Trip to Bethlehem, or how I am so going to get arrested by Moussad...

---

So I’ve been working on the birthright trip to the West Bank for a little while now and on this Tuesday I finally got to go. I’ve been working on it for about a week. The purpose of the trip is to take students and youth on birthright or on other government-sponsored trips to the West Bank so they can get another viewpoint on the conflict.

We had a really small group, there were only six of us including Emily and me. Emily ran the tour and I went to experience it and help her. All in all it was a really good trip and I enjoyed it. We repeated a lot of what the GMU group did on the seminar, visiting refugee camps and talking to Palestinians. Since I had already heard a lot of what was being said already none of it really came as a surprise. What was the most interesting about the trip was the reactions of the kids on the tour and the reactions of those we interacted with.

First we took a sherut over, which is when Emily told the kids about all the facts of the conflict and focused on the Palestinian issues and values. The women next to me got really upset when she heard Emily but I was able to talk to her and calm her down, but more on that later…
Next we walked around East Jerusalem a little and talked about the infrastructure problems that are facing that part of the city. We took a bus to Bethlehem, an Arabic bus as the Palestinians aren’t allowed to take Jewish buses. That was strange for me, as it smacks of segregation in my opinion.

The checkpoint was ridiculous. It was convoluted and kind of scary looking. When we walked though the checkpoint there was women on the other side begging to come through to Jerusalem. She just keep saying that she needed to get home. It was a very stark reminder of the problems with the wall. If I didn’t know any better I would have said that Emily staged it..

After we got through the checkpoint we walked around the wall, looking at the slogans and the writing. I took a couple of pictures of the most interesting things written along with the most provocative. One of the slogans was a list of uprisings and their dates. The list starts with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and ends with the Palestinian uprising with no date.

I understand that the Palestinians are being treated incredibly unfairly and are suffering from human rights violations but I really think that sometimes they react in completely the wrong way. This list of uprisings is very provocative and can be taken in completely the wrong way, especially because it references the Holocaust. It probably isn’t fair to expect the Palestinians to observe Israeli sensibilities as the Israelis are very sensitive towards Palestinians but I think it’s necessary for the Palestinians. Do you fight fire with fire or do you react the way Gandhi did to the British occupation?

Next we went to Nativity square for lunch (as I brought back the riot joke, see my day one blog, and taught it to the other kids). I seriously think that the restaurant we went to had the best falafel I have ever tasted. It was fantastic.

I skipped out of the meal early so that I could go see the church of the Nativity, the site where Jesus was born. And yes, before anyone says anything or writes a comment on my wall, I realize that it is unlikely Jesus was actually born there but the site is holy simply because of the reverence with which it is treated and the symbolism attached to it. I loved the church I really did, it was fantastic and I’m really happy that I got to see it.

It was sad, and kind of funny though, that when I went down the grotto of the Nativity there was a couple arguing… about pictures of all things. It was very surreal and I thought a little offensive. There were people in the grotto who were praying and consider the area very holy, me included and it seems a bit offensive to be actually having an argument, whether you’re doing it in hushed voices or not. I don’t know if they were Christian or not but it’s a matter of principles. I mean I didn’t run around like a crazy women flashing people when I was on the Temple Mount (I mean, the armed guards and religious police did weigh in my decision not to do that but it’s the principle of thing…it would make for an excellent locked up abroad episode though).

The entire group went to the Aida refugee camp. It was depressing but at the same time, it wasn’t. It was very uplifting to see groups of children still playing with kites and riding on their bikes. A pair of siblings followed our group for a while, giggling and hiding behind walls whenever we turned around to look at them. Another little boy ran down one of the narrow streets trying to get his rainbow-colored kite into the air. Eventually his father or older male family member (I’m really trying to be politically correct but it’s hard, I blame Rush, he encourages me to say inappropriate things… and if Moussad is bugging my apartment there is no way I’m making it out of this country alive) took the kite and helped get it into the air.

---