November 9, 2000

Our Journey to Jerusalem - the long-awaited saga. Our automatic you're-an-American-so-shalom-for three-months tourist visas were near their expiration, and so we were in contact with the Latin Patriarchate to acquire work visas. All we needed to do was get to the Holy City (easier said than done).

We discovered at the last minute that one of the French teachers was headed there on some business, and French Consular plates are a good way to travel through checkpoints these days. Even so, we headed out late and the road from Zababdeh to Jenin was blocked by signs of protest - burning tires, cars, boys throwing rocks at the Israeli military encampment. We saw that they pretty much blocked the road, and we heard some gunfire from the camp in response. In the past few days, there have been some gun battles at the camp, mostly at night, and thankfully without any of the awful results we've seen elsewhere. (Don't worry. Some people who live outside the village and near the camp have had sleepless nights, but the camp is a ways outside the village and far from our home.) For some reason there seems to be restraint in Zababdeh.

In any case, we played it safe and drove through the fields to avoid the scene and reconnected with the road as it went up through the hills. At the Palestinian checkpoint, Marthame's unstamped passport (brand new) raised enough questions that a soldier accompanied us on our ride to the other side of Jenin.

At the Israeli checkpoint (at the entrance to Israel), the road was completely blocked with no soldiers in sight. We finally found one, who refused to let us go through (Palestinian sympathizers we seem to be), until it was clear that we were not backing down. Marthame moved the barricades aside with the soldier's permission. Sorry not to offer photos of that, but we figured it would be best not to test our luck.

The Old City of Jerusalem, lit up at night.

The Western Wall or Wailing Wall at night.

Once in Jerusalem, we connected with the Patriarchate who found us a very nice place to stay in the Old City. We also connected with a Palestinian friend, a teacher and part-time tour guide, who gave us a late-night wandering tour through the Old City. The city was deserted - travel warnings have kept the tourists away. At the Western Wall our friend was stopped, harrassed, and humiliated for ten minutes by the Israeli security (as we watched) for no other apparent reason that the fact that he's Palestinian. His response to us was that he's "used to it" - something even more shameful than the humiliation itself.