Jerusalem – Finishing off the Mount of Olives

Tomb of the Prophets
After a morning spent dealing with various administrative planning for the next month and a half, I jumped into a taxi for a quick ride over to the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives. As it was 2:05, and the Tomb of the Prophets closed at 3, I wanted to get there and have some time to admire the site. That location is said to reliably be the location of the Earthly remains of the late prophets Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi, and as such I was excited to finally go see it. I arrive, and lo and behold, the property is empty. I wander towards the clear staircase down into the Tomb (what with the locked gate and signs and all), and see no one. A Palestinian guy comes out of a building behind me, and he greeted me with an apology: “I am very sorry, but the Russian Orthodox priest with the key didn’t come today.” Wonderful – 30 shekels of cab ride well-spent, it would seem. At least I got some good photographs of the entrance to the Tomb, right?

Church of the Pater Noster
Having failed endeavor #1, I made for the nearby Pater Noster church. This is a French-funded, French convent-operated church with its title drawn from the Latin title for the “Our Father” prayer, and for good reason. This church is characterized by over 100 panels featuring the Lord’s Prayer in various languages. Not just regularly-scheduled languages, either – I saw entities such as Javanese (from the Southeast Asian Pacific island of Java); Hebrew, English, and German Braille; Alsacean (the French dialect from Alsace-Lorraine); and anything else one can imagine. As can be expected, the French convent insisted on the panels being installed with the French rendering of the language’s name on top of it, hence “Anglais” for the English version of the prayer.

It was quite the impressive courtyard, as well. In addition to the various panels, the center of the courtyard was a raised dais with a simple stone seat in the middle of it. Beneath this dais was the grotto said to be where Jesus had pronounced the words of the Lord’s Prayer to the 12 Apostles. It was surprisingly well-kept for such a site, and well-lit as well. As a matter of fact, this is probably the best-kept church I have yet visited in Israel or Palestine, and it was reassuring to know that at least some places here can be taken care of well in the midst of turmoil.

Church of the Ascension
After spending a fair amount of time in the Pater Noster, I started my third search for the Church of the Ascension. The third, as the previous two times I had managed to come at the wrong time, and to simply go the wrong directions. So I started walking towards one tower on the hill, and again couldn’t seem to penetrate the thick rows of Palestinian housing, with its Byzantine labyrinth of passageways. Thwarted by this natural defense, I went over and tried the Russian Orthodox Church of the Ascension, which was both closed and prohibited people wearing shorts. That must be designed to instill heat stroke amongst visitors in long pants, as it was something like 91 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. The German Church of the Ascension, down the street near Augusta Victoria hospital, was closed by 3:45 pm, when I was interested in getting into it. It would seem that there is a divine injunction against my visiting that site

Dinner with French Guests
After the long walk from Augusta Victoria to the Kfar, in the ridiculous heat, I was ready to sit and relax. I chatted with my roommates and neighbors, and we discussed the plan of attack for Théo’s friends Simon and Vero from Lyons and Paris, respectively. We decided on pasta and chicken, and then departed to do our various tasks. As an American in the midst of Israeli and French citizens, I was tertiary in terms of cooking importance. Instead, I was truly the sous-chef, and helped with stirring things, setting the table, and moving stuff around.

Dinner was excellent, except for dessert… because Justine’s unhealthy love for French cheese reared its ugly head. It is great that certain people like certain kinds of food, but Justine has a couple of already-strong French cheeses from home which have… “aged.” Like, although cheese is mold anyways, the yellow cylinders of cheese had lovely blue and white supplementary mold growing on it. Nevertheless, she opened the package (thus causing watery eyes around the table), but then she ATE SOME. I was somewhat sickened, but everyone is welcome to what they like. Then, she opened the “aged” Gorgonzola, and THAT smell caused crying in some of the eyes of the people present. Even SImon, the French guest seated next to me, had to turn his head away when he smelled it, as it was so incredibly strong. Cultural experiences from Paris, now available in Jerusalem

A Worthwhile Day
All in all, the day was worth it as the Pater Noster was suitably enjoyable and well-done. In unrelated news, I booked my return flight tickets last night, and thus I will be departing Tel Aviv at 12:05 AM early on the morning of July 23, and thanks to the magic of time changes, I shall be back in Cleveland, Ohio around 4:00 pm on that same July 23rd, after a suitably long layover in both Newark, NJ and Philadelphia, PA. It shall be good to be home.

“Its for security” – Laws and Closures

It has been a rough couple of weeks for the intended “democracy” component of the State of Israel.

2 Laws, 2 Indications of Large Problems

This link, to my favored Israeli news source (Haaretz is the 1950′s Washington Post of Israel, as it influences the opinions of most Israeli Knesset members and politicians. I strongly suggest that you use it to get a fairly balanced sense of the situation here, instead of that crap that CNN and Fox and MSNBC like to label “news”), talks about something that should really concern people, and is a precursor to the aforementioned laws. Any article entitled “Galilee communities: We’re not racist, we just don’t want Arabs” SHOULD be an indicator of some fairly large issues of race, if I may be so bold.

Beyond the obvious reasons why racism is a very, very bad idea, take a moment to consider the following.

As has been argued in a variety of forums, both theological and historical, people will from time to time point out that the Israelis and Palestinians are cousins. Some will go so far as to say that they are far more similar than that.

How similar?

They could be twins, or siblings at the very least, yet these two children are quite different: one is a young Israeli girl, and the other is a young Palestinian boy. The Swiss artist who did this is going around the world doing an “Enemies” project, where he finds very similar-looking people and kids, and then publishes the comparison photographs in newspapers to really truly demonstrate that identifying “the other” based on the way they look is 1) an awful idea anyways and 2) REALLY INACCURATE, SO STOP OK?

That said, I am so very thankful to also be able to report that the extraordinarily undemocratic Loyalty Oath bill failed, dealing a very strong blow to the undemocratic values of Yisrael Beiteinu, the right-wing, borderline racist party of that awful choice for a Foreign Minister here, Lieberman. Awful is a polite way of putting it – as the FM, he managed to tell President Mubarak of Egypt to “go to Hell” if he refused to visit Israel. This would be the President of the largest Arabic state, at peace with Israel since the late 1970′s. This would be the President who has tried to curb the efforts of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and to negotiate with and for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A good plan there, Mr. Lieberman. It is refreshing to know that your crappy ideas seem to have no end to them – I look forward to your next, TERRIBLE plan. Maybe it will finally get you removed from office, as you should have never gotten there.

The other law has not yet been defeated, which saddens me intensely. This law is set up to prohibit celebration of the Nakba Day by Arabs and Palestinians within Israel, which is one of the most Orwellian things I have ever heard of. This day is commemorating the day that Israel’s independence was declared and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their land, their home, and most of their possessions as they were forced to move. By all rights, it is difficult enough to move one’s family and possessions when they have purchased a new house and plenty of time to do so, but one can imagine that it is far more difficult to do so in circumstances where your land has been appropriated (please note that I am not embellishing or editorializing, merely reporting what happened) by an outside influence and you are forced to make an exodus. What sort of democratic nation state can institute multiple memorial days and days of remembrance for the suffering of one group of people, and then seek to ban speaking out loud about the history of what another culture sees as a catastrophe? When combined with Lieberman’s intended law to force Arabs and Palestinians in Israel to take an oath of loyalty and then do compulsory military or civilian service as well, his ideal State of Israel sounds more like a feudalistic duchy or kingdom, rather than a democracy. Here’s hoping and praying that the Nakba Prohibition Law is not passed, as it will be yet another repressive element preventing free speech that this society does not need.

Issues of Military Occupation

Speaking of repressive elements of society, some news from the West Bank as of recently is worth mentioning here as well. I am very, very happy to report IDF efforts to make life somewhat easier for Palestinians. Two checkpoints don’t seem to be so much, but having spent multiple hours waiting in long lines of innocent people to be affirmed in our innocence, every change towards a more free environment in the West Bank is a good one. The awful part is that this same news story also reports that violent settler activity is on the rise, in response the Israeli government’s removal of illegal outposts. Having been personally subjected to the armed and belligerent illegal presence of settlers in the West Bank, I can tell you that I don’t envy the ethical situation that members of the IDF are trapped in. By law, they are to protect Israeli settlers when they are stationed in the West Bank, and yet are not usually called upon to defend Palestinians, only to separate the conflicting parties. That is unfair, though, as the aggressive parties are often the settlers, who are armed and have a deep-seated fundamentalist Jewish philosophy/theology guiding them forward to reclaim what they genuinely believe to be their God-given land.

More recently, the northern Palestinian city of Nablus has closed to prevent activists from getting in, as well as for other reasons. This renewed rule of military law over civilian law emanates from concerns over activist groups allegedly interfering with the operations of the IDF in the north – that is not a claim I can refute or prove, so I merely give it for your consideration. Thankfully I was able to get to parts of that region before it closed down – I can honestly say that the majority of people there will suffer as a result of this. In the past few days, soldiers in the IDF were stabbed at different places in central Israel, which is quite concerning. Shin Bet, the internal Israeli intelligence service, is understandably uncertain over what to do because the majority of suspects in this case are not tied to any terrorist organization, and are instead lone assailants who are motivated to act in this way. Although that is what has been reported by an Israeli news source, I have been told verbatim by Israelis and Americans that “look at this murder; how can we make peace with people like that?” Perhaps this is indicative of a larger problem: such acute sensitivity to watching the other side for signs of anything attributable to them as wrong. It has been said of Israelis to me by Palestinians too, of course: “these settlers took my land from me with guns and the IDF didn’t help us; how are we supposed to make peace with people like that?” The short answer is that this land is ripe for fundamental attribution error, and it saddens me that I don’t know how to change it more than attempting reasonable discussion one person at a time, with a frighteningly high rate of failure to change the situation.

What saddens me even more is that by even writing this post explaining the situation using facts and calm reason, I am certain that at least one individual who reads this will be unable to accept what I put forward, and might stop talking to me. It saddens me that just as much as ever, people the world over have this lovely ability to subvert their own reasoning capacities when they believe something, regardless of if their beliefs are based on fair and accurate conceptions or not. Hence, the name of this post. I can, without any effort on my part, already think of 6 or 7 American individuals who would automatically make the “these things are for the sake of security” argument without knowing all of the facts. These individuals are products of the same general environment as me, where liberty,equality, and freedom are held up as defining national ideals. Therefore, it baffles me as to how I can continually calmly describe factual evidence of inequalities here without being accusing, and yet have my statements automatically relegated to being 100% pro-Palestinian or 100% pro-Israeli (depending on the matter of discussion and who I am speaking with at the time).

I hope to one day understand why this happens, so I can better combat this outcome. A big part of the resolution of this conflict is based on making elements on both sides able to 1) acknowledge the other side as human and therefore deserving equal rights; and 2) acknowledge that their own side has done wrong, and should genuinely apologize for it rather than simply continuing their shrill screams of “but look what they did to us!”

Finally, the sweet sound of success. The semester vanquished.

When you go to read this post, I request that you do two things in a very specific order. First of all, I ask that you start the following video playing with your volume at a very high level of output (to do exactly what I did):

Secondly, I request that you adhere to the British custom, and stand for both the playing of the video as well as to demonstrate your shared happiness with me in this, the hour of my great triumph.

Why am I so happy, you might wonder? Because I ended the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Not quite, but watch for that to be solved in an upcoming post. Instead, this post commemorates the end of the semester from Hell. That is no exaggeration, my friends, and nor is the music playing at present from the above video an accident – beautiful music hoping for the second arrival of Jesus Christ and his eternal peaceful reign over the universe is merely 7.4453% of how pleased I am to be done with this 6 month-long academic semester. My ecstatic shouts of joy actually passed outside of the human hearing range, signaling to all dogs within 3700 kilometers that some crazed human being was pleased about something or other. This is not your everyday, garden-variety joy we’re discussing here. This is essentially as close to pure emotion as a person can get, as the research I did online indicated

A short review of how my classes went overall, as it may provide some insight as to why I feel the general sentiments outlined above.

Hebrew language
I struggle to review this course here. As I mentioned in a prior post, I was overjoyed to finally be rid of that class after taking the written final exam. I can honestly say that I am glad to finally be removed from that very one-sided environment, to put it very concisely and politely. More on that if you ask me in person when I eventually get home.

Conflict Dialogue: Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages
This one had the capacity to be an absolutely excellent course, save for several difficulties. Unfortunately, most people in the class were unable to effectively listen to the professor’s admonishment on the first day of class, that the course is a history course and not a theology course. This meant that during our time spent in discussion, he would make an argument or statement based on fact (as he is one of the preeminent scholars in the field of Christian-Jewish relations in the Middle Ages, the topic for our class). Unfortunately, this would inevitably offend one or more of the religious parties in the class, and thus the lecture would devolve into an argument between theology (both Christian and Jewish) taught to students while they were children, versus the professor’s intention to make historical claims and examine the effects of certain verses in history. It was equally enjoyable to discuss theology in the way we did, but I didn’t sign up for that per se – I wish we could have finished the syllabus as it was originally laid out.

Oh, and it isn’t particularly wonderful, but after emailing the professor 2 weeks ago with my short paper for his class (the entirety of my grade in that course), he emailed me back 2 days before the end of the semester and explained that he had issues with a part of my premise. I emailed him back and explained that as I was doing exegesis, he couldn’t necessarily not allow me to interpret passages the way I did, and then I turned in the paper earlier as he hasn’t emailed me back. Here’s hoping things turn out properly.

Independent Study: From GeHinnom to Hell
Having worked many, many, many late nights, being up past 4 am and thus hearing the 4 am call to prayer from the Al Aqsa mosque in the Old City, I can genuinely say that it was a pleasure to finish the paper. It truly was an “independent” study – my advisor, the same professor from the Conflict Dialogue course, is a fairly busy man and thus didn’t meet with me more than 3 times during the entire semester to discuss parts of my paper. The paper is supposedly going to be published in a Hebrew University publication, so we shall see how that goes.

Middle East: Coexistence and Rapproachement
This course, with Professor Meron Medzini at the helm, was one of the best courses I will ever take in my lifetime. I guarantee it.

Why, you might ask?

This mostly is due to the fact that the professor is either a genius, or close to one. He came in to our classroom twice per week, greeted everyone with a “shalom,” and then sat comfortably in a chair in the front of the room. Like our collective grandfather, he would take his seat and proceed to share with us a portion of his vast collection of knowledge in 1.5 hour-long segments. No, he didn’t have any notes whatsoever – he would simply take his seat and proceed to speak from memory (only when he wanted to read direct quotes from organizational documents and treaties would he open a book). As if this wasn’t amazing enough, Medzini (Papa, Grandpa, or Pops amongst some of us students when others weren’t listening) would then proceed to interject various details like “oh yeah, my daughter babysat Ariel Sharon’s kids” or “I have my original 1947 British Mandate of Palestine passport somewhere in my house” and the ever-popular “Golda was a nice woman” – as he was literally on a first-name basis with pretty much every important Israeli leader since 1953 or so…. Such a good course. And, I am going to try to get my paper about Anwar Sadat published, with Medzini’s assistance and blessing to do so.

An end, and yet a new beginning

And thus, let us all exist in one hope and in one desire, that I get excellent grades for this semester, having worked a whole bunch on the majority of my assignments. To cement that wish, I end with the most eloquent rendering of “Amen” (Hebrew from “may it be so”) I am currently aware of:

Hebrew University Dormitories: Passive-Aggressiveness, much?

This is too good to not reproduce for the benefit of remembering this later – I just had a Hebrew University come by my room and drop off a letter from the dorm offices about checking out.

Opening: “It was a pleasure to host you in the Hebrew University dormitories.”

That was the first of the passive tendencies. Then, the letter proceeded to loose a veritable salvo of righteously angry threats about what shall happen to my immortal soul if I fail to properly check out on time. Included among these threats are lovely things, such as:

1) “Failure to return the keys to the dorm office on the day of departure shall be deemed as continued residence in the dorms at a special fee, which is 3 times higher than the ordinary fee.”
2) “If you fail to pay your debts, any of your privileges as a student may be negated.”
3) “Within a few days, if you still won’t return your key, we’ll replace the lock of the room so as to prevent you entry into the room. We will have to charge you for that as well.”
4) “REMEMBER: for any damage/dirt/loss – the University may charge you.”
5) “THE EVACUATION PROCEDURE IS DETAILED [goes on to detail the "evacuation procedure," as they decided to translate "checking-out process"].”

Closing: “We hope you enjoyed your stay here, and we wish you good-luck”

Uh… that somehow doesn’t fit in with the body of this particular letter, does it? It seems… it seems like they sort of want us to leave on time, am I right? Typically Israeli, though – they threaten unnecessary use of force for no good reason whatsoever, and have niceties around such strong and angry threats. Its kind of cute, I suppose. It will be good to get away from it in a few months, I assure you.

A Chronicle of my Time in Israel/Palestine…2

This blog is the continuation of my time spent here in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and exists because I needed additional free photograph-posting capabilities. The majority of my time in Israel and the Palestinian Territories was documented in the original blog, Exploratorius Israel. I encourage you to check it out.