Disclaimer: I do not agree with policy decisions made by the Israeli government, and the US government regarding issues in Israel. This does not make me an anti-semite. I struggle to understand Jewish identity, ethnography, theology, and history. This does not make me an anti-semite. I struggle to understand the Palestinian condition just like I struggle to understand other groups of people, by going to places highly populated by them and drinking their beer.
Borderlands
My Jerusalem weekend-adventure was tackled with Team All We Do Is Win, four strong and ready to take on anything. It began after class on Thursday (TGIØ®!) we all rushed to get a taxi and head out to the land-border crossing. Jordan has 3 official border crossings with Israel- The South, Allenby/King Hussein, and the North/Sheik Hussein that border various degrees of Palestine/Israel. On our way to the Northern border, after of course getting caught in a police chase through a small alleyway blocked by a giant bus, we realized that the cabbie was taking us to the wrong border- so after much discussion and a u-turn we actually ended up at the right place.
The border with Israel. Just take a moment and realize the craziness of that statement. Israel was established as a "country" in the late forties and really existed as a colony of Western-Powers in post World War I&II colonization of the Middle East. The territory of Israel expandd through the next decades to include taking over parts of Jordan, known as the West Bank and Gaza. Israel "occupied" these territories removing the Arab Palestinians who were living there. Now, all of this is extremely oversimplified and not in perfect factual order- please go read up on this issue and history from mixed biased sources; but, what I know from people living here is that the Israeli governance came out of no-where and after waves of immigrants and occupations thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homelands into places like Amman and Irbid so that others could establish a homeland. So we crossed the border from Jordan, into occupied Jordan, then into the territory of the Occupier. Thanks to HDS I spent a semester talking about the instability, danger, and chaos of borders and borderlands, but not until I had to cross over into Israel through the West Bank did I fully realize some of the themes of the class.
Through the whole process there was a sense of instability and it seemed as if all the structures were bi-products of intense fear. Crossing land borders is always a bitch. always. But for this one there was even more fear and anxiousness, see- I have stamps from Lebanon and Syria, two counties which do not recognize the sovereignty of Israel and could potentially prevent me from crossing. I also speak Arabic, the language of the enemy, the occupied, the problem, the terrorists, the ones that are in the way- according to Israeli government. The previous week some students from the program were held up close to 5 or 6 hours for having Syrian and Lebanese stamps and speaking Arabic at the border. We went in bright-eyed and acting as much as dumb American tourists as we could- paying off all the questions and constantly pulling the student card. We were afraid to speak Arabic and had to consciously prevent ourselves from using our habitual phrases. Luckily we got through with no big problems and relatively quickly. Another group of our students were held at the border for 4 hours because one of the girls is Palestinian and they were going to Ramallah, a town in the West Bank.
Once across the border we managed to make it into town just in time to catch the last bus to Jerusalem. It was completely full. Which means that we sat on the floor of a tour bus filled with Orthodox Jewish children and teenagers with M16's as we rode through the West Bank for 3 hours. Israel has a mandatory military service for young folk so the place is filled with 18-19 year-olds with giant guns either in uniforms or some just in plain-clothes. It was bizarre to see cute little teenage girls in big groups tossing their rifles around.
al-Quds
We finally got to Jerusalem (al-Quds in Arabic) that night about 8 pm and we were dropped off at a large bus station inside of a mall. We were all starving so you know what we did? That's right. Chinese food. Delicious, delicious kosher Chinese food. We then had to find our hostel- a 700 year old building in the Old City, the same part of town as all the holy sites. We magically went out of the mall and saw the bus we were supposed to take and managed to get off at the right side of town. We got a little lost and after following several different directions of "down and to the left" we ended up in a big circle and finding our Hogwarts'esqe little hobby hostel in an alleyway.
Our next adventure was to find a bar, being that we are in fact all college students and there is no alcohol in Irbid, finding bars is a usual adventure on the weekend. We found a place with an Arab atmosphere right outside of the Jaffa gate and drake Taybeh, a Palestinian beer, while we watched Arab and American music videos on a big screen. As the place was closing up the owner came out talk with us, being a Palestinian himself hew as excited to have a table full of Arabic-speaking white kids in his bar in Jerusalem. We were excited to be speaking in Arabic again and we causally talked about issues of cultural clash in Israel like people, and money, and language. The owner at getting our change picks up a sheckle- the Israeli one-piece about the size of your pinky-finger nail and says: "You see this! This is fake money! I through it on the ground sometimes because it makes me angry that it is so fake!" We talked to him until about 2am and went back to our hobby hostel for a few hours of sleep before an early sight seeing trip.
Culture
Culturally Jerusalem is just kinda bizarre, well, compared to the rest of the Arab World. You have to understand that I've been spending the past two months immersed in Arab culture and Arab towns- only venturing to a few Westernized places. Israel is incredibly Western, and not to mention Hebrew is dramatically different than Arabic. Most of the Jewish immigrants are from Eastern Europe and there is a huge portion of Russians and Americans living there. English goes very far, and our Arabic skills were mostly useless. We walked through an outdoor mall and all the stores were American chains. We honestly all felt like we had gone back to America. Even in the Old City, the only part of town that felt Arab, it was still more on the touristy-Western side as shop merchants catered to English speaking tourists. It was very strange, but I felt way more comfortable in the Muslim quarter or in the Palestinian bar because it was the kind of foreign that I am used to.
Getting used to Hebrew was the hardest part, it almost sounded like an Arabic dialect (like in Egypt) but everything felt off about it. A funny bit of translation: the town of Bethlehem, in the West Bank, is Beit Laham in Arabic, which directly translates into "house of meat," apparently the Hebrew is "house of bread," but all I hear is House of Meat. The money was also odd, the sheckle, as stated earlier is damn small to mess with and most of the bills were plastic and garish colors. Don't get me wrong, America needs to step it waaay up on the colorful currency issue, but it doesn't need to look fake.
Religion
Wow, now this could be a book in itself- you know it's kind of my thing. So on Friday morning we wake up to church bells and head out to the Old City to see the Western Wall, Dome of the Rock, and the Holy Sepulcher. My general impression was that we were at some kind of religious theme park where solemnity and sanctity were peddled in alleyways and propagated for political gain by multiple buyers and sellers. Jerusalem is not holy. There are some beautiful buildings, beautiful art, interesting co-habitation, and interesting symbols. Jerusalem is worth going to, but I don't think Jerusalem is worth believing in. If Abraham, or Christ, or Muhammad really ever walked those streets it was certainly a different time and place. Most of the monuments and markers just don't make any logical sense. I like the idea that people and places can be come sanctified, but wake up people, God isn't a voodoo doll and the most important place God should ever be in in your heart and mind. Quit killing God's creation because of this mole hill or that pile of stones, God's temple is in YOU- so quit being assholes. If Jerusalem gets nuked into space, God won't be killed- just bitter territorialists too blind by sanctity to see what they really have: a genuine opportunity to create peace in the Holy City. That's what really pisses me off- Jerusalem is supposed to be holy, but I think only suffering comes from it because instead of bolstering communication it bolsters entitlement. #soapboxoff.
After roaming around the Old City we headed out to the Holocaust Museum. It was a beautiful monument to a tragic event, but I couldn't help but catch some ironies. What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians- especially in Gaza Strip is exactly what happened to the Jews at the beginning of the Holocaust. Swooping statement I know, but Israel is creating Palestinian ghettos. Sure it lacks the pure hatred of Third Reich antisemitism, but there is a strong feeling that history is in some way repeating itself. By no means do I want to lessen the tragedy of the Holocaust, but it also seems to me that I cannot think of an ethnic group in America who's past isn't riddled with suffering, torture, diaspora, and even slaughter. The most common argument for an Israeli state "on the street" always seems to boil down to "we should feel bad for the Jews because of the Holocaust." Sure, but then where is the Native American Nation? Decedents of Slaves Nation? Suffering in one's past does not give justification to cause the suffering of another. Israel, quit bombing Palestinian children that you keep locked-down in walled-off neighborhoods. Palestine, quit bombing Israelis because you too have suffered encampment. When they came for me, there was no one left...
Getting Back
Well, after the Holocaust Museum and arguing with a taxi driver that called us all children and bad people, we definitely went back to the bust station and ate more Chinese food. Sweet, sweet Chinese food. At this point we thought we should check on the buses for the next day and realized that on Saturday the only bus left at 8:40 pm putting us into the border at midnight= no good. The only other option was to leave on Friday at 3:30pm, it was 2:30. The race was on! Find the bus! Rush to hobby hostel! Grab stuff! Find crazy taxi driver! Speed to bus station! Get on bus as it is leaving!! WIN! If you were counting, we were in Israel right around 24 hours, and yes, all we ate was Chinese food, and yes, eating Chinese food saved our lives getting out of Israel. Best Weekend Ever.
AAAAAAMMAN
Crossing back into Jordan was easy-peasy. We took a servicee taxi back to Amman making up a rap song about our Israelistine adventure in the style of R. Kelly along the way cracking our driver up.
We roll into Amman to luckily find 4 beds in our go-to hostel and we grabbed a bite to eat at one our favorite Arab places, Hashims. We then decided to go to bar in Amman to meet on of our friends, Shehab who's name means Shooting Star in Arabic. After the bar closed we went with Shooting Star to a house party. We definitely jumped into a car with some random Arabs to drive out to Western Amman to dance party in some person's house. Good idea? I think so! It was a blast! major dancing and major fun! Western Amman is the well, Westernized part of the city and the apartment we went too looked like Ikea. We managed to get back to the hostel at 2am after lots of dancing and sweating.
Sleeping in! Saturday morning we decided to just take it easy and head out to the big mall to catch a movie. We ended up seeing "Inception," which strangely explained how our weekend went... We stayed for about 7 hours in the mall waiting for the movie, movie, and then dinner. It was like a day in America- but with more hijabs and Arabic. We had cinnamon buns and bought Arab music cd's and for dinner we ate at Fridays. Yes, TGI Fridays filled with American kitchy crap and waiters with flash and cowboy hats. Amazing. Can you say, "soft power"?
Best Weekend Ever. and I owe it all to my TEAM.
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