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Palestine Trip 7: Tough Situation
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Morgan Davie
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Jun 13, 2004 13:59 PDT
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Wednesday April 14 , 2004
(New photos up at http://www.apocalypse.gen.nz/palestine/)
BEIT SAHOUR
It was just like driving around a town anywhere in New Zealand, except for
the bullet marks, the burned out buildings, the missile holes, and the
streets blocked off by rubble to control Palestinian movement.
I can’t emphasise it enough. Its easy to think of places where these sorts
of things as happening as special environments, different, where the
horrible things that happen are somehow context-appropriate. They aren’t.
Imagine how it would feel if there was a wall built across a major street
near your home. Imagine a bulldozer pushing rubble into the road outside
your house so you need to go the long route to get where you’re going.
Imagine the motel nearby all smashed up and burned out. It wouldn’t make
sense. Neither does it make sense here.
There’s nothing special about Beit Sahour. There’s nothing special about
Palestine. There’s nothing special about the Palestinians. They are just
people and chaos is half in the door and its pushing hard.
After breakfast with Johnny and Mannar we meet back at ATG and Samer takes
us for another drive. We see more of the signs of chaos. A bypass road
being built, at massive expense, flanked by layers of security fences,
dividing one village, more in its path. Facts on the ground.
HERODIUM
We drive out to Herodium. This is a hill, the highest for miles. It was
made by human hands. Herod built it as a fortress and palace, and the ruins
on the top and at its base remain, as do a network of tunnels through its
interior. We head out to it, see sheep grazing in the excavated swimming
pool at the foot of the hill. The road up goes right past an IDF military
base. There are a couple of soldiers in the carpark at the top of the hill,
but otherwise this major tourist destination is empty. The soldiers watch
us indifferently.
Samer chats briefly to the man in the ticket booth and we go up to the top.
Its an impressive ruin, a crater filled with old Roman construction. It is
also hot, and we soon duck into the tunnels, out of the sun. We wander
through, reading signs explaining the history of this place, particularly
its key role in important rebellions in Jewish history.
As we leave, I refill my water bottle at a spout near the soldiers and one
of them greets me. They are sitting on a bench with a set of high-powered
binoculars mounted before them. “Do you want a look?” he says. I go over
and peer through, see villages and settlements for miles in all their
flattened detail. “We were in that village yesterday. They were throwing
stones. We were shooting.” He says it without any particular emotion, as
if it was just the weather. “Rough,” I say, listening with some surprise as
the words come out of my mouth, “tough situation.” He shrugs and doesn’t
say more.
DHEISHEH REFUGEE CAMP
Dheisheh is a large refugee camp, also in Bethlehem, like Aida. We stop in
for a look around at Jean-Guy and Sabine’s suggestion. Our host is a
gregarious guy named Jihad (Samer: “You really should change your name.”)
and we get the tour and history. We stop in at the camp nursery, full of
swarming sugar-highed under-fives (it was someone’s birthday) and its
impossible not to smile. When I lift one of them up to touch the ceiling he
just about explodes with laughter. Cal ends up carrying three of them
around at once. Its nice to stop in here.
The streets of Dheisheh are incredibly narrow, the memory of the enclosing
wall still fresh. “There are no secrets here,” Jihad says. “Everyone hears
everything. Every argument, every cry, every time you go to the toilet.
Everything.”
Jihad tells us that Dheisheh was visited by the IDF the previous night.
They blew up the sewage processing unit. No-one seems to know why.
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