Alastair Mitchell

Wadi Musa, Jordan.

My day began early, passing through the Bethlehem checkpoint by 6am, in time to meet my taxi.  As I waited at the Central Bus Station in West Jerusalem, I was reminded of my days living in Brixton.  Early-birds witnessing the late finishes of night-owls - many teenage and twenty-somethings were returning from what appeared to have been a rather big night out.  So close to the West Bank, the western culture of Israel could be a world away.

The coach journey from Jerusalem south to Eilat was uneventful, and stepping out from the air-conditioned vehicle and into the hot Red Sea air was a reminder of how lucky I am to live up in the hills - this is still just late March, and at the mid-thirties the temperature is quite hot enough, by summer it will be in the mid-forties.

After freshening up in the bathrooms of Eilat airport, which unusually is located in the centre of the town, I took a taxi and asked for the border.  Which one? came the reply.  I had forgotten that in addition to being just 8 kilometres from the Jordanian boder, Eilat lays just 11 or so north of Egypt.

The Jordanian border crossing point was deserted, except for a few bored staff members and a couple of waiting cargo lorries.  After paying the £10 exit fee from Israel, I walked over the border to Jordan where the entry guards began chatting with me, incorrectly guessing my occupation and nationality (student and Israeli respectively) before letting me in.  Looking ahead two days, I thought this would probably be in contrast to my (hopeful) re-entry into Israel– the Welcome to Israel sign I was walking away from didn’t convince me of the welcome I might receive on my return trip.

A short taxi journey took me into the centre of Aqaba, during which I humored the taxi driver’s advice that there were no buses to Wadi Musa and that his price was unbeatable – advice I have grown tired of hearing, lately – and waited by the stand for the buses to Wadi Musa.  I got chatting to a local man from Wadi Musa, Ahmed, who was also waiting and after a couple of others turned up, we decided to share a taxi rather than take the bus.

Aqaba is a port town, and it seems to exist in some sort of tax-free zone separate from the rest of Jordan.  After a few minutes drive out of Aqaba, Ahmed passed round large multi-box packs of cigarettes to the other two locals (he spared me), and as we approached the customs terminal I realised why. To pass north into the rest of Jordan, we had to be checked, and Ahmed lost the few boxes of cigarettes he still had over the limit, before reclaiming his ‘gifts’ from the other two once we were back on the road.  It wasn’t a bad spot to be stopped for a while though, the scenery rather outshining the typically clinical appearanceof the terminal.

Once we arrived at Wadi Musa, I met with my contact there, Ghassab, who was busy guiding a group of tourists around Petra, so he sent me in a taxi to his family’s house in a nearby Bedouin village where I was customarily supplied with as much sweet mint tea as I could drink.  The house was a simple series of brick rooms, built around a central yard.

The Bedouin hospitality towards their totally unknown guest continued with a perfectly seasoned barbequed chicken dinner which was followed, of course, by tea.  Afterwards, I went to a nearby pool club with the 14 year old twin cousins of Ghassab, whose whereabouts seemed increasingly uncertain.  It turned out that he had gone back to Aqaba with his tourist group, and hadn’t been able to return that night, so it wasn’t to be until the following evening that I would meet him properly.

Playing pool, getting used to their slightly different rules, drinking coffee ‘on the house’ and chatting with the men in this most local of places was a wonderful introduction to the real life of the people whom many tourists will have met as guides or horsemen when they visit Petra.  The next day, as I walked around this New Wonder of the World, several saw me again, calling out as they rode past, promising me rematches and in typical Arab fashion, meetings with their families.

Bethlehem. 

Following some recent improvements to the building that houses the Bethlehem branch of the conservatory, further steps forward have been made, the most recent of which has been the donation by the British Consulate in Jerusalem of money to purchase two new pianos and a library of music for the use of the students.

In order to pick out the right books to buy, a group of teachers representative of the various instruments taught at the conservatory traveled to Tel Aviv to perform the sheet music equivalent of supermarket sweep.  We had just an hour to collate the various books wanted, then return to Jerusalem leaving the shop owner to list the chosen books and put together a price for them.

Also traveling with the teachers were a few of the administrative staff, one of whom was making a rare departure from Bethlehem, and an even rarer one from the West Bank.  As a Christian, he has been granted a permit to visit Jerusalem over the Easter period and took advantage of this short-lived freedom to make the trip to Tel Aviv – a city he last saw in 1987.  It felt odd to show a local how to pass through a checkpoint, but some people who are confined to only one side of these checkpoints have never crossed them, and this was his very first time.  To realise that it was over 20 years since he last visited a city that is around an hour’s drive away was astonishing, and as we took the bus from the Bethlehem checkpoint to Jerusalem, he told me that before the building of the Separation Wall that cuts off Bethlehem from it’s mother city, he used to have a job teaching in a school in Jerusalem.  He would finish his morning teaching job in Bethlehem at 12:30, have a quick lunch then leave in order to start at 1pm.  He said he used to allow ten minutes for the drive between the two places, and as we crept along in the traffic, already having traveled for almost an hour, I realised once again what change the people here have seen.  In just the last few years, the ability of people to travel, work and socialize has been thoroughly impinged upon and it is still reducing.

Once back in Jerusalem, I heard reports that a Jewish Rabbi had been stabbed in the Old City.  In fact, had I not left the bus after it had been stopped at a ‘flying checkpoint’ that morning to take a taxi in order to save time, I would have passed the spot where the attack occurred at the time of the incident. Fortunately for the Rabbi he wasn’t seriously injured, but the attempt on his life is further fuel on the fire of the current tense situation.

Away from the political events of recent days, our students have been performing alot.  For concerts both in and outside the conservatory they have been preparing pieces they will use again in the end of year exams, and hopefully gaining a taste for the stage.  The prospect of performing certainly motivates them to learn and practise, so in itself this is a valuable benefit for us teachers.  Also, next week is Performance Week in the conservatory so all lessons are cancelled so that we may help our students prepare concerts for each day of the week.  This happens to coincide with my tourist visa’s expiry, so I’ll be taking the first few days of the week to make a trip over to Jordan, where I’ll hopefully get the time to visit Petra, before returning with the aim of getting a nice new three-month stamp for my passport.  Since Christmas the border control seem to have become stricter, but hopefully they won’t cause me too many problems.  It is an understatement to say that a Denied Entry stamp at this point in the year would be inconvenient.

Bethlehem.

As we sat in the living room of a local family we joked that when we had visited them last week, the shooting happened in the Jewish College in West Jerusalem that killed eight Israelis and now just a few minutes walk from where we sat, a few minutes beforehand, Israeli commandos had turned up in an unmarked car and killed four men from their wanted list.  Of course, the timing of our visits were coincidental but the timing of the Israeli operation, considering the fact these men had been on the wanted list for many years, brings the assumption that it was in retribution for the Jerusalem shootings.

Retribution layered atop retribution seems to exemplify well an aspect of the situation that has been unfolding for over a century in this region. And there can be no doubt that the shootings in Jerusalem were in retribution.  Despite the absurd denials of Israeli spokespersons, the events in Gaza were foremost in the mind of the man who felt taking the lives of people he has come to view as his enemy was an appropriate response.

It should go without saying that it was not an appropriate response, but it should also be pointed out that his was not the only crime.  For the killing of ‘terror suspects’ is a clear example of extrajudicial killing – guilty until proven innocent.  The concept should jar inside us, as an intrinsically wrong and dangerous precedent to set.

Why is it that Israel does not arrest some of these ‘terrorist masterminds’ –they successfully arrest plenty of the foot soldiers?

The claim was made, for Israel is aware of these awkward questions, that an arrest had been planned for the four men, but when it was seen they were carrying assault rifles they decided to shoot them instead.  This is not plausible for two reasons.  The first is that it is simply not believable that it was seen they were carrying assault rifles.  Even in Bethlehem, the sight of four men in a car carrying assault rifles would be a remarkable one.  Secondly, if the men were carrying weapons out of sight, which is very plausible, is that a great surprise considering their status as wanted?  Therefore, why was it a surprise to the Israelis carrying out the ‘attempted arrest’?  And what did the Israelis do to find out whether they were armed?  Did they make the first move, perchance?

It is very convenient to plan an arrest, when you can bank on a particular surprise that instantly converts the mission from a judicial one to a murderous one.

The rule of law is regrettably absent from this land, and the people here are the ones who suffer.  If Israel would set the good example of seeing through the judicial process when it comes to people she considers terrorists, then the murky waters of late night, or in this case early evening assassinations would be clearer.  But considering the awful success rate of fair trials against terror suspects in Britain and the USA, it would undoubtedly leave Israel with fewer enemies than she may like.

The response to these four killings has been large.  Because the four men were from different groups, most people here in Bethlehem feel a political connection to at least one of them, in addition to a nationalist connection to them all.  Three days of strikes were announced, meaning that almost all shops were closed, temporarily returning Bethlehem to the ghost town of previous years.  Concerns over renewed shooting attacks between Bethlehem and the imposing nearby settlements have resurfaced, possibly explaining why the normally well-lit Har Homa is lurking under semi-darkness after most of the street lights have been switched off.  Tension hangs in the air after dark now, as all here await the next installment of this macabre epic saga, but there is one thing that seems to be guaranteed and it is something so simple as to be often forgotten.  No one is benefiting from any of this.

It may appear odd that the Palestinians organized a strike that affected only Palestinians in response to an act by Israel, but the sad truth is this is all they can do.  It is similar to the situation that has resulted in a cut-off of fuel supplies to the Bethlehem area.  Recently, Israel announced that it would only allow fuel supplies to cross into the Bethlehem area from the Turqumia checkpoint northwest of Hebron.  This means that the previously 11 kilometre journey the oil tankers make will be increased to 114 kilometres.  This, on top of the cost of higher crossing fees and longer waiting times at the new checkpoint, would create a significant increase in costs and therefore raise fuel prices further than the already high rate of inflation.  The Palestinian Authority (PA) understandably rejected this new procedure, and announced it would not accept goods from only this checkpoint.  And Israel’s response?  Ok, so don’t accept them then, they simply said.  There is no pressure on Israel to back down, for it is happy to not sell goods to the Palestinians, so what will eventually happen is that the PA will back down, and the quality of life in the Occupied Territories will continue to dwindle.

Unless of course, the pressure bears down on Israel from outside, because this is really the only place that has both the ability to act and the clear vision to see what it happening.  This applies to the entire situation with regard to Israel and the Palestinians but the outside world will only see it, if it cares enough to look.

For a more detailed account of this story, see the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem’s study at http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1286.

Bethlehem.

Rarely does news travel far in the Occupied Territories.  A Bethlehem friend of mine remembers with humor that during the siege of Bethlehem in 2001, a global news event, when visiting the Jordan Valley at the time, a mere 40 minute drive away, some people were unaware anything was happening high up in the hills above.  It often appears as though the people of Palestine have, for understandable reasons, grown tired of keeping up with the news.  But this appearance is false, for some occasions do register here.  Some events stand out as significant, to the extent they reach within the collective conscience of the nation, and the scenes from Gaza this week have moved into this category.  Despite the isolation of Gaza, people here are now engaged by the experience of their national brothers and sisters to the South.

For example, yesterday was announced as a day of mourning, with many shops and businesses closed, and today saw further demonstrations against Israel’s recent behavior.  These demonstrations took place in many areas, particularly across the Southern West Bank, with a 19 year-old demonstrator shot dead by an Israeli settler near Ramallah, and a 16 year-old demonstrator shot in the chest in Bethlehem who is now in a critical condition in Bayt Jala Hospital.  This adds to the death yesterday of a 14 year-old demonstrator in Hebron, shot in the heart by the Israeli army.  These deaths are interesting, for the Israeli tactic of responding to stone-throwing youths with live bullets seems to be reserved only for Palestinians, because in the many violent clashes between the more militant of the Israeli settlers and their own army, never has the army killed them.

The focal point of the demonstrations here in Bethlehem took place at the separation wall near Rachel’s Tomb, a mere few hundred metres from my home, and witnessing the tear gas, sound grenades and live ammunition being used by the Israeli army, with stones being returned by the Palestinians most of the morning, I decided to call a private taxi to the conservatory, rather than take my usual route by shared taxi.  It was a wise choice, as en route our driver took us to the other side of the area affected, and looking back we saw the Israelis blocking the road of my normal route.  Although I rarely feel under threat here in the West Bank, at times of high tension it is not good to stand out, so for foreigners it’s best to be inside a car, rather than wandering around this kind of scene.

On returning through the area this evening, the crowds of youths had dispersed, leaving behind only upturned skips and lots of rubble and stones concentrated around the point where the Israelis had set up their position.

Tomorrow may see a continuation of these demonstrations, but now that Israel has temporarily withdrawn from Gaza, I expect things will settle down.  That is, until the next event to capture the nation’s attention, and provoke it’s response.

Bethlehem.

In this morning’s blog I wrote of the numbers killed in Gaza over the past four days.  As Israel almost doubled that toll during the course of today, I thought I should amend my point by saying that now Israel has killed more people in a single day, than have ever been killed by rockets in Israel.  Of the deaths so far, a third have been children.

Bethlehem.

This morning I performed what seemed like a rite of passage into spring, by cleaning the balconies for the first time this year.  This means that the weather is now sufficiently warm to sit out during the day, and this window of springtime warmth should have the most made of it, for by summer it will be too hot for this.

I also spent an hour or so looking through some of the message boards on various news websites to see what reactions there are to the current escalation in violence in Gaza.  This is an activity that must be done when in a good mood, when able to laugh off the inevitable lunatic, racist, ill-informed nutters of the cyber-universe.  In addition to the more extreme statements available for all to read, I found this post amusing, by Kent McNeil of Michigan in the USA. 

Enough is enough! Can anyone thnk [sic.] of any other Country [sic.] in the world that would have put up with these kind of attacks each and every day against unarmed civilians? 

Attack and get it over with!

I have to say, initially I wondered which country it was that Kent was referring to but it soon became clear by the rest of his message that his concern lay with Israel.  His question is an incredible one, coming after the killing of around 10 children (I say around, because the rate is still rising) in Palestine over the last four days.  In fact, Israel has now killed more Palestinians in four days, than have ever been killed by rocket fire in Israel.  So, Kent, the answer to your question is yes - I can indeed think of another country that has to put up with such conditions.

Yet it is not only the message-boarders who are coming up with extreme statements.  The Israeli Deputy Defense Minister has now said that Israel may unleash a ‘holocaust’ against the people of Gaza.  In the past, when someone has drawn comparisons between the modern-day treatment of Palestinians and the treatment of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, they have been furiously denounced as anti-Semitic.  So, either the so-called New Anti-Semitism has reached new levels within Israeli political structures, or Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians is now explicitly evil, according to none other than the Israeli Defence Ministry itself.  Sometimes I think this is all too ridiculous to be true, however, the sad reality shows us otherwise.