Palestine & Israel: where to begin…

I guess the beginning is good for starters.  We stayed our first night in the Golden Gate Inn, which is seated in the old city in Jerusalem.  Having stayed up all day/night until arrival, I slept the entire night and was able to set my clock 7 hours ahead fairly quickly.

Here’s a view of the patio out front of the Inn where we met and had tea.  Pictured are a couple of the delegation members.

For breakfast we were served pita bread (this was a staple to anything involving food), along with a variety of other foods to pick from.  Included was cheese, humus, oranges, olives, avocado, jelly, butter, yogurt-like stuff, and some other things I can’t recall.

Following breakfast we hit the streets and walked to our first meeting of our delegation.  As it was friday and a holy day for Muslims, it looked like a ghost town for the most part.

Our first meeting was with an organization call ICAHD, standing for Israeli Coalition Against Home Demolition.  They work on behalf of Palestinians to advocate and document all home demolitions of Palestinians.  Our guide, Sarah, had is a Jew who moved from NY to Israel to work with the organization.  She was very articulate and gave a great overview on how Israel is stealing Palestinian land and building settlements (which are basically what Americans would call suburbs, except they have heavy military protection and look like guarded castles from their walls and reinforcements) to take over Israel and slowly push out Palestinians.

The above image was outside ICAHD’s door, done by a local artist.

We jumped in a van and were off on our tour.

Our first stop was south of Jerusalem looking back at the city.

Above you can see the settlements being built (bottom right corner) and Palestinian homes across the valley, being blocked by the “security wall” Israel is building.

Above is a sign advertising for Israelis to buy property at the settlement.  Further up the road from where we were Palestinian land was taken and made into a park for Israelis, now called “Tolerance Park”.  It should be noted for all readers who are unaware that all settlements are illegal by international law, yet no one in the UN or anywhere else has worked to try and stop the further development of these “settlements”, let alone dismantle the ones that have already been constructed.

Here is the “security wall”.  Israel says it is for security, but when viewed on a map it literally divides Palestinian neighborhoods instead of seperating Jewish and Palestinian areas.  Further more it weaves and winds, giving the best of the land and water areas to the Israeli side of the wall.  As a disclaimer, much of what I will be sharing here might come across as negative or cynical, but I assure you I am just sharing what I have learned and experienced from both sides of the occupation.  I’m sure that at times things will seem fairly unbelievable, and that was exactly how it felt for me at times, but the reality of what we saw on the ground there was too concrete to write off as hyping up the situation.

After stopping by the wall, we were shown the above demolished home from recent activity.  They were an old couple who were taken from their home in the middle of the night, after which their home was completely demolished.  They had no connection to terrorists or any other political organization other than being Palestinian.  There are standing demolition orders on many homes in the West Bank, and many Palestinians live in constant fear of their own home being destroyed.  Beyond the actual demolition orders, the Israel government will do similar things without warning if they feel so led.  This is part of both their initiative to take land from the Palestinians for Israelis, as well as chip away at the general moral and economy of the Palestinian people.

Sarah then took us to a “settlement” from which we could look across another valley towards Jerusalem.

From that lookout she pointed out the above Palestinian police station.  Earlier we had past the old location which had been taken by the Israelis for their own use with the understanding that they would build/place them somewhere else.  The result is a facility far removed from both Palestinians or Israelis.  Hardly an ideal location for a police station.

We later wen to lunch and had the best Falafel of the whole trip, and one of the delegation members, Evan, pulled out and sported an amazing pair of sunglasses…I couldn’t resist a picture.

Above is a typical seen of what we could see while we continued to walk the streets to our next stop, Women In Black.  Below you can see their protest to the occupation.  They are Israeli women opposed to what their government is doing, and they stand on this corner in solidarity every Friday afternoon.  They were joined by others from a conference that Sabeel was putting on, and we stood along side them as drivers shouted and cursed at us, often flipping us off.  The Israeli police was present, so I’m not sure what the locals would have done had they not been there.  You can also see one of the many soldiers of the Israel military who were always in sight.  It was very common to see both them and Isreali settlers (those occupying the “settlements”) carrying around their automatic weapons.

By the time we headed back to the Golden Gate Inn the streets were a little bit more active.

Later that night we headed to Hebron where we stayed at CPT’s apartment.  We were served a traditional welcome meal, upside-down chicken and rice.  It was very good!  Later Evan and I did some cleanup, utilizing the very nifty aprons.

And to close out the day we went up to the roof from where we could see across the city.  Luckily I didn’t shoot to the left of where I was standing, for I was later informed that there was a military outpost on the roof right across the street, and had I done so they would have most likely come over and searched the whole building as well as take my camera.

Arriving in Hebron really set a different tone than Jerusalem.  As it was night and Friday the town seemed completely deserted.  As we walked to the main part of the old city I noticed a soldier perched up atop a building in a hidden lookout (not very hidden, though I was the only one who apparently notice it) looking at us through the scope of his rifle.  I was reminded of Saving Private Ryan (the movie) when the sniper was in the lookout during the final showdown scene.  It shook me up fairly well, and really set a very real and intense situation in my mind.  It’s hard to think of all the friends I’ve made and people I’ve met living in that situation constantly.  But although it was a bit scary, it was good for getting a proper read on the environment and an understanding of what Palestinians are dealing with on a daily basis.