Birthplace of Jesus? Or a lesson in Religion?
We decided to go to Bethlehem, city famous as the birthplace of Jesus, about 10KM (6 miles) from Jerusalem. What a difference those six miles make.
And I think now, for the first time in my life, I have just a slight glimmer of an understanding what it must have been like for the Jewish people when they were rounded up and herded along by the Germans in WWII. Except, ironically, I learned this lesson from the Israelis themselves, today, while on “vacation.”
Right off, I want to make the distinction that not all Israelis are Jewish. And not all Palestinians are Muslim (lots are Christian as well, which surprises a lot of people).
Importantly to the story, we did not take a tour; we did this as independent travelers.
We could have totally avoided all this mess by taking a nice, safe tour with a bunch of other white western people. So I accept total responsibility for what happened and what we learned through it.
Bethlehem is in Palestine, not Israel. And that made for an eye-opening day.
According to the sign at the stop that bus didn’t exist. Just as we were scratching our heads wondering what to do, the bus appeared like magic.
Silly us.
This is Israel. Of course a Palestinian bus doesn’t exist.
It was a quick cool 25 minute ride.
Past the outskirts of the city, “suburbs” of little clusters of houses up on the hillsides. Everything seemed the same until the walls appeared. And then we had to pull over and sit a bit. Then we had to detour out of our way (instead of simply making a turn) go up and around, and come in again along the walls.
The very high walls.
We kept walking. Another person joined with us, wanted to be a guide. But the joke is on him: I already have a guide named Siri.
Another, then another taxi…
It was good to turn off the main street and head up the hill.
We walked up a crowded shopping street, till we came to the College of Bethlehem. The road split here, so we went left towards the main market square.
We came across the market, which was busy in spite of Ramadan. It is not a huge market, but there is the usual mix of food, drink and goods, with a few of the (younger) sellers calling out their wares. This was better than Morocco; no one was actually touching us or really talking in our faces, so we could wander and look around.
We dropped out of the market, and down to Omar’s mosque, right next to Manger Square.
Right behind the mosque was a hand-drawn Star Bucks sign, making me laugh. I decided to get a photo.
We met the owner, a younger guy named “Aird” (that is the sound, kind of breathing out - possibly spelled Khader?) which is Arabic for “George.”
He said we could call him George.
I laughed and said he could call me “Abdul” and he laughed.
So I called him Aird and he called me Edt.
He wanted to sell us a coffee. I mean he REALLY wanted to sell a coffee. We were his first customers of the day, at about 9:30 (because of everyone fasting). But it was already 85 degrees or so and humid so no thanks on that.
How about iced coffee… ice cream… cold juice… Gail bought a coffee cup from him for a friend, for 50₪ and he said a free cup of coffee comes with it! I declined and so, rubbing his face, he dropped the price to 45.
He told us about his family, invited us into the other family store (practically clutching at me, begging me to buy something; buy anything).
We learned about living in Palestine: the restrictions on travel, the double taxes, the difficulty of getting any damn little thing, the troubles with infrastructure and finding jobs. A young man, not yet married, he told us of friends sneaking though illegally to Jerusalem to visit a girl, to get some food, to be somewhere other than here for a day.
He offered to drive us around, to show us the sights for 200₪, no, special for us, only 150₪, and as we walked away (for that is what we do: we walk) only 100, no, 75 shekels …
It was pretty sobering listening to him, especially about the difficulty finding work, thus money.
But perhaps I should have paid a little better attention to the travel restrictions part. (Play ominous music now.)
Photos Of The "Nice" Touristic Bethlehem
Well, for god’s sake I sure hope not. It’s a fricking parking lot!
We stopped in at the open Peace Bar, next to the Palestinian Peace Center, and asked for cold beers. As we have experienced in other Muslim countries, though it is Ramadan and they themselves cannot eat or drink, they are willing to serve us, the non-practicing westerner.
What a nice contrast compared to so many other religious types who have to shove their values in your face all the time.
The owner came and talked with us, and was happy to hear we were from California. He also let us in on life here in this huge, outdoor prison, and had quite a few (not nice) things to say about our current president’s decision to re-locate the US Embassy. He told us more about leaving Palestine, how there was a sort of quota of how many times you could go, and where.
I made sure to emphasize we were Californians. And I left him a good tip for the cold beer.
Meanwhile, another taxi driver, hearing us, made his taxi services available. And kept lowering the price…
We headed out and walked into the famous Church of the Nativity. This is built over the place where Jesus was actually born.
So they say.
Someone says.
THIS exact cave in an area riddled with hollowed out caves.
Well, I am sure it was a good tourist idea centuries ago, and it still is. It is a little cave, sort of a hollowed out area, with a chapel built over it, inside the main church.
Tour busses full of pilgrims from all around the world were there, clustered around their guides. In fact, the guard at the door of the church stopped us in total surprise, asked if we were art of a group, and when he found out we were traveling independently and from California of all places, made a special note in his register and personally opened the door for us.
Anyway, we went in and waited in line to drop down into the little underground space, where a priest was standing making sure everyone who wanted to could crawl into the little fireplace-like opening and touch their cheek, forehead, nose or whatever. If you took too long a turn you got a tap on the butt to back out.
It is interesting to walk the streets, looking at the local people and consider that, if indeed Jesus was born here, it does not look at all like the pictures we saw growing up as kids (neither the countryside nor the people).
So that is the big attraction here.
That and Banksy.
The artist has several murals and paintings in Bethlehem, and has opened a new (controversial) hotel.
Well, we had just walked out of the church when the rain hit. When does it rain here? Maybe twice a year? Well it really poured. We found a fancy hotel lobby to sit in for an hour while we waited it out, then set off again to see what we could find of Banksy’s works.
As we walked, the occasional taxi would drive by with the driver yelling an offer to us. One time a taxi driver coasted by, hissing “taxiiiiii?” quietly out the window.
We walked and we walked. Down to the border wall, which keeps the Palestinians basically imprisoned in their town.
You can really make a comparison of the border wall to the Berlin Wall except it is taller and has guard towers (now abandoned and replaced my CCTV cameras). The large stretch of it around Rachel’s Tomb is where most of the graffiti is. It was interesting to walk around and see not only the art, but read the stories posted on the wall; stories telling the Palestinian side of the occupation and removal.
I think what strikes me most about this wall is how petty it is.
This section around Rachel’s tomb is a good example.
Here is a site that has been a holy site to Jews, Muslims and Christians for well over 2000 years. Most of these “holy sites” are supposed to be open, by treaty, to all faith groups. The UN enforces this.
Yet, in 2005 this new wall was built, jutting out at a crazy corner, basically annexing the tomb to Jerusalem and cutting it off from Bethlehem.
Thus, cutting off the Muslim and Christian populations.
Photos Of Art, Banksy Included
We went into Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel (Get it? "Waldorf…”) to see his art (which is everywhere, cleverly making you think) and to get a drink. We sat out on the terrace with a view of the wall, “The Worst View in the World!” as they are proud to say, and had a great glass of wine and terrific hummus and pita bread.
Turns out this was a great decision, as the next part of the story will prove.
Remember back when I said I should have paid a little better attention to the travel restrictions?
Well, we walked down the street to the 231 bus stop. I know that on the bus ride home we will be stopped and have to show our passports.
But…
Turns out the extra Ramadan celebrations from yesterday and today are resulting a few unforeseen (to us) effects, the most immediate of these is that the bus is not running this afternoon. We have to find an alternate way out.
In other words, we have to go out the local way.
We got a taxi back through town to the border checkpoint near Rachel’s tomb. And here is where it started.
The taxi driver pointed us into a long chute made of concrete walls and highway dividers, and helpfully showed us a photo of the last time he went through.
He was one little face in a mob.
We walked into the chute, across a lot of taxis waiting to take the returning people home, past a turnstile spitting out dark bearded, head-scarved, tired and angry looking people one at a time who had just come across from Israel.
We walked up into what I can only say was like a cross between a long, straight hamster run (you couldn’t see to the end) built like a prison: bars all along both sides, sheet metal roof overhead. We could choose the right or left chute; the signs were in Arabic. Not knowing Arabic I waited for someone to come along and followed them.
The right side.
Good choice.
So we walked and walked until we came to a huge long line of people, about four across, just standing. After the first fifteen minutes I felt claustrophobic, but we were trapped with a hundred or more people (growing to hundreds) behind us as well.
And so we all stood.
Every ten minutes or so we would shuffle forward maybe 20 feet. Nobody seemed to be getting out their ID cards, everyone was busy talking, as if this was a normal thing.
And we stood.
Crying babies, tired people, everyone carrying bags or a pack. Sweating parents, but everyone with a kind smile for each other.
Way ahead I caught a glimpse of a blond woman, another tourist in the crowd.
With that one exception we were the only English speaking, white European-American types in the whole crowd. The people around us just smiled at us, shrugged, raised their eyebrows. “Welcome to see you” they seemed to say.
Meanwhile we watched and listened in as neighbors greeted friends, people helped each other with their kids.
We kind of stood back and made a little "play area" about four feet square for them to play.
And still we shuffled slowly forward every once in a while, then formed back up.
As we got closer to the end, we saw that the chute we didn’t pick way back at the beginning, the left side, was locked at the top. We watched as a few people who chose wrong walked all the way up, then had to go all the way back and start over.
Well, we finally made it up to the corner where the hamster-prison chute turned into a hamster-prison-contol room with one single, heavy metal bar turnstile, like a revolving door. The only way out.
Oh, it wasn’t the only turnstile. There was a second one, but it was locked.
And there were no guards, no soldiers, just a CCTV camera staring down at us.
And the really cruel part was, it was like a game of fortune. The turnstile would go round one, two, ten times then lock into place, sometimes trapping someone in the middle part like a small cage. Then two or five or one minute later it would free up again and spin, spitting out four or twenty people before locking up.
There was no rhyme or reason to it.
A game.
So we are standing about four or five across.
Remember, just a minute before we were all helping each other.
Once in this room it became a sort of “survival of the fittest” shoving match as everyone tried to get to the turnstile. Men, women, children ducking between legs; it didn’t take me more than a minute and being elbowed aside and back by several, previously friendly people to realize I better man up and play the game.
Really, it is obvious that it is nothing personal; after all, these people all know each other, and were just a minute ago talking and laughing, sharing water and snacks. But it was serious now, time to get through to the other side.
As we pushed up I watched as people tried to cram two or three (with kids) into the spiked wheel, wincing when a bag, a baby carrier, or an arm or leg or even a half-a-kid got trapped.
I got Gail ahead of me and pushed her forward, mostly to protect her, partly because I am by nature more aggressive than she is and I thought if she was behind me we would be separated and who knows when she would appear?
We were finally spit out on the other side (Thank allah it did not lock up when I was in the middle part!) Through at last!
But I realized we were now in a “no-man’s land” between Palestine and Israel. On Israeli military ground. With big yellow warning signs. And we were not actually through anything yet.
We walked across this area and into another long chute heading downhill. A couple people who had been spit out behind us ran past, so then we hustled along until we again came to the back of a line.
Standing, slowly shuffling down the cattle chute, standing again, it too led into a room where there was another single turnstile (of course the second one was locked shut). So once again the pushing started, and we slowly worked out way forward until we were next to go through.
As we pushed our way forward, I watched, trying to figure out the rules of the next room.
The other side of the turnstile was total chaos. I could see there was some sort of a metal screener device to walk through, and some sort of a scanner belt to put packages and packs on. It was like the TSA line at the airport, but with no TSA personnel, no chairs to sit on, and only one tray to put things through on.
Any time the scanner went off, a voice screamed over a static-buzzed loudspeaker, perhaps in Hebrew, perhaps in Arabic. The person would jump back through the detector frantically checking their pockets, taking off shoes or a belt, or shrugging and just trying again.
We popped through the turnstile, and I grabbed Gail’s pack, shoved my camera and phone in it, and sent it through the conveyor. Gail made it through the screener, but the dad with three little girls ahead of me didn’t. The kids just could not wait to go through one at a time.
They hustled back as the screaming voice filled the air, then the man went through but two of the girls set it off again. Then the littlest girl started through, crying as the buzzer was going and the screams filled the chamber, and it was now, at this very moment, when I got a glimpse into how the Jewish families must have felt when they were being rounded up by the Nazis.
Just a glimpse.
The father was yelling a gesturing at the wall (which I realized was not metal, but some very thick, very dark, very scratched reflective glass… so there was a booth with someone watching this whole thing).
The three girls, all dressed nice for their visit were hustling back and forth, trying to wait and be good. I held one back (maybe she was five?) as the other two (three and seven perhaps?) again tried to go through, and yet the second girl set it off though she waited, and then the girl I was holding by the shoulder broke loose to join her sisters, and then…
All this time the crowd and pressure had been building up behind me and I was shoved from behind and popped through the screener, along with a very surprised lady so so now I set the scanner off again, and now the voice was screaming at me!
In this enclosed space there is a father, three confused and crying little girls, half-deaf me and some lady, and we are all being screamed at by Mr. Static as the buzzer fills the air.
Well. I looked and there was no room for me to go back through the scanner. The other lady beat me to it, but she was already being pushed through again. The buzzer went off, the screaming continued, so I just shrugged and slowly walked out of the room towards the next place.
My head was literally buzzing.
I was waiting for someone to come out and poke me with a gun.
The dad with the girls watched, then followed me as well.
At some point the buzzing scanner stopped, then started again as Mr. Static kept yelling.
Gail was there waiting for me, and we got in the next line still waiting for someone to come arrest me.
Or shoot me.
Meanwhile people slowly trickled in behind us, then finally the girls and their father, but the random buzzer and continuous static screaming just went on and on, fading as we moved forward.
This room was a little more organized, with two booths. We chose the right side “line” and watched as the people ahead of us opened up their papers and silently held them up to the glass, waiting as the young soldier in the booth checked their ID on his computer. Some people stood a minute, some for thirty seconds, some people passed through, others were shown off to the right to another hallway.
Gail pressed her passport up the the window and was simply waved through, so quickly I didn’t even have mine open yet. The guard looked at the cover of mine and waved me through, and we were out!
Well, out into a long hallway.
Ironically, when we passed through the document control, the entire wall was taken up by a huge poster, floor to ceiling, the entire length of the hallway, saying “Welcome To Israel” by the ministry of tourism, showing sunny photos of the Tel Aviv beaches, the rolling hills…
We walked down the hallway, through yet another turnstile, and one hour and fifteen minutes after we started, we made it through the border into Israel.
The 234 bus was there waiting, but it filled right up, so we waited for a minute until the next one came along, and sat silently staring out the window wondering about what we had just seen and done.
Could we have avoided all this by going on a tour group?
Sure.
But doing that, what would we have learned or really experienced?
I don’t want any pity about this. I had to do it one time; these people have to do it their entire life.
Think about that.
Every time they want to come across for work (and some do, daily), to visit, to go somewhere else, they have to go through this experience or worse.
It seems to me, the outsider, that it is purposely designed to de-humanize, to humiliate, to hassle people.
To make it so they just want to stay in their place.
Who am I to say this?
Look I am no foreign policy expert, which puts me in the same league as Trump and the Kushners (who are making our mid-east policy right now), but that actually means that my opinion carries just as much weight.
Actually, I have read a lot of history and I actively listen to other peoples' opinions, which puts me ahead of Trump, and I am not corrupted by any one particular religious viewpoint which puts me ahead of the Kushners.
And, I just went through this experience personally, which gives me a leg up on a lot of people.
So there.
So here is what I will tell you:
Beating people down in the hopes they will disappear will not work.
Walls won’t work.
Never have never will. You do not even have to dig into history to figure that much out.
Do I have a solution?
No.
But this current system? It’s no solution. It’s just plain nuts.
I would not expect peace here any time soon until there is some real negotiation and real compromise on both sides. This whole idea of one side trying to be in control, keeping the “problem” or “threat” contained, just doesn’t work.
In fact, after this one simple experience, I would say that it fans the flames of violence.
So for us to fall squarely onto one side or the other, rather than seeking peace through compromise, is doomed to failure.
In my opinion.
When did we stop treating people as people?
Disagree? Go ahead and leave a comment. I’ll leave it up. I am not afraid of thoughtful, respectful and even sarcastic and humorous conversation.
But if you simply resort to mindless name-calling I will highlight it in bold color so others can see your ignorance.