself and three other non-Palestinians were immediately whisked across, whilst anyone Palestinian was trapped on a coach for God knows how long. 

This disparity continued when I travelled to Jerusalem. I was going with my the mother of my friend and host (Samia) and young sister (Mai, aged 8), as my friend isn’t allowed to travel to Jerusalem (Do I need to pass comment on that? I think not). The first thing that came to mind when we arrived at the check point into Jerusalem was “cattle sheds”. The barn like entrance point funnelled people into single file metal grates, topped with razor wire, as Israeli soldiers with very large machine guns watched from outside. No VIP treatment here for me. Eventually, after about an hour of queueing through two different sets of steel bars and large turnstiles, we got to the front of the checkpoint.

Samia had become worried as she had thought it would be fine to bring Mai with us on her pass and ID. Unfortunately, a man in the queue with two sons, roughly Mai’s age, had been sent back. Apparently the Israeli’s will now send you back if you are travelling with a child as young as 6 that doesn’t have their own pass. Regardless, we went ahead, and after my belongings were X-rayed for about the twelfth time that week (which I’m sure is connected to a button falling off a few days later…).

Unsurprisingly, the sour faced officer at the check point (and I have yet to meet any cheerful border guards anywhere in the world) was not that impressed about the situation with Mai, and then BOOM! A British passport appears and suddenly, smiles, waves and probably blowjobs on request. We are all waved through. A fairly common occurrence frankly whenever my little red book appeared.

This brings us nicely on to the few hours I spent in Jerusalem. Throughout the trip I had been reading Jerusalem: A Biography by Simon Montefiore (which is probably the best book I have ever read btw), and it had deeply impacted my time there. Our time was limited, so we didn’t get to see the Wall or the Dome, but we did have look round the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (some very bad photos of which are on my FB, I would suggest just hitting up Google Images for some instead). Religion isn’t something that I really give two hoots about though, and I far more enjoyed walking the streets of the old city, seeing people’s lives and gently prodding American and German tourists in the gut and pretending it was because we were all squashed (I am, if nothing else, a gentleman of style and poise after all). The romance of the place is hard to ignore, as is the sheer weight of history. The dusty streets, the food vendors, the rugs draped across store entrances at prayer time - things that haven’t changed in centuries. Then we went to McDonalds.

Just to explain, it wasn’t for me. Samia and I had eaten some falafel and other little bits in the old city, but Mai being 8 and lover of anything on TV, wanted McDonalds for lunch. So we went. The most alarming thing was the armed private guard at the front who wanted to know if I was carrying a gun, the least surprising thing was that she didn’t search Mai. Anyway, Mai acted like the good little consumer she is, and we headed off back to Ramallah for yet another amazing home cooked meal with friends/family.

I should be honest. I didn’t really like Jerusalem. Too many guns, too much religion. If you read the Montefiore book (and you really should), you get an understanding for just how much bloodshed, violence and suffering this one city has caused, and for no reason other than three of the world’s largest religions think it should be theirs. It’s not that close to either the Jordan River or the Mediterranean, it has little in the way of natural riches and isn’t really important. The amazing thing is that there is so little certainty about what people are actually praying at that you’re more likely to be praying to the tomb of a Roman centurions wife than you are of any particular prophet, priest, saviour, warrior, king or other religious ‘sleb. I have never understood religion, but living in the UK, I can just chuckle at what I see as odd, archaic rituals, cringe at the self-deprication of it or get angry at whatever nonsense or atrocity the Pope pops up with. That wasn’t possible in Jerusalem. The religion is in your face and fiercely, worryingly intense. Every year, 250 people are sent to mental asylums with Jerusalem syndrome. After just a few days visiting the city, these poor folk loose their marbles and declare themselves the new Messiah. Terrifying. And for this one little nexus of religion, surrounded by scrubland, millions of innocent people (let alone millions of soldiers and warriors) have died. For little more in my mind than ownership of the rock someone stood on, slept on, ate on, shat on or died on… possibly. 

And that brings me to probably the most controversial thing I have to say about my time there - the muezzin. This is the person chosen to do the call to prayer (and in many places, subsequent prayers via the medium of MASSIVE SPEAKERS). It wasn’t very prevalent in Ramallah, which is officially a Christian municipality, and is relatively secular. However, the house in Jericho was surrounded by mosques, all of which did their own prayers, 5 times a day at the same time. Now, I will be honest and say that part of my dislike of this practice comes from the simple frustration of it waking me up. However, one afternoon I was on the balcony in Ramallah, looking over the city as the sun set, and the nearest mosque started. Perhaps this was my chance to let the romance and exoticness of the situation wash away my frustration at it! 

No chance. Still I found myself frustrated at it. Most people I spoke to there about it didn’t really care, even those that weren’t religious, but they had grown up with it. For someone who has lived his adult life with a very happy limited exposure to religion, I couldn’t understand why people were happy to let this happen. Five times a day, including very early in the morning, someone shouts at you about religion? How do you live a life free of the often perversed and mangled messages supposedly from Moses, Jesus and Mohammad if you don’t want it? Religion should be something you let into you life surely, not something that can barge in as and when it wants, reminding you that you’re failing according to the standards set by a bunch of desert nomads 4000, 2000 and 1600 years ago. Or am I just being touchy and overly secularised? 

No. Not a surprise that I think I’m right, obviously. I can break bread with almost any one, but religion is something I dislike intensely, especially when you have no escape from it. This, I feel, is the problem of Jerusalem. Maybe if the churches, mosques and synagogues shut down for five years, people could actually start to remember that Jews, Christians and Muslims are all one people, and that the extra layer on top of them of religion is far from a defining feature of someone, but a part of your life like a love of music, a skill at cooking or the ability to do a handstand is. The people of this part of the world have been almost always under the rule of someone from outside their area - be they Turks, Eygptians, Greeks, Crusaders, Romans, Armenians, or any other number of marauding invaders. They should remember that it was largely the luck of the draw that the current occupier was their own religion, giving them a chance to be of a higher status than the other two religions. Religion is the divider of Jerusalem. The sadness of the people there forgetting their own history is almost unbearable. And of course, it has led to the State of Israel staining its own soul and history just as much as any colonial state. 

That was an awfully big statement. Israel has stained its soul with its actions to the Palestinian people. Before a wall of rage comes down upon me, it would be better to clarify what I mean. I believe that every former colonial power and oppressor of other people have stain on their souls that is pretty much immovable. The British of course have most of the world, but especially Ireland. The French have North Africa, America has their native population, Spain, Belgium, Japan, Russia, Italy… all these nations have at least one indelible mark on their soul. Perhaps the saddest thing about the Israel/Palestine conflict is that Israel is such a new country, and yet already they are forming a stain. Of course, there’s a difference between the nation state and the people of the nation. Most Israeli citizens have as much responsibility for the actions of the Government as most Palestinians do for the actions of Hamas. 

And nor is this to say that the Palestinians have been faultless. In fact, it’s largely impossible to find any group involved in the conflict, in fact the entire region for the last 7000 years, who has no fault, let alone the last 64 years. But the lesson of history from Jerusalem is that everything is cyclical. Reading the Montefiore book, it is so blindingly obvious that no empire, no peace, no majestic reign, no bloody occupation lasts. A new power erupts, from within or without - it is forever a case of “here comes the new boss, same as the old boss”. The occupation will never see peace, and there is no bigger question, no more important issue to be resolved or moral dilemma than bringing some peace to the place that despite it’s reputation for being the most holy place on earth, a place of bread and milk, locusts and wild honey and manna from heaven, seems more like the scorched land of God’s disapproval, the valley of the shadow of death.

I pass no judgement on those that still call for the occupation; I can’t deride those that wish to rise up against it. I pity them both, and mourn for the continuing generations that are lost in nothing more than tribal rivalries played out over countless generations. The world has failed both sides, but there are times when you can’t help but feel both sides have deserved to fail. The stubborn, muleheaded refusal to negotiate at different times are the actions of children. 

Should the Israeli state have ever been founded? Well, it’s probably not the most popular opinion, but the Turkish rulers of Jerusalem had supported the Nazis, fought alongside them and aided the holocaust. This is what happens after wars, and I don’t like that it happened, I don’t like that the people who lived in Jerusalem simply switched from being under the rule of one Empire, to another Empire before becoming Israeli or Jordanian. Nor do I think that all Palestinians must pay the price for their leaders. But one thing the Jewish people needed more than anything was a homeland, and in their feckless way, the rulers of the world looked at history and thought they’d found a solution. The founding of Israel was not the start of this bitter conflict - it is just another small part in the continued shit fountain that has rained down upon the entire region. 

The point however is that it is a fact, a fact that at least has been embraced by Fatah, if not Hamas. What the hell would I do if I could do anything? Probably place a nuclear bomb at the heart of it all and let people start again in 100 years time. Not the most positive solution. In reality, both sides know what that there are two final outcomes for this though. One, eventually return to the negotiating table and thrash out some version of the ‘67, ‘92 or ‘07 plans. Two, continue fighting. Who really wants that? 

I wish I had some pithy conclusion to this, I really do. I am also surprised at how much spilled forth from me here, considering how clear I was at the start about how little I know or have experienced of it. But these are just my thoughts. I was a stranger in a very strange land for a week, and this is what I saw and feel. Judging by the people I met, there’s hope. The most extreme point of view I heard from anyone was that they support boycotts of Israeli products and universities. Do I agree? Well, probably. It worked in South Africa, and frankly, agitation is still a better option than armoured tanks. On the flip side though, the Palestinians need new leaders. Crooked, grown spoilt and fat from the conflict and with no brains, they are doing almost as much to hurt their people as the Israelis. A more sensible economic plan than BUILD A LOT OF BUILDINGS couldn’t hurt either.

I fell in love with this land, and desperately want to return soon, including the Israeli side. It’s a totally insane place, but it got under my skin. I hope no-one is particularly offended by what I wrote, but if you are… well, write a blog yourself. Or boycott my exports (whatever they are). Don’t build a wall though. Walls aren’t good.