odysseyone

We have survived the religious melting pot that is Israel, negotiating our way through the perils of heavy security, machine guns, missiles, Hamas, public transport and the locals. Security is like nothing I have ever seen before. Don’t even think about popping into a shopping centre to use the toilet or a quick visit to the post office to buy a stamp without having security invade your personal space with a metal detector and sometimes even putting your bag through x-ray. We got so tired of the checks we would sometimes go hungry or walk instead of catching a bus to avoid security. We got caught out once at Tel Aviv bus station having our large backpacks manhandled not once, but twice, when we walked out a door to find the taxi rank instead of our bus, which left from the other side of the building. Could it be so simple as to just zip through the building to cross to the correct side or even walk around the building to avoid security? Nope- they have all entries covered. Not only did we have to unlock and show our bags again, causing a bottleneck at the door, but the teen on security was meticulous once he had found out we had already been checked and went as far as to make Justin show the contents of his toiletry bag. As with most things in Israel, which seems to be so advanced yet so backward, they are strict with security checks but don’t bother to install x-ray at all places and instead rummage around in your luggage. I worked out if I left underwear on the top, the male security guards wrapped up their luggage check pretty quickly! In Jordan, they practically threw my bag back at me rather than work their way past women’s underwear to the contents underneath.

Machine guns in Israel are like handbags in other countries- a must-have accessory. It is quite a shock to begin with but surprisingly you soon get used to it and stop freaking out when you see a young soldier fooling around with his mates and seemingly paying no attention to his weapon, which can be bouncing all over the place. You would also think you would be saying your final prayers when you’re looking at a machine gun at eye level, but this also becomes a part of daily life when you’re sitting on a train or bus and a soldier is standing in the aisle nearby, his or her gun casually aimed at you. I assume in Australia army weapons are kept tightly secured because you rarely see them but in Israel it’s entirely different. The young conscripts – who have compulsory service after high school – carry their loaded guns everywhere to get used to it. So if you’re a young Israeli soldier travelling home on a bus, you carry your gun. If you’re hanging out with your soldier friends and eating icecream, you carry your gun. If you’re chatting on your mobile phone or doing your make up on the bus, your gun is right there with you. On one crowded bus ride I was blissfully unaware of a teen soldier rubbing her gun up against my arm while she chatted with a colleague and I slept. To add to the excitement, the buses we caught around the country are the same ones you occasionally saw bombed on the news in recent years. Don’t think if you’re not a soldier you miss out on all the fun. We saw plenty of civilians carrying hand guns including one of our bus drivers, which was quite disturbing. One such sighting was funny in a macabre way- a guy at a petrol station was wearing a t-shirt with the peace symbol with a gun tucked into his shorts.

The weapons variety doesn’t end there. We saw plenty of rocket launchers and missiles out the bus window in the desert in the far south, aimed towards the Egyptian and Jordanian borders at the Red Sea. We used this border to cross from Eilat into Aqaba, Jordan. A day later we read reports that a missile had destroyed a warehouse in Aqaba that morning. Of course nobody claimed it and Israel seemed to feel left out and claimed Egyptian terrorists really wanted to hit Eilat and missed. We never did find out who was behind it (and wondered if it might happen again when we stayed on the water front in Aqaba a few days later) but we have our suspicions. We met a mad Irishman who was sitting around in Eilat doing nothing, complaining about the heat and sharing with anyone who would listen his pro-Jewish, anti-Muslim and homophobic rants and a new British friend of ours says it must be the Irishman behind the missile strike, stirring up trouble with Israel’s friendly Muslim neighbours.

The biggest threat in Israel is the locals, mostly because they threaten to send you insane! They see themselves as boisterous, outgoing, one big family… in the West we refer to these types of people as rude. Why speak just loud enough for the other person to hear you when you could yell, vent, wave your arms and spit. Israelis, and Jordanians as well, prefer to bellow at someone rather than walk over and speak to them and they’re happy to treat foreigners the same way as we are after all, one big family. In a way I found it endearing, as it made a walk down the street quite colourful and you never knew when you might come across a verbal blue. A great example is what we refer to as the ‘breadstick incident’. A simple request to buy a French stick in a bakery turned into a flare-up. The woman snapped at us that the bread wasn’t French, walked off and ignored us. Justin was fed up with the rudeness by then and told her to give us the correct name if it matters so much. “It’s not French, its just regular,” was the acid reply.

Israelis are also masters are shoving. We have both seen this in Asia because of the sheer numbers but here it was more about everyone thinking they were the most important and should go first. We ended up in a few queues where we always seemed to be at the back before we caught on to what was going on and from then on it was war. I hated every minute of it, but I learned to put my elbows out and barge on through if I was ever to get anything done. I’m even guilty of shoving an old woman at the bus station so I could get my bag through x-ray, but she was doing it too, and no one even flinches here if you push them.

Our link to Hamas is very loose but its still worth indulging. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the West Bank, one of the two Palestinian territories. We only went as far as Bethlehem, which is less than 10 kilometres from Jerusalem and can be seen from the Mount of Olives. It might be close, but it’s like another world and a real eye-opener into what is going on for the Palestinians. We crossed through a gap in the infamous security wall and didn’t show our passports to enter, which made me a bit nervous because of some dramas we had already had for choosing not to get an Israeli stamp in our passports. We spent the day with Paul, a former colleague of mine, a freelance journalist living in Bethlehem and recording programmes which are broadcast in English on a local Arabic radio station. He also does a lot of work in the community and took us to a couple of schools and workshops for the mentally and physically disabled. At one, he showed us the bullet holes in the metal gate at the front where terrorists had fired their way in before using the disabled school as a hideout to fire at the Israelis. If the Israelis fire back and injure a child, they are then accused of targeting innocent Palestinians. We spent a bit of time with some of the kids and there were lots of hugs and arm wrestles and the teachers had a really great attitude and insisted they had gone a bit crazy just like the kids. It was really encouraging to see people caring for and giving jobs to these disabled people in a part of the world where there would otherwise be no hope for them. Some of them also live at the school as their families cannot cope looking after them. We also briefly visited one of Paul’s neighbours at the factory where she works. She is blind and spends all day folding t-shirts neatly to be shipped off and sold. To me it looks like a frustratingly boring job but she says she praises God she has work and was excited about the new mp3 player Paul had given her so she can hear the Bible as she can’t read it.

The most exhilarating part of the visit – other than passing through the wall – was visiting the radio station that broadcasts Paul’s programs. We met a young Christian friend of his, who told us what it was like to be a Christian in the West Bank and the dangers of his conversion from Islam to Christianity. His father converted first and has been threatened by Hamas. This young guy had to be careful who was listening when he spoke to us about his faith and it was painful to think he risks his safety sharing his new faith while we have such freedom at home and take it for granted. I don’t frighten easily but Justin said he had never seen me go so white when this guy told us in passing about a phone call he had from a Hamas member the day before, complaining of unfair bias on the news program because they had reported on Hamas’ execution of two collaborators in Gaza. The Hamas thug told this broadcaster he would be showing up for a ‘chat’ – which has happened before – and we were flipping out Hamas might show up while we were there! I was sitting there picturing news headlines and wondering how on earth we were going to explain this to our families. We were interviewed by this guy for his radio show and by this time I was silently freaking and insisted we change our names for the interview and avoid political questions, but I managed to kick in my radio voice and hide my panic. To top it off, when we walked back to Paul’s place from the station, we passed one of Yasser Arafat’s former compounds and saw where it had been bombed at one time.

The last part of our West Bank adventure was getting back into Jerusalem through the security wall. We walked alongside it for a while to get to the border and saw all the graffiti and political messages that have made the wall so famous in the international news. Going through the wall itself was like being in an underground bunker and all the Israeli security were hidden behind glass rooms so they didn’t physically touch your passport, you just waved it at them through the glass. There was nothing orderly about it, with people pushing to get in and out through the same turnstile and a line of Palestinians waiting to get back in after working in Israel for the day. It is only the goodwill of the Israelis that the Palestinians can enter and exit to work each day- the border could be shut at any time.

We saw most of the sights of all three major religions represented here, as well as the Baha’i’s, and while it was pretty cool to be standing at the place where Jesus was said to have fed the five thousand, or Jesus was said to have prayed before he died, or where Jesus was said to have been crucified, it got a bit tiresome to look at all the churches which are now built on top of these sites and crowded with tourists. Jerusalem was a highlight and it was a pretty special experience to be in the city that is so significant to more than a third of the world’s population. The Old City is fantastic and a sensory overload wandering through its holy sites and markets in its four religious quarters. It’s the world’s most crowded square kilometre with about 35,000 people and it’s interesting to see hoards of tourists alongside local residents. There was one Armenian local who had obviously had enough and late one afternoon he was yelling out at our group ‘Tourists full of hate go home. I’ve had enough. Go home,’ repeating it over and over again. I guess he didn’t sell enough souvenirs that day.

It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to see the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount alongside the Western Wall, which I guess are the symbols of the Middle East conflict. We walked up the Mount of Olives one afternoon and a mental picture that will stick with us forever was the landscape of boys playing soccer on the Temple Mount in front of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, with the Muslim cemetery in front, the Jewish cemetery further up the hill, the Christian landmarks to our right, the security wall and the West Bank to our left and a group of soldiers doing firing practice in the Jewish cemetery- far to close to us for our liking! That view for me is a reminder of why the situation is so complicated and why peace in the Middle East seems like a pipe dream.

‘Welcome to Jordan’ was a phrase we heard multiple times a day from Israel’s friendly Muslim neighbours, who made us feel welcome literally from the moment we hit the immigration office until we left the country. I have been in Muslim countries before but Jordan has a very different feel and although it was dirtier and more third world than Israel (if that is possible) the place is much more relaxed. The Jordanians really do have a very progressive attitude considering their place in the most volatile region in the world and seem to be doing a great job at remaining at peace with their neighbours. For us, it was the closest we have ever been to countries we would probably consider off limits including Iraq, which is next door, as well as Saudi Arabia and Syria. It’s probably the only time in our life we’ll see directions to Iraq on a street sign. The only negative was the starring, which was bound to happen because the Jordanians are mostly Arabic so a fair Westerner stands out there more than in Israel.

We had a great time in Petra for a few days, visiting the ancient ruins and hanging out in a Bedouin tent eating an Arabic feast every night. We made friends with a few English guys we met in Eilat, including one who had a knack of making racist comments to other foreigners and still making them laugh. One night we weren’t able to avoid watching the Indiana Jones video which features Petra (DVDs don’t seem to have made it to Petra) and is shown every night at the hostel. When a scene showing Nazis marching appeared, our British friend mentioned to a German backpacker ‘There’s your boys’ and actually got a laugh in reply. He also insisted on speaking to some French guests in Spanish because it’s the only other language he has and he wanted to use it.

We really enjoyed the carefree feel to Jordan. We didn’t realise how uptight we were in Israel until we crossed into Jordan and we felt like we could speak freely for the first time since we had arrived. It’s something completely foreign to me but in our time in Israel we found ourselves being careful about what we said to whom because it felt like we were in a country where even the tourists had agendas. If you got into a conversation with another traveller, you were basically asked whether you were pro-Israeli or supported a Palestinian state and at times I felt like I was treated with a bit of disdain because I didn’t have a political or religious agenda for being there. It has been a travel experience like no other to be in a country where religion is what it’s all about, a place that seems to be both loved and hated more than any other nation and it will be interesting to see in the future if a Jewish nation can survive in the heart of the Muslim world.