Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Spiritual Malaise and Genocide in Palestine Justice First, then Peace




In Palestine as I walked through the streets and markets, spoke with taxi drivers, shopkeepers, engineers, herbalists, and just about anyone who would talk to me with my odd mix of Yemeni/ Moroccan Arabic. Whether it was Jerusalem, the Palestinian cities of Nabblus, Bethlehem, and or other towns I could feel this spiritual malaise and despair. I can only imagine how this despair is in Gaza now, under lock and key by the Israeli government, and barely a word of protest from the international community. This spiritual malaise is something not always in words, it is the feel of a people who are asked to leave their homeland, who have witnessed the destruction of their homes, have the stories of their families driven from their homes, and have seen the Diaspora of the Jews now visited on the Palestinians. The more time I spent in Palestine and Israel, the more profoundly I felt my own sense of despair. The lush valleys from Galilee, the farms near Tel Aviv, the best pastures and the best land seized by Israel, while people in the Occupied Territories like Bethlehem are consigned to the poorest most arid land, and the water that is used to fertilized these fields are all owned by Israel. Then there is this 30 foot (8 Meter) high wall of Separation, I call the Wall of Shame, brutal ugly monstrous wall that separates Palestine: family from family and neighbor from neighbor. It is almost impossible to imagine a more insidious, cruel, Kafkaesque kind of prison. Palestinians imprisoned in their own land and four million plus Palestinians outside of Israel and West bank who cannot return driven from their home during one of the wars in Israel, civilians who were forced from their homes.
In Israel and Palestine, both in the expressed and the implied conversations, I heard and witnessed a culture and people that is being annihilated. Though there are success stories of people who have survived this Nakbah, the catastrophe since the l948 War of Occupation, overall it is a culture under siege, in as much as the children in the concentration camps of Treblinka drew pictures of a barbed wire future with butterflies and trees, this is also the vision I am getting of Palestine. Prisoners in their own land, free as long as they remain within the boundaries of their town, and if the Israeli government wants to reclaim more Palestinian land, as long as they meekly comply then there is no problem. When they speak up for their basic human rights, they’re branded as terrorists and imprisoned.
This physical destruction of a contiguous community and land has been variously described as Bantuization, Apartheid, Ethnic Cleansing, and even Genocide, and which can all can be effectively argued as true. Palestinians in the West Bank are locked into some thirteen ghettos, all roads are controlled by the Israeli army, checkpoints are frequent, and though as a Palestinian you are native to the land, you are now held prisoner, without passport, and even if you do get the chance to leave for study or medical help, there is no guarantee you can return.
Repeatedly as I traveled through the West Bank I saw more Israeli settlements expanding, however, they’re not really settlements, they’re cities. Settlement implies a newly colonized place with a quality of temporality. These are not temporary places they’re made of concrete and steel, with swimming pools, recreational facilities, schools, and taking over as much of their neighbor’s land as possible. These neighbor lands belong to Palestinians, but the Israel government and military have the prerogative to seize land at whim without judicial recourse. Consider this, you own a home with a bit of land, someone moves in and builds a house, drills for water, and when you complain they call the police. This is the maddening insane part of the Occupation. You have no rights, your land and home can be seized at any time, and you can be arrested without any civil rights. Routine reports of Palestinians youngsters arrested, kept in detention, without notification of their parents, and without a need to file charges. I saw and heard Israeli soldiers standing at the gates in Jerusalem, yelling and humiliating Palestinians youths, while other police around were smirking and laughing. A young Israeli soldier all of nineteen yelled at the young man, “What’s wrong with you? You don’t have your papers, they’re all wrong!” The young man said, “I live here, this is my street.” But to no avail, the police took him away. Five armed Israeli IDF soldiers with semi automatic rifles marched this young man to a police station. This is only the tip of the nightmare; the nightmare of the Occupation continues every moment and every day for Palestinians living in the West Bank.
As a child, I lived in Spain during the Franco era. I remember vividly the Guardia Civil on each street corner, armed with rifles, pistols, and sword: This was the world I had stepped into again. Most vividly was coming from Ramallah, the administrative capital of Palestine, to Jerusalem. All people, regardless of nationality had to get off the bus, proceed to a transit point, where there was a concrete and metal `bunker by a series of metal cages. The metal cages were about 6’ tall x 2 wide (2m x ½ m), they were about 15’ (5 m) feet long. There were two lines and once in the gate you could neither move forwards or backwards, the IDF soldiers were standing idle, they were not processing people. This was a cat and mouse game. They looked bored with their game. Periodically, they would allow a few to pass, but mostly you stood in the cage in a concrete room. The Palestinians next to me said nothing, their eyes downcast, they knew there was nothing they could do, their only hope was to say nothing, and hope to reach the other side. Bizarrely, a group of young soldiers was in the concrete bunker a few meters away behind a bulletproof glass, and one remained inside; when his friends left, he plugged in his earphones and began to play air-guitar through the window. It would almost be funny, but I had the eerie feeling of walking into a gas chamber while a guard was whistling a merry “Deutsch Land Uber Alles.” This is the daily humiliation of Palestinians. If you work in Israel and need to get in for work at 8 Am, people begin to line up as early as 2 AM, in order to make work on time. If you are ill and need to go to a hospital you still need to wait on line.
I was hoping before I left, that I would find that much of this was exaggeration, that perhaps this was a misunderstanding, that the Occupation was not as brutal as it seemed, and that Israel was a relatively benign and just state. After all that we have been through for thousands of years, we could only be just. No! This Occupation both of Gaza, the West Bank with its 30 foot (8 meter) high wall, institutionalized Apartheid, is a savage affront to humanity. It robs the dignity of both the Palestinians and Israelis.
I was always proud of my Jewish ancestry, our history, and our rising above adversity. We had a deep sense of righteousness and justice. We knew suffering and exile, and this history would be shinning moral example in the new land of Israel. But it hasn’t been. Israel and its policy of apartheid is shameful. Both people are imprisoned in this tragedy, the Israelis by the opprobrium of the international community, and the ultimate realization that with spending and investing up to 45% of its GNP on the military, it is in a no win situation. It can win the skirmish, but it cannot win the peace, no matter how much money they spend.
In the meantime, the despair is prominent, as Palestinians see their homes destroyed, their olive trees and fields uprooted by Israeli settlers and no legal recourse, more lands seized, and the basic human rights of liberty, due process, and a right to a future is denied. Justice for the Palestinians is the first step with a viable two state solution where a free and independent Palestine can exist, one that includes all of the area of the west bank from the time of the l967 war, a free Gaza, and ultimately the right to return for Palestinians. The quid pro quo is that the Palestinians have full control of their security and future, and Israel is able to live in peace.

NB: Several informative books on this subject are: Israel: Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide by Ben White; Disappearing Palestine by Jonathan Cook; Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Ramallah to Jerusalem - Jordan

Coming Back from Rammallah in the Palestinian Territory
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STANDING IN A CATTLEGATE:
Off the bus from Ramallah to Jerusalem. The bus drivers, Israelis grunt, they don’t speak, they grunt “No English.” An international tourist destination and the speak only Hebrew? I turn to the Palestinian woman, and ask her what is going on and she leads me through the drill. Take your bags out of the bus, take them through the checkpoint, have your bags cleared, we have to go through the checkpoint. You line up in a cattle pen about a meter wide, just about 2 meters high, and you wait in these pens. We waited on line behind prison bars for a half hour or more, nothing compared to the daily humiliation of the Palestinians. This felt like a total denial of humanity. Like cattle in a shute waiting to go into the slaughter house. Young Israeli soldiers in a guard house leave a few meters from us, they are wearing flack jackets and M 16s. Another soldiers is in there, he has an I pod, and behind bullet proof glass he is playing air guitar, while there are about 100 people on line in metal cages waiting to get through customs. He is in his bullett proof bunker playing air guitar while we wait No reason for us to wait. It is part of the daily harassment that all Palestinians go through. It simply says, We are the ones in charge, we control your life, we control everything.
Palestinian youth. Palestinian youth in Ramallah by the borders, dressed in designer jeans
angry looking like they are ready to explode, the prickliness of teenager boys living in a society that tells them there is no future.
In my installation project called: Life In Palestine: Genocide? Holocaust? Ethnic Cleansing? this will be one of the pieces that will be featured.

Jerusalem
Coming back into Jerusalem I thought, for a change of pace I would stay in the Armenian quarter, and get a different perspective. Walking in this area by Jaffa Gate, Bab Al Khaleel, flooded with orthodox Jews, brushing past and thinking they are NFL line backers. Excuse me, I am to step aside for you after you walk into me? No way, I stop and they stop, they walk around me. There is this feeling they have all these soldiers around them and they can do what they want. This has nothing to do with the Judaism I know, admire, and appreciate.
A young Palestinian teenager escorted by five, yes five armed Israeli soldiers with M-16s, they were marching in step. I wanted to give the young man my attorney’s card. But there is none, no judicial process for these kinds of young men. No civil rights. They can and are stopped, harassed, picked up by the police, detained for days or weeks at a time, their families do not know where they are, and they could be detained indefinitely. This is the word on the ground from Palestinian after Palestinian.
One Israeli Palestinian said, “Ïf you don’t say ANYTHING or ask any questions, and do exactly as they tell you to, then you might be okay. We are always part citizens of Israel, we are never full citizens. The flag is for the Jewish people not for the Christian or Muslims.”
One Israeli Man said, “We are actually more like Australia, there are lot of ostriches that are keeping their head in the sands.”
In Jerusalem, Hotel Imperial is generally the kind of funky one star hotel I like to stay at. From the l800’s an aging whore who has managed to keep enough of her self together that you can easily imagine what she was like in her prime. Old carpets, walls that are covered with photos of the city, and you can easily imagine this as one of the grand hotels. However, about 10 PM the bulldozers started to work out front from about 10 to the morning, finally I called the front desk. I tossed and turned as to what I should do. I called the front desk and the clerk put me in the furthest back room at 3 Am and I kind of dozed off till woken by church bells at 7 am.
Neve A Shalom:
Last night, Wednesday, after a difficult journey into Neva Shalom met with Howard who gave me the run down of their program at Neva Shalom. A lovely looking little village on a mountain top. Strange in the back of my head I am thinking, hmmm, settlement houses are built on tops of hills. I had a horrific time getting into Neva Shalom using public transport, also half asleep didn’t help. I found myself relying on local Palestinians since the Israelis I spoke to either spoke Russian or only Hebrew. My Russian is a thin soup and my Hebrew are the basics like “Makova – What’s going on? And my favorite “La ira Ga. Chill out!” I’ve used bus stations around the world even in countries where I am clueless of the language, and I get around fine. Someone will always hold you by the hand and get you on the bus. This is one of the many vital lessons of travel, the kindness of strangers, and their willingness to help. However, I did people some people who were quite kind and gracious, Naama, and others… but I am afraid that for too many Israelis, the native borns known as Sabras -- it is no longer a fruit that is very tough on the outside and sweet on the inside: The new Sabra is impermeable on the outside and the fruit is bitter and rotting on the inside.

I met David fire an Israeli artist/ performance artist who was half drunk. He was on a retreat at the Latourne Monastery and old Christian monastery that has been here since the middle ages. I couldn’t quite figure out his relationship to the monastic experience since he was swigging back shots of something like Uzzo while I had dinner and kept focusing on his need to meet a woman. What was that line from the Fellini movie? Give me a woman? A month at a monastery even for the most secular of folks probably could push you over the top. After dinner, exhausted from traveling in from Remli, and not sleeping the night before I was ready to sleep well. David came by with a bottle of fine wine from the monastery and we had a splendid evening. We took out the guitar, played songs, made up poems, talked of the madness of Israeli society,
David said, ”I’m a Jew, I’m an Israeli, these people are fucking racists. These religious people are killing us. I hate them!” He spoke with such conviction and clarity, and the wine seemed to soften the edge of his anger. Hanging out with peace activists and singing “Salam/ Shalom,” or hanging with David? David was a blessing, an Israeli screaming at the madness and feeling lost. Loving the land, but detesting what his people had become.
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At midnight there was a group of 200 highschool teenagers were screaming, climbing on roof tops, and other neighbors asked them to be quiet. There were three teachers and the teenagers were totally out of control, singing, laughing, and having a grand time. But it was hell. I couldn’t sleep.
When I saw some of the kids at breakfast, I spoke to a few, and said I was awake. One said, sheepishly, it was there last night there. No apology, no remorse, he just turned his head away. These young men and women will be in the army in a year or two. In addition, I am sure that there are some who are of good heart and spirit, at least I hope, but there is this profound sense of arrogance amongst these kids that I have seen also in my journey in Israeli. It is the oddest thing. I've known Israelis around the world and had some good friendships, but hadn't seen this kind of in your face "fuck you kind of pervasive arrogance."
In the evening, a young man walks into the dining room with a semi automatic rifle. I asked the folks at Neve A Shalom and they said, Its normal.” Call me naïve but if you have a place of peace, how can you allow folks with guns? A settler also with an M-16 accosted David my Israeli artist friend.
I wanted to have a warm and fuzzy feeling about Neve a Shalom, and I am sure they are doing wonderful work. The director was very sincere, but I felt like I was in a Jewish town, with an Israeli perspective on peace, and the same sense of the feeling of being in Israel. Neve A Shalom. Staffed by Palestinians and a mix of volunteers. My time was too brief to get a full grasp, but I salute them and all who work for peace, no matter what side of the fence they are on.
One of my insights is that I do need to get back to my meditation and yoga practice. I need to deepen my own grounding in the peace processes. Not just in the actions of a peace maker, but in all the dimensions of peace, and most essentially the spiritual journey. My life is a secular and a spiritual journey. Perhaps that is the divide, wanting to have a life as an artist that is successful, a life as a Peace activist, and a rich spiritual life. I view the journey as spiritual, fused with the perspective that all life is god, all life is precious, the land and water is alive, and we are caretakers for this paradise.

This has been a very difficult journey in Israel. Culturally, in part, I am a Jew, we left this land two thousand years ago. But it gives us NO right at all to call it ours. We left. Whoever came after and who farmed and lived here, this belongs to them. If they want to sell me land, then I am grateful. But there is no exclusive right to land you left thousands of years ago.

My spirit is crying for the children of Israel and Palestine. You can feel the oppression when you are in the West Bank and there is a miasm of this Shettle Jew who never escaped from the Shettle. It is like a poor boy that grew up to be rich, but he is still poor in his heart and the way he behaves. The Israelis never escaped the Shettle, she/ he built a new one, with the Wall of Shame, the Separation Wall as a reminder. Nevertheless, most times for Israelis it is out of sight and out of mind. For the folks in Tel Aviv or further, it is there, but a very distant reality.
What is this Holocaust ghetto mentality? Why is this suffering foisted upon the world sixty years later? Shouldn’t the conversations also include all the other holocausts around the world? One more holocaust museum and I am going to stand out naked wearing a kuffeyah and a Palestinian flag. Does the world need one more Jewish museum? One more Holocaust of Jews? What about one for the 35 million killed by Stalin. Or the 90% of American Indians killed by the genocide of settlers? Or a museum to the 10,000 children who die from hunger?
This is a personal performance project I would like to do, a loincloth, with a kuffeyah and a Palestinian flag wrapped in barbed wire. A large sign, "As you remember the Jewish Holocaust, please remember the Palestinian holocaust that is now conducted by the Israel Government with the blessing of the US government." I can’t think of a better way to show this feeling of disgust and moral outrage.

Walking through the old Muslim quarter, Palestinians, prisoner in their own land, those without Israeli passports, they are selling menorahs, yarmulkes, and other items and this sense of hanging on. Shuffling and playing with the “man” trying to make a living, not making waves, and hoping to hell the Israelis disappear.
"Museum of Extinct Species"
There is a museum in East Jerusalem that is off the beaten path, “The Museum of An Extinct Species,” it represents the Palestinians, or actually as they say in Israel "The Arabs," and like the Nazi museum of Extinct Races, this new one will house the remnants of the Palestinian culture. An article I am now writing.
Spoke with a Hasidim at the bus station – He asked me in English how I was. I asked him, do you really want to know or should I give you a polite answer? I told him that the situation with the Palestinians with their brutal treatment by the Israeli government was very sad and unnecessary. He walked away and shook his head without saying anything.

Coming into Jerusalem in the morning, I hitchhiked from Neva Shalom and was picked up by a beautiful art gallery owner Natalie, I could have hitched a ride with her to Tel Aviv, she owned a contemporary art gallery, and our conversation never once touched on politics, but on another form of art – politics. Picked up by a beautiful woman in the morning talking of art and Islamic art what a great way to start the day. Every hobos dream.
JORDAN:
At the Border crossing.Hate borders. I never do well with them. The noise the militarism, the suspicions, the uncertainly, and all

The Major and the Sinuses: One guard said, you have to go back to Jerusalem, get an entrance visa from the Jordanian Embassy, then go north to Sheik Al Hussein. Though I am a big boy, I could have cried on hearing this. I told him that I do NOT want to go to Israel, it is engaged in horrible behavior to Palestinians. Finally, I was making no progress with that eloquent plea, so wound up at the directors office. He had a wicked sinus headache. He was in no mood to talk to me. However, oddly, I realized that they thought I was sick because I was carrying 50 homeopathic remedies and might let me through.
So the Major spoke fairly good English and I said, “Sir, you look quite ill can I help you with your sinus headache?” There I am in a grubby transit office, with a dyspeptic military officer, and his eyes looked like a beaten puppy dog, “Yes, please, what can you do?” I showed him acupressure points for the eyes and the face. Then gave him a dose of Kali Bich 30 C. Told him about salt water rinses, ginger tea with cinnamon, and about his allergies. A good fifteen minute wholistic homeopathic workup at the border. His assistant tried to argue with him that he was not permitted to let me into Jordan and like the great Pasha, he raised his left hand up a bit, and there was silence. He took out the transit paper that gave me residence in Amman for thirty day. We shook hands and he said “Thank you.” I said, “Shukran, ya saaid. (Than you, sir.) I felt a sense of peace and ease. My only other task was to figure out if I could get into Syria by nightfall.
I walk through the taxi drivers who all want to take me by private taxi to Abbaddi station in Amman, prices from 20 to 40 Dinars about 50 pounds. No, no no. I appreciate it all. Where do the Arabs get the bus? The security guard pointed to a door in the back of transit and said, “This is where the Arab buses are.” I felt like Harry Potter going through the magic platform and arriving in the Wizards Land, though this was grubbier and people poor, but as soon as I walked in and I asked about the transit to Jordan several people came over, big smiles and laughed, and made me so relaxed to be back in an Arabic country. With a big “Ählan Wa Sahhalan” Welcome," pleased that a westerner is chatting with them in Arabic, and then an autobus with about fifteen people are loaded up to Amman. Mothers in headscarves, the Palestinian and Jordanian style, with traditional robes. Babies sleeping in mothers arms, the bus is madly spinning around corners and I am the only one who seems concerned that we might wind up at Allah's gate, but this sense of fatalism and it is in "god's hands"really does give a sense of peace and hope in a world that often denies it.
Then into Jordan where I grab a "serveeece taxi" 4 persons to Damascus for about 14 Dinars. I am not sure I can get into Syria, even though I have been meticulous about emptying everying with Hebrew out of my posssession. Dr. Amjed is an orthopedic surgeon who trained in the US, he is the leading Syrian Kneee surgeon. It is marvelous to have this perspective of life in Syria and on the ground, both from this prominent doctor and my other traveling companions, a traditional couple, an older man in traditional robes and his wife in full black dress.
Yes, to the border, and I am prepared to have to turn around, and face the long journey back to Amman, but I get into Syria. Hey, they let the guitar playing hobo poet into Syria! Amazing! Long journey int. Bleak as hell. The great time worn poverty of outer Damascus, not even the darkness can hide the decrepitude, it is Third World housing, crowded together, cement make shift blocks. Dr. A says, "But there are no homeless. Families look out for each other." Finally, to the Hajazz Rail station that I know from the early readings of Lawrence of Arabia who with his Arabic warriors loved to blow up these trains. Now partying with Dr. A I step into downtown Damascus with no hotel reservations, but I find myself a cafe, a bathroom break, a glass of water, a hot meal, and the staff helps me place a call to a local cheap hotel. Thirty dollars and breakfast. Suddenly life is looking wonderful. I find the hotel and scoot down to the Damascus gate, as exhausted as I am from a day of traveling, I am as enchanted as if I had been on a long caravan ride through the desert, and encountered this fabled city. I loved walking through the old suqs of the city late at night, without a gram of fear, no police in sight, but I was at home. At last back in Damascus after so many years away.
More notes on Damascus to come
Slowly sifting and drifting back to Arabic.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Palestinians offer great hospitality!

Tel Aviv: The Place of the Spring: In the Belly of the Beast
There is a voyeurism in wanting to go to Tel Aviv and reluctance, but I am interested in understanding this enigma of the occupation.

Yesterday spent the day at Caesera with Sam Lee C a 36-year-old Israeli taxi driver and former IDF soldier of Turkish immigrants. His parents were Landino from Spain. The Landino Spanish Jews were forced to leave Spain in l492 and one of the places they were welcomed to was the Ottoman Empire. Sam C said, “We need to have a new conversation with the Palestinians. We need to imagine we landed on the moon with no history of the past. Both starting fresh and new.” Though I am not sure it is possible at this point to start anew. We drove to Caesera the Roman port city made by Herod the Great.
Sun is up and bright, a day almost 30 C. Feels especially wonderful when I think of Vermont and Northern Europe covered in snow and freezing weather. I like this kind of climate for the winter, but a climate with culture, history, and opportunities to learn more about Islamic art and architecture. Also, the incredibly diverse culture of Palestine, the Levant, and the dynamics that shaped this region. History, like jazz, is a conversation, and it is an accumulation of these conversation that makes for the history of an area.

Old Jaffa is a sterile memory, there are no smells of the markets, no fragrances of cumin and coriander, none of the smells of people, none of the feeling of a vibrant town, it is starting to feel like Disneyland’s version of the Middle East. Sanitized, sterile, and conforming to a European aesthetic. Though I like cleanliness and order, I miss the organic feel and nature of the old Muslim Quarter in Old Jerusalem. Yet, this is the challenge I’ve been thinking about recently, I am too enamored with Islamic architecture and art, and don’t always focus on the question of modernity. This dynamic of modern culture versus traditional seems like the major theme running through this discussion of Israel versus Palestine. Is there a perception by Muslims that the modern world has failed them? What is the nature of this “sleep” of technology? Why didn’t Islamic cultures continue this path of innovation that opened new paths in medicine, astronomy, cartography, geography, science, and math? Why did so many cultures, with the exception to some degree of the Ottomans, not continue on this path? It is strange that when Iran starts to pursue nuclear research the world takes a negative reaction. They should celebrate this and encourage this kind of research. The question of nuclear bombs is also interesting – Strange the US and international community ignores Israel’s nuclear arsenal. However, everyone bitches about Iran what about the ongoing human rights violations in Israel? How are their reactors and weapons monitored?

Off to Jerusalem today and to Aiwda camp, a direction I started to go in 5 years ago and got a bit distracted, but have remained active and interested in this work of Palestine.
AIWDA CAMP: A Beautiful Resistant Sunday, January 10, 2010
Saturday and Sunday at Al Aida Refugee Camp that was established after the 1948 war and added to over the years. It is 5,000 people living on less than six acres, in tightly packed houses, no parks or green spaces, and unable to expand. This land was leased from a local Christian family for a 99 year lease by the UN. There are still some several million people living in Refugee camps from as long ago as l948. Their homes had either been destroyed or taken over the Israeli. My host and director of Arrwade Cultural center Dr. Abdoulfattah Abousour grew up in this refugee camp. Though he was living in France, educated as a Medical Engineer, his passion was to return to Palestine. He said, “Though I was in France for nine years and could have had my citizenship there, I chose and wanted to only have my citizenship from Palestine.” He is also an accomplished playwright, poet, and theater director for Arrawad Cultural Center.
More notes to follow on my conversation with Abdou. He is a real inspiration and he is creating this center for Theater as a means to create a Beautiful Resistance, resisting the ugliness of occupation with something beautiful and inspiring like Theater or Art or the Mobile Theater program.

Ramallah to Nabulus

Ramallah the administrative capital of the Palestinian Territories. Entrances to all these cities are staffed by Israeli soldiers. There is no real contiguous Palestine; it is broken up into these thirteen ghettos. See the attached map. Again, the Apartheid analogy is not far off. This is apartheid. Separate but NOT equal. A system that is so insidious. The Palestinians are locked in these towns Nablus, Ramallah, etc and in order to pass from one to another they need to pass Israeli checkpoints. From Jerusalem to Bethlehem, you cannot pass without special permits if you are a Palestinian. The movie from Arawad talks of this of the hours spent at checkpoints to go into Israel to work. It is demeaning and degrading; hours are spent in metal cattle shuttles waiting to cross to the other side.

In Ramallah, crowded, noisy, life is crammed in, cars and traffic galore, Palestinian girl in their headscarves and jeans. Young Palestinian men, too many seem unemployed. No wonder when I was sitting in the taxi the two young men were talking about the Intifada in Arabic and the consequence. In addition, “when” it would happen again. Though not fluent, I caught most of the conversation. There still is a fierce determination from the young people to resist the occupation. They see their lives continually boxed in. The future is the particular towns they are from, the educational and vocation choices are few, and the resentment of being searched and questioned in a belligerent and degrading manner on the streets by Israeli soldiers is a daily humiliation. Morning in Nablus, this ancient city, and the old quarter

Lights on the Hills – The signs of the settlements, SPONSORED and ENDORSED BY THE ISRAEIL GOVERNMENT. Settlements have not stopped. Settlements continue to be built and expand. The government of Israel is lying a brazen lie that contradicts the pictures. The existing communities with building cranes, new settlements with trailers and neon lights blazing throughout the night, and Jerusalem with its significant Palestinian Arabic community is being cut off from the larger future Palestinian state. Jerusalem is ringed with settlements, but the word settlement is a misnomer. They are not really “settlements” this implies a temporary primitive housing, like the early American settlements at Jamestown. These are cities with all the modern conveniences of Europe, hot and cold running water, solid well built cement homes, and meant to last at least until the coming the of the next Messiah. I hope the Messiah comes and takes all the “settlement folks with him.” More room for the rest of us.
In my initial assessment this dry, arid land, with the most brittle of soil, marginal water reserves seems like a disastrous place to build. The Palestinians don’t have much latitude, but if I was an Israeli government I would want to build in a place like Galilee with plenty of fresh water, a pleasant climate, or in the rich green Galilee hills. My gut feeling is that all of this argument of state and land is a moot point, though highly critical now, in another 50-100 years this land will be barren, exhausted, and uninhabitable unless some miracle of technology happens. Both the Israeli and Palestinians are having a “Fucking War” yes as an adjective and noun. The Zionist and Palestinians are competing who will have the most babies, families with seven children or more seems the norm for both. Who can fuck harder and faster, and pop out the most babies. The expression for a Palestinian pregnant baby is the Palestinian bomb. This bomb is most destructive for both sides. However, the official statistics say that the Israeli birthrate is only 1.2% versus the Palestinians as 4% birthrate. There seems to be many pregnant orthodox women with children running around them.

I was going to go on one of those political tours in Palestine but I wanted to keep an open mind and perspective. Though I am decidedly bias on the Palestinians side, I do see and have a perspective that appreciates both sides. The obvious conclusion is that Palestinian territories are being strangled. Israelis control all the checkpoints and there is no contiguous connection with another Arabic country, no connection to an airport, water rights are controlled, and borders are controlled by the Israelis. In Tel Aviv life looks peaceful and calm, but in the West Bank, the 8 Meter high wall of shame snakes around, with ominous guard towers with their metal windows and their surveillance cameras. Soldiers with German shepherds and automatic rifles strut down the street, while settlers also walk down the street with automatic weapons slung over the shoulders. The hillsides across from Bethlehem are now covered with illegal Israeli housing complexes paid for by the Israeli government. Imagine you have a house with an acre of land and someone decides to build their house on your land without your permission. This is the same exact situation. Then they decide to make a road right by your house and put up a fence across your living room window to make them feel safe, and then on the outside add a road so that it makes easier for them to call the police if you should complain. It is that black and white. If God made the Jews the chosen people, then he should be able to produce a title or deed to the land, I don’t trust the Old Testament to fulfill that. If I believed in the old Testament it also says I have a right to keep slaves and to kill my enemies.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Cultural Amnesia in the Holy Land




Cultural Amnesia: Tel Aviv
Never much thought of the process of anthropology as a political process. However, in Israel like most places it is all political. Lovely afternoon traveling through Old Jaffa. The city port that has been home to prehistoric events, biblical Jaffa one of the sons 0f the bible
Strange the quote, these who forget history or doomed to repeat it. This seems to be the case with Israel. All these marvelous lessons of war, conquest, loss, and destruction. All empires repeat the same cycle, going from inception, conquest, and ultimately destruction. In the old city of Jaffa, the first building by the harbor appeared like a mosque, a customs house. The sign-out side said it was a police station. Strange, it did not look like a police station. Perhaps customs house from its location. However, it looked like the interior of a mosque. Around the corner on the same block was the Sabel, a water fountain. I met a Mr. Pinto a barber born in Jaffa in 1947 and he grew up in this neighborhood.
Mr. Pinto corrected many of my historical conjectures, The Sabel or water fountain we were standing in front of he said it was from the Ottoman Ruler Abou Saidd, I have to check the names. To me, the inscription looked like Suleiman or perhaps I misunderstood. That classic scripture from the Suleiman dynasty or was it one of his children? The Sahel looks much older. Mr. Pinto said that part of this Sahel; the marble column is from Caesarea. Strange. I am having memories of having been in this area in a previous life or did I overdose on falafel. He said the gate by his barbershop is the Jerusalem gate from the 1800s but the gate its looks much older. The arches appear as if they original part is at least from the 15oos. Nevertheless, he was sure of his knowledge and as he has lived in this same neighborhood for the past 50 years, I am sure he has more of an answer than I do. This Sabel is very similar in some ways to the one on Sugar Street in Old Cairo, but that one is clearly from the 1800s.
Old Jaffa is an amazing accretion of architecture that is quickly being lost. This Islamic town erased clean of its cultural past. The new Mosque is a sterile, contemporary structure with a tiny interior space for prayer. Today, the men are on the porticos praying and lounging. I find it curious and refreshing that some men after they pray they stretch out and take a nap. All the previous history of the old mosque is locked inside. There is a real estate development sign on that and several historic areas. A group of square grey Soviet style apartment building is near the sea. This principle port area is underdevelopment, with no apparent regard for the history of the area. Strange. Though old Jaffa is a tourist area because of the funky oldness, with coffee shop in old Ottoman shops, unless it is boutique or café, it is surely under the wrecking ball. The area seems to have the predilection for taking over the old historical sites. The Hammam or Turkish baths that were central to the community, as this is where men and women went to bathe, has bee turned into a wedding hall. The old buildings dating back to the 1400s. The Mosque some 4oo meters from the Ocean, looks to my eyes to date from the 15the century the locals tell me it only goes back 15o years. Sorry, my eyes tell me something very different. In addition, in that a number of the buildings in this area have a lot of similar correspondence to buildings in Old Cairo. I can see the dates and knows the dates of the various mosques and public buildings, both by the architecture and the inscriptions and style of writing.

In a city like Jaffa, that has had a lot of historical turbulence and change in the last fifty years, much of the history has made way for development. My question is – Is this removal of history and especially the Islamic history a way to wipe clean the slate the presence of Muslims? If we remove the buildings, change the historical accuracy we then can shape history from our perspective. Is this a conscious process? On the other hand, is it that there is so much historical work that needs to be saved that this relatively recent period is overlooked? I think it is more that there is a desire for a historical amnesia. Old Jaffa from the time of the Mamluk to the Ottoman a period of some 6oo years and the museum information had one sentence about the presence of the Islamic presence. Nevertheless, I had a wonderful conversation with the director Dr.Naama from Yemen about the museum and she was gracious enough to show me the upper rooms, with its pottery from the Iron Age period, other samples of pottery lined up in the storage rooms above. There is a lack of students and interns to assist in the catalogue. This vast treasure trove of materials about the history of the area is locked up in boxes. But the greater tragedy is all these old buildings from the port on up that area falling apart and half in ruin. Generally from other areas I know there had been a question of ownership with buildings, who has title and who doesn’t and is the deed lying in a basement in an old government building in Istanbul> I did pose that question to Dr.Naama and wasn’t sure if I got the answer I needed or wanted, but she was most gracious with my questions, and if you know of a bright young student interested cataloguing pottery and historical artifacts, then contact Dr.Naama. I know as a kid I would have loved the opportunity to do something like this.
Her story as a Yemeni Jew, with her father from Prague and mom from Yemen, was engaging because of my history in Yemen, living in the Jewish Quarter of Saana. I told her of the metalworkers and jewelers, she said her grandfather was a metalworker. and I spoke of even today Yemenis marvel of the Jewish metalworkers and still talk of a piece of metal, sword, etc. made from these artisans. She also spoke of her doctoral work on the families and the women of the Yemeni quarter in Tel Aviv. Though when I went there I didn’t see any overt signs of Yemen. I would imagine the real Yemeni quarter would have those marvelous mud houses, and coloured windows that you find in Sanaa.
The streets of Old Jaffa for this Islamic archeology buff were a feast. I love seeing and imagining how streets were put together. What the streets were of say the Crusaders and then what were streets, the fountains, mosques of the Muslim rulers. I walk through the streets, I step back and look at this one building, on its walls, one section is from the 16oos, another section a bit older, another repaid made in the l800s, a section of brick and mortar from another building, a bit of stucco, and then this mosaic appears. What century could you say this building was from? When the first stone was laid? I love how even in looking at the side of this one building with its hundreds of years of history you can read the entire story of a neighborhood, through war, poverty, and the hundreds of changes in between.
I fear that the desire to erase the history of the long and often positive Arab/ Muslim/ Palestinian heritage will rob Israel of its richest treasures, its true cultural legacy. It is country made up of hundreds perhaps thousands of cultures and each has contributed. I fear that it is an attempt to mimic "The Museum of Extinct Races" in Vienna.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

I don't have the luxury of Despair: Ghetto Wall of Shame

6 Jan 2010: The Ghetto Wall of Shame

Jerusalem and then yesterday to Bethlehem and Refugee Camps. That is the thing that is most difficult, hundreds of images in my brain.

The thing that is most horrifying is the Separation Wall - which I will call the Ghetto Wall of Shame. GWS.
Brutal, Stalinist, 30 feet high, 8 Meters tall. Thick slab of grey concrete with guard towers at each turn. A cyclone fence with barbed wire stands a few meters away from the wall. Rusting. Brutal. Who is secure with this wall? Are the Israelis also putting themselves behind the Ghetto Walls again? Separated from the world? Believing the myth of “The Chosen People.”Can I get a tape recording of God saying that the Hebrews are “The chosen ones.”?

The wall fills me with revulsion. As a Jew how could we who have suffered so much allow this to happen. Thick grey cement wall separating farmers from their fields. Separating families one from another. Separating a country. Why couldn’t the Israelis have built a wall around the pre-l967 boarders? That should shame every human to the core of his or her being. It should cause profound remorse for every Israeli. However, a few have spoken out. Some who are survivors of the holocaust
Racism and cultural genocide in Palestine. Trying to kill the culture, the people, and life of Palestine. Someone corrected me and said it was more of an Ethnic Cleansing. Ethnic Cleansing? Is that where you take some Ethnics and give them a good bath. Clean out all of their ethnic tendencies? In the case of Israel, washing out all that nasty Arab and Muslim "Salaam Wa Alakom" and make it into a proper "Shalom Wa Alakom." Ethnic cleansing giving the "filthy” Arabs a good bath and making them into proper Israelis where they can get up and sing the Hava Negela? No, it is not ethnic cleansing, it is genocide. Perhaps not as efficient as the Nazi’s, but if Genocide was an Olympic Sport I imagine the Israelis would at least medal in the event. Somewhere behind Stalin, Adolf, but there might be fierce competition for the Bronze – Pol Pot and Ariel Sharon duking it out for third. In this world of madness, I could also see this as an Unreality Show: Genocide in Palestine Served with good Public Relations.
Last night in an art gallery in West Jerusalem, and had an eye opening conversation with an ex pat Jewish woman from Montreal and a Jewish artist from Tunisia. They litany of racism was astonishing. At least in the US, many people have the rudimentary skills to mask it... but this was frank, with no apologies, the only thing that was missing was the word “nigger.”..."The Arabs are such children...No they're not Palestinians...there is no such things... they made this up. They saw that we were creating a nation and then the cry babies decided THEY wanted a country… they aren’t even native to this area…they were imported… when the Israelis came they thanked us from saving them from the Jordanians….the Jordanians were slaughtering them…. they had no water or life until the Israelis came…The Israeli Defense Force is the most ethical army in the world. All the Arabs have full rights as citizens in Israel….”
Full rights as citizens? Excuse me, what about the 1,800 dead in Gaza? The blockade and imprisonment of Gaza? The separation wall? The actions of Irgun and the slaughter of civilians in the l948 by Jewish terrorists?
I tried to speak to this woman, to get past this litany of hatred and bias, to listen, to draw her out. I invited her and her friend to come to Bethlehem with me, lunch on me, let us visit the refugee camps, let us visiting the new Wailing Wall, the Ghetto Wall of Shame. She declined. I would have paid for the taxi and meal for her to talk to this gentleman Dr. Abdelfattah.

Last night walking in West Jerusalem there was the feeling that we, Jews do not have to apologize for being Jews, we can have our language written boldly, the shetel Jews do not have to sulk through the streets. We do not have to worry about the next change of mind and heart of a King and suddenly thrown out of our country. Yes, I did get that sense of pride, of place, and safety for us as Jews. But it is an illusion. There can be no true sense of safety, peace, and belonging with this occupation. Racism is a beast that will devour itself. Hatred always consumes itself and others.

This occupation of the West Bank, with this Ghetto Wall snaking through land seized from Palestinians, with no legal recourse, with an Israeli Secretary of State who said last week, ‘There is a freeze on all new settlements, but the area of Jerusalem does not apply.’ However, the facts on the ground are different. He is a liar or blind, or worse. Settlements are started in Gelal. Settlements are expanding in Bethlehem. Perhaps, they are expanding elsewhere, but I can only speak of what I have seen.

The Israeli government is 100% lock, stock, and barrel behind all the settlements. They are not some isolated group of fanatics the government can’t do anything about, the government wants to increase all the housing, not just a group of small condominiums or a nice chalet, these are small cities of anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 people. Ultra orthodox Jews or some variation, who are given stipends, their housing is paid for, so that they can live in these apartment cities on the hillside of Bethlehem on land that is taken from Palestinians.

The government of Israeli is engaged in a program to build as many settlements as possible. As an Israeli friend said, “These are the facts on the ground, as the maps are drawn, we now see Israeli settlements all throughout the West Bank, and surrounding Jerusalem the government is building more and more apartment complexes solely for Jews to stake their clam to the land. Then more land is taken, without any kind of judicial process or claim of eminent domain.”

In Bethlehem, one Palestinian businessman invested in his property and built a small hotel and resort. He spent approximately $7,000 to build the necessary parking lot, and had all the permits. Then as the Israeli government sponsored settlers were expanding, they expropriated part of his land, and told him he could no longer have the lot.

In this one tiny area, there are hundreds of small and prominent injustices that make a daily life not only arduous, but also brutal and inhumane. I see one young Israeli female soldier with a German shepherd, the dog is playing on a leash, and it reminds me of the Nazis with their dogs. It reminds me also of the dogs at Birmingham Alabama when Bull Connor and his cowards would beat back the civil rights marchers. I cannot believe that a young Israeli would be using a German shepherd as the Nazi guards used them.

I feel like I am in a weird backwards world. Coming out of the Holocaust, the survivors took every grain of bitterness, gut level determination not to let this happen again, every lesson of brutality and humiliation, and savagery and brought it here to Palestine. Of course, with the technological prowess and innovation of modern European, and brought it here. For the most part a European modern culture squaring off against an agrarian people who had been under the occupation of the Ottoman and the British Empire.

I like the playful humor of Palestinians. In spite of a human rights situation that would break the spirit of most people, there is laughter and delight, children play, girls and boys flirt, and there is a fatalism that there will be a transformation. Yet, there is a weariness of spirit, an on-going frustration with making it through the day.

One film Checkpoint at 4 AM shows people lining up to go to work at checkpoint. Waking up so they can walk through the metal gates that look like the cattle gates at slaughterhouses. It can take them up to several hours to get through and then they have to return at night.

Israelis say ‘It is the only way that we can prevent them from killing us with bombs.” But the Palestinians point out to the hillside and say, “The people who are throwing the bombs come from over the hillside and don’t go through checkpoints.”
It is a page from life in the Warsaw ghetto.

In terms of this stark barren land, with a few hardy scrubs of cactus, I do not find a beauty in this arid hot land. In reality, the water will giver out, and despite the best technology, the Israelis will not be able to fill their swimming peoples in their villa settlements overlooking the villages of Palestinians.

Monday, January 4, 2010

PALESTINE, JORDAN TRAVELS

Amman
Back to the tour guide -- the hills of Amman which if it were a verdant country there might be some charm, but even in the winter months it is unrelentingly bleak in the capital. However, south in the forest preserves there is vegetation and flora. The thought in my mind is that this is the future of so much of this beautiful planet, hot, dry and arid. Hopefully, a massive plague or some similar event will take hold before too long, or otherwise think of this rapacious global development as a form of planetary Euthanasia. Stand in the middle of Delhi at rush hour for 15 minutes and tell me you don’t believe in global warming. Or ride a bike through rush hour in Shanghai or NYC. Who needs climatologists? It is like standing on a street corner with a gale force wind and sticking your finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

I look at this hot arid capital or Melbourne last January, and can’t we all see this very apparent blend of climate change, increased population, and increased industrial output = our children and grandchildren will be heirs to an ecological suicide, no matter how much environmentally friendly toilet paper I use.

Philadelphia:
Another city of Brotherly Love so called because of Greek rule and the reign of one of Alexander’s general.

Today we are walking up to the citadel. My brain fogged head slowly grasping this strategic hillside. Trying to focus on Philadelphia the original Greek name for Amman.
Amman has served as the modern and ancient capital of Jordan. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a 1994 excavation uncovering homes and towers believed to have been built during the Stone Age, circa 7000 BCE. There are many Biblical references to the city, which by about 1200 BCE had become the Ammonite capital of Rabbath-Ammon. The Ammonites fought numerous wars with Saul, David and others.
The history of Amman between the end of its Biblical references (around 585 BCE)¬¬¬¬ and the time of the Ptolemies is unclear. We do know that the city was renamed Philadelphia after the Ptolemaic ruler Philadelphus in the third century BCE. After coming under Seleucid and Nabatean rule, Philadelphia was taken by the Roman vassal King Herod in 30 BCE. The city became part of the Decapolis League, a loose alliance of ten Roman-ruled cities including Jerash, Gadara (present-day Umm Qais), Pella, Arbila (Irbid) and others. Under Roman rule, Philadelphia was replanned and reconstructed in typically grand Roman style with a colonnaded street, baths, an amphitheater and impressive public buildings.
During the Byzantine period, Philadelphia was the seat of a Christian bishop, and several expansive churches were built. The city declined somewhat during the late Byzantine years, and was overrun by the Persian Sassanians in 614 CE. Their rule was short-lived, however, collapsing before the Arabian armies of Islam around the year 635. The name of the city then returned to its Semitic origin of Ammon, or "Amman." It remained an important stop on the caravan routes for many years, but eventually trade patterns shifted and dried up the lifeblood of Amman. The city declined to little more than a provincial village for many centuries.
Amman’s "modern" history began in the late 19th century, when the Ottomans resettled a colony of Circassian emigrants there in 1878. Many of their descendants still reside in Amman. During that time and the early decades of the 20th century, the neighboring city of Salt was more important as a regional administrative and political center. However, after the Great Arab Revolt secured the state of Transjordan, Emir Abdullah bin al-Hussein made Amman his capital in 1921.

Sights of Interest
"Most of Amman’s noteworthy historical sites are clustered in the downtown area, which sits at the bottom of four of Amman’s seven hills, or jabals. The ancient Citadel, which towers above the city from atop Jabal al-Qala’a, is a good place to begin a tour of the city. The Citadel is the site of ancient Rabbath-Ammon, and excavations here have revealed numerous Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic remains. The most impressive building of the Citadel, known simply as al-Qasr ("the Palace"), dates back to the Islamic Umayyad period. Its exact function is unclear, but it includes a monumental gateway, an audience hall and four vaulted chambers. A colonnaded street also runs through the complex. To the north and northeast are the ruins of Umayyad palace grounds.
Close to al-Qasr lie the remains of a small Byzantine basilica. Corinthian columns mark the site of the church, which is thought to date from the sixth or seventh century CE. About 100 meters south of the church is what is thought to have been a temple of Hercules, today also known as the Great Temple of Amman. The temple was built in the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE), and is currently under restoration.
Also on Citadel Hill, just northwest of the Temple of Hercules, is the Jordan Archeological Museum. This small museum houses an excellent collection of antiquities ranging from prehistoric times to the 15th century. There is an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a copy of the Mesha Stele (see Madaba section for explanation) and four rare Iron Age sarcophagi."

Downhill from the Citadel and five minutes walk east from downtown, the Roman Theater is the most obvious and impressive relic of ancient Philadelphia. The theater, which was built during the reign of Antonius Pius (138-161 CE), is cut into the northern side of a hill that once served as a necropolis—or graveyard. It is very similar in design to the amphitheater at Jerash, and can accommodate 6000 spectators. The theater is still used periodically for sporting and cultural events

To the northeast stands the small theater, or Odeon, which is still being restored. Built at about the same time as the Roman theater, this intimate 500-seat theater is used now as it was in Roman times, for musical concerts."
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Middle_East/Jordan/Amman-1800107/Things_To_Do-Amman-citadel-BR-2.html

"The Citadel's best preserved structure, the square - now domed - served as the entrance hall to the Omayyad Palace Complex. It was completed with the rest of the Omayyad buildings in the Citadel, in 720 AD, on the foundation of a Byzantine church, which gave the structure its cruciform plan. The entrance to the hall faces the Omayyad Mosque further south, though the two have different orientations as the mosque had to face the direction of Mecca. While the Palace could just as well have faced Mecca, the fact that it utilised existing foundation made it difficult. The interior of the Entrance Hall has beautifully carved stone walls and a lofty courtyard with four iwans giving it the cruciform plan.
Built by the Omayyad dynasty in 720 AD, the Palace Complex housed the governor of Amman and his entourage. The Complex included a mosque, an Entrance Hall, residential and administrative buildings and a water cistern. The mosque was located just outside the complex, and the non-religious section was accessed through the entrance hall where visitors were received. The Entrance Hall (see separate tip) is the best preserved structure in the complex. The rest lies mostly in ruins, but whose foundations are clearly visible. The entire complex lasted only a short period as destruction befell it in the 749 AD earthquake."

Political News
The news and the conversation about Palestine is in the air. The evening news from the BBC brings the brazen new of the Israeli's continued occupation and 700 new settlements in Jerusalem they declare a "special case." The special case is that the houses are on Palestinian land and it has been seized to make way for Israeli homes.

The moral outrage is seen in my new artwork that this genocide is inspiring. As Picasso spoke in Guernica, I in my way will speak. I will tell you more of the museum of Extinct Races: Special Exhibit The people who lived in the area West of the Jordan River before the Rightful Owners Returned After a two Thousand Year Absence.

The Saudis are indifferent at best and are caught between the fear that their paper lion kingdom, the so called guardianship of Mecca is only sustained by oil and patronizing the Wahhabi zealots, and that it is unwilling to do anything truly substantial to help their Palestinian "brothers." Saudis are the ultimate whores. The guardian ship of the holy sites were wasted on them. While we are there – King Hussein that dwarf of a king who so readily sold out Jerusalem to sign a peace with Israel. In this brothel of the Middle East there are no shortages of whores and pimps.

Friday, January 01, 2010

First of the new year. Drinking a bottle of champagne with an Italian couple in Petra. Celebrating – the uncertainty?

Petra:
There are hundreds of photos on my camera of Petra. The camera is bursting with Images about this astonishing jewel. I have notes on my Blackberry, while sitting against a rock, undisturbed, one grain of sand observing another. In that moment, experiencing the profound humility of a life form that will be here at the most of 80 years or so and vanish.

Petra – Trying to capture the beauty of Petra from my imagination and photographs. In the town of Wadi Mousa, Moses River, a non descript Jordanian village that depends on the hoards of tourist that descend from all over the world to capture photos of this place. Spend one day taking photos and then 1,000 days astonished.

In the unfamiliar journey, we walked through the streets of Wadi Mousa, a coffee here and there, a sweet, and a bit of conversation. My rusty Arabic getting the kinks out, finding the local words, tossing out the fragments of Egyptian, Moroccan and Yemeni colloquial phrases. They always make for good color and a smile. I told the man I learned a bit of Arabic in Yemen, he then asked, “Why do you speak Arabic with a Moroccan accent?” Hmmm, my language skills are more of a source of amusement than scholarly appreciation. I thought I had a career as an international comedian, since my linguistic skills most often seemed to make people laugh. And that is even when I am trying to communicate seriously. Fully evident last night, chatted with Danielle in Italian, a bit of French, and as we were getting drunker on some very fine champagne, I slipped back into Spanish.

On the second day driving into Petra on the Donkey Wagon and called out “My people. The revolution is near!” “Greetings my people. Your king loves you!” “L’etat cés moi!” Zoe nearly beat me! My "people"loved it.

Enjoing the jari hasan, in this broken down cart for 15 dollars. The walking was getting to us. But I always want to walk as slow as possible. in The first part of the walk into Petra must be savored very slowly. I need to get to my hand written notes


Saturday, January 02, 2010

Genocide machine
FINAL SOLUTION: Essay
MUSEUM OF EXTINCT RACES in Jerusalem:
It is extraordinary and not generally available to the public at large, but I was able to gain access to a new museum in Israel it is called the museum of Extinct Races. Though it is called a museum of Palestine, since it is sponsored by the Israel government and their policy to remove all traces of the Palestinians.

The museum of Extinct Races is actually built here on this empty lot. It is a Palestinian home that has been razed. The reason is, there was no permit to build, though the house was built around the 1920s, 25 years before the found of Israel, the Israeli official said, Ä rule is a rule, who am to argue.

Monday, January 04, 2010
Intro
The thing about travel is that it "slaps you upside your head" It gets you out of your complacency. Traveling is the "travail" cést le vive petite dur, mais pour les gent qui sont blanc y riche, vraiment cést facile. At 55 I need to compel myself to get out of this easy rut in Hillbillyboro HBB, out of the sweet order of life. I spoke earlier I had spoken of the "fear," certainly with all the crazy stuff here, and guns I do get "concerned.

When I was a child I had lived in Spain during the Franco era. When I returned after a forty year absence to Seville, I said to a man who was about a decade older, the difference is that the "fear" is absent. That was a word I didn't understand as a child or able to articulate. This is the element as I am in an unfamiliar environment trying to navigate, with my Arabic rusty, my command of local culture a bit obscure. I am thrown into Terra Incognita. I hate the loss of control and yet it is what keeps me fresh and vibrant. Don't we all? But this is the teaching of traveling, surrender your expectations, surrender your knowing, keep your wits about you, keep your powder dry, and wet your finger to find out which way the wind is blowing.

Good to travel with Zoe, easy going, rolls with the punches, good traveling common sense, we complement each other well in this regard. And, fun to be with, her 5 or so languages, and mine, with a good sense of joie de vivre and roll with the punches.
Then somewhere along the way, I get out of my strange and needed desire for control, and open up to the day.

Once I surrender the past, of home, (Hillybillyborough HBB) and Blue Heron Pond, I feel such a sense of freedom and peace. The uncertainty of the road, the sudden hidden dangers, the necessity for survival and negotiation are part of the allure of travel. Though I readily admit I am not much for exotic travels, though I have traveled on five continents, I don’t have the desire to run with wolves or trek naked across the Kalihari… but then again, negotiating with Israeli soldiers might be a challenge.

PETRA MORNING

Morning in Petra and a longing to continue in this magnificent city. As always, I am too rushed in my understanding and experience of a place. In my fantasy I imagine I can travel down here from Turkey, through Lebanon, down into Jerusalem, and into Jordan. The world undivided, open, and available to travel fluidly.

This is the sadness in 2010, the world is divided into bitter camps, nations armed to the teeth, and ready to kill each other. A short time ago it was possible to travel from West to East overland, from Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, but there was the barrier of southeast Asia.

New Years eve, sitting in the lobby of Hotel Semah, playing guitar, sedately without trying to draw attention while waiting for my equipment to charge up, and the hotel fellows wanted a song. Their knowledge of English songs was limited -- Beatles, Elvis, and finally I taught them a verse or two of "Wild Thing." A universal favorite and easy to sing. Then an Italian couple sauntered by, we chatted them up, and before too long they said, "We have a bottle of champagne." My Italian feels a bit tenuous, but I managed to make my way through with a bit of French and Spanish, surprisingly very comfortable with the Italian, and the drunker I got, the better the Italian sounded too, or at least to my ear. Good champagne in south Jordan with Italians toasting in the New Year and singing “Wild Thing” with the Egyptian hotel keepers. Wild Thing indeed.

The real challenge later in the day to come. For 70JD a ride to the King Abdullah Bridge. Jzr Malak Hussein. We get there and the taxi driver is told that only the taxis in that town can take us to the bridge. Another JD to the boarder crossing. Ooops, we didn't read the guidebook clearly, or misunderstood. Despite my best effort, we could not get across until the next day at 8: 30 am. An overnight in this little one mule town? My stubbornness is growing. Arrrgh~! This is great stuff to observe. This is the lesson of travel. In my little town, I like the control, the ease, I know the ropes, there are no surprises, a few bumps, but it is on such automatic pilot, and for the most part it works. I can concentrate on writing and creating, all the bullshit that often gets in the way of writing/ creating/ thinking is mitigated.
So we get hustled a little bit, another 30 JD which is equal to 30 pounds, damn! Then the driver tells us now it is 40 JD. We negotiate to 35JD. Then we go to Sheik Hussein Bridge.
On the way we go to the site were Jesus was Baptized by John the Baptist. We walk by the Jordan river and I don't feel an overwhelming sense of awe or praying like a Christian,"Where he walked." A dusty, hot region with lush vegetation by the river.
How much of this is the "true"location or a mere reference? Most of the New Testament was written down some 80 years and more after Christ died, and the gnostic tradition of direct knowing and faith was deemed as heresy.
We then get to another taxi spot and the taxi drivers are paid another one JD to take us to the boarder crossing two kilometers further. We get out of the taxi, process our suitcases and what not, then jump back in the taxi, another 500 meters further to the visa office. Then we purchase an exit visa. Careful to get this stamp on a separate paper, to avoid rejection in Syria at the end of the month. Then on to another bus for about a kilometer at most. Finally, we arrive in Israel.
Israel: The ogre. My ancestor’s home. The center of a lot of my attention for a long period of time. Israel with its square block letters, Israel with all of its contradictions. Ah, to be back in Israel, the homeland after all this time. What must it have been like for my ancestors? Who were my ancestors? The fact that I can locate some historical past going back two thousand years, it gives me the sense that I can knock on the door of the nearest Palestinian and say, "My ancestors were here two thousand years ago, please leave. I am sure I have some rights to your home. Yes?" Hmmm, that is the way I feel about all the expropriation of land in Palestine.
The place of immense pride with the reclaiming of this desert land? No, much of this is bullshit. The Zionist, bought, bullied, and stole some of the most prime and fertile land in the Middle East. When you read the early Zionist propaganda it makes it seems like they saved the Arabs from themselves.
Surely there were massacres and killings on both sides, but from the historical accounts it seemed like the majority of the killings from the Irgun and Stern gang, and other Zionists was pure brutal savagery. The longer story of the Palestinians betrayal by their neighbors and their leaders is better left for other books like "the Lemon Tree.
My new articles to come out of this trip are: The Genocide Project: The Museum of Extinct Races - This museum is in Jerusalem and dedicated to the memory of Palestinians: and The Final Solution.
The Sea of Galilea is absolutely lovely and serene. No sign of Jesus and the storms. Maybe his 12 homeboys had been nipping the wine? They woke up and Jesus merely said, chill out boys. I could easily see living in a place like this, but I could not live, participate in an apartheid society. Even on the most superficial level of traveling you see this as an occupied country, kept in place by the Israeli Offensive Army, an offense to humanity, an offense to any semblance of the historical humanistic Jewish tradition. and now mainly to defend Israeli settlers as they continue to settle on Palestinian land. It is impossible to separate the land, history, and present politics from the discussions.
The struggle is Hebrew, I feel as if I "älmost" understand it, it feels like a first cousin of Arabic, though the letters mystify me. I do not feel comfortable with it.
Galilea: The surrounding area with huge fields of agriculture, and of course, the irony the day laborers are Palestinians. The same Palestinians who are compelled to build the large settlement houses. Why do I get the feeling of Jews in concentration camps working to support the Nazi war effort? I can't escape the parallels between Germany and Israel.

Palestine: The Bitter Harvest
It is a hard bitter harvest like the olive trees. It grows in stony soil, dry arid conditions, produces a harvest of bitter inedible fruit, and it is only edible by soaking in a salty brine. From the stony soil this harvest grows. The Olive trees like today in Gethsemany, massive twisted olive trees, some that are hundreds to some say a thousand years old, but regardless, the trees thick with character, shaped by the wind, heat, and arid climate. Almost as if it had eyes and witnessed the hundreds of wars, the thousands of killings in the name of religion, and it soaked all that pain into its pores. The gray sinewy bark, calloused, and dead; yet, beneath it new shoots of tender life grow.

Today, in Jerusalem, we were in Gethsemany, the garden where Jesus prayed before he was betrayed. Though I am not a Christian I am moved by the story of him praying in the garden, the simplicity of offering himself to, "thine Will, will be done."

I was moved by the gardens, by the witness of the faithful, who have created and have spoken this story of Jesus. True or not true, here or at another place, it is somewhat irrelevant. This space of convocation and witness.

Integuments of Faith: Garden of Gesthemane

Vile beaty of fatih
Garnished with heresy and love.
Wicked with desire for
baraka and benediction

The whores of the Apocolpse
dance the Hava Negila
in the desert of love
a lion awaits to devour

I too have wept in Gesthemane

Not for god's love
But for the faithless lies
in the city of peace

Harlots of war
March to Armageddon

Whores of hate dressed
in prayer and praises to god

Incense of frankincense
to staunch the bleeding

Driving down from Tiberius on the sea of Galilee where Jesus "walked" on the water. I think the Apostles really needed to get a handle on their drinking, but that aside, it is a marvelous town on the edge of the sea. Beautiful climate, but no tennis. Surrounded by all the historical elements of biblical times, including ruins of the Roman city.

The journey into Hebrew is familiar because of my Arabic, but it is like listening to one of the first cousins of a romance language I don't know, but I can almost understand. I was talking to one bus driver and i felt I understood, even though I don't speak Hebrew.

JERUSALEM
Getting a taxi from Galilee and arriving at Jerusalem at 9 PM ish. Wonderful to see Quds. Quds. Uunder the stem Quds means glorification of Allah. He is Al-Mutaqaddis (The one
attaining sancity); Al-Quddus (The Most glorified) and Al-Muqaddas (The sanctified). In
Quran angles adress Allah saying (While we glorify three and sanctify three).

Consequently the word Al-Quds the purified township elevated
over defects and shortcomings.

Al-Quds is an inseparable part of the Islamic faith. In the opening of the Sura (chapter) of
Isra'a Allah says: -

"Glory to (Allah)
"Who did take the servant.
For a Journey by night.
From the sacred Mosque (of Mecca).
To the Farthest Mosque.
Whose Precincts* we did.
Bless, in order that we
Might shoro him some
Of Gur Signs. For he (Allah)
Is the one who hearth
And sees (All things)

Jaffa Gate: Bab al Khalel:
The city is one of the few intact cities from the Medieval period. The walls built in the `15th century by Sulemain the Magnificent. Of course, the walls were attacked, rebuilt, and destroyed throughout the centuries. More history in a few meters of walls than most places around the world. We arrive at the New Imperil Hotel and drag our luggage up a 25 meter stair. Then he says, “We gave your room away.”Tired and bedraggled by the day, this was the last thing I needed. But the hotel clerk arranged for another room across town, paid for the taxi and apologized profusely. Arrrgh. I was not pleased.
This is the teaching: There are 1.5 million Palestinians under lock and key in Gaza by the brutual jackboot of the Israeli Army. And I am bitching about going a few hundred meters to another hotel?
Hussein at the Rivoli Hotel was a gracious host in this run down hotel. This is in the East Jerusalem Arabic quarter outside of the old city gates.

Palestinians: East Jerusalem: Under the jackboot, but not defeated

Though I am “the Tourist” and get a lot of freebies, and people defer to me. I get by with my sometimes dodgy Arabic which is kicking off the rust. I am a white European/ US guy. I get a pass. I can speak Arabic and not consigned to the living daily hassle of a Palestinian. To live as a Palestinian in January 2010 is to be a Negro in Alabama in l945. Free but not quite free. The petty brutality and disregard for treating Palestinians as humans is apparent at every turn. 36% of the population, paying 40% of the taxes and receiving 7% of the services.
Palestine is the ghetto of our ancestors. It is Prague where Jews lived behind the walls of the old city, fearing to venture out, and tightly controlled in all phases of their lives.
Despite this. This is what I want people to see and hear.
The Palestinians I’ve met, have been unfailingly courteous, kind, thoughtful. I am sure that in time I will see more of the hard and tough side, the side that has been brutalized by the occupation that consciously and otherwise endeavors to strip away the dignity and worth of Palestinians. It is a prison defined and controlled by Israelis. Though Palestinians make walk the streets, smile, laugh, their destiny in the Israeli eyes is to be only partially human. Like the old documents of slaves who were seen as 2/3rds human.

In the old Muslim Quarter, electricity is a slipshod affair, wires and internet connections run like a madly woven spider web from outlets, jerry rigged connections, things seem worn and needing maintenance. But the maintenance is on survival. Trying to survive each day. Schools are vastly inferior, students are denied exit visas to study abroad, school supplies limited and classes are overcrowded. Yet, the Palestinians despite the obvious repression, continue to learn and thrive.
However, for the Jewish Israelis, it is education as if this was modern Europe. They have the freedom to come and go. Access to health care and state welfare.

I asked earlier, how can we, Jews who came from 2,000 years of Diaspora even imagine treating others cruelly or revisiting the horrors of Germany in the l930’s and l940’s on others. What is this mad thirsting hatred or fear the Israeli Jewish state has? There is more than enough room in the north and around the country without having to destry homes in the West Bank, without having to tear down homes, or engage in the jackboot behavior that has so come to define this phase of Israeli history.

I wish I could write about the glories of Islam, the wonders of this fabled city with a thousand stories tucked into each nook and corner of the city, the way that sunlight dashes through the narrow souks, the way that buildings have been shaped by the shifting of time, the façade of buildings colored by centuries of wear, or the magnificence of the Al Aksa or the Dome of the Rock…. I wish my entire attention could be lavished on this journey of imagination and celebration of the holy land but it can’t be. This land fought and contested, argued, and suffered for thousands of year, and now with this savage occupation this lack of humanity draws my attention.

Yet, I will write about the children playing soccer/ football in the streets, their ball bouncing off the walls of narrow streets, the pitch a cobblestone street from Roman times, and a few meters wide. The laughter of children playing something like hopscotch on cobbled streets. This is the timelessness of children. Yet, how do allow for the future?
How do we fulfill the promise that one generation gives to another?

In this sacred time, in the days and weeks to come, I will observe, listen, sit on the narrow steps, with pen and paper. Watch the green bereted army soldiers in patrols of three and six, nervously playing with the triggers, one young soldier barely eighteen with a nervous tick is tapping the trigger. Was the safety off? Other soldiers looking bored. In their boredom it seems that their favorite game is to hassle the young men. They don’t even have the formality to look them in their eyes. It seems the whole vibe I get from the scene is, “Nigger, show me your papers….Worthless nigger your papers aren’t right.” Hassle the nigger? Hassle the Palestinians?

I like the young Palestinian women, with their colorful gypsy kind of style. Unlike anything I’ve seen in other Arabic countries. Despite the presence of the Occupation they smile brightly like young women, probably gossiping about boys. There is still a brightness in their dark eyes. I like how they can dress conservatively and yet still be sexy. A demure smile with lowered eyes or a laugh as girls are walking down the street.

My Palestinian friends… the history of dictatorships is that they end. This was the story of jews in Egypt, and after years of slavery there was deliverance. Stay steadfast, don’t sell, don’t move. The world is watching and though it seems like you are alone, there are true friends who see the suffering of Palestinians and stand with you.

There needs to be true Justice in Palestine in order to have a future for Muslim, Christian and Jew.