Palestine in November 2018
6.11.2018
Arrival via Zurich. Have to get up at 3.30. I (Joseph) hate such flight timings. But the departure gate in
Zurich is worth it: A dozen orthodox Jewish men have taken up one corner, are dressed in full religious
service gear, and are praying loudly. When they are done, a Christian pilgrims‘ group from NYC, mostly
African American women, all clad in identical orange T-Shirts, start singing gospels, swaying and dancing
to the rhythm. What a show!
At Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, no questions asked and we are through in a jiffy. What a difference to
the old days, when Israeli security could not rely on our internet activities, social networks, mobile
phones, etc. to trace our every move and had to cross-interrogate us before were allowed to enter the
country. Now, they know everything about you before you even board a plane. We take a bus to the
Central Bus Station in West Jerusalem (the Palestinian driver is very talkative and happy to be able to
speak Arabic to someone); from there, we take the tram along Jaffa Road which has maintained its flair
from the British Mandate period, all the way to Damascus Gate by the Old City, then transfer to the
Palestinian bus to Ramallah. We arrive at Ramallah bus station in the middle of the city and right next to
our accommodation, the „Area D“ Hostel on the 5th floor of a rather shabby building above Ramallah’s
vegetable market and in the commercial centre of Ramallah. The other guests are all very young,
Germans and Swiss, including 3 volunteers who work there. The next few days, there are US-Americans,
an Indian, a Japanese, an Englishwoman, a US-American with Ukrainian roots…an elderly gentleman
from Argentina and various young men of different, mostly western, origin. The Argentinian does not
speak a word of English or Arabic (he says) and also wants to find a job as volunteer. We wonder
whether he has been parked here by the Mossad to eavesdrop on people here incognito.
My dear cousin Mazen calls and suggests to spend the evening together. He picks us up, we buy fish in
Souk al Samak, a brightly lit and very clean fish shop, then some kebab meat from the butchery, then
pick up his buddy Jad and drive a few km outside Ramallah to Ain Arik to a restaurant where we are the
only guests. We are cooked the delicacies we have brought with us and also fine appetizers to dip with
bread. A big feast for three, and we feel like we’ve been here for days. The return trip is adventurous. It
is pitch dark outside, the car’s head lights don’t help much. But Mazen says the car will find its way
alone, and miraculously we arrive at the hostel safely.
7.11.18
The main reason for this trip was to extend the passport for our friend Rana Sarsour. She is Palestinian
from Gaza and can either renew her passport at the Permanent Mission in Berlin, which would take
months during which she would be stranded without passport, or she would have to travel to Ramallah
herself, which is impossible for Gaza residents. The third possibility is to officially authorize someone else
to do it. So, we offered to take care of the matter, happy to have a reason to go back to Palestine. Our
last trip was my father-in-law’s farewell to his home country in 2014.
We are sent around a bit, but surprisingly, everything works smoothly and in the afternoon by 4 pm our
mission is accomplished. Mazen picks us up at the Ministry of Interior , and we drive to Um Mazen, his
mother. She has cooked, although she is really not well at all: mutton feet with vegetable and waraq
einab (stuffed grape leaves). By now we feel as if we have been here for weeks. Mazen takes us to the
hostel for a break but would like to see us again later. We decide to meet at his place in the El Tireh
district and go there on foot, a walk of about 4 km. Shortly before his house, at Nelson Mandela Square
with a statue of the same as a gift to Palestine from South Africa, we are a bit lost and ask a young man
loitering about for the way. He asks, who it is we are looking for. Our answer: Mazen Rantisi. He: Ah, the
doctor! Yes, of course he knows, calls him and shows us the way. Mazen seems to know everyone and
everyone knows him… we experienced the same thing numerous times on our short trip. He seems to
have treated at least half of Ramallah at least once in his small one-man practice.
8.11.2018
In our hostel, we found a book with hiking routes in Palestine, written by a Dutch Stefan Szepesi
„Walking Palestine“. We pick a nice close-by hike, take a shared taxi (vans with 6 passenger seats) to
Aboud, a Christian town behind Birzeit, and walk along Wadi Laimoon (Lemon Valley), from Aboud to
Beit Reema, a neighboring village. For the first mile or so, we are accompanied by a happy and noisy
group of school kids out on a field trip. We walk through typical Palestinian landscape: almond and olive
groves planted on ancient terraces in rusty red earth. Rita goes into the bushes and accidentally scares
off an approx. 2m long and 6 – 7cm thick, dark brown snake. We ask our youngest, Faris, to find out what
it was. Most likely a Palestinian Viper (Of course, our next-door neighbors call it an Israeli viper!). The
only thing that is fairly certain is that it was poisonous. At the roadside there is a huge dead wild boar!
We get lost a bit, unintentionally walk a few additional miles along a village road together with many
students on their way home from school until we finally take a taxi to Birzeit, have tea and malfoof
(minced meat and rice wrapped in cabbage leaves) in a pretty courtyard belonging to a university guest
house, then cross the large university campus and eventually take the bus with 50 students back to
Ramallah. Before we meet Mazen at the Riyad, a nicely decorated garden restaurant down in old
Ramallah, Rita’s favorite part of the city, we spend a little time at the guest house, chat away with our
young fellow guests who are very interested in the political situation, want to understand the conflict
from this side of the fence, and ask loads of questions. Cannot resist having a shawirma on the way.
9.11.2018
Today, we are planning to hike along beautiful Wadi Qelt to the famous St. George Monastery. We
debate what to wear. Jericho lies 400 meters below sea level and it should always be a lot warmer than
Ramallah which lies 600m above sea level. We have a quick cup of tea in the kitchen, and when I go back
to our room to collect my stuff, there is a guy snoring away in our bed! I figure, I got the wrong room and
walk out again. But no, this is definitely our room. I chase out the guy who seems to be rather beside
himself. It turns out to be Steven, the American volunteer and political journalist (or another potential
agent practicing for the real stuff? Mazen is convinced!) who speaks Arabic well and wants to record
interviews and prepare articles in Palestine for a year and sell them to various media. Actually a very nice
guy. A little later, Rita goes into the room to take another piece of clothing out of her suitcase; it is
soaking wet… including content. I think, our buddy Steven was looking for the toilet and ended up in our
room! We get the other two volunteers, Hannah and Megan, and they’re horrified. We throw everything
into the washing machine, don’t make a big thing out of it, and set off. We will get him in the evening
when he is sober.
We take the shared taxi to Jericho. The stop for the Jericho taxis is on Radio Street, right in front of Rita’s
grandfather’s house, where she used to live when she was living here during her high school years. the
house is no longer there – instead there is a concrete parking lot. Someday, they will build a high rise
there, like everywhere along Radio Street. We share the van with another couple of passengers, among
them a Japanese woman who, as it turns out later, also stays at the Area D Hostel. The road winds
through the olive hills East of Ramallah, then drops down through barren land towards the Dead Sea,
passing beduin dwellings along the way. Just before the final stop in Jericho, we drive past the Mount of
Temptation where Jesus allegedly was tempted by the devil and fasted for 40 days. Up there, built into
the steep rock wall, there is a Greek Orthodox monastery where hermit monks have been living an
isolated life immersed into prayer for decades – except a businessman from Palestine built a cable car
with small gondolas up there! Wonder who he bribed!
Arriving in Jericho, we set off in the heat. A taxi takes us to the trail head some way up the wadi. Along
the first bit, heavy bulldozers are stabilizing the river banks with massive stone blocks. After that, it is
quite dirty because the people living in the houses above the wadi, like everywhere in the world, don’t
know where to put their garbage and simply throw it down into the gorge. It is depressing – garbage
everywhere! The same as in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the Maldives, Morocco,… Only in Germany, we do
things differently: here the garbage is properly sorted and packed and then exported to countries that
throw it onto large dumps where children search it for useful items and poison themselves.
Later on, we hike through the narrow wadi – in some places not more than 2 meters in width and
reminiscent of our wadi tours in the UAE and Oman. On the steep rocky walls above us, we see small
mammals, like marmots. We meet a group of Koreans and their guide tells us they’re rock rabbits. Never
heard of them. They look like big brown guinea pigs. (Wikipedia later tells us what they are.) Also, time
and again, we see cells of hermit monks built into the steep walls. We cannot tell whether any monks
still live there and we wonder how they get there, as we do not see any ladders, steps, or trails. Later, we
meet a German woman hiking all alone. We run into her again at the hostel in the evening. After about
two hours, we arrive at the monastery, but there is no easy way out of the steep gorge to the top.
Finally, we climb up the rocks into the courtyard of a small chapel, from where a path leads to the
monastery – but in between there is a wall and the small gate is closed. We climb over the wall secured
with barbed wire – a bit tricky.
The monastery is closed. The monks want to be left alone. Two construction workers building a new
annex apologize that they are not permitted to let us enter and retreat to the monastery for lunch. We
sit down in front of the monastery in the shade on a slab of stone and have a snack of cookies and
oranges. While we are sitting there, dark clouds move towards us from the mountains above. We debate
what to do. Actually, we wanted to walk further up the upper edge of the Wadi towards the spring. Or
had we better go back to Jericho, hoping that the clouds will stay above the mountains? Finally, we
decide to walk back to Jericho on a path about 20 m above the wadi floor. On the way, we meet the
Japanese woman… she continues to the monastery. Within minutes, there is thunder and lightning and it
becomes darker and darker around us. Rita sees a cave and wants to hide in there until the
thunderstorm passes. But I still do not believe, it will rain here and convince her to keep going. Big
mistake. Suddenly it is raining cats and dogs and it is too late to run back to the cave. We squeeze against
the rocky wall which helps a little, but in the end, we are soaking wet anyway. My wallet, our longsleeved shirts inside our little backpack are also soaked. What worries me more though, is that from
above us muddy creeks are turning into waterfalls washing over our track. They could very well cause a
mud slide and bury us underneath them, or they might wash away the path. Down on the wadi floor,
little rivulets are slowly changing into rivers and rolling forward like a lava wave, gathering momentum as
it rolls along. In some places where the wadi is narrow it can become quite dangerous down there. As we
walk along the upper wadi trail we spot a hiker down below us on the wadi floor walking towards the
water . We warn him screaming loudly and waving our arms. It takes a long time until he understands
and then climbs up the wadi wall on the other side of the valley. Looks like he wants to stay up there and
watch the drama unfold below him. He cannot really go anywhere from where he is. He is taking pictures
with no worry in the world. But at least he is high above the wadi floor now. When we arrive in Jericho,
the rain has almost stopped, but we are still soaking wet. We wait a full hour for the shared taxi to fill up.
Meanwhile, the Japanese girl also gets back and is just as wet as we are. We cause a bit of an upheaval
while waiting: the taxi stand is in front of a row of shops and, as usual, there is garbage everywhere. Rita
asks the drivers standing around doing nothing why this is so. One of the taxi drivers points at the shops
behind us and says it is the shopkeepers throwing garbage there. But one of the shop owners does not
like that at all, gets really upset because a) he says, it is the passengers who leave their rubbish there
and, b) the taxis shouldn’t be there anyway blocking the parking spaces in front of his shop. The drivers
say, they have a right to be there, but the shop owner says, only two cabs are supposed to be there, not
three as is the case now. It becomes rather loud and messy. In Germany, they would have probably been
hitting each other by now. The shop owner then films the three vehicles, the drivers, and the rubbish and
threatens to call the police. And indeed, a policeman does turn up, also gets involved in the endless
discussion, finally has enough, picks up the rubbish and takes it to the nearby bin. The discussion
continues. Rita tells me to congratulate the policeman for his good deed, which I do. Finally the
argument is resolved with everyone embracing and kissing each other on the cheek. Great show!
Eventually, the cab is full and we head back to Ramallah. The wind blows through all the cracks and we
almost freeze in our wet clothes.
At the hostel, Steven, our drunkard who has no memory of his trip to our room is waiting for us. But we
want to take a hot shower first. Joseph keeps him hanging on for a while, and after our shower and this
and that, we listen to his apologies. He mumbles something about sleep-walking sometimes. So, he
wasn’t drunk?. Well, … I suppose, I was drunk, too. I leave it at that, but Joseph tells him that he wants to
talk to him in private later. He gives him a fatherly talk and lets him go. We do not say anything to the
hostel manager, Ihab, who is the same age as most of his guests.
We eat another Shawirma in the city and go to bed quite soon. We are totally wiped out and really
looking forward to the warmth of our bed.
10.11.18
Today, we move to the Lavender Boutique Hotel in Masyoun, a rather nice part of Ramallah. We are a bit
divided about leaving the Area D, because we really enjoyed our discussions with the other guests. We
are almost ready to leave when we have this endless chat with two young ladies, one Indian and the
Ukrainian American. They both study conflict management in their respective home countries, are
spending a year at Tel Aviv University, and want to come to the occupied territories as often as possible
on weekends to see both sides of the conflict. They soak up everything we say. Actually, it would be
quite exciting as a job if we came back for a longer stretch: political awareness training for the guests at
the Area D. But for now, Rita needs something a bit prettier. We’re going through plenty of adventure
anyway. The Lavender, a serene and small hotel with a cozy garden, is a normal residential villa which
the family extended and renovated, and converted into a hotel instead of tearing it down or selling it.
Very recommendable!
In the early afternoon, we are supposed to meet Sakher Khatib and his wife Yasna for lunch. They are
friends of Rita’s father, Sami, and go back a long way together. Sakher has a German mother and Yasna is
from Serbia. They know Rita from when she was a toddler and the parents were university students in
Eastern Germany in the 1960’s.
We spend the morning strolling around Ramallah, go to Rita’s school, former Friends Girls School – this
time not only for sentimental reasons (that, too, of course). Rita had contacted the school some time ago
because they have a volunteer program which she wanted to inquire about for a longer stay some time
next year. The Office Manager turns out to be Rita’s former class mate, Samia Rafidi. They recognize
each other instantly! Samia would be happy to have Rita come and help. How nice of her. Rita finds her
graduation photo on the wall in front of the auditorium – black and white and blurred but at least it is
there! Continue our stroll through the old streets of Ramallah and happen to pass the German Mission
office (they cannot open an embassy or even consulate here, I am sure, because Israel would regard that
as a recognition of the State of Palestine). We ask whether a Mr. Schaal is still here at the mission. He is
the son of an old friend of mine and was working here some time ago. The consul tells us he isn’t there
anymore and tells us that he was at the embassy in Tel Aviv for three years but then asked to be
transferred to Ramallah, because he wanted to see the Palestinian side. He says, in Tel Aviv people have
no clue of life here, they live in a party bubble and completely ignore the Palestinians.
In Old Ramallah, we find an olive press and spend some time there. It is no longer mechanical but
electric and imported from Italy. Many people bring their olives in gunny sacks and the hustle and bustle
over the engine noise is really quite similar to when we take our apples and pears to the cider press in
Germany. Opposite, there is a textile shop called „Rantis“, like the village of origin of Rita’s family. Later
in the evening, we go inside and the three old grandpas sitting there know Rita’s grandfather. When
they hear that Rita is Fayek Amer’s (or Abu Rabah’s) granddaughter, they look quite excited and happy. It
is then that I understand why Rita has such a longing for Palestine: This is where her family is known. It
happened to us time and again, not only on this journey, but on every journey here. You meet someone,
you make the connection to the village and the family name, and the other side knows grandpa or uncle
or whoever. I guess this is what makes you feel at home.
We meet Sakher, his wife Yasna, and their son Noor with his two children at Segafredo Cafe. However, it
is quite busy and noisy and Uncle Sakher is rather uncomfortable with his hearing aid. We are, too, and
when Noor decides to take his kids home, the four of us move to a very good Palestinian restaurant,
„Darna“, which means „Our House“ and is right next to the German Mission office and Friends School
where we had spent the morning.
I am especially happy because I have been complaining to Rita that we hadn’t really had any proper
Palestinian meal. It is really delicious. After a very enjoyable meal with these very old friends of Rita’s
family, we say good-bye to Sakher and Yasna. Of course, they would never ever allow us to pay! I feel
really bad. Amu Sakher invites us to come to Nablus and spend a day in the Old City there and have lunch
with them. We will keep in touch.
11.11.2018
Today is Rita’s birthday. We want to go to Bethlehem ( Arabic and Hebrew: Bait =house, lahem in Arabic
=meat, in Hebrew = bread; so depending on what you prefer, the name of the town is House of Meat or
House of Bread). Because of the Israeli wall and the check-points and the fact that Palestinian vehicles
are not allowed into Jerusalem, the shared taxi has to take a long detour around Jerusalem, so that the
drive from Ramallah north of Jerusalem to Bethlehem south of Jerusalem takes almost two hours, rather
than 45 minutes like in the old days. We almost drove down to the Dead Sea and back up again. It is
rather horrible! Jerusalem is accessible only to West Bank residents above the age of 50 or with special
permission.
We walk through the old city, into the Church of the Nativity, the alleged birthplace of Jesus. The queue
for the little chapel underneath the altar (This is where He was lying in the hay, allegedly!) is endless,
and since we have seen it before and are not religious either, we skip it. I would like to take Rita to the
beautiful Qasr Jacar for birthday coffee and cake, a former merchant’s palace that was converted into a
hotel and where I once spent the night on a business trip. Behind the old building, which only serves as
lobby and restaurant now, a modern hotel with two wings was built. Before the Second Intifada, it was
an Intercontinental, but ever since the wall was built, tourists have been coming to Bethlehem in Israeli
coaches for a few hours only, visiting the most important religious places and leaving again.
Unfortunately, the Intercontinental withdrew and there is also no cake.
The road in front of Qasr Jacar was once on the main north-south traffic axis, connecting Bethlehem to
Jerusalem in the north. Now the wall runs through the middle of this main road and cuts off Bethlehem
from Jerusalem. It is in no way inferior to the Berlin Wall – except that it is higher: here, too, there is a
watch tower every few hundred meters; here, too, the Wall runs practically through people’s front yards
and separates families; here, too, electronics and motion detectors secure the wall; here, too, it is ugly
and depressing. The only difference is that it also takes another 15 – 20% of the Palestinian land over to
the Israeli side, for it not built along the borders of 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank, but
We walk along the wall, look at the graffiti and paintings of the British artist Banksy who „decorated“ the
wall here and opened the „Walled in Hotel“, which looks directly onto the wall and the inside of which is
completely decorated with his art.
(https://www.google.com/search?q=banksy+wall+israel&safe=strict&client=firefoxb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiF46eCvdveAhUCjCwKHX7ApwQ_AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=654)
There are two shops here who sell various items related to the wall. Many Palestinians are very critical of
making a business out of the wall. On the other hand, every tourist walking along and taking pictures
serves as a multiplier who reports about these things at home. There are a few visitors with us along the
wall, taking photos.
We decide to cross the border, the gate in the wall, on foot and go back to Ramallah via Jerusalem. We
walk through a long caged passage like those used for cattle to be slaughtered, then pass through a
revolving iron gate and a metal detector into a small room at the other end of which there is another
revolving iron gate. On the left side of the room, there is a cubicle protected by bullet proof glass with
soldiers inside, and on the right side an x-ray machine for all luggage. As I pass through the metal
detector an alarm sounds. I take off my belt and put it on the luggage scanner. The metal detector beeps
again. So, I take off my glasses. It still beeps. The two very young female soldiers get rather nervous at
this point and wave me through. I miss my belt and go back through the metal detector looking for it.
There is a bit of tension in the air now. More and more people coming from the Bethlehem side on their
way to Jerusalem enter the small security room between the revolving doors. Then I see my belt trapped
in the conveyor belt. I want it back, but the two young chicks do not dare leave their cubbyhole for fear it
might be a trap. Speakers sound and the security room is locked down. No one can get out, no one can
get in. I call for the two young soldiers to come out and free my belt from the scanner but they shout
instructions to switch off the scanner over loudspeakers in Hebrew. A young Palestinian who could have
left the security area before it was locked, stayed and helped turn the thing off. Finally, I get my belt
back… but the scanner machine won’t start again. The young man presses all the buttons, I make a lot of
noise….with my German passport I can afford to …. the chicks scream incomprehensible stuff through
the speakers. Finally, another woman soldier, armed to her teeth, enters…also a young chick in a
bulletproof vest and with an uzi machine gun dangling from her neck in front of her belly, the barrel
pointed at all of us. I yell at her, „Put your gun down!“ which she does. She can’t get this thing to work
either. Finally, they open another security room and tell us to move there. I start telling the soldiers that
there should be someone giving people instructions what to place on the belt, etc. The soldier behind in
her little cubicle yells, she knows but she cannot come out…. and so on, and so on. They have strict
instructions not to leave their cubicle, probably ever since the knife attacks last year. Anyway, it was
quite a mess… The other Palestinians remained surprisingly calm. But they know that they will lose out if
they start a fight – at best they will be delayed endlessly, at worst they will be shot. They’ve learned to
turn into stones and not let anything get to them. If you have to go through it every day, you have to.
Otherwise, you get sick or go crazy.
Beyond the checkpoint, we take a bus to Jerusalem, stroll around the old city, eat a bad and overpriced
shawirma, I try a couple of shofars, which are available here in all shapes and sizes…I would love to buy
one.
Rita feels at home. We take the bus from Damascus Gate to Ramallah. Oh dear! The bus driver took
more than four hours for his last trip through the checkpoint to Ramallah and back (16 km one way!). He
is fed up and will only drive up to the check point towards Ramallah. Again, we have to go through the
check point on foot, but going into the West Bank is much easier than the other way around. No security
check here. Behind the checkpoint everyone has to see how to get from there to Ramallah. That, too, is
the reality of Palestine. These poor people who commute daily between Jerusalem and Ramallah! It is
hard to imagine how they cope. I read later that areas between Jerusalem and Ramallah, called Sheikh
Jarrah, Bait Hanina, and Shu’fat, belong to Area C and are thus under Israeli rule. So, the Israeli
government should use the taxes (which the Palestinians pay to Israel) for infrastructure works, waste
disposal, etc. But Israel does not do anything here and will not allow the Palestinian Authority, or even
the local municipality to do anything here, so that the whole area is a huge anarchic mess.
A German lady who works for the GIZ, a German development agency, and was on the bus from
Jerusalem with us is also trying to return to Ramallah. She spent a few days in Tel Aviv and is annoyed
because the driver would not take us all the way to Ramallah. We share a cab with her after the
checkpoint to take us home. She is one of many working for development agencies. Ramallah seems to
be teeming with them!
12.11. 2018
We stay in Ramallah today and want to try and get as close as possible to one of the settlements
bordering Ramallah. On the way there, we see an Afro-Palestinian from Jericho, who shared the cab to
Jericho with us a few days ago. What a coincidence running into him here. This happened time and
again. Just goes to show how small Ramallah is really. The other day in Birzeit, there was this German
family sitting next to us in the cafe. We ran into the guy a few days later in a liquor shop in Ramallah,
when we bought a few cans of beer. He’s with the GIZ, too.
Our man from Jericho has African roots dating back to centuries ago when African slaves settled there.
He is toothless, looks rather rugged, but is very self-confident and tells us quite seriously that he would
love to marry a German woman and move to Germany with her, and couldn’t we please arrange this for
him. Shortly before the road ascends towards the settlement we meet two adolescent boys, about 17
years old, on their way home from school. One of them dreams of studying in Germany. As we move on,
the boys warn us that there are soldiers up there and that they might shoot if you get too close. But
there are Palestinian houses right up to the settlement gate and we figure, it cannot be that dangerous
and keep walking.
Then we see the barbed wire fence, a reinforced iron barrier, a large sliding gate about 5 to 6 m wide,
and a guard in a watchtower. We slowly walk towards the gate with our arms held away from the body.
A soldier comes out, of course in full armour, and asks where we were going. We want to visit the
settlement, I say. He says, this is no entrance, we would have to go to the main entrance, on the other
side of the settlement, about 10 km by road. We: But there is a gate here. He: This will only be opened if
the soldiers have to go out. We: Why do the soldiers have to come out, this is the land of the
Palestinians. He: If the children throw stones at us, they would have to protect their village. Rita: But this
is not a village. This is an illegal settlement. If there wasn’t a settlement here, people wouldn’t have to
rebel. He says, if this is the way we see it, then there is no sense in talking to us. Well, that’s how it went
back and forth. He claims they never fire live ammunition. Actually, the guy wasn’t so bad, he didn’t have
to talk to us at all. He’s a reservist, is drafted for a month each year to serve wherever they place him. In
his civilian life, he’s a water engineer or something. In front of the gate, there are hundreds of spent tear
gas grenades, about 5 cm in diameter and 15 cm in length, and as many shells of presumably illumination
cartridges and then many more spent 5 or 6 mm caliber cartridges. I don’t think it was 7.62 mm. This is
definitely live ammunition! Some cartridges were still complete. We picked up one of each type. But we
know, we cannot take them – not through the check points and definitely not through airport security.
What do we tell airport security from where we got these grenades and what we are planning to do with
them?!? As we say goodbye to the soldier and walk back to the first house about 50 m from the
settlement gate, the Palestinian owner happens to be driving up in her car. The next unlikely encounter
on this day: The lady, named Ikram, Rita’s age, knows practically all of Rita’s classmates at Friends. They
have some acquaintances in common, etc etc. The lady’s aunt calls. She lives two houses away and
worries when she sees us going into the garden with Ikram. She shows us heaps of bullet shells she
recently collected in her garden and says the soldiers often come into her garden and on her roof to
monitor the surroundings. The boys from the neighborhood come and throw stones towards the
settlement, the soldiers shoot back. During these battles, her windows were shattered so often that she
has put metal grills on all of them. She tells us, sometimes the soldiers come and call obscenities down
the hill to provoke the boys. When they react by throwing stones, the soldiers shoot.
The house was built by her parents and she grew up in it. When she was young, the settlement was just a
small army post where soldiers used to come for a month or so and leave again. In 1981, the first five
Israeli families settled there. Now it houses almost 2000 settlers and has expanded over the years by
illegal land-grabbing. Ikram is not about to leave her house, because she knows, the settlers would grab
her piece of land immediately.
She takes us back to town in her car. She has her own small graphic design company just below the old
Hotel Odeh, where Rita ate chocolate cake with her classmates under ancient pine trees that are still
there.
We eat kunafa, the Nablus speciality at Damascus Sweets for the third time, another one of the regularly
frequented cafes from Rita’s school days. Then we meet Mazen at his mother’s house. She is not well
and does not come out of the bedroom at all. We’re sitting in the living room having tea, hoping that the
murmur of our voices might have a soothing effect on her. At some point, a neighbor comes along and
we can slowly leave with Mazen while she is left to look after Um Mazen. Mazen decides to arrange for
another fish dinner in Ain Arik, calls Jad and two other buddies, orders the fish in advance and informs
Ain Arik that we are coming.
Early this morning we heard that an Israeli special forces unit had entered Gaza with a civilian car with
Palestinian license plate in order to execute a Hamas fighter. Apparently their plot was discovered and
the car was attacked by Hamas. The air force came to their rescue and killed six Palestinians. One Israeli
also lost his life and one or two were injured. Potential for another war and the ongoing topic of the day.
When all of us are at the restaurant Mazen’s friends switch on the TV and while we are eating and
drinking, talking about politics and what have you, we are watching live as events unfold in Gaza.
Apparently, 400 rockets were fired from Gaza to Ashkelon in southern Israel during the day in response
to the Israelis‘ attempted murder. Houses are hit, a bus shot on fire. Mazen’s friends are happy.
Somehow, it seems good for the Palestinian hurt self-esteem to finally reach some targets. All of a
sudden, the reporting television station announces that it has received a telephone warning to leave the
building as it will be bombed by Israel. This is a common procedure when Israel bombs Gaza. If the Israeli
army wants to avoid civilian casualties, but wants to cause maximum damage to the infrastructure, Israel
sends a warning in the form of a light grenade, and five minutes later they send bombs. Thus, people
have time to leave the respective building but cannot take anything with them. The TV station continues
broadcasting for another couple of minutes and suddenly there is nothing but a still picture! We are
watching it happen. The Palestinian buddies are both excited and shocked. We’re stunned. Despite this,
we are having a lively discussion about the eternal subject of Palestine and Israel and various other
topics.
One of them was an activist when he was young, spent 10 years in Israeli prison from 1970 till 1980 from
age 20 till 30. He lost two or three fingers trying to trigger a bomb. Today, he is the West Bank
representative of Schwarzkopf, his hair, eyelashes and eyebrows colored pitch-black. His friends call him
„the teenager“. He was in prison with one of the Bader Meinhof members, Thomas Reuter. He talks
about solitary confinement, how he coped and what he did in order not to go completely mad. Solitary
confinement meant that no one talked to him, not even the guards, and that reading and writing was
forbidden. He says, interrogations were accompanied by beatings, humiliation and verbal abuse, but that
things got better after he was sentenced and transferred to „normal“ prison. The International Red Cross
would come regularly, but would only address such questions as food, sleep, and other general issues.
Questions regarding torture, etc., were not asked.
If the day hadn’t been so long and there wasn’t so much whiskey – again, Jonny Walker Gold Label and
Carmel red wine, the evening could have gone on forever. We say our goodbyes and promise to meet
again by March 2019 at the latest. What an evening!
13.11.2018
Today at breakfast, we meet two guests at the Lavender who are not from an NGO or development
agency for a change: They are from an American software company called Harri which employs over 100
people here. Rita is very pleased.
Today is our last day. Amu Sakher had offered to provide us with a friend as tourist guide if we wanted to
come to Nablus. But we decide for Jerusalem and tell him that we will not come to Nablus. I think, it
would be too much for him and his wife if we went there.
Again, we take the shared taxi to the checkpoint of Kalandia, a refugee camp from 1948, beyond which
East Jerusalem begins. We walk cross the check point on foot. Long queues. What might it look like early
in the morning when commuters have to go over there? We are told, people start queuing at 4 am, so
they make it to their jobs on time. There is a special queue for so-called emergencies, i.e. people who are
sick and on their way to hospital, etc. A man who apparently collects tin cans and sells them to a dealer
in Jerusalem for a living, tells us that two days ago a pregnant woman allegedly died here because her
waters broke and no ambulance came. We have to pass through several revolving gates and the
soldiers will only allow through a certain number of people at a time. We…or I…always seem to attract
trouble in these situations. When it is our turn, the soldiers accidentally let seven people pass through
instead of three to four people. We are told via clattering loudspeaker to go back through the gate
(these loudspeakers remind us of secret agent movies about North Korea). I do not understand or
pretend not to. The situation becomes rather unpleasant again (not sure, for whom it is worse: us or
them.) The soldiers behind their bulletproof glass panes look rather panicked. If you have to endure this
every day on your way to work, it becomes rather clear why people here often suffer from depression.
They have no rights here whatsoever!
We finally manage to get through and take a bus to Damascus Gate bus station, opposite of which is the
so-called Garden Tomb where, according to some historic analysis and believed by many Protestants,
Jesus was crucified and buried. The garden is maintained by volunteers from all over the world. There
are groups of ardently praying and singing pilgrims everywhere. It is quite a little oasis in the middle of
the hustle and bustle of East Jerusalem.
We enter the Old City through Damascus Gate and take a walk on the city wall – quite an interesting
perspective of the Old City. We go to the Dome of the Rock, but are not allowed in, because it is not
enough that Rita is a Muslim. She would be allowed in alone, but I wouldn’t. On the way around the
Dome of the Rock area, we observe four young soldiers, two women and two men, stopping three boys
who are hardly younger than the soldiers themselves. They take their ID’s, make them stand with their
legs apart, face against the wall, arms held up high over their heads against the wall. The two woman
soldiers face the passers-by, while the two men pull down the boys‘ jackets in a rough manner, lock their
legs between their own knees, and pat them down. We stop to watch and ask the female soldier what
the boys have done to deserve this treatment. Rita asks if they are criminals, whether they robbed
someone; she replies, that this is what they are checking. I ask if I could take a picture. Of course not.
Meanwhile some other passers-by stop and watch and it becomes quite a scene. Rita explains to a
German tourist couple what is happening. More soldiers turn up. One of them comes and asks me to
move on – apparently, there is something about me that they do not like. We refuse to budge an inch. A
Palestinian woman comes along and explains that the boys are part of a group of families who came to
Jerusalem for the day to pray at the Dome of the Rock. She tries to speak to the soldiers and asks them
to let the boys go, explaining that they belonged to her group. But the soldiers send her back harshly.
After I am told the third or fourth time to move on, I take one step back, but we both tell them we have
a right to be there and they cannot send us away. Finally, they let go of the boys and we walk on with
them and their group leader. She tells us they are from Jenin, have a one-day permit to come to
Jerusalem to visit the sacred places and pray. The boys have never been to Jerusalem before (!)….and
experience oppression and humiliation in their own country. This is bound to lead to frustration, anger
and hatred. Everyone can see this quite clearly, except apparently the Israelis.
We leave the Old City and walk along the city wall in the direction of the Wailing Wall, the Jewish most
sacred site. On the way there, on the left below us is Qidron Valley, on the other side of the valley, the
Garden of Gethsemane, the Russian Orthodox Church with its golden shining onion towers, the huge
Jewish cemetery where a lot of Jewish celebrities are buried, then Silwad, a Palestinian suburb of
Jerusalem, from which the Israelis would so much like to expel the inhabitants in order to annex it. There
is a huge excavation in the middle of Silwad: the City of David, ruins that are supposed to be Jerusalem
at the time of King David. Silwad is rotten and neglected, like all Arab districts of Jerusalem because the
Israeli city administration leaves them to rot, excludes them from garbage collection, does not renew
infrastructure, does not give building permits for the renovation of houses. They’re trying to get people
out, a form of ethnic cleansing.
We enter the Old City again through the next gate, pass the Wailing Wall, which is completely ruined by
security structures set up all around it, go up some stairs into the Jewish quarter. Here the stone slabs of
the paths are clean; there are lockable garbage containers and proper signs leading tourists and
strangers to the major sites, and the houses are renovated. I run into a 50 year old Jew who speaks
American English. He’s very jovial, and we chat a little. He asks me how I am, and I tell him quite honestly
that I am not feeling very happy because we just spent several days in the West Bank and the conditions
there shocked me. He understands: „Oh yes, I live there in a settlement near Bethlehem.“ When I ask
him why he lives in a settlement in the West Bank which is Palestinian land, he says „It is our holy land“.
God gave it to them, and he is convinced that the Israeli wars, especially the Yom Kippur war, were won
because God wanted them to win and helped them. I ask him: „Are you sure it was God that helped you
and not the Americans with their reconnaissance technology?“ After a long discussion, I recommend the
book by Yuval Harari, an Israeli, about the development of mankind. I doubt, he even considers looking
into the book. Rita stays far away. She does not want to listen to the guy’s holy land crap. She watches a
couple of Jewish boys playing soccer in the square. We head back towards Damascus gate, stop at the
Furun Green Door, a baker where people used to bring their prepared meals to be cooked in the wood
stove until the Israelis forbade him to do so because of the alleged smoke pollution. Now the customers
do not come anymore because having it done in a gas stove is just like cooking at home. We eat the
legendary pita bread baked in the oven with egg, tomato paste and melted cheese, drink tea, while the
baker tells us his story, which unfortunately leaves us no time to buy a shofar. I don’t think Rita’s so
unhappy about that. When we came to Jerusalem the other day, I saw the beautiful shofars they sell
here and would love to buy one. But Rita is boycotting my wish.
Returning to Ramallah is the same as two days ago: The bus again only takes us up to the checkpoint in
Kalandia. We cross the check point on foot with all the other commuters, have no desire to sit in the taxi
in the traffic jam and start walking past the traffic jam towards Ramallah. When the traffic clears, we flag
a cab to take us home.
While having her evening cigarette outside in the garden, Rita meets a young woman whom we had
already seen twice at breakfast, but had not spoken to. She works for the Deutsche Welle Academy and
teaches „Mobile Reporting“ at universities in Jordan, Syria and Palestine. Very exciting. When Rita meets
her by the front door, she is on her way to a Salsa evening at the „Fuego“, one of the many hip bars in
Ramallah. To think that not even 100km away in Gaza there is a war looming! By the way, the reading on
this subject is that the Israelis did not continue to bomb because they were wrong, because they were
the ones who came into Gaza to assassinate a Hamas fighter – while Netanyahu was attending a peace
conference in France!
14.11.2018
Today is our departure. We say goodbye to Mireille, the owner of the Lavender, a typical Palestinian
Christian: open-minded, westernized, educated, and wealthy. She had told us that she has a Jerusalem
ID, so she is officially allowed to live there because she comes from Jerusalem originally and spends most
of her time in Jerusalem. But many actually live in the West Bank and lie about it, teach their children to
lie about it. Because if the authorities knew that they are actually living in the West Bank mostly, they
would lose their residence permit for Jerusalem! All these measures are nothing more than a creeping
ethnic cleansing of Palestine from the Palestinians.
We had wanted to meet another uncle of Rita’s. He has a Canadian passport and has been living in the
West Bank as a tourist, doing visa runs every 3 months to extend the tourist visa, because Israeli
immigration will not give residence permits to Palestinians with Western passports. So, this uncle was
hiding inside his house basically for the last year or so, because he was always afraid to get caught and
deported. When Rita contacted him, he told her that they were packing up and leaving. Many
Palestinians with western passports had to do so before him. More ethnic cleansing.
Even on this last part of our journey, we do not want to take the easy way. (Mind you: we get to fly out
of Tel Aviv which is much easier than what most Palestinians have to go through. Palestinians are not
allowed to use Tel Aviv airport at all, unless they have a Western passport. Gaza residents can only come
and go via Egypt through Rafah border where they are sometimes held up for days. And West Bank
residents enter via Jordan through Allenby Bridge across the river Jordan.) We pull our suitcases to the
bus station and take the bus to Jerusalem. We are quite curious how we will get through the checkpoint
this time. The bus must somehow return to Jerusalem to pick up passengers again. For a while, this was
not possible at all. People drove up to the checkpoint in a Palestinian bus, just like we did with the
shared taxi, then walked through the checkpoint on foot, in order to take another Palestinian vehicle
beyond the checkpoint, however, one with Israeli number plate. That’s how it was when we took the
shared taxi to Jerusalem.
A youngish German (late 30s) is on the bus with us. He, too, stayed at the Area D the past few days. He is
a globetrotter, apparently has money of his own, which he managed to increase successfully. Had
interests in a shipping company in Hamburg, which he sold, and is now blowing the money on traveling.
But the way he sounds, there is more and he does not need to worry about the future. He is politically
very interested, and we have an interesting discussion. At the checkpoint, two soldiers board, a man and
a woman, and check all the documents, take some of the ID cards and „entry permits“ to Jerusalem out
for checking. A woman sitting a few rows in front obviously has an American passport and also an Israeli
ID card for the West Bank, but no entry permit for Jerusalem. She has to leave the bus and they make
her walk through the check point. They will probably not let her pass though. The woman directly in
front of us says that she probably would have been sent off, too, if we hadn’t sat directly behind her as
witnesses. She’s had this happen to her several times before. Whenever Westerners were sitting on the
bus, she can stay; if not, she has to get off and walk through the cattle cages.
Going to Tel Aviv airport is the same procedure as upon our arrival: We take the tram to the central bus
station of West Jerusalem, then a bus to the airport. All in all we need 4,5 hours because of the many
travel restrictions for 30km as the crow flies! When Rita lived with her grandfather at the end of the 70’s,
she took the scheduled taxi directly from Ramallah to the airport in half an hour.
On the final leg to the airport, we strike up a conversation with an English Jew from Manchester, a very
young and very religious man who studies at a theological seminary in Jerusalem and would like to
become a Rabbi. He has 10 brothers and sisters (first book of Moses: Be fruitful and increase in
number…), would rather not read anything critical, such as Yuval Hariri, because he feels he is too young
and does not want his faith to be shaken. The use of smart phones and computers, especially the
Internet, are not encouraged. Another very interesting conversation.
We get the very last two seats on the flight to Frankfurt – separated and middle seats – but we are
grateful anyway. All, literally all flights out of Tel Aviv are packed – except El Al. That is because the
Israelis have no way into or out of the country except through Tel Aviv. Rita’s neighbor later says to her
he refuses to fly with them. They are too rude, he says.
