Israel/Palestinian Territories

The drive to Israel from Amman was with four other backpackers, along with our bags, crammed into a tiny little Fiat. Our driver, who was without his nicotine fix because we had asked him not to smoke, turned out to be completely crazy. He drove, if you want to call it that, through the rural and residential roads alike at speeds of around 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph.) The six of us luckily survived that experience and we backpackers prepared ourselves for the crossing.

As I mentioned last post, entering Israel is hard. The border guards are hostile of anyone and everyone, and a good chunk of people are taken to side rooms for questioning. This questioning can take anywhere from a few minutes to hours. So naturally, it's a place to have some fun. Long story - that's a good one for when I get home - short, I was briefly questioned on my way through, but eventually made it across into Israel.

My base for Israel was going to be in Jerusalem, which is only a little ways from the border. At first I wanted to make it to Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, Hebron, Tel Aviv, and the Golan Height, but I ended up cutting out the last two because there really didn't seem to be a whole lot to do there and I cut out Hebron because it's within the West Bank and people are a bit angry there right now. More on that tomorrow.

The residential part of Jerusalem is rather new, having been created some 150 years ago or so around the old section of Jerusalem. It completely encapsulates this Old City, a walled-in, ever-busy section that still has many of the same cobblestone walkways that Christ walked through. It was here that I spent nearly all of my time.

Hawkers sell everything in the Old City in their small stalls. There is constant movement, with Israelis and Palestinians mingling with tourists from all over the world. Your sense of smell is sometimes overwhelmed by the various food and drink, and in general its a place of pure excitement.

The holy sites within the walls of the Old City are focal points for the religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This of course has made the city more than a bit of a flash point over the last couple thousand years or so. Some notable stops include the Stations of the Cross, the Wailing Wall, and the Temple Mount. Of these, it was the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, that I for some reason most enjoyed and was here that I made the most stops.

The Western Wall is the most sacred site for Jews in the world. It was built by King Herod the Great around 19 BC as a support for the second temple which had been built some 500 years earlier after the first was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonians. Both temples were supposedly in the location where Abraham had offered up his son as a sacrifice to God (I think. I'm not double-checking any of my history on this post, so anyone except for John can feel free to correct me when I'm wrong.), only to have his son replaced by God with a ram at the last minute.

When the Romans destroyed the second temple in 70 AD, the Jews were left with a major problem; it was considered sacrilegious to step on the ground or pray where the temple used to be, but nobody knew the actual location of where the temple had been located. So the Wailing Wall became a place for pilgrims to pray and lament the loss of the temple. It soon gained the importance that it has today.

I made it there for the lighting of the first candle for Hanukkah. The main section is in a large square which was a gathering place for all sorts of Jews who had come to celebrate, from the ultra-orthodox to the New York-accented, baseball cap-wearing. The wall is divided into two sections, one for women and one for men. True to it's name, there were indeed some people on both sides crying hard, though most were simply praying or silently staring.

Honestly, I also welled up a bit. It's difficult to fully understand why, especially because it literally is just a wall. But thinking about the history and seeing these people who thought so much of it, it was difficult not to be overcome. The large cobblestones have been worn smooth at arm level over the centuries by the millions who have touched and kissed it in their prayers. The cracks within reach as well have all been filled with little slips of paper, prayers from those who believe that one placed here is more apt to come true - over time they have turned into almost a type of mortar.

Within a stones throw of the wall is the Temple Mount, Islam's third holiest site. You might know it as the giant gold dome that is often seen in pictures of Jerusalem. Though non-Muslims aren't allowed inside of it, it was great to look at from the outside and amusing to think that these two holy sites of such conflicting religions were so near one another.

The Stations of the Cross was another powerful experience for me. These fourteen stations are depictions of Jesus' final hours, from when he was condemned to death to when he was laid in the tomb and covered with incense. The walk is especially important to Roman Catholics, and it was a powerful experience walking these stations and feeling what so many others have before me.

(Jerusalem in general is obviously a spiritual city and being there did good things to me. It was funny though, because the same time I was there feeling good about religion my pope came out and basically said that the GLBT "threat" was as great as that of deforestation and extinction. That was a pretty big buzz kill. Having 1) seen the effects of deforestation first-hand and 2) hung out with more than one member of the GLBT community, I gotta be honest with you; one does seem to be a bit more dangerous than the other. But what the Pope didn't bring up was the possibility of GAY PEOPLE CUTTING DOWN THE RAINFOREST!!! HOLY SHIT! That would be the ultimate threat in the world, kinda like a shark with a bazooka or a pirate with ninja skills.)

The Dead Sea is not far from Jerusalem, so I made it a point to get there. As the buses weren't running on the Saturday I wanted to get there, I hitched a ride there with a friendly Israeli hippie (yes, they exist). The sea is at the lowest point on Earth, some 1400 feet below sea level, and has filled up with so much salt and so many metals over the centuries that it's made up of pretty much 1/3 solid material. So if you float in it you're a hunk of styrofoam and always are at the top of the water.

It was mediocre. I had the bright idea to jump in head first, something you should never do because your eyes explode, especially when the freshwater showers are broken. Besides that, yes, it was pretty cool floating a little higher than normal, but all in all I was relatively unamused by the whole experience. Cool to say I've been there though.

Then there was Christmas Eve.

That was . . . well, certainly something to write about.

It is Christmas Eve here that is a big deal, while Christmas itself is less important. So with a small group of three other backpackers I set of for Bethlehem to see what it had to offer for the day.

Quickly things turned sour as I realized that my camera's screen had somehow broken. But this was nothing compared to how I felt an hour into my stay when I realized that someone had lifted my wallet, in it my credit card, from within the crowded streets. I pretty much wanted to punch someone in the face, but my fellow backpackers, who turned out to be completely awesome, convinced me to stay in Bethlehem and try to salvage the night. So after canceling my credit card we wandered over to the Church of Nativity.

The church itself was divided up by some of the various Christian factions. By a serious stroke of luck our group of backpackers, which had now grown to five, ended up joining a group of around 120 Anglicans who were attending a 10 p.m. mass in the Greek Orthodox chapel. This was quite a thrill for me, as a Christmas Eve mass within the Church of Nativity was an rare trick for the night.

The mass was very crowded, as a group of heavily-armed police inexplicably separated us from the archbishop and his crew up front. It was done in a combination of Arabic, Greek, and English, and we sang the first Christmas carols I had heard all year. The priests/pastors/archbishop up front read various passages and sermons, one of the better ones being a brief speech in English about the need for understanding in the Middle East between the various religions. Through understanding, the speaker said, we could only then achieve peace. It was a well-spoken sermon, but I was a little curious why the speaker thought that a group of Anglicans needed to hear it.

My curiosity was taken care of minutes later when it was announced that "the president needs to leave, but we are very happy that we could attend this mass with you."

"President of what?" I asked the lady next to me.

"Palestine," she answered.

I jerked my head around and, sure enough, President Mahmoud Abbas was standing up at the front of the room. I don't know how I had missed that he was there, but it sure explained the heavy military presence and the sermon. I was only a couple people away from the door he was leaving from, so as he walked out, shaking a couple hands, I reached over those in front of me (God I love being tall) to try to give him a hand shake. When he saw me towering up he gave me a crazy grin. I'll let Derek, a fellow traveler, describe what happened next: "My friend Peter actually gave the guy a high-five on his way out the door. And when I say 'high-five', I mean that Abbas gave him a full-on, reared-back, we-totally-rocked-this-shiz, high-five. It was rad."

Seriously, it was pretty rad. More than that, it was hilarious: here is Mahmoud Abbas, a main player in an almost-impossible peace process, a president of an Muslim and Arab country that doesn't technically exist, giving me this really enthusiastic, hard high-five/handshake in the middle of an Anglican mass within a Greek Orthodox Chapel on Christmas Eve in the church on the site where Christ was born. In terms of events I never pictured happening, that was pretty high up there.

After mass the Anglicans headed back to Jerusalem, but our little cadre stayed behind and went into the grotto, a little room downstairs about 30 feet by 8 feet that is the location of the true manger. We were joined by a group of around 70 Italians who told us that they were going to attend midnight mass down there. It didn't seem like anyone would toss us, so we decided to try to wait also. And as luck would have it, we made it through and managed to stick around for the midnight mass on Christmas just inches from where Jesus Christ was actually born.

I didn't understand much of it because it was all in Italian and Latin, though I knew some of the hymns and such in English. But just the very concept of what I was doing almost blew my mind. I don't know how I got so damn lucky with the whole business, but the night turned out to be absolutely, 100% top-notch awesome. Unbeatable.

I'll write tomorrow about my next, less-enthusiastic experience in Bethlehem.

Happy New Year, everyone!