What I did on my holidays

This is an account of what happened a few weeks ago. I realised that I could not blog each day so I wrote out my thoughts each night. Theseare typed up with no editing unless indicated. Not particularyinsightful,possably sentimental but that is me.
Day One - And what a journey

Day 1, terminal 1, Heathrow Airport. 10 pm and waiting to board the flight to Tel Aviv. A line of men, broad rimmed hats, black coats, beards, a scattering of less formally dressed men and one woman, face the glass wall, book in hand, silently reading, bobbing, in prayer.
Have got to admire the Jews and the Muslims for their discipline in prayer. Perhaps the Catholics still have some of it, but its lost n the Protestant Church.

Arrive Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv and wait to meet up with Peter who has travelled from Glasgow. The public address announcement reminds me that things have changed. The public announcements in Heathrow remind us not to leave our luggage unattended, here we are reminded that weapons are not permitted in ANY of the terminals. It was the stress on “any”, as if people had complained in disbelief that they couldn’t bring their guns into the domestic arrivals at least.
The early morning taxi drive to Jerusalem Old City confirmed that we were in a different place, but still with the similarities to confront you. Israel gets up early and the road into Jerusalem was fairly busy at 6.45. But there was something in the landscape which reminded me of Fife; open field, low lying, broad valleys, settlements dotted here and there with lots of on going projects. In fact concrete was my first impression of Israel. Concrete slabs on backs of lorries, concrete blocks closing roads, concrete boxes being built on every hill side and, of course, concrete walls. One village appears round a corner, cranes scatter the skyline and building underway. Men line the side of the road, going to work, or looking for work? I begin to realise that what is seen can have two different meanings: it isn’t clear if neighbourhoods are being built or destroyed, a state of concrete flux.

As we come into Jerusalem I come to my first checkpoint. I can’t work out who are soldiers and who are police, but both are young and armed. Four or five flashing blue light vans pass by as we drive into the City.

Next our drive round Jerusalem, dropping people off at different neighbourhoods. Some had the seemingly universal concrete, clad in stone, fine stone, stone that masons would be proud of. There must be good quarries around here. And there is money in some of these neighbourhoods. And there are flags. I hate flags. Here as everywhere a flag tells our identity by saying what and who you are not. Concrete, flags, guns and fields.

We catch a few hours sleep in the hostel. Dozing in the warmth, with the sound of a choir singing, drifting through the window. We have the rest of the day until the rest of the delegates arrive, so wander the old city. The Muslim, the Jewish, the Christian, the Armenian quarters. Police and soldiers wander the city, drive round in vans, sit and smoke, shelter in the shade, pray at the wall. They look like they are just trying to kill time like everyone else.

Falafel and mint tea for lunch, tourist prices, but good.

Via Dolorose, Western Wall, Dome of the Rock. Cheek by jowl, competing, accommodating. Like a strange Scottish county dance. Each corner you turn another comes into the limelight and the others play the supporting role, spun into the limelight by the energy of the others or thrown into the background by the strength of the others? You can view it either way.
I read on the plan about the evictions in the Jerusalem, the ones taking place now. The current owners can trace their legal right to their homes back to the 1948 ‘agreement’ but others had prior claims that the court found more convincing. Nothing ever appears to be settled, a constant state of flux, not set in stone, half built or half bulldozed. In all the political and military headlines, in the protests and counter protests, in the ideologies, in the theology of the land, in imperialism and colonialism, it is the boring, mundaneness of the planning legislation that can have such a great impact on people’s everyday lives. I am about to find out that all of these things are completely interconnected and am about to find out what “creating new facts on the ground” is all about.

Two familiar scenes from day one in the Old City. We walked around the city walls and saw a group of three men huddled together in the shade. The pattern and actions of getting a hit are the same here as they are in Leith. And then the road being dug up. Men in yellow fluorescent vests gathered round a hole, stroking chins, shaking heads, staring into the hole in the road, that communal perplexed look that can only be caused by a hole in the road. Here though, at least you can see the tramlines they are laying unlike in Edinburgh.