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Palestine Diaries: Part 1 – Introduction and Arrival
Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend the first Independent Jewish Voices solidarity tour to Palestine/Israel. As one of nine activists from across Canada to attend this tour, I felt very lucky to be able to attend and to be amongst such esteemed company. Before I get into the trip itself, I must take a few words to thank everyone who made this trip and my attendance possible – it is difficult for words to express how valuable this trip was for me educationally, intellectually, and emotionally. Also, I need to thank my fellow tour participants, as for a Winnipegger whose previous international travel experience consistes of a couple weekends in Minneapolis, travelling to Israel/Palestine and seeing the apartheid systems firsthand was an emotional experience despite everything I have read and studied over the years, and your support (along with copious amounts of Taybeh beer) helped me keep my sanity intact during the time we were together – even during the nonstop arguments between some of the participants over politics, religion, and that age old question which has haunted the Canadian left: social democracy or something more radical?
Landing in Tel Aviv after a ten hour flight, it was a relief to get off the plane. In a long hallway on the way to customs, there was a display of classic propaganda posters on the wall, including one exhorting us to donate to the United Israel Appeal because “We’re all in the same boat,” ironically reminiscent of the flotilla only a couple weeks before. While there were no issues at the airport (except for the annoying Texans behind me in the customs line), one member of our group evidently set off some alarm bells with his Lonely Planet travel guide to “Israel and the Palestinian Territories.” Apparently the person at the customs booth didn’t think there was a such thing as “Palestinian Territories.”
Stepping outside the Tel Aviv airport, the first thing that tipped me off that I wasn’t in Winnipeg anymore (aside from the heat) was the guns. Inside the airport, there were “no gun” signs which were as common and as plain as a no smoking sign might be in Canada. While it was a curious sign (to me, the notion that people would need signs telling them they can’t have guns in an airport was a little absurd), it wasn’t until I stepped outside and saw a person carrying a submachine gun that I got a taste of the militarized culture there. Being a Canadian, I wasn’t used to seeing the wide variety of firearms including military weapons – rifles, MP5s, M16s, P90s – that one could see carried openly on the streets of Jerusalem and while passing through checkpoints. These weapons were not just carried by authorities; many civilians were much more well armed than your average Winnipegger. These assault weapons were definitely a step up from that .22 rifle I shot that one time around a decade ago when I was in Air Cadets and decided to take up biathlon (It didn’t pan out, mostly because I was never any good at shooting, skiing, or sports in general).
Our delegation gathered outside the airport and shared a sherut to the Jaffa gate, where we got settled in our hotel. We stayed in the New Imperial Hotel, a historic old hotel in the Christian quarter, whose previous guests included Kaiser Wilhelm II. Of course, our delegation was a little less conspicuous than the Kaiser, who had a section of the wall torn down and the moat filled in so his delegation could make a grand entrance. The hotel itself contained a veritable history of Palestine hanging on its walls, while hope for the future was represented with a ribbon I saw on the way in insisting that “Peace Will Come”
A bit of intrigue surrounding the hotel is somewhat representative of the situation in the land of historic Palestine. A few years ago, in an attempt to increase their control over the old city, the Jaffa Gate entrance, and Omar Ibn al Khattab square, Jewish investors and settler interests in secrecy attempted to buy the land out from under the hotel from the Greek Orthodox Church. Word came out about the deal when the front page of the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv ran the front page headline “Omar Bin Khattab Square is Ours”. In a small area which is holy for three world religions, the ramifications of this shook the Greek Orthodox Church to the core. While the Dajani family which has run the hotel since its construction in 1884 are protected tenants, lawyers for the investors attempt to minimize the legal protections of the tenants in order to try to consolidate their shaky claim on the land and evict the Palestinian owners. Of course, all this has wider political implications as well, given that Palestinians want to see East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, while the political goals of the Israeli state tend to include hanging on to all of allegedly “indivisible” Jerusalem – especially the Old City. We can see this attempt to take over the land on which the hotel stood as representative of one of the ways that Israel fulfils its political objectives – allowing settlements to be constructed in strategic areas so as to change the “facts on the ground” and claim more and more territory on the Palestinian side of the Green Line.
Just outside the hotel was the Versavee bar and cafe where we were to have many a meal, and for some of us, indulge in many a Taybeh. Featured prominently was an old Roman column, dating from 70 AD, with a neon light advertising the cafe on top – an interesting mix of old and new and a small reminder that history is continually being made.
We only had a little while to settle in and acquaint ourselves with our little corner of the Old City, for it was Friday and we were off to Sheikh Jarrah…
Brian Latour is a student, activist, and student activist living in Winnipeg. Read more by Brian Latour.
