We arrive back in Bir Zeit with little to do for the last few days of the camp. Violence is raging elsewhere in the West Bank, but Bir Zeit is an oasis of calm. In this mainly Christian town shopkeepers sit outside their shops on those ubiquitous white plastic chairs, trying to manage the tedium of their lives. The sun shines brightly and the town is quiet in a sleepy Mediterranean way, the peace only punctured by the thud of a tank shell a few valleys over.
The next day I wake early and see Mohammad, one of the Palestinian students, wandering around outside. He informs me that there were six fatalities in his hometown of Jenin the previous evening. He has the worried look of a man who doesn’t know whether someone he cares about was one of them.
Our three weeks in the Holy Land coincide with a period of miraculous tranquillity in Israel. In the 21 days we are there, not a single life is lost in Israel. But in the West Bank and Gaza the fighting rages constantly and the vast majority of lives taken are Palestinian. On a single day during our visit, 23 people are killed, all of them Palestinian.
Yet this is what the international media, with sickening hypocrisy calls “a period of calm”. No suicide bombs equals calm, regardless of the number of Palestinian
funerals. The daily anguish of people like Mohammad is not acknowledged.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The work camp finished, we head back to Jerusalem with half a dozen new customers for Jibril. During a stroll around the Old City we are involved in a minor conflagration. A group of settlers is showing some tourists around when they are attacked from the walls above by Palestinian children throwing stones. One of the settlers, his Uzi dangling by his hip, barks anxiously into his walkie-talkie. He seems more flustered than necessary by infants hurling pebbles. Perhaps the years of living with constant danger have taken their toll.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The following day four of us take a taxi to Bethlehem just a few miles south of Jerusalem. Right away I’m struck by the economic depravation brought about since the tourist industry collapsed. After getting out of our taxi and passing through the checkpoint on foot, we intend walking into Bethlehem. However we are quickly surrounded by several desperate taxi drivers, pulling, cajoling, almost begging. This goes on for a few minutes. The last driver only departs when I turn around to make a point to him and accidentally walk into a tree.
Our first stop is Rachel’s Tomb just outside the town. Incredibly the tomb, a site holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews, doubles as an Israeli military base. A young Ethiopian soldier wearing a yarmulke inspects our passports and lets us proceed into the tomb.
Meghan and Jenny, an eccentric English woman, go off to the woman’s section. Myself and Mab, a Scot of Bangladeshi descent, enter the men’s section. The room is darkly-lit, there are perhaps ten Jewish men standing reading the Torah, rocking back and forth in prayer. Knowing little of Rachel’s Tomb, this is not what I had expected. I had imagined some sort of museum, a relic, not a living place of worship.
Some of the worshippers stop what they are doing to engage the goyim in long, suspicious stares. After a few moments contemplating my noble visage, they return to their prayers. No-one tells us to leave, in fact no-one says anything at all, but the hostility is obvious.
After a few minutes we leave and meet up with Jenny and Meghan. It seems that the reception in the women’s section was frostier still. One of the female worshippers demanded that Meghan leave because she isn’t Jewish. Anyone who knows Meghan won’t be at all surprised to hear that she refused.
The experience leaves me with very mixed feelings. My initial reaction upon seeing people engaged in prayer was one of voyeurism, as if I shouldn’t be interrupting them. But then came a feeling of indignation at the hostility directed to Mab and myself. I felt angry that only members of one of the monotheist religions were welcome at a site holy to all three.
In Bethlehem itself we meet a tour guide who offers his services at any price. We agree on ten shekels each (about two pounds), but I get the impression that he would have settled for ten shekels between the four of us.
Manger Square, usually crammed at this time of year, is all but deserted when we arrive. A uniformed man whose badge declares that he is part of the “Tourist Police” asks to see my passport and starts chatting about Ireland. He is clearly bored senseless. Of all the passport inspections during the visit, this is the least aggravating.
The Church of the Nativity, Jesus’ birthplace, is now the site of three churches – Palestinian Christians are notorious for their factionalism. We are escorted down to the grotto, the tiny cellar where legend has it, the Messiah was born. At the time, the Greek Orthodox are holding a service. Amazingly to me, they don’t mind us taking photos.
Having left Jenny to wander around the old town, the three of us return to the Jerusalem road in search of a taxi. A bus pulls up and a man in his fifties jumps out and shepherds us on.
“Damascus Gate?”
“Ya.”
The bus is full of vacationing Europeans, most of them wearing yarmulkes. The man who ushered us aboard stands up and starts pointing out sites in German. Driving through Palestinian East Jerusalem with a Yank, a Brit and a busful of yekes, I comfort myself with the thought that, should the bus be hijacked, I will be the last one killed.
I’m confused as to whether we are aboard a bus or a coach. At first I thought it was a coach and that the Germans had stopped to pick us up because they were good Samaritans (even though we are in Judea). But then we stop again to pick up some Palestinians. Perhaps this is a regular bus service after all.
As with all other bus journeys during our trip, this one is fraught with fear. It’s as if you are no sooner aboard a bus than all rationality goes out the window. Suddenly you are hyper-suspicious of all oncoming passengers, particularly young Palestinian men.
Everyone, no matter how liberal or enlightened they may pretend to be, must feel this way. It’s a matter of suppressing bigotry with simple logic. The chances of being blown up on an Israeli bus, even at the height of the intifada, are miniscule, but it doesn’t seem that way at the time.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Back in Jerusalem I go shopping for souvenirs. A day before we are due to leave and finally, a real conversation with an Israeli (exchanges which begin “open your bag” or “where are you going?” don’t count as genuine dialogue). After purchasing a few mementos, I get chatting to the shopkeeper a man in his early thirties. He tells me that his wife gave birth to their first child the day before. I congratulate him but he doesn’t seem full of joy. “You are my first paying customer for twenty days” he tells me.
Very early the following morning Meghan and I head off to Ben-Gurion airport. But even now, in the very last moments of the trip, the Holy Land has more to teach those who want to learn. Our taxi driver is a secular Jew. As we pass through west Jerusalem he sees a group of Orthodox Jews walking in the pre-dawn of the Jewish Sabbath. Leaning out the window the driver yells something at them. I speak no Hebrew, but there is something in tone of voice which transcends languages. He certainly isn’t asking them for the football results, put it like that.
It seems to me that he is yelling abuse at these people purely because they are religious. Israeli society is so diverse, so riven with conflict that, to a certain extent, the only thing holding it together so confrontation with the Palestinians. What would become of Israel if the war finally ended?
* * * * * * * * * * * *
This is a personal, rather than a political account, so my conclusion will also be personal. Rather than reflecting on the chances of peace in Israel/Palestine, I will instead say what the trip to the Holy Land meant to me.
I feel like a voyeur when I say that it was the best three weeks of my life, that I thoroughly enjoyed learning about other people’s misery. In spite of all the wasted time: unable to walk in Tel Aviv, waiting for the doctor in Jenin, hemmed in in Nablus and Bir Zeit, I loved every last minute of it.
Most of all I loved being in the Old City of Jerusalem, to such an extent that everywhere I’ve been since pales by comparison. There is something about the place, an atmosphere, a wonder that a better writer than me could capture. I can’t really describe what it’s like.
All I can say is: if you haven’t been, go.