Up here.
Only one day still to come.
PREVIOUSLY: PALESTINE TRIP 6
Wednesday April 14 , 2004
Breakfast with Manar and Johnny and little Nicole
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.
This view shows some Palestinian villages seen from the top of Herodion. At the centre of the top is a square of light – that’s a bridge. A bypass road will pass under the bridge – it has already been built up to the bridge. The photo shows the olive groves and village that are in the way of construction and will be annexed and demolished to make way for the road.
Cal stole this shot while a guard in a sniper tower (not visible – that’s a water tower in the photo) watched our van suspiciously. This is the road down from Herodion (the hill is out of shot on the left) and the sign says ‘Welcome to Herodion National Park’. The barricades, barbed wire and sniper tower are an odd accompaniment.
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.
Dheisheh refugee camp. Jihad, who told us the history of the place and showed us around, is in most of these photos.
Lunch. It was delicious.
NEXT: PALESTINE TRIP 8