יום שישי מיוחד

What an eventful weekend I had! Let’s start with Friday. I got up early to go on a Rothberg-led tour of the tunnels under the Kotel (Western Wall) which have relatively recently opened for excavation. Somehow, though, the bus was not there where I thought it was supposed to be, so I ended up not going on this tour (quite disappointing, but these tunnels are a place I can go on my own later, so I’ll just have to do that). Missing that tour meant I got to go back to bed for a few hours before what was supposed to be the second tour of the day. This one was an archaeological tour in the City of David, which I had been to before but not for an extended period of time. We had to literally sprint through the Old City (I may or may not have accidentally knocked over an old woman on the edge of a group walking the stations of the cross—sorry!) to get there in time, but we made it just in time. The tour was a little bit of a disappointment since it focused less on the actual archaeology of the area and more on the political issues surrounding the City of David. The tourist park is on the edge of a Palestinian village called Silwan and there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the lack of attention paid to Silwan and the way the findings of the region are portrayed to the general public. Most of the controversy is regarding the fact that more and more portions of Silwan are being appropriated for archaological purposes. Part of the argument is that this land is being utilized solely for tourist purposes and not to benefit the people of Silwan (which I feel like isn’t a wholly valid argument because (a) they’re not solely tourist purposes: they’re involved with the pursuit of knowledge, research, education, etc and (b) by increasing tourism, it will draw people to the area, which will promote economic development). Of course, destroying playgrounds and schools without any compensation whatsoever is unacceptable, so I do agree with that aspect. What I also see as a problem is the fact that Silwan has done nothing to attempt to take advantage of their location. If the Israeli government or an NGO could provide some advice or guidance to the village of Silwan in the area of the tourist industry, I think the village could benefit a lot. I honestly believe that visitors to the City of David park would be all about eating at an authentic Palestinian hummus restaurant after their day of reliving Bible times (I would be). People sell ridiculous knick-knacks and exploit tourists everywhere else in Jerusalem, why not here too? There was more to the argument of this tour but these were the main points/my reactions to them. If you’re interested in reading more about it, please do so (http://www.alt-arch.org/)

(This is a picture of one of the structures in the City of David--it's really impressive stuff, the oldest dated to 3000 BCE. pretty neat)

While the tour was going on though, we heard what sounded like cannons going off in the distance. Our tour guide assured us it wasn’t a big deal (that there are often protests on Fridays in Silwan and this was probably just part of that), but then the wind shifted and all of a sudden we could smell something kind of strange. Our tour guide stopped mid sentence and said “Uhhh, I think we should go back up the stairs…because the tear gas will get to us soon”. Um, I’m sorry….what!? Yes, tear gas. As soon as he said that I felt my nose get all tingly and my eyes started watering and the smell got stronger. We turned and went back up the hill we had come down, out of the way, and the tour guide explained to us that every week there are protests in Silwan (which have gotten worse in the past few months) against the presence of Israeli police and demolition of houses that’s taking place in the village. This was one of those protests. We wanted to observe what was going on but our tour guide shuffled us along saying pretty matter-of-factly “This will go on for a few hours, so you can come back later if you really want to see”. Well, the tour ended, and my friends and I took his advice and went back to check out the protest. What we saw was unbelievable. There were Palestinian kids (and I emphasize that they were kids) throwing rocks at Israeli police (in full riot gear) and in retaliation, Israeli police shooting canisters of tear gas back in the kids’ direction. At one point there was something flaming thrown at the police so they shot back, but not actually at the kids, because they had run away by that time. Then the kids started throwing canisters of tear gas back at the police. It was insane. The strange thing though, was that it wasn’t really high action—this sounds like there was something constantly happening. It wasn’t really like that. There would be an exchange here, then a minute would go by with maybe some people running around, then another exchange in another place. It was actually kind of hard to figure out exactly what was going on. (For those of you who are concerned about my safety, fear not. We were on a ridge, there was a valley, and the village was down in and on the other side of the valley—so it was like we were watching from an observation deck above. Perfectly safe). Several armored police cars drove through but didn’t really do much, other than bring more police and sit blocking part of a road. At one point the Muslim call to prayer came on over the loud speaker from the mosque in Silwan, which provided an interesting juxtaposition and certainly a new idea about the phrase holy war. The most disturbing part of this whole thing for me was the fact that the kids throwing rocks were SO young. There were a few who could not have been more than 8 years old. Imagine what they’ve been taught and what they have gone through to have that much anger and frustration within them at such a young age. Similarly, right below us there was a Jewish settler’s house and on the roof were about 10 Jewish kids standing around watching what was going on. Imagine growing up with this kind of event happening outside your window week after week. By the time you’re 5 you’re going to be desensitized to this kind of violence, and you’re going to be brainwashed against the people on the other side, because a peaceful coexistence is something you’ve never known. Watching this whole event go down was on the one hand fascinating (and let’s be real, kind of exciting and cool because it’s the physical manifestation of stuff I’ve only read about but never seen) but on the other hand completely sobering and depressing. It makes me almost lose faith completely in the possibility of peace, not because the protest itself was incredibly violent (it wasn’t) but because of the psychology and sentiments that I know were behind everything going on. I haven’t lost my faith yet, but I can see why it’s easy to do so.

(In this one you can see the roof of a Jewish settler's home, where they have allowed Isareli police (snipers?) to watch from above)

Anyway, sorry for the depressing story but it was definitely a crazy, crazy experience I did not at all expect to have!!

I did other exciting and less dynamic and politically significant things this weekend too that I’ll write about very soon!! I’m also going to Eilat this weekend with a day trip to Petra planned so there are lots of fun things coming up. It’s crazy (and so sad) to think that my time here is more than half over. There’s not enough time to do everything!!!