I also want to take this time to let every single one of you know and understand that my stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that of Pro-Peace. I do not want to see one side come out on top of the other, or see any side squashed. I have best friends on both sides of the issue and I never want to see any of them hurt in any way. I truly and honestly believe that solutions can not be made unless both sides are whole-heartily in it or there will always be an underlying issue. What I'm going to say is honestly just going to be the observations I made while being in Nablus, Tulkarem and Bethlehem.
What I've told many people that have worried about me being in Nablus or Tulkarem, is that the people really do just go about their daily lives. It is not war-torn, there is no obvious violence and I honestly felt very very safe just hanging there for the week. But the biggest difference between just hanging in Tel Aviv and hanging in Nablus, was this eerie and underlying sense of containment. And even though I am obviously a more free person in movement than they all are, I even felt contained. And this is portrayed through different physical aspects:
1) The Wall. The pictured one is around the refugee camp in Bethlehem with some gorgeous and very interesting artwork along the Palestinian side. And the example of Rachel's tomb is very interesting. Technically, Rachel's tomb is in Bethlehem, but the wall surrounds the tomb in an square annexing it as part of Israel.
2) Is the massive amount of checkpoints you will find on Palestinian roads. Although a lot of the ones I passed were not active, the fact that I had to drive through 3 during the hour drive from Ramallah to Nablus was really interesting.
3) The last reason everything really felt contained was because of the road situation. Like the rest of Israel, to get from one town to another you need to drive. But something you will quickly notice while driving from Palestinian town to Palestinian town, is that there are no, absolutely no street lamps for night time driving. Now being with my friends they explained to me this situation. Like every human being, they would much so love to have lights on the roads especially since all the driving is basically mountain driving. But they are not allowed to put lights on the road because they technically are not in control of the roads. And then, that also means that Israel has not put lights on the road for them. So since people are basically driving on and through mountains, you wouldn't dare drive at night. This limits when you can travel and to where. And since I already hate mountain driving, the lack of lights scared me even more.
Another thing worth noting is my checkpoint experience. I got very lucky while hanging out with my friend Hiba one day. Her friend was talking about the fact that her parents had Israeli ID cards and had to return back to Israel every once and a while in order to keep their status. So they were going to Haifa the same morning I was leaving for Haifa. Well, I'd rather drive through a checkpoint than have to take a bus to one, manually go through then try to catch another bus once I pass through. My heart was pounding the moment we drove up. Our car consisted of the Mom and Dad both with Israeli ID's, me with my American passport, and their nephew with a Palestinian ID and pass for the few hours in Israel. We dropped off the nephew at the Palestinian entrance and we proceeded to drive through. They took our ID's, checked our pictures and constantly asked my hosts who I was and why I was driving with them. They answered "friend" in hebrew multiple times. Then they extra took my passport, did some computer work and came out.
Now, there were two different routes the car could go, one was to the left where we would immediately drive through, or to the right where the entire car would be searched along with our belongings. Well, it was a random selection of cars to go to the right, and guess where our car was instructed to go. We drove our car to the right and were faced with another IDF soldier. To be completely honest, in a very stern and very frightening tone, he told us in Hebrew to put everything from the trunk and our personal bags in a shopping cart to bring to the airport like security checks. After going through the metal detectors, we have to wait in a waiting room for the car to be finished being searched. Now, if you thought I got a lot of stares when I was at the University...well imagine being the only uncovered female waiting for her car to be released. Yep, that's correct. When I said the car searches were random, I meant that loosely. Every single female waiting in the waiting room had some sort of head covering. Now hey, that could just be a coincidence.
After a good 30 minutes of waiting for the car to go through and a half heart attack later, we got through and we drove around to the exit of the Palestinian side to wait for the nephew, which took another 45 minutes until he was released. He had nothing but his phone and cigarettes on him.
Another thing troubling is just, how not awesome life really is there. It turns out that the friends I stayed with in Nablus are luckily a pretty well off family. They own the buildings they live in and don't have many troubles with their way of life, but what I found interesting was that even though I was staying in nice parts of Nablus, there is no way you could tell it was nice. Below is a picture of the "nice" part of Nablus.
Also, while visiting the refugee camp in Bethlehem, I learned that water is only turned on once every 20 days for 5 hours, and so all the tanks on their roofs is so that during those 5 hours they fill up as much as they can and then have the tanks to ration out for the next 20 days. Below is the tanks on the roofs, and the visual of the squared wall around Rachel's Tomb.
Lastly, something I will never fully be able to understand. While I was up on the mountains in Nablus, you can very clearly see different settlements. Now, if you know geography, you will know that Nablus is basically smack dab in the middle of the West Bank. So, why would Israel put a settlement in the middle of the West Bank, instead of along the edges, where the settlers are generally surrounded by people who don't like them? Well, while I was audibly questioning this situation, my friends made quite the statement...turns out most Palestinian citizens are more afraid of the settlement and its settlers than the settlers should be afraid of them.
So like I said, people go and live their lives like anyone can and should do, but really people live their lives secretly in fear. They can't escape their reality and in all honesty their reality isn't too awesome. Many Palestinians asked why I wasn't studying in one of their Universities, and all I could say was if they didn't even want to live where they lived, why would I choose to live there?
Overall, this was one of the most eye-opening experiences I have ever had. I don't know what the checkpoint will be like tomorrow, but hopefully my American passport and cross on my neck will soften the blow. I want to go back to every place I've been and even visit Ramallah because that's apparently the fun town in Palestine. But as cool as it was, now I get why you wouldn't want to live there. But I highly recommend every person to take even a day trip into Bethlehem, see what they Wall is like up close and experience daily life. It will truly open your eyes to a new world. At the end of the day, I just wish peace upon us all. I hope and pray that peace will be upon this region every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment