2nd January
Bethlehem.
After the amount of time it took to check-in at Ben Gurion Airport on my way to Egypt, I was nervous about my re-entry into Israel this time. Fortunately, the inspection booth I chose was occupied by a man who didn’t seem overly interested and let me pass with only the usual ‘What is the purpose of your visit to Israel?’
It was a big relief to find myself in a taxi heading towards the Bethlehem checkpoint, then walking through and smelling the familiar smoke from the fires lit by the taxi drivers in the winter months in order to keep warm.
Because I caught a cold on my way down to Egypt I decided not to do any scuba diving, and opted instead to get some reading done. It was nice to just sit by the beach for a few days, and I got through Amira Hass’s Drinking the Sea at Gaza. It is an account of her time in the Gaza Strip as a journalist for Haaretz in the mid-nineties. Although it is now a little out of date, it is an interesting account of life in the strip at that time. Ominously, it reminded me very much of the isolated West Bank towns of today, such as Nablus and Qalqilya. The thought of a future West Bank consisting only of various mini-Gazas and Israeli settlements is a depressing idea indeed.
I’m going back to Bir Zeit tomorrow to coach the Junior Orchestra for a few days so it will be nice to get involved with real life again, rather than just reading about real-life death.
Posted by in 20:23:21
