Beginning or end?

(The bullet-ridden flag is still flying. A perfect metaphor for an occupied people.)

Today is my final day in Palestine. After that I'm off to crazy Cairo for half a day before embarking on the long journey back to Canberra, Australia. Yes, that's right, I'm returning to Canberra and my house negro ways. More on that later.

I'm tired, my arms and legs are sore, and my brain is farely drained. I've also found myself overloaded with stories of dispossession, injustice and shear victimhood. So much so that I often glaze over as, for instance, an old lady tells me of the night her grandson was detained by the Israelis, and is yet to be heard from (let alone charged).

The Palestinians are an intense bunch. Their hospitality can be stifling, much like the taste of you fifth cup of Arabic coffee in the Mediterranean heat. But it's incredibly welcoming. What has surprised me the most, although it isn't really all that surprising in retrospect, is the abject routineness of the place. That includes the occupation. People have adjusted to a life of constant humiliations, struggles and imminent dangers. Let me give you but one example by way of illustration.

For the past few nights Israeli jets have been flying over head around the clock. And when I say around the clock, I mean, on some days, every 30 mins, 24 hours a day. Yes, even at 2am in the morning! Sometimes they just fly very low to the ground, yet still too fast for you to actually catch them. Instead, by the time you hear the plane overhead, it's already way up in the clouds. On other occasions they produce a sonic boom - basically break the sound barrier very close to the ground. Again, before you know what's happened, the courageous Israeli pilot has already bailed off with his plane into the sky. At night you can see the deep red exhaust of the plane flying up over the horizon like a shooting star in reverse.

These sonic booms are pretty special, to put it in crudely ironic terms. It's like a giant, very loud clap of thunder immediately above your head. Only this clap of thunder sends a giant ripple of sound waves coursing through the walls, the windows, through your entire body. I even saw the glass in the windows wobble on one occasion! I've never experienced anything like it. The first time I heard it, I literally thought I was about to be collateral damage in yet another 'targeted' assassination. Alas, I found myself safe and sound, albeit rather embarrassed - I was all balled up on the ground as everyone else casually kept walking on to wherever they were heading.

The sonic booms often break windows. I was told just moments ago that a local school has several cracked walls. Young children, and there are plenty of those in the Hospital I am currently visiting, scream profusely. And let's not forget the dear animals. They go totally apeshit - the dogs become delirious, barking abruptly. The birds all fly off at once like a giant, tangled ball of string.

There is no other way to explain this phenomenon than thus - it is state terrorism. An indiscriminate weapon whose sole purpose is to terrify the entire Palestinian population.

So there you have it. Another intensive journey through an intense land. It will take some time to adequately begin to assess my first impressions of Occupied Palestine. Be that as it may, one thing is already clear. For me, this is not the end of the journey. No. It's just the beginning.

Just north of the Egyptian border

Rafah is as frontline as Palestinian cities get. To the immediate south is the border with Egypt, a border which partitioned Rafah and its population into two cities. Many people in Rafah have relatives - cousins, aunties, brothers, parents - who live on either the Egypitan or Gazan side. For a brief time during the Israeli disengagement last week these relatives could greet each other in person for the first time in over 3 decades. Now the border has been closed by Israel again. The city was partitioned after the 1967 war when previously Egypt-occupied Gaza fell into Israeli hands. As in the photo above, Rafah is crowded with buildings, many peppered with American-made Israeli bullets.
Most of the border is straddled by a giant metal wall. The wall was constructed by the Israelis, ostensibly on the grounds of security, thanks to Egypitan steel. Who says Arabs and Jews don't cooperate?
This used to be a tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. It was used to smuggle a range of goods, from tax free items to guns and illicit drugs.
This is Anees, one of the friendliest, most welcoming people I have ever met. Although he is only 20 he speaks and acts as though he was much older. Obviously he has seen a lot. He spoke at length about the oppressive nature of the Strip. That although the settlements were now gone, and Gazans could travel freely within the Strip (previously three checkpoints within the Strip meant that most could not leave their town or village) life was still difficult.Ruins of houses demolished by the Israelis, usually on the grounds that they harboured militants or were the houses of suicide bombers, are everywhere. The one pictureed above is right next to Anees' house.

"When they [the Israelis] demolish the [neighbouring] house, it damaged our house too. Our house is still broken."

Like so many of the people I've met in Palestine, especially young people, Anees is fed up with the situation. I could not sense any anger, although I had seen and heard of many other angry people. What I felt more deeply was a powerful sense of frustration.

"Do you think I like living like this?" He pointed to another pile of rubble heaped on the street immediately outside the front door to his house. The rubble came from another, adjacent building which had been partially demolished by the Israelis.

"This rubbish has been here for months. No one cleans it up. There is no one to clean it... Just once, I'd like to see some space, no rubbish, just clean and open... Do you think I like living like this?"

I wondered whether such scenes, the daily frustrations of simple routines forever etched into nuisances like piles of rubble and rubbish, ever made him angry, angry towards the Israelis.

"Of course, I am not happy, but I don't hate the Israelis. I don't believe in hate. I would love to meet more Israelis, normal people like me. I just don't know why the [Israeli] army does this to us. Why?"

Don't ask me.

Eventually we arrived at the beach. It was a surprisingly calm place to be given the generally hectic, cramped atmosphere of the rest of Rafah. Yet even here there were signs of the Occupation. In the distance, a lone Israeli navy vessel stood immediately on the horizon. It was a menacing image. If a picture tells a thousand words, then surely this very real image screamed out something even more profound. The Israelis were reminding everyone in Gaza that they were still around. That they were still the ones with all the power, the guns, even the ocean.

Entering the prison

The Gaza Strip is a giant open-air prison. As soon as you enter the Palestinian side from Israel you are immediately greeted by shy Palestinian officials and a landscape littered with dust, debris and demolished structures. Driving down the central arterary of the Strip is like driving down the boulevarde of nihilism. A lengthy monument to decades-long occupation, it hints at the difficulties the Palestinians will face in creating a functioning state. Most of the road is raw, the bitumen in large part having been dug-up by Israeli bulldozers during the disengagement period that ended a few weeks back. What utility do such actions have other than to create misery for the Palestinians?
Yes, there is even the savaged reminance of a synagogue (pictured above). It looks more like a twisted, heaped roll of water-logged paper than anything recognisable as a place of worship. My instantenous reaction upon seeing the wreckage was fear, fear towards the type of anger and hatred that generated it. And sadness. Why couldn't the synagogue have been converted into a mosque or, at least salvage. I've been told much of the synagogue's materials were salvage. But it doesn't look like they did a very good job.

What is equally obvious, but which has not received much mainstream media attention, is the Jewish settlement structures (particularly homes and farming infrastructure) which are now totally destroyed. The Jewish settlers deliberately destroyed everything they could not take with them, thanks as always to the Israeli Defence Force.

Access to Gaza is via the Erez Checkpoint in Israel (Israel has presently blocked access between Egypt and Gaza). It must rank as one of the most astonishing alternative tourist sites in the world.

At present only internationals with good reason to enter Gaza may enter the Strip. The only place you do this is through the Erez Checkpoint in Israel. The checkpoint is basically a giant corridor. The first segment of this corridor begins when you pass three small concrete bunkers which are manned by Israeli soldiers when the checkpoint is fully operational (aka when Palestinians are travelling through it). Passed that is the standard booth where young female Israeli soldiers do their best to impersonate immigration officials checking your passport. Once this process of procedural brinksmanship has been completed you are motioned towards a lane which resembles a giant faraday cage. The end of this cage is closed by an electric gate. There is no way of knowing when or how it will open, although there is a small video camera trained keenly at you from the roof. In my experience, the gate opened, ever so slowly, after around two minutes.

Following this electric gate there exists another, larger electric gate which completely covers a long concrete corridor some 15 metres wide, 10 metres high, and, as I soon would discover, around a kilometre long. Again, further uncertainty ensues at this juncture. Do I say something? Do I just wait? When will the gate open? This time there did not appear to be any video camera (although I am certain there was a video camera somewhere)... And eventually the gate did open, even more slowly than the previous one.As I began to walk through the opening I was startled by a loud, garbled message emanating from a mega-phone on the Israeli side.

"Oh shit, what is it now?" was my immediate, audible response.
"Don't worry, it's probably just us." Was the response from a man standing on the Palestinian side with a camera crew. Somehow I had managed not to notice them until then. This despite the corridor being long and straight. Amazing the tunnel vision you develop when you're caged in.
"Oh, okay."

I walked on through as the gate closed before the others could cross and the man who had spoken to me began to let off a string of expletives in the mega-phone's direction.* This from an 'international', a white television crew. I wonder what the locals must think?The long corridor was really something else. I've been through the labrynth underground train stations of many a major city, but the Erez checkpoint corridor took the cake. It was straight, claustrophobic (yes, that word again) and completely featureless except for the myriad of bullet holes peppered liberally along both sides of the corridor's walls. Some of the holes were neat, small and needle like. Others were chunky, messy, blob-like gaps. It was as if I was being given a free lesson on the different types of bullets you can fire from a machine gun. In the photo above you can see the part of the corridor where the Palestinian and Israeli sides begin. The Israeli side is to the right, coloured off-green.

(The Palestinian side of Erez Checkpoint.)

* I later discovered that the journalist was none other than the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Matt Brown.

One day in Hebron

Because the border into the Gaza Strip has been closed, I've decided to check out the city of Hebron. Hebron is a major Palestinian population centre in the south of the West Bank. It also happens to be one of the more volatile places in the region because it is intersected by three Jewish settlements, one of which literally juts immediately into the centre of Hebron's old city (the area marked with a box in the map below. The green area marks the settlements). Hebron has 140,000 indigenous Palestinians and 400 settlers, all recent migrants, 'protected' by several hundred Israeli soldiers.Hebron to me felt like a microcosm of the Occupation and a glimpse into the future direction of Israel's illegal expansion into what's left of the Palestinians' land. Although I only spent a day in Hebron I toured the old city extensively. The old city is the heart of Hebron. It also happens to be at the centre of most of the violence. Here's some photos I hope captures something of what life in Hebron is like for the Palestinians.*
This charming couplet of 'wall art' is courtesy of Jewish settlers from Kiryat Arba. Kiryat Arba sits on top of an old Palestinian neighbourhood. My guess is this rubbish was spray painted by some settler kids. The Israeli police can't detain kids younger than 12. As a consequence, settler kids 12 and younger are considered the greatest menace by Israeli police and the local Palestinian population alike. They routinely pelt Israeli police car with stones. I was told that one policeman deliberately did not move his car when settler kids started throwing stones at it in the hope that one of the windows would break and he could fine their parents.
Here you can see some narrow walkways in Hebron's old city. Note that all the shops are shut. This is a direct consequence of settler attacks on the locals. If you look closely you will see rubbish bulging down from nets covering the roof tops. The rubbish is thrown down by settlers who occupy the dwellings above the old city. Like the racist graffiti pictured above, you don't need to go out of your way to find images like this. It tends to be the other way around. The images abruptly confront you.
A Palestinian man smokes despondently as Israeli soldiers seize his bedroom. The door to this room is to the left of him. An international monitor who was also in the house told me that the Israeli soldiers probably wanted somewhere to sleep for the night and were too afraid to sleep at the checkpoints which are in the heart of the old city and therefore vulnerable to militant attacks. It's worth noting that the soldiers are also probably using the family as a form of human shield. Otherwise why not sleep in one of the unoccupied houses of which there are plenty?
Mr Mousa points to one of the bullet holes left when Baruch Goldstein, an ultra-orthodox Jew from the Kiryat Gat settlement, opened fire in the Tomb of Abraham mosque in 1994, killing 29 people and wounding several more. Settlers built a monument to Goldstein which I was unable to visit. Many settlers consider Goldstein a folk hero, not unlike the genocidal Custer of American folk lore, or many of the early 'pioneers' of Australia's outback.
Now the Tomb of Abraham (pictured below) has separate access points for Muslims and Jews. A tragically childish way for the two communities to worship at the same place. The Muslim section is controlled by four Israeli checkpoints all manned by those ubiquitous young soldiers.
I spoke to these four teenagers just before entering the Tomb of Abraham. By the time I came back, around 15 minutes later, they told me the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint (which is around the corner from where this photo was taken) had detained them and taken their IDs. They said this happens to them close to every day.
The Israelis routinely close off walkways within the old city, ostensibly on the grounds of security. The people who live behind this particular barrier have to walk an extra ten minutes to reach the point from which I took the above photo, which also happens to be one of the main thoroughfares through the old city. Another example of how Israel makes daily life for the Palestinians difficult. Torture by a thousand cuts.

Epilogue

That night I slept in a small hostel literally on the border between the (Palestinian) old city and the Kiryat Gat settlement. I didn't sleep too well. Here's why - an Israeli armoured vehicle swept noisely through the old city's narrow streets at least three times (probably more, given that I may have slept through some of the other visits). Sporadic machine gun fire could be heard what I estimate to be around half a kilometre away throughout the night, ending around 4am. How can people live like this?

* For a more detailed summary of social and political situation in Hebron click here.

Leaving Nablus

This is Hawareh Checkpoint in the outskirts of Nablus. From here I'll take a service (share) taxi to Ramallah. From Ramallah I'll get another service to Qalandia Checkpoint, enter Jerusalem, get a bus to Ashkelon in Israel, then a taxi to Erez, the checkpoint into Gaza. Wish me luck.

Beiteba Refugee Camp, Nablus

Back in Nablus today. I spent most of the afternoon meeting the head of the Women's Centre at Nablus' Beiteiba Refugee Camp. The Women Centre includes a hostel and educational facilities for Beiteba's young female population. It's Director (pictured sitting down to the right above) is one of the most influential women in Palestine. Having met several respected, male community leaders, it was refreshing to finally meet a senior, female Palestinian figure. Given that, you can imagine my eagerness to speak to her about the Occupation and life in general for Palestinian women. Instead I was forced to hear about her personal experience with the Al Naqba (Arabic for 'the catastrophe') of 1948, when Palestinians throughout the region now known as Israel were driven out of their homes, often on the promise that the eviction was temporary.

And what began, in me, as a sense of frustration - yet again, a Palestinian would not give me a sound bite, but would instead wax intensely about some decades-old injustice - ended, I think, with a slow realisation that this very old injustice was still fresh, still relevant, as though it only occurred last week. Many Palestinians, like her grandparents, still keep the old keys that unlock the doors to the houses they left some 56 years ago.

Just after 1967* her family visited their old house in Israel. It was still standing, and was now inhabited by a Hungarian family.

"My father knocked on the door... A lady opened the door and asked him who he was. He told her that this used to be his house, and she just stared at him strangely. Can you imagine how it feels to be treated like a stranger in your own home? We had to ask her if we could come inside and see our house. The lady let us in, but she didn't want to know [about their eviction], she just said that the house was given to her family by the [Israeli] Government... the house was vacant [when it was given to the Hungarian family]."
Little has changed on that front for Palestinians today. The Beiteba Community is often targeted by the Israelis, whose mountain top bases peer directly down into the camp's narrow 'streets'. The Director of the Women's Centre gave me a tour of the camp. Like Ama'ri, the atmosphere was claustrophobic, the conditions basic albeit spotlessly clean.

Despite this, the people of Beiteba continue to try and live normal lives. I was given a tour of the new Women's Centre, still under construction, which was an impressive, four-storey complex designed specifically to give women a space to live and express themselves. Perhaps here is a chance for a new start.

The young man in the picture below, a resident of Beiteba Refugee Camp, died in a suicide attack in Israel.
In response, the Israeli army bulldozed his family home (below). The top of the mountain which overlooks the ruins is an Israeli military installation. How does this prevent further suicide attacks? How is this a security measure? Collective punishment is a war crime under international law.

"Palestinian women are fighting many battles... at home, to take care of their families, [and] we are still resisting the Israelis." The Director showed me this Hamas poster as she spoke, pointing out the woman holding a rifle in the bottom left corner. It seems that a society under military occupation cannot but be militant.

* In 1967 Israel had a decisive military victory against its Arab-state neighbours, occupying East Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip.

Project Qalqilya

The long drive to Qalqilya has convinced me that occupied Palestine is a giant obstacle course. A massive putt putt golf course where the Palestinians are the golf balls. I traveled to Qalqilya from Nablus. The first stop (pictured) was Beiteba Checkpoint just south of Nablus where, yet again, an Israeli soldier queried my nationality. I even discovered, firsthand, that the revolving door which is used to farm people through the checkpoint one-by-one has a device to stop it revolving. This quickly and efficently converts the revolving door into a tiny prison cell. I'm sure some American company devised that nifty little gadget so the poor Israeli soldiers don't get overburdened with those teeming Palestenian masses.
After I passed Beiteba I caught a service taxi to Qalqilya. Okay, so that's that. Or so I thought. But no. After around 20 minutes of 'nifty' service taxi driving we were stopped by a small Israeli checkpoint (pictured above) manned by what appeared to be very young Israeli soldiers.

Me: "Excuse me... excuse me, can I take a picture of you?" Click! With that I took the photo posted below.
Soldier One: "No, no-"
Soldier Two: "What, why you want to take a photo?"
Me: "Because it's cool."
Soldier Two: "Because it's cool? Who are you, [something in Arabic]-"
Me: "Sorry I don't speak Arabic, only English. I'm from Australia."
Soldier Two: "Are you Muslim."
Me: "Yes."
Soldier Two: "Let's see your passport."
Soldier Three (another soldier who hitherto had been speaking with the driver on the other side says to him): "Okay, you can go!"
[Car drives through whilst Soldier Two looks on, still quite keen to get my passport.]

Of course those words cannot adequately capture the incredible sense of intmidation you feel when two tall, armed-to-the-teeth and very cocky young Israeli soldiers speak to you like that. I should also point out that Soldier One (the one pictured above) actually pointed his gun at me briefly, and quite non-chalantly at that.

As the taxi sped off, I couldn't help thinking what wicked things guns are. To be sure there is more to this situation, any situation where a gun is involved. But in my experience with the Israeli soldiers, and with the Palestinian kids brandishing guns in Nablus, I saw first hand how dangerous these instruments of death were. Not only because they can kill, but because they give the wielder the arrogance to believe that they are some sort of authority unto themselves. I hate guns. Really fucking hate guns. They always make me nervous.

The taxi was stopped at another checkpoint just outside Qalqilya. This time the Israeli soldiers did take my passport, all of our passports.* Eventually they returned. In the mean time several Palestinian cars drove past without the Israel soldiers even turning to look at them. It was clear to me how random the checkpoint stops were. When the soldiers returned with the passports they motioned one of the men inside the taxi to get out. I watched as he was told to stand alongside the road, inside an area enclosed by a small metal roof and concrete barricades. The taxi sped off. Very random these checkpoints...**

Mohammed, a young activist from the area, was waiting to meet me when the taxi finally arrived in Qalqilya. It was a bright, hot, quiet day in the city centre. The conditions helped heighten the sense that I was now in the eye of the storm, that region of any large disturbance which is misleadingly calm. Qalqilya is quite literally, and quite breathtakingly surrounded by the separation wall. The wall is 120 metres within Palestinian territory as defined by the 'Green Line' of 1967.*** The wall has video cameras every 20 or 30 metres which you can see in the photos if you look closely.

Mohammed explained, "Qalqilya is the testing ground for the Israelis. The wall was first built here. I think Qalqilya is the only place where there are video cameras covering every inch."Israel says that the wall was placed around Qalqilya to stop terrorists from entering its territory from the West Bank. Yet none of the suicide attackers have ever come from Qalqilya. Moreover, as has been explained to me on a number of occasions now, there are several ways to get into Israel so as to avoid the separation wall and the endless checkpoints. Indeed, many thousands of illegal Palestinian workers travel to cities in Israel to work on a daily basis this way. The Israelis know this. It is an open secret. If the Palestinians wanted to commit a suicide attack in Israel they could do it almost at will. Is it then a coincidence that Qalqilya also happens to have some of the richest sources of subterranean water in the region? Whilst Israel has refused to allow the Palestinians to purchase new motors to pump the water, another example of Israel’s control over daily Palestinian life, the surrounding Jewish settlements have new water pumps working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Mohammed told me that the Israeli side of the separation wall is raised so Israeli soldiers and police can peer over it. Whilst Mohammed and I walked the length of the fence pictured above, we heard the dull sound of jeep tyres scraping towards us. Mohammed was clearly a little distressed, although he tried to conceal it.

"Ok, no problem. Let's keep walking."

Mercifully, the jeep didn't stop. Eventually we reached the beginning of the wall, an area intersected by a road lined on the Palestinian side with rubble and the occasional structure with tired, blistered shop signs in Arabic and Hebrew.

"Along here there used to be several shops. Israelis used to come here to shop. That's why the signs are also in Hebrew... One night the Israelis came and bulldozed all the shops."

The few shops that did not get destroyed were never opened again. Once the area was closed off from Israel business seized to exist. Now the area is an eerie ghost town (pictured below).

Qalqilya is still connected to a few surrounding villages through tunnels built under the wall by the Israelis. This has improved access for the local Palestinian population, although in the process of creating the tunnels Israel has confiscated further Palestinian land. It seems there are no free lunches in the occupied territories, Jewish settlers excepted. The wall around Qalqilya was built at a sporadic rate. Mohammed believes this was done deliberately to heighten the sense of insecurity in Qalqilya.

(This is the main access point between Qalqilya and Israel, although it is presently closed. Israel is currently building several warehouse-like buildings at checkpoints like this (see the white building behind the tower to the right in this photo) to process a significant pool of cheap Palestinian labour. I got shouted at by one of the soldiers in this tower after taking the photo. For a second I seriously thought I was going to be shot at.)

"Sometimes they build quick, sometimes they build slow. At first people just thought the wall would be small [not surround the entire city]... The slow construction made people think this. Eventually people could see that it was around Qalqilya, that they were in a big jail."

And so around 42,000 Qalqilyans are surrounded, along with around 40,000 others who live in villages just outside Qalqilya.

(Farming has increased in Qalqilya since the separation wall was erected and Palestinians were prevented from leaving the city. Prior to that, most of Qalqilya's workforce worked in Israel. At present unemployment hovers at around 60-70%.)

Qalqilya wall art

Sharon (here depicted as a pig in a suit) is bottling the Palestinians, one (city) at a time.

* In truth the Palestinians don't have passports for the checkpoints, although they do have passports for international purposes. Instead they have a rather macabre identification card which lists their name, father's name, place of birth and religion. Even within their own land the Palestinians have to provide identification to the Israelis.

** Here's another checkpoint story I can't help sharing with you. On my way out of Qalqilya, one keen Israeli soldier commented that my visa had expired. Having noticed where he was looking in my passport, I politely noted that he was looking at an old Pakistani visa. "Mate, you might want to check my Israeli visa stamp." One of his colleagues had to tell him that he was looking at the wrong visa. On the way out of Nablus a (rather attractive Ethiopian) Israeli soldier did something similar when she asked me whether I had a visa. I said she could check my passport herself, after all she was holding it. But rather than doing this, she merely handed the passport back to me. These episodes make me query the efficacy of all these Israeli checkpoints as a security measure.

*** The Green Line represents the boundary of the State of Israel prior to the 1967 war with neighbouring Arab states. In 6 days in 1967 Israel occupied the areas of Palestine now known as the West Bank and Gaza. Under international law, it has widely been accepted, including by no less an authority than the International Court of Justice, that Israel must withdraw to its territories within the Green Line. More information on the Six Day War are available here.

Salem

Salem is a rural village outside Nablus. In a perfect world without any checkpoints and separate roads for Jewish settlers (which are beautiful, smooth freeways) and the Palestinian population (which is forced to use dirt tracks or unsealed bitumen roads) the journey between Nablus and Salem would take 5 minutes by car. Instead, it usually takes around an hour because of the numerous checkpoints scattered along the way. Thankfully when I visited Salem there were no checkpoints so the journey only took 15.

I travelled to Salem with Pat, an Australian studying Arabic and teaching English in Nablus.* Pat came especially to Salem to help Asim, the son of the local Imam (Muslim priest), who is applying for a scholarship to study in England.

I came with Pat to see the famous earthen separation wall of Salem. Asid's family farm has been split into two by a giant ditch dug by the Israelis. The ostensible reason for the ditch is, yes, you guessed it, for 'security' reasons. The Israelis built a settler road alongside the farm area, so they decided to confiscate half the land in order to protect settlers driving along the road from being attacked by Palestinians.

(The land to the right in this photo has been seized as a buffer along the settler road. Some 200metres of Palestinian land extending for several kilometres.)

Forget ostensible explanations. This is a land grab. * It turns out both Pat and my parents live in the same suburb of Sydney. Talk about a small universe.

Nablus

(The service taxis wait for passengers at Qalandiya checkpoint)

Today I arrived in Nablus, one of the most populated cities in Palestine.* Two things are immediately apparent about the place. First, it is a more conservative city than Ramallah or Bethlehem. Almost all the women here wear the hijab. There is no (ready) source of alcohol. And there are posters of martyrs everywhere.

The second thing you notice immediately is that this is a city under siege. The Israelis literally peer down at the city from the neighbouring mountains. Nablus is situated between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Upon one of these mountains lies a giant mansion owned by a Palestinian telecommunications magnate. The other is an Israeli base (pictured below). If you look closely you can see a light-coloured line running across the mountain. That line marks the boundary between the Israeli military installation on the top and the city of Nablus. Another mountain around Nablus also has an Israeli base on top of it. Pat, an Australian law student teaching English and learning Arabic here, told me that the top of this mountain (circled in the picture below) is used by Israeli snipers. These snipers usually aim, extra-judicially as they do, at suspected militants. However, they have even killed children and elderly persons! The things you don't hear about on CNN...
The old city of Nablus has a great deal of character. Sadly, it is the sight of routine skirmishes between the Israelis and Palestinian militants. Because of this, the alley-like walkways of the old city are marked with bullet holes and generally are in poor condition.
Several nights each week, Israeli soldiers sweeped through the narrow streets of the old city in armoured vehicles. This inevitably leads to fierce gun battles with local militants, most of whom are with Islamic Jihad or Fatah. I had a Turkish bath last night in the old city as a gun battle raged briefly above.

As mentioned earlier, photos of the 'shaheed' or martyrs are literally plastered everywhere. Even the glass causeway surrounding the hotel lift had a few. These are the sports stars, the heroes who are liberally advertised throughout this besieged city. Although the principle behind the pictures of the shaheed is to showcase those who have been killed by Israel during the Occupation, many of these young men have actually been killed by friendly fire. Such are the dangers of machine guns in the dark alleys of old Nablus. When you walk through the old city at night it's not uncommon to see kids as young as 15 straddling machine guns.

Tomorrow I'm going to a village called Salem just outside Nablus.

* As usual Wikipedia has a good entry on Nablus here.

David Rovics plays Beit Sahour

Today a I caught a concert for the children of Bethlehem by American folk singer David Rovics. I had never heard of David before today, and am glad to have literally stumbled onto him and his mates who happened to be visiting Beit Sahour (just next to Bethlehem) at the same time as me.
For someone as musically ignorant as I it was refreshing to hear a folk singer (aka dude with a acoustic guitar) with a powerful voice and a powerful message. Until now my aural inspiration for social justice had been fueled by the likes of Billy Bragg, Faithless and Kev Carmody. David sang about the separation wall that is kniving through the West Bank, the war in Iraq and the Israeli invasion of Jenin.* The songs hit the spot and the kids had a great excuse to frolic around, chuck things around and generally excude some youthful energy. Speaking of which I've subsequently discovered that the locals call the children, especially the boys, intifada kids. To call them cheeky would be an understatement. I suppose when you get used to the Israeli Defence Force invading your streets all the time you don't get intimdated by grown ups anymore. I thought it was somewhat appropriate that the concert was held in school grounds immediately infront of the imposing separation wall (pictured below) which, thankfully, was heavily graffitied.

(Even if my bones are broken I will continue to resist... Children dance to patriotic songs)

After the concert we did a brief tour of the wall immediately surrounding the area. A few very energetic Palestinian boys came with us, demonstrating their prowess and accuracy as they flung several small stones towards the empty watch tower (pictured below). When you see the separation wall 'in the flesh' like this you cannot mistake that it is an instrument of oppression.
* You can download David's music here. If you can afford to (which should be most everyone who reads this blog) please consider purchasing his CD instead!

Next stop Beit Sahour

We're on the high way to Bethlehell!...

Life is plastic... it's fantastic!

Thanks to Aiman (pictured) I managed to hear Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' four times on the road. There's something surreal, to say the least, about taking in the historic landscape, complete with towering separation walls, to the soundtrack of mid-90s Euro pop!

These imposing towers are scattered throughout the region. Talk about taking penis envy to new heights!

The checkpoint outside Bethlehem. Some of the soldiers look barely out of high school.

Ama'ri Refugee Camp

Ama'ri is one of the oldest refugee camps in Palestine. It was established in 1948 outside Ramallah, although it is now more usefully described as one of that city's inner slum areas.

To begin to appreciate Ama'ri you need to go back to 1948 when Ben Gurion's Zionist militants swept across Palestine ethnically cleansing the region of its inhabitants, establishing the State of Israel in the process.

The inhabitants of Ama'ri are originally from Lud and Ramla, which were prosperous towns located in present day Israel. Lud was destroyed and replaced with Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's only international airport. Ramla still exists, but now as an almost exclusively Jewish city. Jihad, the director of the Ama'ri Children's Club explained further.

"When we left Lud and Ramla [in 1948], it was all of a sudden. We had no idea we would be forced to leave by the Israelis… So we had nothing. We could not take our clothes, our furniture, our gold and jewelry. Nothing."

At first the families of Lud and Ramla thought they would be able to return in a matter of weeks. Instead, they remain refugees until the present, some 57 years later.

From 1948 to 1953, Ama'ri's population was forced to live in tents without basic infrastructure like a sanitation system. After 1953, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) built rudimentary dwellings, each with one bedroom and a small kitchen shared by anywhere between 5 and 9 people. Today Ama'ri houses 9000 people in an area measuring approximately 1000 square metres. Such statistics are not hard to believe when you visit the place. The narrow alleyways of Ama'ri are intensely claustrophobic. The children of Ama'ri in particular appear to find the situation frustrating because there simply isn't enough room to play and explore. The one small playground they have (pictured) is tiny. And yet it is meant to cater for thousands of children. Around 60 percent of Ama'ri's population, like most of Palestine, is under the age of 18.

During the Al Aqsa Intifada which began 2002, when Israel surrounded Ramallah, the playground and many surrounding buildings, including the belongings inside, were flattened. Where once the playground was a grassed area, it is now heaped with sand. The Ama'ri Children's Club's offices were raided and computers and furniture were also destroyed.

"[The Israelis] did this because they don't want our children to live a normal life like everyone else in the world."

Jihad believes the Club was targeted because it provides services to children, like sporting activities and drama classes, which allow them to express themselves.

"Israel wants us to be dependent on them. That is why they spread drugs and crime here [through Palestinian collaborators]. Sometimes collaborators fire at settlements to get a [military] response from the Israelis."

I could not help but wonder how much of this was true, and how much was the product of resentment towards Israel fuelled by decades of dispossession and collective punishment. Conspiracy theories are rife here, as, I read, they are in many Middle Eastern communities. One person I met even tried to convince me that Rupert Murdoch was Jewish. I tried to explain that 'Murdoch' was a very Scottish name, and that Rupert himself was from Adelaide in Australia. I am not sure how convincing my thesis was.

Be that as it may, I could not help wondering whether I too would assume the worst about Israel if, like these people, almost every experience with Israelis was negative.

Beyond that, the message was very clear, and it was very simple. When I asked people in Ama'ri what they wanted, three answers dominated.

"We want to live side-by-side with the Israelis with dignity and mutual respect, we want recognition [from Israel] that we were evicted from our homes… but so long as there is an occupation we will resist."

And what about the fact that Lud is now an airport, and Ramla is entirely Jewish?

None of the people I met at Am'ri would answer this question directly. Many expressed a strong desire to literally return to their original homes. I couldn't help wondering if this desire was actually a reflection of having been forcibly evicted for so long without so much as even recognition of this basic fact, let alone anything more concrete like compensation. Or is it merely the response of a stubborn people?

Probably both. The impacts of occupation on human nature are difficult to distil.

After the United States was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Ama'ri Children's Club donated $US10,000 to the American Consulate. Here Jihad presents the cheque to the United States Consul-General.

A monument to the 'shaheed' (martyrs) - the people killed when Israel invaded Ama'ri in 2002.

More photos from Ramallah

Main Street, central RamallahLike so much of Palestine, Ramallah is a city carved into a series of mountains.
A balancing act. Ramallah is a relatively liberal city. Here I show some solidarity with a local DJ.

The Occupation streams into your consciousness

The Occupation is impossible to avoid. It permeates every aspect of Palestinian life. Invariably, this makes the population acutely political in a way that is quite a change, to put it lightly, to the blissful apolitical nature of Australian society.

Even Ramallah, perhaps the most liberal, cosmopolitan cities in Palestine, has its scars. Several streets bear the imprint of Israeli tank treads. Like the scratches of a giant eagle's talons, you can see them etched into the bitumen almost as if to remind you that even the roads in Palestine have not escaped the Occupation.

Over the past few days I've been to several legal non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Most of the meetings have started with a fair amount of reservation on the NGO representatives' part.

"Who are? Why are you here? Nothing has particularly changed much over here, the Occupation continues unabated," or words to that effect.

The meetings always end on a far more positive note. Its amazing how favourably people react to the knowledge that they have not been forgotten. The most important message I already carry, and it is something which can only be described as inspiring, is that the people of Palestine continue to resist the Occupation.* And that resistence, the resistance of every day people (lay and professional alike) is fundamentally non-violent. That is something that cannot be overstated.

Take the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center. One of their primary activities is to challenge Israel's 'acquisition' of Palestinian land in the Israeli Courts. Rights and access to land are at the very heart of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the legal regime which seeks to legitimate Israel's land grab is emblematic of this. It is a model for a legal system devoid of justice and it sounds surprisingly similar to the Australian indigenous land rights system (albeit that the timescale is much shorter).

The Israeli legal system of land acquisition is based upon a complex mixture of Ottoman Laws (1500s to 1917), British Emergency Laws (1914-1939), Jordanian Law (1948-1967), and military by-laws issued by the Israeli Commander of the West Bank.** Yet whether de jure (in law) or (de facto), this system is fundamentally discriminatory and it leads to the seizure of the most fertile, highest, and water rich lands.

Palestinian land can be confiscated under several different authorities. Most of the authorities stem from some notion of security or public purpose. The racist irony of these notions of security and public purpose is that they only apply to the Jewish population. So, for example, an ancient Palestinian village may be acquired for the purposes of building a freeway that will be exclusively used by Jewish settlers. Palestinian settlements on high ground deemed useful for military purposes are regularly subject to seizure on the basis of security. These seizures begin with the construction of a military base, but they are often known to expand into civilian Jewish settlements.

Further, under the absentee law established when Israel was first created in 1948, any 'vacant' land may be acquired by the state for a public purpose. This law has been interpreted to include land left vacant by Palestinians even for a short period of time. Jerusalem Legal Aid has represented families which have left their homes on holiday, only to return to find that their land has been confiscated and transfered to Jewish settlers.

To compound the frustrations of evicted Palestinians, Jewish settlers preside over the Courts set up to address these land seizure cases!

I asked why the Center persisted with their efforts to prevent the eviction of Palestinians from their land, despite the inevitable failure of the endeavour. I was told that they sometimes succeeded, around one of every ten attempts, to prevent the eviction of Palestinians from their land. Also, and arguably more importantly, the fact that the Palestinians have followed the due process of law evidences the lack of protection afforded to them by the Israeli justice system. As one judge explained to a Jerusalem Legal Aid Lawyer, "this is a court of law, not justice."

And yet, the Palestinians persist in their attempts not to be marginalised. I suppose when someone is trying to eradicate you, either through murder or theft of your land, your mere existence is a form of resistence.

* Although this is something Amira Haas, a noted Israeli journalist whom I met last night, may disagree with. If I get some time over the next few days I'll put up a post on the conversation. Watch this space.
** An excellent databse of these, and contemporary Palestinian laws is hosted by Beir Zeit University's Law Institute here.

Anniversary of Sabra and Shatila massacres protest against the Separation Wall

Manara Circle, Ramallah

Crossing into Ramallah

To get to Ramallah from Jerusalem (see map), you need to take a bus from the Nablus Rd Station to Kalandia check point. At the checkpoint you disembark from the bus and cross by foot through a narrow corridor surrounded by the 18 foot separation fence, cement blockades and copious barb wire. When I followed this routine I was greeted by an intense malieu of organised chaos. As soon as the bus door opened and everyone filed out of it, an almost hysterical crowd gathered outside literally stampeded towards the now vacant bus. It was as though I were invisible. I almost got trampeled. It was a total, albeit brief, frenzy.

Once I passed through the narrow corridor in front of me was a rudimentary intersection with cars vying ambitiously for the tightest of spaces. Somehow I managed to catch a taxi throughtout all of this. Even more remarkably, the taxi driver managed to thread his way between buses, cars and people without as much as a scratch on the car.

Welcome to the frenetic West Bank.

Kalandia Check Point

Meeting Hisham

Today I met Hisham, 48 year old veteran of Palestinian resistence to the Occupation and hostel proprietor. Beit Sahour Player suggested I meet him whilst in Jerusalem.

After taking down directions, I eventually managed to find Hisham's hostel. It was a door way etched into a busy market lined with fruit and grocery stores. Inside the doorway was a staircase zigzagging all the way to the first floor. At the top of the steps I pressed the door bell and was greeted by a Palestinian boy who looked me up and down suspiciously.

"I'm here to see Ishan, is he in?"
"You mean Hisham."
"Yes Ishan, thanks."

I followed the boy towards an enclosed courtyard looking directly west into the midday sun. Along the centre wall sat a middle aged man who greeted me hesistantly.

"Hi, my name is Iqbal. I'm a lawyer from Australia. Beit Sahour Player suggested I meet you. He said you could give me a good run down of the history around here."

With that Hisham began his story. No doubt what he told me was but the tip of the iceberg. But it was still enough to leave an impact.

Hisham is no stranger to imprisonment and torture. In 1977 he was imprisoned in Syria for criticising that country's massacre of thousdands of Palestinian refugees in southern Lebanon. "I was at a lecture on agricultural engineering. Someone said that Syria had come to protect the Palestinians [in southern Lebanon]." When he mentioned the massacre he was taken by Syrian secret police and tortured for two days before being released. In Jordan, he was interrogated for a day after he stopped a Jordanian official from manhandling him, presumably at an immigration checkpoint.

Hisham used to be an agricultural engineer. He also obtained qualifications in psychology and chemistry. It was with the chemistry and engineering elements of his qualifications that he learnt to make bombs. Because of this background, the Israeli secret service, the Shabbat, arrested and tortured him. After eight explosions rocked Jerusalem in 1997, the Shabbat took Hisham to a notorious prison directly underneath a famous Russian Orthodox Church in new Jerusalem (pictured below). "They took me on 12 January 1997, during Ramadan. I still remember the exact date. I was in prison, they tortured me for 73 days."

During the 73 days of torture, the Shabbat tried to get Hisham to sign a confession that he was involved in the Jerusalem bombings along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. When he was detained, he was clean shaven and wearing a white shirt. By the time he was released, he had a large unkept beard, wild, overgrown hair, and his shirt was dark brown. He smelt so bad his family says they could smell him three rooms away.

Hisham was kept in solitary confinement, in a room measuring one by two metres. He was given rudimentary food and two to three litres of water per day. One corner had an opening, to shit, and a lid, to reduce the odour. He was not allowed to shower for the entire 73 day period.

His wrists were bound before handcuffs were tightly placed over them to ensure there would later be no scarring, potential evidence of his detention and torture. His fingers became swollen to around twice their normal size and turned a pink-purple colour.

Due to the torture, Hisham went unconscious on several occasions. Eventually his heart stopped. He was clinically dead. The Shabbat rushed him to a local hospital which Hisham mentioned, with some meriment, was a maternity hospital. He was revived and sent back to prison to continue the interrogation.

Despite the use of all manner of physical torture techniques - the use of cathodes and intense beating, to give but two examples - Hisham insists that the main, most powerful technique was psychological. The Shabbat torturers would constantly tell Hisham that his wife and children would be defiled. They always spoke to him in Arabic and would often read passages of the Koran "in perfect Arabic." At one point, they even brought his father, who was 80 years old at the time, to the prison.

"They told my father that if I did not confess, I would definitely go to jail for ten years... But still, I refused."

On the day of Eid (one of the main Muslim holy days and a cause for much celebration), the Shabbat brought Hisham a great feast, along with cigarettes and hot water. Immediately, Hisham wondered what the catch was. "For so many days I had not even had hot water. Why all of a sudden all these things?" He refused to accept any of these new gifts lest it relate to a confession.

"The Shabbat said I could go, have the food and go. And I refused, and he [one of the Shabbat officers] looked at me in shock. I said, "you know my language well, but you don't understand my culture. It is Eid but how can I leave, I have no money, you took me in my pyjamas, and on Eid I need to give money to all my female relatives." This is one of our traditions, we give money to females on Eid."

This enraged one the Shabbat officer who grabbed Hisham and smashed him on the wall.

"He [the Shabbat officer] said, "'til now you have been living in the mansion. Now you go to the worst [sic] place"... and I was dragged off to where there was a policeman, and the policeman asked where I was going."

The Shabbat officer told the policeman that Hisham was to be released. They had decided to release him but instead of telling him this directly, the Shabbat performed one final act of mental torture, just in case Hisham would crack and confess to being behind one of the Jerusalem bombings before he was released. But, of course, Hisham did not confess to something he maintains he was never involved in.

"When they released me, I had not seen daylight for 73 days. I staggered around, looking for a taxi, but it was Eid (a public holiday for Muslims), and the Israeli taxi drivers, seeing my condition and my smell, refused to take me... I saw a Palestinian taxi driver, I begged him to stop. He said he was driving home for Eid, he was not working. But I pleaded with him to take me. He said, "Okay, but it will cost you 100 shekels (around $35 Australian)." I said "You can charge 200 shekels if you want, just take me to my father's house."... When I got home, my brother, who is a very emotional person, broke down and started crying. The whole family began to cry as I told them what happened. Even the taxi driver began to cry and said he wouldn't charge me any fare. I said no, no pay him 20 shekels."

I asked Hisham if, given his experiences, whether he believes that the Occupation will ever end. "Only by force" was his response. "I am committed to non-violent resistence now, I work with the International Solidarity Movement. But, do you know history, our history? Nothing will work with Israel but force."

"Even now, at any time, they could take me again. Before I was released, one of the Shabbat officers, he told me. If ever I catch a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader who mentions your name, I swear on your mother you will get twenty years."

The gate to the prison where Hisham was tortured.

Some more photos from Jerusalem

A walkway in the predominantly Jewish new city.
A walkway in the Palestinian quarter of the old city.

Some photos of the Western Wall... ...the last remaining portion of the Jewish Temple on Mount Moria which was destroyed by several conquering armies. It remains the holiest site for Jews. Notice its proximity to the (Muslim) Temple Mount. As much as they'd like to forget one another, the different religons cannot but live side by side.

The top of Mount Moria where most Jews believe Abraham agreed to slaughter his son Isaac as a testament to his faith, and where Muhammed ascended to Heaven.

Tear gas canisters displayed inside the Al Aqsa mosque. They were used by Israeli soldiers during the intifada which began here.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus Christ was crucified and was resurrected.

Israeli soldiers, security guards, and settler militia patrolled most of the old city's Muslim quarter.

City of Gold

My hotel is on Mount of Olives which is just outside the eastern border of old Jerusalem ('City of Gold). This is the view from my window.
The Jews believe the Messiah will descend down to heaven on Mount of Olives during Judgment day. For this reason, Mount of Olives is covered with Jewish graves. It's an extraordinary landscape (and an incredibly steep one).
There are so many narrow lanes in the old city, making it very easy for beginners to get lost. The constant inclines and jagged steps turn much of the city into a giant stepmaster. I bet my butt cheeks will be solid after this week!

Mahmood runs a souvenir shop in the Muslim quarter of old Jerusalem (there are four quarters to the old city - Muslim, Jewish, Armenian and Christian). He said business was difficult at the moment because tourists were a little frightened to venture into the Muslim quarter. When I asked him what he thinks about the Occupation he merely said "I don't [think about it]." Did he think there would ever be peace? "For fifty years we have been occupied... I was born under the occupation. So I don't think about it, I don't see why anything will change." Mahmoud lives in Ramallah, a city approximately 20kms north of Jerusalem. It takes him 3 hours to get to work every day because of the Israeli checkpoints. He told me it takes foreign passport holders (and presumably Israeli settlers) 30 minutes to travel the same distance!

The Dome of the Rock. The point where Jews, Christians and Muslims believe the universe was created, and where Abraham offered to sacrifice his son to God. Muslims also believe it is the place where the Prophet Muhammed ascended to heaven to meet other prophetic lumaneries like Adam, Moses and a few others I forget.

This is Jamal, whom I met at the end of Asir prayers (specifically, when I lent over to stop him standing on my glasses). He was far too friendly for my liking and, paranoid as ever, I got even more suspicious when I noted his shirt said 'Australia Macabia Games'. The smart money is on him being an Israeli informer asked to check me out (non-Muslims aren't allowed into the mosque). He asked me a lot of questions about where I was from, and before I said anything suggested I was from Australia... and Pakistani. Eerie, so much so I thought I might as well take his photo!

A father waits patiently as mother lines up their young family for a photo outside the Damascus Gate. The Damascus Gate is one of the entrances into the Muslim qaurter of the old city. It also happens to be where the Intifada (Palestinian uprising) of 2000 began. The children are wearing 'Free Palestine' t-shirts. Not everyone is as gloomy as Mahmoud.

The classically Middle Eastern looking dwellings of Palestinian East Jersualem. If I could paint this would be my first choice. I know the perfect spot to do it too, right across the other side of the valley where the Jewish quarter begins. If any of you can paint and consider visiting Jerusalem let me know and I'll set you up at this spot.

Visiting Masada and the Dead Sea

Today I visited the Dead Sea and Masada on a tour bus blessed by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. What struck me the most about the tour was the total absence of any reference to the Palestinians. On the way out from Jerusalem, the bus passed a half-finished portion of the Separation Wall that is cutting off large portions of the Palestinian population. The only reference to non-Jewish inhabitants was in relation to the nomadic Bedouin, whom we were assured had a tradition of living in primitive, 'patriarchal' conditions which are 'now turning into shanty towns... although they traditionally live in tents'.

The first stop was Masada, the site of a mountain top fortress created by the paranoid Jewish King Herod. Herod created the fortress so that, in the event that he was ousted (he was not very popular, and was installed by the Romans who could've removed him if they wanted to), he could escape to Masada with his entourage. In later years, a group of zealous Jews who refused to accept Roman control, literally walled themselves up at Masada. Over three years, the Romans built a giant ramp with which to send up a siege engine to break Masada open. This they eventually did. As the apocryphl story goes, the Jews in Masada decided to kill themselves rather than surrender to the Romans, lest they be sold as slaves and forced to convert to Roman paganism. In the modern Jewish state, young Israeli soldiers go up to Masada to swear an oath that 'Masada shall never fall again.' Hearing that made me think about the hundreds of nuclear weapons Israel has. I wonder if someone like Sharon ever whispers that oath to himself as he contemplates Israel's future. Would he and the other, more fanatical elements of Israel's power structure invoke Masada in the event of a major military crisis?

Marianne, our tour guide, explained that the story of Masada was an inspiration 'not just to Jewish people, but to all oppressed people.' I doubt she realised how ironic that statement was. She continued to explain that when the Jews left the settlements in Gaza (with most of the infrastructure in those settlements, all developed thanks to billions of dollars in American tax payer dollars - no, Marianne didn't say that bit), they compared their situation to the Jews at Masada facing the Romans. Marianne tended to agree with this interepretation, although I personally found it difficult to see how the occupied Palestinians could be compared to the Roman Empire, the United States of their era. Especially since the settlers are not of that region.

Our next stop was the Dead Sea, perhaps one of the most remarkable places I have ever visited. The water is so salty, you literally float in it. It's easier to sit in the water than to stand. The water stings your eyes horribly, which is why you dare not duck your head underwater, and the taste is overpoweringly salty. Oh, and yes, it truly is dead. Nothing lives in the water, other than tourists from time to time.

The view from Masada - overlooking the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea.

The blogger from the blue lagoon (aka emersing myself in Dead Sea mud)

Checking out the night life

Unfortunately this internet cafe computer doesn't have a USB port so I can't upload some wonderful images I've captured. Fingers crossed I'll be able to upload them in Jerusalem, which I'm heading to on Sunday.

Being the avowed Trance/rave music nut that I am, and given young Israelis' interest in this type of music I felt obliged to check out the local scene. This despite travelling some 30kms by foot in the hot sun around Tel Aviv. So I rocked up to this club called 'Fetish', which is somewhat of an ironic title for this club as you'll soon read. Outside the joint the two things going for it was the decent-sized line, and the cute door bitch (DB). Almost as soon as I line up I get stares. Stares from the two big Russian bouncers who look like they've taken one too many hits to the face, stares from DB, and stares from the people in the queue. One of them even asked me if I was a terrorist! It's a strange feeling to describe, the feeling you get when someone looks at you and seriously considers the possibility that you might be trying to blow them up. I don't consider myself particularly self-conscious, but I must admit that, at least for that short moment, I felt like perhaps there was something wrong with me (as opposed to my appearance). I bet this is something a lot of Aboriginal kids who line up at queues outside Australian night clubs have a lot of experience in.

At this point I started feeling really nervous. "Don't look like a terrorist, don't act like a terrorist, relax, don't look like you think you look like a terrorist" was rushing through my head. In all of this, someone asked for my name, and the best I could come up with was 'Sid' (which, incidentally, was a bit of a play on Edward Said, but I doubt they would've guessed).

The DB kept on palming me off, letting several others through before me. Even people who had, quite clearly, arrived well after me. Normally I would've just walked off, but this particular place was right next to my hotel and had a big 'trance' poster stuck up above the club entrance. Eventually, read around 12:30am, I lost patience and basically shouted at her in English, asking her what exactly a person had to do to get into the joint!

And with that, I was allowed in. Inside the place was pretty dead and, even more depressingly, has a female to male ratio of sausage factory proportions. It was obvious to me that people were staring at me. Whereas during the day my confident strolling through Tel Aviv made me blend in quite nicely (I was asked directions in Hebrew on several occasions), in Fetish it was somewhat less easy to do so.

Whilst waiting to get a drink at the bar, I engaged in small talk with this dude called 'Ach'. Ach was a communications major who was dating a Czech girl who was currently in Prague. Suffice it to say he was in Fetish all alone. Holding a beer in his hand, the first out of place element in this club,* he explained that he was a regular to the joint and that it would soon pick up steam.

Two hours and three vodka-cokes later (they hadn't heard of bourbon!) and the place was well and truly under way, although the music was best described as progressive, not trance. Ach suggested I mention to girls that I am from Australia and I soon did. Before too long I was dancing with this very cute little Russian girl, though after around thirty minutes she abruptly left. It was around this time a very Arab-looking gentleman, no doubt a Sephardic Jew, introduced me to Puff the Magic Dragon, quite literally out of nowhere. Everything seemed to segue into everything else far too easily. The overly friendly Ach who I met almost as soon as I entered the place, the lone hot girl who danced with me in a club full of males, and the friendly Sophardic Jew who offered me some chew. What really got me a bit concerned was what appeared to be stares between Mr Sephardic and two other men in other parts of the club. I couldn't help thinking that I was being set up for deportation. Marajuana is still illegal in Israel (ecstacy has been dicriminalised), and the Immigration folk used up 7 long, draining hours looking for excuses to deport me too. After all that, I decided to roam the club a lot and left around an hour later. Anyway, I had to catch a bus to the Dead Sea at 7am that morning!

Of course, all of this is likely paranoia on my part. But Tel Aviv is a paranoid place when you look like Iqbal Khaldun.

* Raves usually drink water and avoid alcohol.

Women in Black demonstration

Whilst walking through central Tel Aviv, I noticed a bunch of around eight people standing at the corner of Bograshov and King George Streets (a prominent intersection in Tel Aviv). They were all dressed in black, holding small placards with Hebrew written on them. As I drew closer, I noticed that one of them, an elderly woman, had chained to her neck a large picture of a Palestinian child crying in front of a backdrop of rubble. On her chest was written 'Women in Black - end the occupation'. Immediately, I walked up to her and said shalom (Hebrew for hello). Her name was Aliyah. I asked why the group was standing there, and she explained that they were protesting against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. She said although Israeli society was polarised, the numbers in favour of ending the Occupation were constantly growing. The Gaza withdrawal, she believed, was the latest testament to this.

I asked whether it was difficult for someone like her, a Jew in Israel, to protest against the Occupation so publicly.

"Once this man came up to me, pointed to this boy [in the picture hanging from her neck], and shouted "dog!". I said, "dog? When I look at this photo I see a human being. You see that group over there (she points to a large group of Jewish Orthodox boys), they sniggered at us a little... young, male Orthodox types, they are usually the most difficult, most aggressive towards us. But people do stop and listen, we are willing to talk to whoever will listen."

Aliyah said that the Occupation had to be opposed, that it was a moral imperative for to do so.

Another, younger member of the protest group ended the conversation on a positive note. "Just as the people who protested Vietnam, at first it did not look like the war would end. So too the Occupation will end."

I told them to keep up the good work. A nice little surprise for a Friday afternoon in Tel Aviv.

Welcome to Israel

What a day it's been! What began with an innocent early morning shower has ended with a late night bagel in the centre of Tel Aviv. Where to begin...

I was glad to leave the noise, pollution and chaos of Cairo. Don't get me wrong. I think it's a fascinating place, only that it is somewhat difficult to appreciate when you're on your own and don't speak Arabic. It doesn't help that every shopowner, taxi driver, and other hangers-on try to squeeze as much money out of you as possible. Just changing my 100 Egyptian pound note into smaller notes led to a loss of 5 pounds. Perhaps it's merely that I look like the type who is easily fooled.

Cairo International Airport is fantastically chaotic. I counted no less than 15, yes FIFTEEN, individuals whose single job is to make sure you've got the appropriate stamp for departure. When I arrived at the Tel Aviv desk, there was a total absence of staff, apart, of course, from the handful who simply loitered around the place gathering dust. Eventually I asked an official where I could get my Sinai Air boarding pass, only to be told I had to queue up at an adjacent desk which had no identifying features. Ok, this I could do... One hour later, and I'm still waiting to be served. So I decide to take matters into my own hands and thrust my passport and ticket in front of the official. Finally success (despite the porter's repeated attempts to remove my luggage from the conveyor belt)!

By the time I had collected my boarding pass, convinced the fifth immigration official that I truly wasn't an Arab, could not speak Arabic, and yes, I was born in Australia, I was ready to collapse. But, of course, that would make things far too easy, now wouldn't it?

Eventually the airport bus arrived at Gate 2 to take us to the Sinai Air flight to Tel Aviv. Somewhat mesmerised by the very bass-driven Arab pop playing in the background (one of the speakers was right above my head), I climbed on knowing this, surely, was the final leg before I entered Israel.

The bus lurched foward from Gate 2, plowing slowly towards a clearing between two Egypt Air planes. After driving two and fro the two planes, it eventually stopped in front of the second one. Eagerly, I stepped off my seat until, almost instantenously, I noticed that neither plane was badged 'Air Sinai'. Was something wrong here? In simple language, the answer was yes, although perhaps prefixed with the phrase "fucking hell!". To add to the predicament, we were not allowed to leave the bus at once but had to wait as, individually, people were led out to a collection of luggage bags stacked on runway cars to point out their bags. The friggin' airport staff managed to mix everyone's luggage!!

After what appeared to be a life time, sanity was restored, along with my luggage, and my boarding pass, albeit now on board an Egypt Air plane. And thus did my little ordeal at Ben Gurion Airport Israel begin...

Ben Gurion Airport is marvelously clean. It literally gleans what with all the shiny metallic bathrooms and hallway fixtures. It's amazing what a 'little' American tax payer subsidy can do! Admiring this, my latest airport experience, I walked confidently towards the Immigration desk. Psychologically, I was prepared for the worst and felt pretty cocky. Maybe that guava juice on the Egypt Air flight (which actually tasted like guava!) did the trick?

I walked down the concourse towards one of several booths, not realising I had lined up in the Israeli citizen queue. It's okay, she said, and who was I to complain?

Hot Booth Chick: "Name?"
Me: "Iqbal Shah Khaldun" (um, the name written on my passport dickhead!)
HBC: "Purpose"
Me: "Tourism"

This insightful conversation continued for some time, until HBC eventually realised a) this dude looks really Arab, b) HBC had no idea where or what Calcutta (where my mother was born) is, and c) I was going to visit the West Bank (you dare not call it Palestine in front of people with chunky lapels and who have never excepted the 'concept' of Palestine). And with that, she left the booth, and pointed me towards a little corner on the side of the large Immigration hall, the type of corner you never notice when you file rapidly into a large room. I was soon to appreciate its dimensions in every subtle manner as I laundered around in it for the next seven and a half hours.

Waiting in that corner, I noticed several familiar themes. The other people in this corner waiting area were either Arab, Arab-looking, male, African American, activist-looking, Filipino, or Russian, but not necessarily in that order. The Russians and Filipinos were let off the quickest. Most of the Arab or Arab-looking detainees were kept for several minutes or hours. There was an unmistakeable system of discrimination at work.

I also got to appreciate how attractive Israeli females are. Perhaps all those nuclear weapons makes them grow nice and healthy? Sadly, I wasn't strip searched by any of them, although I was strip searched by two junior, male officials who quite clearly found the whole process amusing. After the search I was interviewed. In all I was interviewed three times, each time politely, about my familial and ethnic origins, where I was going to visit in Israel and Palestine, and where I work. Thankfully, I decided to keep one of my business cards in my wallet. For those who haven't seen it, it's very bright and shiny and has printed in large type the name of my employer.

And then, just like that, after three interviews and countless hours of waiting and twisting and turning in this crazy little corner, my interest in the cute Immigration girls well and truly satiated, I was allowed to leave... and suddenly realised that my luggage had probably been strolling around the baggage claim conveyor belt for the past 7 hours!

Surprisingly, I didn't really panic. I think the hours of waiting and trying to stay alert sort of drained me of any instantenous impulse, including anything even vaguely akin to surprise. Instead I went to the Lost and Found counter and tracked my bag, which was reunited with me after some thirty minutes whilst I waited for the girl at the counter to sort out the elderly couple in front of me.

And I was over the moon, and ready to jet, um to my hotel. I think it goes without saying that I don't want to see an airport for a while yet!

I found myself a table at the entrance of the aiport, gathering myself and my papers for the final leg of this initial journey in Israel. As I sat down counting my New Israeli Shekels, I heard a deep, Germanic laugh beside me. Turning around abruptly, I noticed a rather large, rather red, and very drunk orthodox Jewish man sitting on his own sipping some wine and toking a cigar. This, I thought to myself, must surely be the inspiration for another David Lynch film!

"What are you laughing at?" I queried.
"Oh, nothing... why not, come, sit, sit over here. Have some wine and I'll tell you."

Given the purpose of my visit is to speak to the locals, I felt obliged. Plus, frankly, by this stage I really felt like I could use a good drink! So I sat down with this fellow, sat down to hear him gargle on about something. All I could make out was something to do with guns, and the Negev Desert (the big vacant bit of Israel to the south bordering Egypt) and something on how 'peace' is overrated. Mind you, this understanding on my part wasn't that simple. It took a good ten minutes to weed that out of the confused mumble emanting from this gentleman's mouth. But as soon as I did, I immediately thought, man the last thing I want to do is to be caught listening to some dude talking about guns and Germany. Maybe someone deliberately planted him there to speak to me, to get me into a Kodak moment which the immigration officials could use to expel me? Contemplating this rather paranoid possibility, I abruptly uprooted myself from my seat, explaining to my new friend that I really had to go.

"But you've hardly touched your wine. At least finish your wine, stay another five minutes."

Okay, now I was really suspicious. Regardless, it was time to go...

The excitement of the night ended when my rather senile taxi driver, who spoke no English and almost had two accidents, dropped me at the wrong address. Gradually, the taxi did edge closer towards my hotel, thanks to some expert navigation over the mobile from some dude the driver rang up. And, thankfully, the hotel is great and centrally located.

I've never seen so many national flags in the one place. Instinct tells me the concentration of flags is built on a deep guilt complex, a sense on the part of the Jewish population that they have to prove that they belong to this place because, deep down, they know it's not their's.

It's only early days yet but I can see already why Tel Aviv is considered a party town. Shops are open 'til late, the young people are attractive. Unfortunately, I keep getting stairs in public places. I suppose a couple of day being treated like a member of a feared minority ain't so bad!

Welcome to Cairo

Brother Mubarak is watching you!

The Nile from down town CairoThe first thing that hit me about Cairo is how polluted it is. When the plane landed at 6am, I presumed that the thick fog which blanketed the city must be the type of mist that surrounds many places around dawn. By mid afternoon, when the temperature had climbed towards the mid-30s, it was pretty clear that this mist was more pollution than moisture.
Today is Presidential Election day in Cairo, the first multi-candidate elections in Egypt's history as I understand it. Both tax drivers I asked said that Mubarak is a strong leader and deserves to be returned. On greater reflection, and some 5 hours later, Mohammed, the second of the taxi drivers, cautiously admitted that Mubarak's already 25 year reign had gone on for far too long. He was clearly frustrated, albeit very guarded. I got the distinct impression that people are very careful to avoid commenting, let alone being critical, of Mubarak.Almost spontaneously, a rent a growd of Mubarak supporters, around ten people, ran onto the street, blocking the road for a good 5 minutes. Apparently you get paid 20 Egyptian pounds (around $4) to wave Mubarak placards around. That's a significant amount of money for the average Egyptian. Given the amount of money I shelled out at Giza (see below), I was seriously considering waving a placard myself! Eventually the traffic policeman on duty ordered cars to continue driving, but this didn't seem to stop the throng from carrying on in the middle of the street. No doubt Cairo drivers are used to treating the roads like an obstacle course.
Earlier, I visited the famous great pyramids of Giza. What began as a gentle mid-20s heat around 8am soon sweltered into one of the hottest days in recent memory, complete with clothes more suited to a Sydney winter and a collection of camel riders eager to fleece me. I must admit to being fairly underwhelmed by the experience. The pyramids are a remarkable sight. Of this there is no doubt. But any sense of romance that may have once been attached to the place has long since gone. Amongst the powdered rubble, I couldn't help thinking that the pyramids are a reminder that even the most powerful eventually fade away. In a country as bloated and poor as Egypt, the main purpose of Giza now is to give the locals an opportunity to get as much money off foreigners as possible (they seem particularly keen about Euros!).

And, yes, the tourists were out in force. From Italy, and Germany, and the United States too. They came, and usually left as quickly, in their giant air-conditioned tourist buses, no doubt comforted by the fact that they had yet another digital image to add to their collection of 'must see' world wonders. I decided to linger a little longer, get a nice tan, and laugh as policemen on camels chased street urchins away from tourists.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

Next stop Israel. I'm half excited, half worried about the manner in which the immigration officials will greet me. I really don't know what to expect.

The world's biggest laundromat

Singapore is one big shopping centre, a collection of interconnecting 'travellators' and shops complete with attendees and perfumed air at every corner. I even had the privilege of relieving myself whilst an old man sat outside, no doubt to ensure that my brief legacy to Singapore's toilets did not linger too long. Thankfully, I obliged. It pays to have bran in your diet!

Right now I'm waiting for my connecting flight to Cairo. In the hiatus I have gained key insights into the mating habits of a certain tree ant (sorry, I forgot to catch the name, wasn't really paying that close attention).

Singapore is so strangely clean and straight and generic that you could be forgiven for not knowing that it is an Asian nation.

Next stop, Cairo

Sorry for my lack of communication over the past week. Apart from attending raves with a cold, I've been hurriedly putting the finishing touches on my travel plans. My passport's visaed up, got my year's supply of clean underwear...

Next stop, Cairo!

PS: Saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday. What a painful experience. Why, I ask, did they bother to remake an already excellent film. The production was totally lifeless, Depp's acting was, well, nothing particularly special. He should go on retirement until they start casting for the bio pic of Michael Jackson's life. Give me Gene Wilder any day.