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Palestine Trip 8 - Bumps in the Night
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Morgan Davie
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Jun 14, 2004 13:12 PDT
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Thursday April 15 , 2004
(New photos up at http://www.apocalypse.gen.nz/palestine/)
THE EMPTY HOUSE
Trouble in the night. Morning, and we drive through houses on the outskirts
of Aida refugee camp, Samer leaning out the window to ask directions of kids
passing by. Then we park. A Red Cross guy parks behind us. We walk down a
driveway and see the house.
Samer was woken in the night by the sound of the detonation, but it still
stands. Two storeys. Looks like a nice house.
There are people around, fifty or so. Old men sit smoking and drinking tea
on the patio, women cluster talking in the shade of another building nearby,
young men stand around frowning. Kids trawl through it all, grinning and
playing.
We walk through the house. It still stands but there is nothing inside but
rubble. The walls are riddled with cracks and the floor is covered with
heavy chunks of wall and furniture. The destruction is complete.
The owner of the house shakes our hands warmly, smiling. Samer translates.
His son, it seems, is in prison, suspected or convicted of being an
associate of a suicide bomber. That connection was apparently enough for
the visit in the night. At 3am the IDF soldiers knocked on the door, gave
the family fifteen minutes to get out. Then they went in and set the
explosives. Soon after 4am they set them off and the house was ruined.
Then the IDF left.
The family had closed their eyes to sleep with a home. By the time dawn
came there was nothing left.
The owner smiles at us. ‘You are welcome!’ he says through Samer. ‘I only
hate the governments, not the people. The people are welcome. You are
welcome.’
He keeps talking as the old men watch and we are given sweet tea to drink.
He talks about the destruction of the Twin Towers, how no Jews went to work
that day. He uses that obnoxious conspiracy theory to demonstrate what the
Palestinians are up against – a ruthless system, willing to sacrifice
innocent lives for political convenience. I can’t challenge him, his home
has just been destroyed. And he doesn’t hate Jews. ‘Only the governments.’
THE PASSAGE OUT
The wall and the checkpoints are protective measures, so suicide bombers
can’t get into Israel from Palestine. That’s why there’s the searches, and
the harrassment, and the detainment, and the intimidation.
Except nearby both there’s a crossing point where the only barrier is a
mound of dirt. Dozens of taxis are there, dropping people off, picking
people up, waiting for fares. There is constant foot traffic over the
mound, which is only about five feet high and gently sloped. Men and women
and children, bearing suitcases and shopping bags.
This isn’t exactly a secret. There’s an IDF watchtower not twenty feet
away.
Samer follows us over into Israel to help us load up the van waiting on the
other side. I hug him farewell. I really like him, he’s a great guy. I
gave him a flag I had in my pack, the Silver Fern, symbol of Kiwi identity.
I like to think there’s a bit of Kiwi culture sitting around Samer’s home or
the ATG offices or somewhere. I watch him walk back over the mound to
Palestine and disappear out of sight and I feel sad that our time there is
over.
But there is still Israel to negotiate. We drop off Sabine and Jean-Guy and
Sarah in Jerusalem, and then its just Cal and me on the way to the airport.
We have two envelopes stuffed with Palestinian information to send home, and
I’ve deleted all the photos on my digital camera. On with the show.
As we approach the airport, the driver – one of the Issa’s army of contacts,
who drove us around on Saturday morning with Anjela – tells us that we will
be stopped as we approach the airport, and to say we don’t know him, that
our hotel in Jerusalem called a driver for us. We get there, five lanes of
traffic, each car being checked. When our turn comes the driver waves him
over – an Arab face, I guess, being all the justification needed for special
treatment. A teenage soldier clambers into the van, his gun swinging, and
he checks our passports and asks us questions: where did we stay? What have
we seen in Israel? Where did we go? Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, we say, a trip
to Bethlehem for the holy sites. We stayed, of course, in a hotel in
Jerusalem. Lies, again. He seems happy enough, and eventually waves us on.
We farewell the driver and find a post office, send off our packages. The
woman in the post office takes Cal’s passport details as a matter of
routine. No idea why and we didn’t ask.
Then we join the boarding queue. We had been warned to come early – ths
process can take a long time. A pair of young women are working our queue,
and when they come to us they take our passports with a smile. The red
stickers from our arrival cause their brows to furrow and one of them scoots
off to ask a superior some questions. Then she returns. Cal and I do our
best to stay relaxed, but we’ve heard some troubling stories of the
departure security.
We get the questions again, in more detail this time – where did we go? Did
we visit any private houses? Do we know any people in Israel? For some
reason I mention an old friend, who last I heard was in Israel, but that was
some years back. Her attention instantly sparks – what was his name? What
was his profession? She double checks that she got the name right. Maybe
it is just small country syndrome, she’s wondering if she might know the
person too. Maybe its some weird test of my truthfulness. She doesn’t
explain.
And then we get waved through to the baggage checking. Cal’s bag goes
through the detector fine, mine gets stopped and I have to open it for the
security man. He takes out the guidebook, flips through it attentively.
Maybe things can be hidden inside thick books? He nods and gives the book
back and we press on.
Now we’re up to check-in and passport control and after another twenty
minutes of queueing we make it to the departure lounge. We spend the last
of our shekels at a concession stand on chocolate and then board. We’re
exhausted by it all. The plane is delayed in the air, oncoming winds or
something, and arrives in Zurich almost an hour late, shrinking the time we
need to make our connection to about fifty minutes. We sprint through the
late-night halls of Zurich airport, just make it in time. And then we’re
aboard an Easyjet flight. Familiar territory. Home ground.
Back to a real-seeming world.
FINAL WORDS
It was an amazing experience. I learned far more than I could have hoped
and met some wonderful people. Thanks ATG, thanks Olive Tours, thanks Samer
and Jo and Mark and Sarah and Johnny and Manar and Mahmoud, and our fellow
tourists Jean-Guy and Sabine.
I understand things better now.
Hopefully this account has helped other people understand things better too.
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