The Question

Note: the following assessment is derived from my experience of Hebron and should not be misconstrued to represent every individual Palestinian. I have avoided naming the persons quoted here and will, at their request, remove quotations attributed to them if they object to their usage here.

‘So, where will they go?’

Every time a discussion began on the subject of ‘the situation here’ I would end up asking this question.

Where will they go?

Those I met seemed more than ready to discuss the conflict between themselves and Israel. What is more their opinions followed a fairly similar formula.

‘Israel,’ one told me, ‘does not want peace. They just take our lands.’

The latter is factually true. Whichever way you twist the map it is abundantly clear that the Palestinians have lost their land and have carried on losing it since 1948. As for the former, it is hard to deny this to Palestinians when you admit that the latter continues to take place and that Israel has consistently sabotaged the peace process it continues to trumpet its support for.

Then I ask what kind of peace they consider just. Here they are extremely clear.

‘We want to go back to Haifa and Jaffa. We want to be able to live anywhere in our country.’

And by ‘our country’ they mean Palestine. Not the rump state of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but the whole of historical Palestine; from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean and from the Negev to the borders of Lebanon. This is the country that was taken from them – the land they had resided in for centuries with few restrictions. A land where Jews and Christians had largely lived peacefully with their Muslim neighbours. This is the vision they have. A two state solution does not fit in here because, as far as they are concerned, the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was an invasion and occupation of their country by a foreign people. As a result they continue to regard the land beyond the West Bank as occupied Palestine.

Therein lies a problem. The 1948 War was an act of occupation which involved the forceful displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes within the  borders of what is now Israel. It was also a miracle of deliverance for a people brought to the verge of annihilation by the industrialised murder known as the Holocaust. In such a situation, the Jewish leaders regarded the establishment of a Jewish State as an absolute imperative for the survival of their people. Removing the Arabs was a necessary evil from their standpoint in order to achieve the vision of a state with a purely Jewish identity.

So what now? From the standpoint of many I spoke to in Hebron, the only way to achieve justice is to let Palestinians return to the 1948 territory; in other words to create a Palestinian state over the whole of Israel and the occupied territories. This would always prompt me to ask the question; where will the Jews go?

One individual responded bluntly: ‘To hell. I don’t care.’

Others shrug and point out that the ancient Jewish community in Nablus lives in peace with their Palestinian neighbours.

‘Can’t the others do the same?’

From what they say it is abundantly clear they would consider living in peace with Israelis within the 1948 borders. The slight snag is whose flag they would be under.

From the Israeli perspective it is clear; to consider one state is to sacrifice the intrinsic Jewishness of Israel. Israelis on both the Left and the Right would never consent to it. It would mean admitting that the two state solution is now impossible – that the Palestinians can never be safely packed away in the West Bank, that they must share the future.

Another problem, though, is that here we are speaking in terms of aspirations. When I asked my host brother whether he would happily live in one state shared with the Israelis, his response was revealing:

‘Yes, but this will never happen.’

This was a common sentiment, at least in Hebron. There was a perception that Israel will never tear down the wall, remove the checkpoints and cease demolishing homes; that this cruel reality was all they could look forward to in future. And for some the only way to change the situation is to fight back.

When speaking to one man who had lived through the misery of the Israeli penal system, without once seeing a jury of course, I received a chilling response on the matter of a peace solution.

‘If the Israelis come to me without their weapons,’ he said, ‘I will live with them in peace. But if they come with their weapons I will fight them, from the tallest to the smallest.’

He paused.

‘And I will start with the smallest.’

What is abundantly clear, however, is that the Palestinians want peace. Some even look fondly on the days before the First Intifada when there were no walls around their land. Above all though, they want a just peace – a peace that recognises how much they have lost and goes some way to giving it back.

 

 

The Navel of the World

My first stay in Jerusalem was brief and as such I only experienced a hint of this city’s character. I will say to begin with that I was largely confined to the Old City and only glimpsed the modern expanse of West Jerusalem that lay beyond the medieval ramparts. However, I can say with certainty that my stay there inspired in me one thing – a pressing need to go back and see it again.

The moment you step out into the streets of the Old City you feel swallowed whole. The buildings are packed so close and high that you often find yourself walking in the shade of a stone canopy. Getting lost for me was an inevitability but not one that I was concerned with. It scarcely mattered that I had no idea where the Muslim Quarter ended and the Armenian Quarter began or whether I was heading in the right direction for the Western Wall; just wandering here and stumbling through the Souqs, churches and ruins was indescribably joyful.

At one point on my first stroll through Jerusalem I rounded a bend and saw at once that I was in the Jewish quarter; first by the quantity of new buildings and second by the presence of half a dozen soldiers of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). During my stay in Jerusalem there was not a single day where I did not see IDF troops. They were often to be seen relaxing, after their duties, in the Jewish Quarter; young and cheerful people of roughly my age who had the good fortune to be serving their military service here rather than at some sun scorched checkpoint in the West Bank. They did not usually carry rifles but on one occasion when I was sitting in a café eating Shwarma, a young IDF soldier sat down on a table opposite me with his parents with his rifle lying in his lap. His parents seemed utterly unperturbed by the presence of the firearm and at one point he passed the firearm to his father who patiently adjusted the strap for him before handing it back. The thought of having a family meal in public whilst visibly carrying a lethal weapon like that was inconceivable to me. But then, I reflected, there were a vast number of things in this country that were inconceivable to a mild mannered, leftie-liberal Englishman like me.

The reason for the military presence lies on the far side of the Jewish Quarter with a place that is difficult to name without, linguistically at least, choosing a side. For the world’s 2 billion (approx.) Muslims it is known as the Haram al-Sharif but for 13.8 million Jews it is known as the Temple Mount.

If anyone is in any doubt as to what the conflict is with this holy site I will give a brief explanation as best I can. The area that now comprises the holy site was where Abraham is said to have been instructed by God to kill his son, Isaac. Later, King Solomon is thought to have built the First Jewish Temple here in the 10^th century BCE which was then destroyed by the Babylonians when they seized Jerusalem in 586 BCE. In 515 a Second Temple was built and the entire complex was expanded and upgraded to its current size by Herod the Great. Of this vast structure the Western Wall is all that remains after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD. Nevertheless, this last edifice is regarded as the most sacred site in Judaism.

After the Arab conquest of Jerusalem in the 7^th century the Dome of the Rock was constructed on the Temple Mount over the site where, it is believed, Mohammed made his ascent to heaven while the Al-Aqsa Mosque (‘farthest mosque’) was established on the edge of the compound in what is thought to have been a church. Today the Haram remains the 3^rd holiest site in Islam and is controlled by Jerusalem’s Muslim community – something which does not always sit well with the Israelis. In a brutal display of defiance, or desecration depending on your perspective, future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a crossing of the Haram on 28^th September 2000 – surrounded by riot police. Sharon had a special significance for Palestinians after he permitted a Christian militia group to enter the Shatila refugee camp and slaughter the Palestinian occupants during the Lebanon war. Shouts went up of ‘Murderer!’ and before long stones were being hurled from the Haram down on the Israeli soldiers below. These events sparked the Second Intifada in which hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinians would die as the Israeli government forcibly dismembered the Palestinian Authority and asserted its de facto control over the West Bank. Every Friday, as Muslims gather on the Haram to pray, Israeli soldiers and riot police assume their positions; waiting to react to any Palestinian provocation. Meanwhile the Palestinians are constantly alert to any infringement of their control of the Haram – convinced that the Israelis harbour designs to destroy this sacred place.

Regrettably the Temple Mount was closed during my stay in the Old City – possibly due to violent street clashes that occurred a few days prior to my arrival, although this was not clarified. Instead I turned my attention to a monotheistic shrine free of police barricades: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As a non-believer, this was not a site I could claim much knowledge of and I would advise those in a similar position to do specific background research so they understand exactly what they are looking at – there’s no English Heritage style signage to help you along. The interior has that gloom, unique to all churches, which ensures that everything inside is taken seriously. Taking in Calvary (where Christ is thought to have been crucified), the Holy Sepulchre (where Christ was supposed to have been buried) and the various chapels is an interesting experience but with no spiritual connection between myself and these places I could not claim to have found the building inspirational.

Another slightly problematic factor for me was the authenticity of the place. The Church was founded by Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, in the 4^th century AD who visited Jerusalem and, upon excavating a hill resembling biblical Golgotha, discovered three crosses. When the question then arose of how to identify the True Cross, Helena utilised the fool proof method of getting a sick man to touch each one. Conveniently he was cured by one which was then proclaimed to be the True Cross. Even more conveniently there was a pagan temple on the site beforehand which naturally had to be replaced by the Church. And still more conveniently this all occurred during the period when the Emperor Constantine had ended the persecution of Christians and commissioned the construction of many new churches. But maybe I’m just being cynical.

As my stay in Jerusalem came to an end I had the sense that to get as much as possible out of the city required better planning and more time than I had available. There was also a slight twinge of sadness at every new sight – there was no-one around me to share the experience with, no-one to break the tension or to bicker over the map. Travelling solo was a completely new experience for me and not a wholly positive one.

However, the day soon arrived when I would escape crowded atmosphere of Jerusalem and embark on the next stage of my journey – into the heart of the West Bank.

Day One in the Holy Land

The point of this trip is to throw myself in at the deep end. I don’t remember a time in my life where I wasn’t nervous or fearful of something – often for no good reason. When the time came to decide what to do with my life after the safety blanket of Sixth form was pulled away, I resolved to do something different; something that would change me as a person. In other words I became that most risible of things: a gap year student. But this was a gap year with a dark twist – I wasn’t going to any ordinary third world country, I was going to Palestine.

After months of shuffling and reshuffling my plans, I finally arranged for a couple of volunteering placements in the heart of the West Bank. Some part of me kept asking myself why and to this I had very little answer except why not? With the indispensable help of my contact, who I won’t name here, the trip moved from a vague aspiration to a definite reality while through the stern prodding of my sister, who had also completed a long placement abroad, the finer details of the trip emerged.

When the day of my flight came, I was not in the best of spirits. That morning, a visit to the hospital had me diagnosed with Tonsillitis which explained why, in the last few days, I had been reduced to a shivering, sweating ball on my sofa. The rest of the day was a flurry of preparations and tearful goodbyes before, all too soon, I found myself bidding my parents goodbye at Stansted airport before weaving through the vast, emptiness of the departure lounge to reach the correct gate.

I could hardly believe I was going through with this. My first solo trip abroad…and I was going to Palestine? The very idea seemed half mad for anyone else but for a bookish, introvert like myself it was positively insane.

Though it was an overnight flight, I found myself unable to sleep. Instead my eyes drifted between the screen above my seat marking the gradual progress of the aircraft and the endless lights of Central and Eastern Europe drifting below us. At around five in the morning we arrived at Istanbul to change flights. Part of the compromise of getting a cheap flight had been making a changeover in Istanbul’s smaller airport; Sabiha Gökçen. I had pictured a few concrete blocks beside a single airstrip but I was pleasantly surprised to enter a completely modern airport. If it weren’t for the large Turkish flags on display this place could be anywhere in the western world.

The sun rose slowly over Istanbul. The Golden Horn and the Hagia Sophia were out of sight. Instead all that was visible through the windows was Istanbul’s urban sprawl and the hills of Anatolia where, almost 1000 years before, the Turks had ejected the Byzantine Greeks and settled in Asia Minor. They had ruled that land ever since.

The flight to Tel Aviv was decidedly brief – barely two hours – but it offered stunning views of the landscape beneath as we edged closer to Israel. As we flew I began to mentally rehearse what I was going to say at Israeli border control. I had heard the horror stories – of suspected volunteers being taken aside and strip-searched before being questioned for hours. Some I knew were just sent back if the Israelis suspected they were lying at any point. In order to avoid this, my contact had advised that I simply tell them I was here to visit historic sites and holy places. To complete this deception I was wearing a cross, a pair of beige chinos and a cream jacket that had belonged to my great-grandfather. I looked absurd; like some walking colonial relic but at least I looked nothing like a volunteer.

My anticipation grew as a stepped off the plane into the pristine corridors of steel and glass that greet you first at Ben Gurion Airport. The building is a marvel in itself – at its heart is a fountain where water pours vertically from the ceiling into an artificial lagoon beneath. Beyond that the corridor leading to border control consists of an avenue of enormous stone columns. If nothing else, I thought, I will have at least seen this if they send me back.

Waiting for me at border control was a rather tired looking man who regarded me with dispassionate interest from inside his glass booth before he began questioning me.

‘So, why are you visiting Israel?’

‘I am here for the history,’ I replied ‘and the holy sites.’

‘Which ones?’

‘The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, Nazareth-‘

‘Do you know anyone in Israel?’

‘No.’

‘Then where are you staying?’

I told him about the hostel I booked for Jerusalem. He then moved to why I decided to come to Israel in the first place.

‘I am studying War Studies at university later this year,’ I replied cheerfully before waffling about the battle sites I wanted to see while I am here. He stared at my passport for a while, obviously uncertain. Then, quite suddenly, he handed it back to me along with my visa.

‘Enjoy your stay in Israel,’ he said with an attempt at a smile. Well that was easy, I thought as I collected my bags.

Once I passed into arrivals I felt myself relax; time to start enjoying myself at last. Before I caught a shared taxi to Jerusalem I attempted to purchase a pre-paid SIM for use in Israel.  In my exhausted and partly exhilarated state I made a hash of explaining myself. It transpired that I had to buy a cheap new phone altogether with the SIM, all of which cost me 500NIS or about £85. Slightly put out by this I did not enjoy the drive to Jerusalem. Gazing out at Israel, all I could see were patches of pine trees and quite ugly, square blocks of housing. I remembered from my reading of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Ilan Pape) how Israel used forests to cover cleansed Palestinian settlements during the dark days of the 1948 war. I wondered whether these trees serve the same purpose. It says a great deal about the intractable conflict here that even nature itself has been used as a weapon.

After about 15 minutes on the road I noticed something chilling. On both sides, stone walls topped with barbed wire rose up. When I saw signs to Male Adumim I realise why – we are entering settler territory. Though Male Adumim looks and feels like a suburb of Jerusalem and the majority of its 40,000 residents are employed there, in fact this area is inside the Palestinian West Bank. Every house and structure here is built on expropriated Palestinian land; a clear violation of international law. Worse, the settlement is situated at the choke point between the northern area of the West Bank (containing Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and so on) and the south (containing Hebron and Bethlehem). Thus the West Bank is split irreversibly into two halves, dividing the Palestinian population and making territorial contiguity impossible for an independent Palestine. At a conference earlier this year Jeff Halper, the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, called the continued expansion of Male Adumim the death of the two state solution. If ever there was tangible evidence of Israel’s territorial ambitions in the West Bank then this was it – a knife held at the throat of Palestine.

The taxi dropped me at the Jaffa gate and I immediately lurched towards the nearest information point, desperate to find my hostel and relieve my back from the ghastly weight of my bag. I am pointed down a narrow street lined with shops and after a few wrong turns I saw signs to the Citadel Hostel. Salvation! After one last wrong turn I made it into the hostel lobby to be greeted with an unsmiling receptionist who pointed me towards the roof where, for reasons that seemed clearer at the time, I elected to sleep. The Citadel Hostel had the feel of a place that had seen better days – there were awards displayed behind the reception desk for the Hostel’s hospitality but the most recent one dated from 2012. The archaic stone walls and twisted staircases that had seemed so characterful on the website seemed, to my eyes, sparse and frankly a bit tacky. As for the shared bathrooms, I had rarely seen a more squalid arrangement and this was not for lack of experience with youth hostels. Nevertheless, the rooftop views were every bit as stunning as I had imagined; while the song of church bells mixed with the calls of the Muezzin, I gazed endlessly at the Temple Mount which glowed gold in the dying light.

Eventually I lay back and allowed the exhaustion that I had held back all this time wash over me.  None of this seems quite real, I thought to myself. I had only ever read about Jerusalem in books and yet here I was gazing out across the city. I then realised, almost for the first time, that I will be in this region for the next three months.