The last few days have been spent wandering the West Bank. I spent a few days in Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority, where I journeyed around the streets and spent some time in quaint little shops. I ate enough pita, hummus and babaganoush to last a lifetime, and then ate some more. I discovered yellow soybeans which are sold in abundance at carts on the side of the road sprinkled with salt and lemon juice – needless to say, I also devoured these. I’m learning to tolerate the leering and comments made by some men as I pass by with my “blonde” hair (all hair here that is not black is blonde), although it still gets on my nerves.
I recently learned of rumors of the IDF targeting French nationals in the West Bank – apparently a French diplomat, with diplomatic license plates, was dragged from her car and beaten at the side of the road. We are assuming that this targeting has to do with Sarkozy telling Netanyahu that he must get rid of Lieberman, but we can’t be sure. Apparently the woman documented the injuries but was told by the French government not to say anything so as to not rock already unstable relations with Israel.
On Tuesday I spent the night in Nablus with a friend who is volunteering with Project Hope teaching English. I walked in the old city market - similar to Jerusalem’s old city but I was the clearly the only tourist present – and the next day ate the famous knafa that is Nablus’s pride. The posters or martyrs, as in Jenin, were omnipresent, and when I asked a local whether or not they were all suicide bombers or had been killed in other ways I was promptly informed of two facts: first, they were all killed in different ways throughout the second Intifada, and second, they are not referred to as suicide bombers, but only martyrs. I thought this last point spoke volumes as to the mentality of many Palestinians towards their struggle for freedom.
On my way back to Jerusalem from Nablus I had to go through three major checkpoints. At the first, we had been waiting in line for about five minutes when the man at the front of the line was pulled from his car and violently shoved persistently across the road and into an army outpost only to disappear, with the soldier returning a few minutes later. His car was left on the road, so everyone in the long line had to back up and move around it. Arriving at the second checkpoint consisted of staring down the barrel of a rifle held by one soldier while another interrogated everyone as to where they were going and where they were from. There were numerous soldiers on each side of the car, as if they were expecting us to flee the car and become violent. The third checkpoint, from Ramallah to Jerusalem, required all the passengers from the bus to get out at walk through the checkpoint (as we were passing through the apartheid wall), put our items through an x-ray machine, show our permits, and then find another bus on the other side. The turnstyles are similar to those in Bethlehem in that they are very small and stop randomly – I was the lucky one who was unexpectedly stopped and ran into the metal bars. In Bethlehem it was sufficient to simply show the front of my passport as an international, but here when I tried to do that the young female soldier harshly yelled from the other side of the window through a microphone “Open it.” It took every ounce of strength in me not to look her in the eyes and say: “Please?” but I opened it to my picture, not knowing what she wanted. This apparently was not good enough as I received another instruction of “Visa!” So I showed her my visa and was waved off. Now back to Jerusalem where one can escape the tirade of the occupation and live a normal, Western life.
A final note - I recently received a link by email to a video that I think is imperative for everyone to watch. While an uncommon situation, it is still an example of the atrocities taking place in Gaza.
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