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.