palestine – Page 2 – ToewsTravels

sri lanka 2013 – getting there and back

i went to the beautiful island of sri lanka over the jewish sukkot holiday in october! the journey there and back was half the fun. it was only financially feasible (dirt cheap, actually!) to fly out of amman, jordan. strangely, the cheapest way to get to amman from beer sheva is to take a four hour bus all the way to the extreme southern tip of israel to cross the border from eilat, israel to aqaba, jordan, and then take another bus five hours north to amman. in eilat i stayed with some of my classmates who were doing their internal medicine clerkship there. thanks to mayuri for letting me sleep in her bed while she was gone! i really wanted to do my internal medicine clerkship in eilat as well but alas the spots were limited and luck wasn’t on my side this time. a frustrating thing about this border crossing is that there is a monopolistic taxi mafia on the jordanian side. even though the city of aqaba is just a few kilometers away, they collaborate with the military to prevent anyone from walking. they charge exorbitantly for the short trip into aqaba and physically accost you when you try to arrange with others to share a cab. the bus from aqaba to amman on jett, the national bus company of jordan, is very pleasant however – there is even a stewardess who makes fresh arabic coffee and sandwiches for passengers on request! in amman i had a few hours to kill, so i smoked way too much shisha and chanced upon a huge brand new beautiful shopping mall called the galleria that had just opened!

after a late night flight to dubai, i slept on the airport floor in terminal 2 (an antiquated terminal for low cost airlines only), and found an excellent breakfast place across the street from the terminal – foul (arab bean paste) with pita and pickles for $1! i then took the metro south to the dubai marina, which is a huge new development that i hadn’t been to yet. there is an excellent mall there, and a new epically tall building that is shaped like a spiral, ostensibly defying the laws of physics! then i took a monorail out onto one of dubai’s massive man-made island paradises called the palm – from space it looks like a palm tree jutting into the gulf of arabia. at the tip of this palm tree is an opulent hotel called the atlantis. after numerous unsuccessful tries, i was able to find my way into the guests-only area through a back entrance. inside the hotel is the largest aquarium tank in the world, which when it was first unveiled contained a whale shark, the largest fish ever to be held in captivity. there is one of the nicest water parks in the world there as well, but unfortunately it is grossly overpriced so i was not able to avail myself of its awesomeness. finished the day at the dubai mall – the largest in the world! the newest proliferating coffee chain in the gulf region is canada’s own tim hortons! there are about four outlets in the dubai mall, which i patronized about as many times! on my way back from sri lanka i again went to the dubai mall and spent an entire day there, because how could anyone ever get enough! kobe bryant was also visiting the mall that day with his entourage as publicity for its huge nike store.

coming back through jordan i spent a few late night hours discussing islam and christianity with a proselytizing muslim gentleman on the streets of amman. the following day i was able to cross from jordan into israel at the allenby border crossing – the most direct crossing between amman and jerusalem, saving an entire day of buses. interestingly, the reason tourists can cross from jordan to the israeli-occupied west bank but not the other way around (at least without a jordanian visa issued in advance) is that jordan officially still considers the west bank to be part of jordan (as it was before 1967), so will not issue visas at the border because in their view it is not a border. there is also another border crossing between northern israel and jordan – but it is in the middle of nowhere and public transportation is lacking, necessitating expensive taxis. the allenby border crossing is the only crossing that most palestinian residents of the west bank may use – and it is understaffed – so it is insanely overcrowded. it can take hours to push through the throngs of hundreds of palestinians trying to push their way to one or two open windows. there were some elderly women who were quite literally being crushed. more than one palestinian shared with me during the push-fest that they believe israel deliberately understaffs the terminal so as to make the crossing less than easy. then come the israeli interrogations, which in my experience are more intense there than elsewhere. always an enjoyable “welcome home” to be interrogated like you are a criminal.

beer in palestine

the other weekend a group of friends and i made a long awaited pilgrimage of sorts to palestine’s only brewery! taybeh beer is brewed in taybeh, near ramallah. taybeh happens to be the only 100% christian town in the west bank. the friendly koury family runs the place. after leaving palestine and making it big in america, they were filled with optimism after the signing of the oslo peace accords in the early 90s, and decided to return to their homeland to start its first brewery. alas, retrospectively their political optimism may have been misplaced, but they’re not giving up.

mr. koury learned how to brew beer from americans who did it “in their bathtubs.” now his daughter is taking over the business. peaceful and pragmatic resistance, they like to call it. we got a personal tour of the brewery, and heard about the plethora of struggles presented by the occupation. things like only having access to running water two days each week, though the surrounding illegal israeli settlements get all the water they want 24/7. and the bureaucratic challenges in exporting palestinian product through israeli borders and ports, which is the only way to get anything out of the west bank. a popular beer from palestine clearly does not help israel’s rightist leadership propagate their preferred and disturbed narrative – which is that the west bank is economically stagnant and would be even worse off than it is without israeli “help,” and that pretty much everyone in the west bank is a fundamentalist islamist.

of course, a brewery in the west bank does face some resistance from the muslim majority in palestine, who aren’t exactly big beer fans. but the koury’s are adamant that the israeli occupation poses much bigger obstacles than does the muslim majority in the west bank, a sentiment shared by every palestinian christian i’ve ever spoken to. actually, there are significant numbers of relatively secular muslims who do enjoy the beer, and the palestinian authority even promotes the brewery as a tourist destination. it is also predictably popular among the international crowd – the one and only tony blair visited just a few days before us! due to the challenges of exporting beyond israel, most of the beer is sold in upscale establishments in tel aviv where it is purchased by leftist israelis who support the palestinian cause. we got to sample some product and chat about hops and occupation and boston, which is where the kourys lived in america before returning to palestine.

then we went to peter’s place, an atmospheric restaurant positioned at the highest point on the west bank. one can look out over amman, jerusalem and the dead sea as the sun is setting. and the food was amazing, it took us about five hours to eat! a must visit place if you ever find yourself in the area. taybeh also has an ancient church called st. georges that was built by the byzantines in the fifth century and rebuilt by crusaders in the twelfth. it is said that Christ spent some time there after raising lazarus from the dead. fascinatingly, this church is one of the few in the world where blood sacrifices continue on a regular basis. it is a syncretistic ritual that has its roots in ancient canaanite and pagan religions. they slaughter a sheep in the church and wipe the blood on the walls with their hands. 70-80 lambs per year, apparently.

we then hung out in ramallah for a while before heading back to israel. a day in the west bank never disappoints! a few weeks later we returned to partake in taybeh’s oktoberfest!

west bank adventures

i made it up to the west bank a few times in the spring. one day, a group of classmates and i visited the city of hebron. we went to the local hospital where we were able to chat with some palestinian medical students and get a tour of the facilities. we also walked around the old city that is hemmed in by ideological jewish settlements. we wandered through the alleyways where the settlers throw garbage and sometimes even acid and alcohol down on the palestinians below. we looked out over the infamous shuhada street, or “apartheid” street, so named because palestinians are not permitted to use it despite the fact that it used to be the main thoroughfare through the city. interestingly, even israel’s supreme court recently ruled that palestinians should be able to use the road, but the military disagrees and defies the law by continuing to restrict access. the settlers really wield disproportionate control of the situation, even in open defiance of supreme court rulings. its all extremely sad. it was really encouraging to see some of my classmates make the decision to go see the reality of what is happening in palestine, some of them for the first time. we also visited a glass blowing factory in hebron, where they make all manner of glass things by hand with the help of a huge furnace. if you’re interested in learning more about the situation in hebron, my friend michael mcray just published a poignant book about 3 months he spent there volunteering as an advocate for nonviolence with an organization called christian peacemaker teams. the book is called “letters from apartheid street: a christian peacemaker in occupied palestine.” you won’t regret reading it!

netting to protect passageways of the old city of hebron from refuse thrown down from settlements above

barricade in the h2 (israeli occupied) section, hebron

another day i headed up to bethlehem to visit my friend dr dave, director of the middle east studies program, and the intern at the program, chris, a friend from college. i got to sit in on an interesting lecture, and then we went to a nice lady’s house in bethlehem with some of the students at the program for their cooking class. we made a nice dessert called basboosa. while there, some protests erupted at checkpoint 300, the main checkpoint through the separation barrier between bethlehem and jerusalem. we watched as tires burned in the streets and tear gas wafted into the air and found its way into our nostrils. the protests were triggered by the suspicious death of a palestinian prisoner in an israeli prison. a major source of contention is that all palestinians in the west bank are effectively under israeli military marshal law. thus, they can be arrested at any time without any reason and held indefinitely without trial, a policy called “administrative detention.” thousands are being held in israeli prisons, including many minors. of course, many are truly terrorists and deserve to be incarcerated. but many others are there simply because the israeli government doesn’t like them or the things that they say, and some are never even given a reason for their detainment. huge problems. guantanamo bay disgusts me in the same sort of way. anyway, it is fascinating to live in such a charged region of the world. ambivalence with regard to these issues isn’t a very palatable option when the tear gas is wafting into your nose and making you cry.

my parents came to visit me!

there was a long weekend a while ago, and my parents came to visit me in israel! it was so nice to see them and show them what things are like here. the first night was the white coat ceremony for the first year students at my school, followed by one of two gourmet meals of the year provided by the school, and then skits/movies compliments of each of the classes. my parents got to meet most of my classmates which was great! we then went up to jerusalem and saw such sights as the western wall, church of the holy sepulchre, etc., and they even got to experience having rocks thrown at our car late one night as we were lost in the narrow streets of east jerusalem. the next day we went to bethlehem and they got to see the occupation wall and such. after hanging out on the beach in tel aviv for awhile, we headed to the north where we stayed in haifa and went to the historical city of akko, the sea of galilee, and nazareth. considering that i didn’t have to pay for fuel, we even made a foray to the illegal israeli settlement of ariel deep in the west bank – on the way out my parents got to experience their first stringent “security check” compliments of the israeli army. on the way back to beer sheva my dad and i convinced my mom to go swimming in the dead sea, which she ended up really enjoying, and then they got to come to the bible study i go to here in beer sheva. it was nice that they got to see what israel is like, and just to spend some quality time with them. thanks for coming dad and mom!

nablus and the samaritans

during one rocket day i decided to head up to nablus, one of the largest palestinian cities in the west bank. it is quite a trip from my home in beer sheva – a bus to jerusalem, another through the checkpoint to ramallah, and yet another to nablus. nablus is a really interesting place. i spent a few sweaty hours climbing mount gerizim which overlooks nablus, home of most of the last remaining samaritans of biblical fame. quasi-jews, they believe that the true site of the original temple was on mt. gerizim as opposed to in jerusalem. every year they hold a big ritual/sacrifice thing there. they even have their own ancient language. it is a small community of about 800, and until very recently they strictly disallowed intermarriage with anyone else, so unfortunately they have all kinds of rare genetic diseases. from the mountain one looks down on the balata refugee camp, the most populous in the west bank, where 30 000 people live in an area of 0.25 square kilometers.

in nablus i also went to beer yakoub/jacob’s well, the place where jesus met the woman at the well, and ate the local delicacy – kunafa, which is made from soft goat cheese, butter and honey and comes in flourescent orange and green varieties. unfortunately, nablus has a reputation for being a very hostile place for anyone suspected of being israeli. i was approached by some young guys who tried speaking a few hebrew phrases to me to see if i knew it. that day i didn’t know a word of hebrew – slightly less than what i’d know on a normal day. rumor has it that if they find out you speak hebrew, they’ll lynch you right there on the street 🙁

home of the samaritan high priest, mt. gerizim

israeli defense force station, mt gerizim

semester 2 complete!

prom, medical school for international health

my first tear of medical school is complete, and it was a good one! thankfully i passed all my exams, and now we’re into the second year – systems! this means we will now study just one subject at a time and have an exam every three or so weeks. we recently finished hematology, and now we’re into endocrinology!

a few happenings of the last semester:

-holidays: purim (think jewish halloween), hag b’omer (collect scraps of wood all year so that they can be thrown into a huge bonfire that can be partied around), holocaust remembrance and israeli independence day (minutes of silence during which everything in israel stops, including all traffic on the freeways, followed by a huge party with epic fireworks right outside my apartment), ben-gurion university student day (live music all night; pool party all day)

-a disaster management module that was quite interesting

-ran the dead sea half marathon with a number of my classmates; the lowest race on earth!! 1:37; i was happy with that. afterward we got to swim in the extremely salty dead sea water, which felt great on some our freshly chaffed nipples – you can imagine the yelps!

stretching for the dead sea half marathon

-had the opportunity to go to two christian “student conferences” that involved jewish as well as arab believers. really good times and great to meet some people outside of beer sheva.

-msih prom: bringing the american high school experience to israel.

-some unplanned school-free rocket days (they come from gaza). after one, we made some young israeli friends hanging out in a bomb shelter. they took us to where one of the rockets had hit that day – it decimated a school. good reminder that it is important to hide when that siren goes off.

-perhaps the most profound three hour conversation of the semester was with an american college student who had just finished three months of nonviolently documenting abuses of the occupation with christian peacemaker teams in hebron, palestine. check out some of his documentation of what’s going down in hebron here: http://www.cpt.org/underattack. the occupation is so messed up, yet so intractable – so seemingly impossible to do anything about. but this guy found a way to really put himself out there in a politically poignant yet very Christ-like manner, and i found it nothing short of inspirational.

bethlehem; yom kippur

a few weeks ago i headed up to jerusalem and got to have lunch with the director of the middle east studies program, the study abroad program i did in egypt during college! that semester really changed the way i think about the world, and this particular professor had a lot to do with that, so it was wonderful see him again. also, my friend lynn from gordon college cross country running days is now the intern at the program. it was nice to catch up with her as well and talk about some of the politics/faith issues that only former mespers would think to discuss. because they live right on the seam, we decided to go to bethlehem for a few hours. after passing through the gnarly checkpoint and looking at “the wall” from the other side, we went to the church of the nativity, which marks the spot where it is believed that Jesus was born. there was a three hour long line of tourists, but because lynn speaks arabic we went in the back way and didn’t have to wait at all! we then went to “the shepherds field,” where another church marks the spot.

underneath the church of the nativity, believed to be the site of christ’s birth, bethlehem

church of the nativity complex, bethlehem

on the way home, coming through jerusalem, i ran into some preparations for yom kippur, which was the next day. some jews prepare for this very holy day by killing a chicken after holding it above their head and saying a prayer, called kapparot. they were doing this by the thousands in downtown jerusalem. across the street was a raucous animal rights protest (specifically for the chickens). israel is a diverse place!

yom kippur, or the day of atonement, is the most sacred day in judaism. many here fast all day, and nothing is on the radio or television. no cars are allowed on the roads, so my classmates and i took the opportunity to saunter around all evening in the middle of the normally bustling boulevards and intersections of beer sheva. we were even able to spend some time in a large municipal fountain that only gets turned off once a year. good times!

the north!

one day during rosh hashana my classmates diana, becky, cherec and i went on a circa-israel roadtrip! we started by watching the sun rise from beer sheva’s favorite hilltop war of indepedence monument. then we drove up along the edge of the dead sea, and decided to make a random stop in the palestinian city of jericho. we bought some falafels and fruit, and chanced upon the mount of temptation, believed to be the location where Jesus was tempted by the devil. jericho is also famous as the city that the ancient israelites marched around… and around… and around… and then the walls fell down. today it goes by the tagline: “oldest city in the world. 10 000 years.” we also found a seemingly ownerless camel, who was gracious enough to patiently pose for many pictures with us! thanks camel! camels are my favorite animal, definitely!

then we continued north, right along the israeli-jordanian border and the jordan river (although these days its more like a trickle). at one point i was driving and decided to take a one way in the wrong direction. all of a sudden: flashing lights and siren: oh no. the cop asked where we were from. “america.” to that he said: “never mind then, enjoy the rest of your morning!” nice, eh! this gave me something of a feeling of invincibility, which translated into what i was quickly informed was an excessively aggressive driving style. sorry ladies! eventually we arrived at the sea of galilee, or kinneret in the vernacular. it is actually a lake, not a sea. famous for us christians! interestingly, it is also the lowest freshwater lake in the world. we went swimming amongst throngs of israelis. yofi tofi (hebrew for very nice)!

we then headed further north into the golan heights, which is territory that israel conquered from syria during the six day war of 1967. it is called the heights because it is at a much higher elevation that any of the surrounding area. we were going to go hiking, but the national park was just about to close. so we kept heading north, all the way to mount bental, where there are expansive views of syria (on the other side of a united nations-patrolled buffer zone). we could also see mount hermon, home of the levant’s only outdoor ski hills! there are also old army bunkers to explore on top of mount bental. the golan is full of fields of landmines, marked by “do not enter” signs. there are also old abandoned tanks along the sides of the road, one of which we played in for a while.

we continued north, through verdant vineyards and apple orchards, to two druze towns called mas’ada and majdal shams. the druze are a fascinating pseudo-islamic mystical sect/ethnicity, most of whom live in syria and lebanon, with some in israel. the israeli druze are actually famously unique for their valiant and committed service in the israeli defense forces, choosing to support the state of israel (in sharp contrast to the more typical arab perspective). the towns are amazing – they are built up the sides of mountains – you’d never guess you were in israel! we found the border fence with syria where the townsfolk apparently use megaphones to communicate news with their estranged family members on the other side of the buffer zone (because they can’t travel back and forth).

we then descended into the galilee valley, passing through pristine alpine towns and past nimrod’s castle, which is precipitously perched on the top of a mountain. deciding that the day wouldn’t be complete without a glimpse of at least one more country, we headed north to the border with lebanon at metula! this border is also sealed shut – israel and lebanon were at war as recently as 2006. but the road goes right up to the border; road signs still intact and everything! and wow, metula is a glitzy little town. probably the most affluent town i’ve ever seen in israel. coincidentally, it is also the home of the “canada centre,” a rec-plex that contains israel’s largest skating rink and is the home of the israeli national ice hockey team. yeah!

then we headed home, through tiberias, haifa and tel aviv. the rest of the galilee will have to wait for another time- we are medical students, not tourists, after all 🙂

visit to hebron

the jewish half of abraham’s tomb, hebron, palestine

i took a day trip from beer sheva to hebron. hebron is the largest city in the west bank, was an important site in ancient history, and is currently right on the fault line that is the israeli-palestinian conflict. that is to say, tensions are always high, and there is perennial violence. it is about 2 hours north of beer sheva by bus. and when i say bus, i mean bullet-proof settler bus, that stops at every gated israeli settlement along the way, even the ones with 3 buildings (the 3rd being the bus stop) on the tops of mountains. hebron is where the tomb of abraham (yeah, that abraham!) is, making it a venerated holy site for both jews and muslims. the tomb is underground, topped by a huge edifice that contains both a synagogue and a mosque. separated of course. both were nice! hebron was actually also the capital of israel a few millenia ago during the tenure of king david, but for the last thousand years it has been almost entirely populated by arabs. in 1929 a group of 60-some jews were very unfortunately murdered by a mob of arabs. thus, small numbers of hard-core zionists (arguably the most extreme and religiously ideological on the spectrum) targeted hebron as a site for settlement after the west bank (or judea and samaria, as they like to say) was occupied (or liberated, as they like to say) by israel in 1967. also, because some of them view the area as the true heart of israel (and thus of central importance in the cosmic narrative) because of its importance during the time of david.

in 1994 an american-israeli settler (and a physician, no less :/) massacred dozens of muslims and injured over one hundred more in the mosque side of abraham’s tomb. to prevent retaliation against the 500 or so jewish settlers in the old city, the israeli military partitioned the city into 2 zones, h1 and h2. initially 30 000 palestinians lived in h2 (the jewish section), although they soon were forced out by harassment from the settlers and the military, countless checkpoints, and restrictions like curfews. so now what you obstensibly have is about a quarter of the land area of the city of 300 000 – 400 000 (including what used to be the main road through the city) that is a deserted urban wasteland of empty shops and crumbling homes, encircled by huge cement walls and barbed wire, populated only by a couple small enclaves with a total of 500 settlers, 2000 israeli soldiers to protect them, and probably 10 times that many israeli flags flying absolutely everywhere.

(not that the other side doesn’t have irrational biases either, but)… there are all kinds of “historical” placards in h2 (in english), describing the variety of ways that the arabs have insulted judaism in the city throughout history. one talks about how they disrespected a jewish cemetery by allowing a farm to built beside it. literally across the street, there is an overgrown arab cemetery with an israeli army bunker built in the middle of it, and huge spools of extra barbed wire stacked on top of the graves. not that graves are what’s really important in this situation, but its symbolic of the hypocrisy. seriously, the aura of the place was so depraved that i started feeling nauseous. the arabs can’t come near the settlers, and the settlers can’t leave h2 by decree of the israeli government. probably in everyone’s best interest. so i walked around there for a while, and then headed through the checkpoints into the main arab part of the town. i was vividly reminded of my days in egypt, what with all the higabs, twisty streets of the old city, getting a guy who sold me a 25 cent coffee to reteach me the numbers in arabic, enjoying some pleasantly priced (less than $1) falafel and custard stuff with honey, and trying to avoid being conned by all these people eager to show you their house that was recently destroyed by israeli water cannons. but you can only see it if you “donate” a chunk of cash – they probably make so much money like this. so palestinians can be hypocritical too, can’t we all. but the abuse is real – it got so bad that the israeli government and the palestinian authority jointly decided that there needed to be a special force of international observers, called the “temporary international presence in the city of hebron,” or tiph. these (mostly scandinavian) guys and gals can be seen wandering around in their special uniforms, taking complaints from palestinian shop owners about abuses and sampling dried fruit in the old city.

after a number of hours i went back to h2 to catch my bus. i got there early, and eventually was approached and started talking with one of the settlers, as he was finishing playing some kind of mesmerizing game on his iphone. just like me. he was a 27 year old guy from boston, named israel (original, eh?). another tourist bro walked past, engrossed in lonely planet’s “israel and the palestinian territories” guidebook. that was a catalyst for an intense conversation with israel. he noted the title of the book and started laughing. i asked him what he thought of that, and he said that the rest of the world doesn’t understand that god gave the land – all of the land – to the jews. when i asked what about the arabs, he said that that he actually doesn’t mind if they stay. “we shouldn’t give them civil rights in society, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have human rights here.” hmmm. he invited me into his house for coffee, and his mother was setting up for the big evening rosh hashanah meal (its jewish new years eve), so we helped her set the table. super nice family (to me).

this niceness contributes to but one of the many reasons these tensions have become so intractable – american tourists (unfortunately [in my opinion] many of them fundamentalist christian dispensationalists who are [again, in my opinion] far too obsessed with eschatology) come in on custom settlement tours led by american, english-speaking guys like israel (he’s a tour guide – there’s really not much else of an economy when you’re living in an isolated ideological settlement and can’t even interact with the locals). their luxury coaches are waved through the checkpoints, and they only drive on the israeli roads that the typical palestinian isn’t allowed to use. they become extremely well versed in one side of the story, but they never even set foot outside the separation barriers to hear the other side. and many don’t even know that there are actually christian palestinians on the other side of the barbed wire (not that someone’s religion should influence your ability to empathize with them). and then they go home to their churches, and as “experts” on the “holy land” due to their “two week tour” implore people to “stand with israel at all costs” because she is in a “cosmic battle” of “eternal significance” with “hostile enemies.” and they wonder what on earth would compel palestinian youth to periodically throw rocks. ahhhh no, i’m starting to rant. sorry. but if you consider yourself a proponent of this perspective, i would challenge you to go to hebron and, after visiting both sides of the barrier, ask yourself which side seems the most hostile right now.

to be fair, and to wrap up: hebron is an extreme case. not all settlers are driven purely by ideology. heck, some of the people living in the settlements of east jerusalem aren’t even necessarily pro-settlement: they’re just living there because the government subsidizes the housing. and a significant proportion of israelis are anti-settlement, many even fiercely so. so don’t get me wrong – i am not anti-israel. but this occupation is unequivocally terrible and must end.

settler propaganda in the h2 section, hebron

abandoned palestinian shops in the h2 section, occupied hebron

synagogue on the jewish side of the tomb of the patriarchs, hebron

mosque on the palestinian side of the tomb of the patriarchs, hebron

israeli defense force security through which palestinians must pass to reach the palestinian half of the tomb of the patriarchs, hebron

a settlement ediface in the middle of hebron

nets to protect those in the old city of hebron from the refuse thrown down on them from the settlers above

west bank, and learning about the palestinian-israeli conflict

while staying in jerusalem as part of the middle east studies program (mesp) travel component, we drove out into the west bank east of jerusalem to look at some of the israeli settlements that are causing big problems for the peace negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians. the west bank and the gaza strip would form a palestinian state in a two state solution. but since the creation of israel, jews have been creating and enlarging settlements in the west bank, ostensibly so that when a two state solution is reached they will already be there and therefore have ownership of the land. now much of the settlement movement in the west bank is made up of religious fundamentalists, although interestingly initial zionism and the first settlements were very secular. because jerusalem is half “palestinian” and half “israeli,” the israeli government financially subsidizes jewish settlement in the “palestinian” half so that when an agreement is reached all of jerusalem will just have to go to israel. this is termed “creating facts on the ground.”

we heard from an amazing speaker, probably my favorite of the semester so far, named gershom gorenberg. he’s a haphazard guy who looks like he hasn’t shaven or showered in about ten years. he knows more about the settlement movement than probably anyone in the world (has written numerous of books) and he takes a very objective stance on the issue, despite being a very religious jew himself. we also heard from a hardcore advocate for the settlements which was also very informative in understanding their worldview. we went to the menachem begin museum (a former prime minister of israel who almost single-handedly kickstarted the modern israeli right back in the 1970s).

one day we went to bethlehem, and besides going to the church of the nativity which was very cool, we hung out for some hours with palestinian students from bethlehem university which was a great experience. our student hosts took us to “the wall” that separates palestine from israel proper. we saw some graffiti from a guy called banksy, who goes to charged places in the world and does controversial graffiti (but it really shouldn’t be controversial). the anonymous person that is banksy does this in secret. you know you have a public relations problem if you notice their work on your infrastructure some morning.

a line i’ll never forget – one of the palestinian students in bethlehem told us “we just don’t know what to do. if the most powerful people in the world can’t solve this problem, then what can we do about it?” they were really cool kids. there are significant injustices against the palestinians. there are also powerful political disincentives for israelis to give the palestinians their full rights right now – if things changed overnight things very well might totally fall apart. our director keeps telling us – and it has been a little annoying until now but it is starting to sink in – that we all are herd animals and we all would likely react similarly to how various tribes of people (israelis, palestinians) do if placed in the same circumstance. what is needed for peace is a little pragmatism, and no one would disagree, they’d just argue that pragmatism is less important than their homeland. i’m really enjoying learning about this conflict; there is something strangely interesting about a problem that seems impossible to solve – we don’t seem to have too many of those in the west.