Checkpoints permitting, it’s a short taxi drive from Jerusalem to Ramallah, from the first world to the third. On the way I half expect some notice, a sign of some sort announcing: “You are now entering the Occupied Territories. Have a nice day.” Of course there is nothing of the sort. Travelling from the capital to Ramallah, the road gradually deteriorates and the surrounding houses become more dilapidated until you realise that you are in the West Bank.
We arrive in the centre of Ramallah and make the short walk between taxi ranks. The city, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, is as bustling as central Jerusalem. The pavements are so crowded that at times we have to walk on the road amid the chaotic traffic. In its own way, Ramallah, like Tel Aviv, is defiantly normal.
Soon enough we arrive in the small town of Bir Zeit, home of the renowned university. The town’s college is famous, not just for the quality of its graduates, but also for the ingenuity of its staff and students in the face of Israeli occupation. A recent graduation ceremony was carried by video link-up to proud parents in Gaza who were unable to travel to the West Bank.
Meghan and I are participating in the Friends of Bir Zeit University international work camp, a ten day solidarity programme. We are supposed to meet various civil society groups, visit refugee camps and perform good deeds such as tree planting. Psychologically, both host and guest get something out of it. The Palestinians gain the reassurance that someone out there cares about them. The foreigners experience the gratification of doing something “worthwhile”.
Arriving at the university in the sweltering heat, we are directed to a small patch of wasteland on the edge of the campus. With a few shower cubicles and an old hut as sleeping quarters, this will be HQ for the next week and a half.
We are among the first volunteers to arrive and introduce ourselves to our Palestinian guides, a group of students from the university. They strike me immediately as an impressive bunch, committed to their cause but open to outside ideas. Most of them are capable of making complex political arguments in English, something which is beyond the ken of many English speakers.
Leadership from higher up however is lacking. The titular head of the programme, Fadell, exudes an air of indifference throughout. Stocky and in his mid-40s, he has a hard job on his hands moving several dozen people around the West Bank. But only after constant badgering will he tell us what is going on, why the delay and for how long. It is true that he speaks little English but he constantly refuses to use one of the many bilingual people as an interpreter.
The rest of the volunteers arrive in a trickle as the day progresses. There are around twenty people who have paid to come to a war zone, mostly Europeans. We can be divided into three groups. The first I would call the Curious Tendency. These people have no huge interest in politics but just wanted to do something different from the normal holiday. Jonas, a laid-back German, is typical of this tendency. Having spent some time wandering around the Galilee, he now wants to have a look at the West Bank.
Then there is the Arab/Muslim section of the group, which includes members of the Palestinian diaspora. For them, showing solidarity trumps curiosity. Good examples are Susie and Omar, brother and sister from San Francisco whose American geniality masks great determination.
Finally there’s my group, the Guardian Brigade, who have no ethnic connection to the Palestinians but have come to identify with them nevertheless. Bob, an English communist is an interesting “brigadier”. Approaching fifty, he is old enough to remember when the European left looked on the conflict rather differently. Thirty years previously, Israel had been the good guy; tiny, vulnerable, socialist Israel. Thus as a young man, Bob spent his summers toiling on a kibbutz.
The there’s Dave from Chicago, a fully paid-up member of the Guardian Brigade but with a twist – Dave is Jewish. He is an active member of Not In My Name, a Jewish group which campaigns against the occupation.
He is, as his politics might suggest, a slightly strange character. Cradling his water bottle like a new-born baby, he is a prickly sort. It’s not that he’s dislikeable as such; it’s more that he’s difficult to like. Newly married, Dave had intended bringing his wife with him to Bir Zeit. She passed on the chance of romantic evening strolls through refugee camps and agreed to meet him in Jerusalem after the camp instead.
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The following day we travel to Jalazon refugee camp in Ramallah. I must say that I am unmoved by what I see. The living conditions are bad but not disastrously so. Young children follow us around smiling and waving flags for our cameras. Their happiness, rather than any feelings of hopelessness or despair, is my overriding memory of that day.
On the hill above the camp is a row of red-roofed white bungalows, the signature design of an Israeli settlement. We peer up at them and perhaps, they peer down at us. High up behind their fence, they inhabit the same area as the refugees but they live on another planet. What do they feel when they look down on Ramallah? Fear or merely disdain?
But the sight of the settlement and the squalor of the camp don’t make my blood boil. It is only when we travel between Bir Zeit and Ramallah that I get angry. On the way there is an unmanned roadblock forcing travellers to get out of one taxi, walk 200 yards and get in another one. An Israeli tank idles by the side of the road but we never see any soldiers. Conceivably, I could pass through this roadblock with an explosive belt without hindrance.
Compared to the settlement or the camp, the roadblock is a matter of no import, a trivial inconvenience. Why then does it make me angry while the other two leave me cold? I think it’s because of the roadblock’s sheer idiocy, symbolising one people’s casual disregard for the other.
I love rationality, so while I see Jalazon as immoral, I can at least explain it. Creating a state with a Jewish majority is not a task for the faint-hearted. But what of the roadblock? What is the Zionist explanation for that? What definition of Israeli “security” is served by forcing people to take two taxis instead of one?
Four years on, I’m still none the wiser.