I must admit that by the time I boarded the bus for the short trip from East Jerusalem to Bethlehem I had been influenced by the frequent travel warnings about the West Bank that had been flooding my inbox for the past few weeks.
My recent experiences in Syria taught me that DFAT's travel advisories are often based on limited information from events that occurred more than three weeks earlier and are generally ridiculously over cautious. I know that travel advisories have to warn of worst possible scenarios. But given that the advice for pretty much every country in the world now includes the phrase "possible threat of terrorist attack", DFAT may want to consider changing the name of their website from 'Smart Traveller' to 'Scared Traveller'.
That said when the phrase "possible threat of terrorist attack" is mentioned in reference to the West Bank, you do tend to take it more seriously than when it is mentioned in the travel advice for Tasmania. In the end, I decided that the best course of action was just to go there and suss out the situation for myself. If I got to Bethlehem and felt uncomfortable I could just do what most other travelers do and treat it as a day trip. If I felt OK in Bethlehem I could use it as a base to explore the West Bank for a few days.
As it turned out the word that best describes how I felt in Bethlehem was not scared, but rather welcomed.
The constant low level tension that I had felt in Jerusalem melted away in the face of the warm hospitality constantly on display from the local Palestinians. When I was trying to find the main bus station in Jerusalem, four different individuals pretended they didn't hear me, looked straight through me and did not break stride in their haste to avoid offering assistance. When I was trying to find the Shepherds' Fields just outside of Bethlehem, I was offered assistance from eight different individuals including a Palestinian army officer who took it upon himself to stop several passing cars to ask the drivers for directions!
Due to the fact that most people visit Bethlehem as part of a day trip from Jerusalem, there was plenty of room at the inn when I booked into the Bethlehem Star Hotel. The fact that I only saw one other guest in the five floor hotel during my stay made me wonder how the place stays open - but I suspect they might be fully booked around the end of December each year.
Bethlehem itself is a lovely town perched atop a rocky hill and has a skyline filled, as you would expect, with church spires. What you may not expect is that the most beautiful church in town is not the one that marks the (supposed) location of the birth of Jesus Christ. Indeed to enter the Church of the Nativity you don't amble under gilded arches, but rather duck through a small stone doorway. Once inside, stairs behind the alter lead you underground to the Grotto of the Nativity. The Grotto is a small cramped chapel and if it wasn't for the steady stream of tourists I would have had no idea of the location's significance. I think I probably would have felt more spiritually moved in a local stable. I mean would it kill them to throw some hay on the Grotto floor to get visitors in the mood?
Highlight #2467 for my travels so far was seeing the amazing graffiti on the much hated security wall just outside of Bethlehem. The enormous concrete structure that the Israelis built to separate Israel from the West Bank is completely illegal and is also a blatant land grab as it encroaches significantly on Palestinian lands. On the Israeli side the high grey walls are almost completely bare. But on the Palestinian side the wall has become a gallery for local artists and activists to creatively express their rage. The works vary from detailed stencil graffiti to rough spray painted slogans, but the message conveyed is the same. I love the way that the Palestinians have used an intrusive object, placed on their lands to imprison them, into a billboard to showcase their dissent.
I spent a large portion of my time in the West Bank riding in shared taxis as I visited Ramallah, Nablus and Jericho. As we barreled over rocky hilltops and sped through olive groves I kept my eye open for the Israeli settlements I had heard so much about. Before I arrived in the West Bank, I had wondered how I would be able to tell the difference between a regular Palestinian town and an Israeli settlement. I needn't have worried as the Israeli settlements stuck out like a mariachi band at a meditation retreat.
The Israeli settlements that I saw all looked like stepford housing developments with hundreds of identical townhouses huddled together on a hilltop. The main difference between an Israeli settlement and the standard Meriton horror that you see in most Australian capital cities is that the Israeli settlements also have structures that look like air traffic control towers in the middle of them for security purposes. If you somehow failed to notice the walled compound look, the dramatic improvement in the condition of the roads leading up to the settlements would also be a pretty good giveaway that you were not approaching a regular Palestinian town.
I found Jericho to be far more biblically atmospheric than Bethlehem. The Mount of Temptation, just outside of Jericho, is supposed to mark the location where the Devil appeared to tempt Jesus after he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the Judean desert. The view from the mount stretches across the hazy desert to the Dead Sea. It is a stunningly barren landscape. Given that I was close to delirious with heat stroke after spending just 40 minutes on the mount (and that Jesus probably didn't get the cable car to the top like I did) - I can understand why he thought he saw the Devil up there. My temptation did not take the form of Lucifer, but rather an icy pole and a cold bottle of water. And, unlike Jesus, I was too weak to resist.
After nine hectic days, my time in Israel came to an end. I had only one more hurdle to overcome before I could head off on my own pilgrimage to Florida... Israeli airport security.
I won't detail all the components that made up the most frustrating five hours of my life, but I will say this... emptying the contents of a pack that took more than a day to zip up - and then getting uppity when the lowly backpacker takes more than twenty minutes to repack it - is not a way to make friends. The Israeli security staff were bloody lucky that I managed to make my flight. Because if they think they have a problem with the Palestinians - it would have been nothing compared to the rage that I would have rained down on them had their ineptitude kept me from a Harry Potter conference that I had been waiting two years to attend.
My recent experiences in Syria taught me that DFAT's travel advisories are often based on limited information from events that occurred more than three weeks earlier and are generally ridiculously over cautious. I know that travel advisories have to warn of worst possible scenarios. But given that the advice for pretty much every country in the world now includes the phrase "possible threat of terrorist attack", DFAT may want to consider changing the name of their website from 'Smart Traveller' to 'Scared Traveller'.
That said when the phrase "possible threat of terrorist attack" is mentioned in reference to the West Bank, you do tend to take it more seriously than when it is mentioned in the travel advice for Tasmania. In the end, I decided that the best course of action was just to go there and suss out the situation for myself. If I got to Bethlehem and felt uncomfortable I could just do what most other travelers do and treat it as a day trip. If I felt OK in Bethlehem I could use it as a base to explore the West Bank for a few days.
As it turned out the word that best describes how I felt in Bethlehem was not scared, but rather welcomed.
The constant low level tension that I had felt in Jerusalem melted away in the face of the warm hospitality constantly on display from the local Palestinians. When I was trying to find the main bus station in Jerusalem, four different individuals pretended they didn't hear me, looked straight through me and did not break stride in their haste to avoid offering assistance. When I was trying to find the Shepherds' Fields just outside of Bethlehem, I was offered assistance from eight different individuals including a Palestinian army officer who took it upon himself to stop several passing cars to ask the drivers for directions!
Due to the fact that most people visit Bethlehem as part of a day trip from Jerusalem, there was plenty of room at the inn when I booked into the Bethlehem Star Hotel. The fact that I only saw one other guest in the five floor hotel during my stay made me wonder how the place stays open - but I suspect they might be fully booked around the end of December each year.
Bethlehem itself is a lovely town perched atop a rocky hill and has a skyline filled, as you would expect, with church spires. What you may not expect is that the most beautiful church in town is not the one that marks the (supposed) location of the birth of Jesus Christ. Indeed to enter the Church of the Nativity you don't amble under gilded arches, but rather duck through a small stone doorway. Once inside, stairs behind the alter lead you underground to the Grotto of the Nativity. The Grotto is a small cramped chapel and if it wasn't for the steady stream of tourists I would have had no idea of the location's significance. I think I probably would have felt more spiritually moved in a local stable. I mean would it kill them to throw some hay on the Grotto floor to get visitors in the mood?
Highlight #2467 for my travels so far was seeing the amazing graffiti on the much hated security wall just outside of Bethlehem. The enormous concrete structure that the Israelis built to separate Israel from the West Bank is completely illegal and is also a blatant land grab as it encroaches significantly on Palestinian lands. On the Israeli side the high grey walls are almost completely bare. But on the Palestinian side the wall has become a gallery for local artists and activists to creatively express their rage. The works vary from detailed stencil graffiti to rough spray painted slogans, but the message conveyed is the same. I love the way that the Palestinians have used an intrusive object, placed on their lands to imprison them, into a billboard to showcase their dissent.
I spent a large portion of my time in the West Bank riding in shared taxis as I visited Ramallah, Nablus and Jericho. As we barreled over rocky hilltops and sped through olive groves I kept my eye open for the Israeli settlements I had heard so much about. Before I arrived in the West Bank, I had wondered how I would be able to tell the difference between a regular Palestinian town and an Israeli settlement. I needn't have worried as the Israeli settlements stuck out like a mariachi band at a meditation retreat.
The Israeli settlements that I saw all looked like stepford housing developments with hundreds of identical townhouses huddled together on a hilltop. The main difference between an Israeli settlement and the standard Meriton horror that you see in most Australian capital cities is that the Israeli settlements also have structures that look like air traffic control towers in the middle of them for security purposes. If you somehow failed to notice the walled compound look, the dramatic improvement in the condition of the roads leading up to the settlements would also be a pretty good giveaway that you were not approaching a regular Palestinian town.
I found Jericho to be far more biblically atmospheric than Bethlehem. The Mount of Temptation, just outside of Jericho, is supposed to mark the location where the Devil appeared to tempt Jesus after he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the Judean desert. The view from the mount stretches across the hazy desert to the Dead Sea. It is a stunningly barren landscape. Given that I was close to delirious with heat stroke after spending just 40 minutes on the mount (and that Jesus probably didn't get the cable car to the top like I did) - I can understand why he thought he saw the Devil up there. My temptation did not take the form of Lucifer, but rather an icy pole and a cold bottle of water. And, unlike Jesus, I was too weak to resist.
After nine hectic days, my time in Israel came to an end. I had only one more hurdle to overcome before I could head off on my own pilgrimage to Florida... Israeli airport security.
I won't detail all the components that made up the most frustrating five hours of my life, but I will say this... emptying the contents of a pack that took more than a day to zip up - and then getting uppity when the lowly backpacker takes more than twenty minutes to repack it - is not a way to make friends. The Israeli security staff were bloody lucky that I managed to make my flight. Because if they think they have a problem with the Palestinians - it would have been nothing compared to the rage that I would have rained down on them had their ineptitude kept me from a Harry Potter conference that I had been waiting two years to attend.
Dear Bernadette
ReplyDeleteThanks for the postcard from Harry Potter world. Ive got some great news! I won the zone finals for years 4 and 5 for public speaking in Newcastle. I go onto the regional finals on 1st of August. Me and Dad say that your most welcome to come up to Newcastle any time to chill out
Love Danny
hello! It's Sarah Rundell from LeakyCon! finally got round to reading some of your blog - what an exciting life you lead! Looking forward to reading your LeakyCon stuff!
ReplyDeleteS
xxx