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Originally uploaded by kara melissa.
This was our first Christmas together. We celebrated with our wonderful friends Sigita, Alun and Khalil. Khalil drove us from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That was three years ago. I don’t know if driving from Nazareth to Bethlehem would have been possible this year, even if we had been there.
Sending out holiday wishes to all those we love, far and near. Hoping to see you all again soon.
It’s difficult for me to express my feelings about the current Middle East Crisis. Sometimes Ali hides the pictures from me of the children that have been blown up and sometimes I see them by accident. I cry a lot and feel a deep sadness. From here. In my nice London flat. Free from bombs and turmoil. I welcome things in my daily life to take me away from the realities that other people are living. And no longer living. Because, it is not my reality. But somehow, it’s very close to my heart.
As a teacher I work with children and build relationships with the future leaders of the world. As an Aunt, I treasure and cherish my nephews beyond words. As a human who is easily touched by sadness in the world, I find myself close to tears or sometimes crying when I read about, listen to, or watch what is happening to the families in Lebanon. It’s true, there are rockets landing in northern Israel too. And I fear for those that we know and care about there. One of the children that I taught in Nazareth lost two young cousins –aged five and nine– to a Hizbollah rocket which hit a couple of weeks ago. Many of these children see the rockets fall. Thankfully, they still have their homes. Their families. Their lives. The children in Lebanon? Not so lucky.
According to The Independent, “Of the 615 dead in Lebanon, 45% are children. Of the 3,225 injured, 33% are children. Of the 960,000 refugees, 45% are children.”
I don’t know what the newspapers look like in America. But here, it is pictures of children dead and maimed — lifted from the rubble of a newly bombed home, school or hospital — daily. It’s a lot to swallow back the tears and not even be there. What is happening to the people living through it? I cannot imagine. But I try to learn and understand. I have visited some powerful blogs based in Beirut this past week. Many of them are written by women my age. These women are artists. Wives. Daughters. Sisters. Mothers. Environmentalists. They are people like ourselves. They try to rise above the current situation, but sometimes, it’s exhausting and traumatic. I have linked one in my sidebar written by a woman named Zena, who was also interviewed recently on CNN: Beirut Update. I read her insights and reactions daily. She also writes about the enviornmental impact on the war, specifically the 15,000 ton oil spill which reaks havoc on the coast as a result from the Israeli air raid on the Jiyyeh power plant [southern Lebanon].
From her blog, I have found others to read: Little Paper Boat, From Beirut with Love, Raytch, and Lebanon Updates. More are linked on Zena’s blog that I have yet to read through. I’ve started with these.
My mom asked me why I am so torn up about this war versus the Iraqi war. This one feels much closer to home for me as we know people in northern Israel, but also as we have lived in Israel and traveled to the West Bank and seen the conditions the Israeli Army has put on the Palestinians. We have seen the Israeli tanks. We have met Israeli soldiers. We have waited at checkpoints. We have seen the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have known/spoken with individuals on both sides. And we have seen the blind support from the US for Israel. We have seen what the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] can do. Families are being displaced. There is no water, no food, no place to stay/hide. Innocent civilians are being killed. There are children that are being massacred. Massacred. What else is there to say?
I know I am emotional about it. I haven’t really been able to discuss it with Ali since it started a few weeks ago. I just cannot comprehend how one side is allowed to get away with so much when they lose so little compared to what they are doing to the other side. And that’s what it is to them, ‘the other side’. They are not people. They are not individuals. They are only seen as the enemy. As terrorists. Even the women and children. For after all, if they are married to a militant, then shouldn’t they die too? I cannot comprehend the comparison, because to me, there is none.
People who know me certainly know the side that I am passionate about, even though I do try to see both sides of the conflict. It’s possible sometimes. But after living in Nazareth and travelling frequently to the West Bank, I saw, felt and experienced more than I read about in the newspapers. This said, it’s a newspaper article that has gotten me worked up this morning as I slowly wake over my coffee on a grey, London morning.
In bold are the numbers that just don’t add up, taken from the article that became my tipping point to finally write something about the situation in Israel-Palestine and now Lebanon that is just about to boil over.
The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah surprised Israel with a bold daylight assault across the border on Wednesday, leading to fighting in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and at least eight killed, and elevating recent tensions into a serious two-front battle.
Early on Thursday morning, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the runways at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, shutting the airport and potentially stranding thousands of visitors at the peak of tourist season. Israeli warplanes also hit numerous locations in southern Lebanon, adding to the civilian death toll. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying that the airport was a target because Hezbollah receives weapons shipments there.
The Israeli government also confirmed that Hezbollah fired several Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, injuring three people.
The toll was the highest one for the Israeli soldiers in several years, and combined with the deaths on Wednesday of at least 22 Palestinians, including many civilians, in fighting in Gaza, it was the deadliest day in the Arab-Israeli conflict since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip last year. And the violence continued into the early morning hours, when an Israeli airstrike heavily damaged the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building in Gaza.
Two years ago, Hezbollah managed to push Israel to free more than 400 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in exchange for an Israeli businessman held in Lebanon and for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers killed in a Hezbollah attack in 2000. Israel is currently holding close to 9,000 Palestinian prisoners, though the number of Lebanese prisoners is believed to be much smaller.
The fighting on the Lebanese border erupted around 9 a.m., when Hezbollah attacked several Israeli towns with rocket fire, wounding several civilians, the Israeli military said. But that attack was a diversion for the main operation, several miles to the east, where Hezbollah militants fired antitank missiles at two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence, the military said. Of the seven soldiers in the two jeeps, three were killed, two wounded and two abducted, the military said.
Israel then responded with artillery fire, airstrikes and a naval bombardment that focused on about 40 sites in southern Lebanon. Most were believed to be Hezbollah strongholds, but roads and bridges were also hit in an attempt to keep Hezbollah from moving the captured soldiers farther north, according to the military. At least 2 Lebanese civilians were killed and more than 10 wounded in southern Lebanon, Lebanese officials said.
The Israeli Air Force also dropped a bomb on a home in Gaza City at around 3 a.m., saying its targets were Hamas leaders. But the blast killed nine members of the Salmiyeh family, according to Dr. Jumaa al-Saqqa, the spokesman for Al Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were taken. There were visiting Hamas leaders in the house at the time of the bombing, but they escaped with only minor injuries, Palestinians said.
In two separate gun battles near the town of Deir al-Balah, Israeli soldiers killed 10 Palestinian militants and wounded at least 7, Palestinian security and medical officials said. At least 12 more Palestinians were killed in other Gaza incidents, many of them in airstrikes around Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah.
Early on Thursday, a strike by Israeli aircraft heavily damaged the Foreign Ministry building in Gaza. There were reports of injuries, though it was unclear whether they included people inside the ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, or in nearby buildings.
These paragraphs are taken from an article in today’s New York Times. It’s clearly most of the article, but I chose items that illustrated the numbers of people reported to have been immediately effected by the violence. To me, they don’t add up. There have been eight Israeli soldiers killed and three are being kept in captivity. That’s eleven. There were three civilians injured from rockets fired from Lebanon. The kidnapped individuals are the said reasons behind the attacks that Israel has launched on Palestinian and Lebonese civilians, while claiming to kill/target militants and militant headquarters, they have infact injured and killed civilians. Since the attacks launched in Gaza alone, there have been over fifty people killed in Gaza. Fifty. And many civilians are again refugees in their own home land, forced to flee their homes and take refuge in UN schools in Gaza.
It appalls me that it is stated that it was the highest toll for Israeli soliers in years when the number tops less than a dozen and more than a dozen Palestinian civilians are being killed or injured daily.
This article focusses on the recent events, it does not include the power plant that was destroyed in Gaza, leaving civilians without electricity and now without water. It does not mention the bridges that were destroyed throughout Gaza, that during the rainy season will make travelling from one place to another impossible.
I find it very difficult to understand how Israel knows that the individuals they are killing are militants, when clearly after the attack is launched, there are a dozen civilians that have been killed in the attempt to kill a militant. And why do we just believe that they are militiants? How do we know? Because Israel says so? And why are Israeli citizens more important than Palestinian ones? Why is it so awful that nearly a dozen soldiers have been killed, injured or kidnapped when there are several dozen civilians — women and children — that are dead, or hungry, or thirsty or homeless. Why is it ok to attack the people of one place but not the other? Why is it justifiable to kill innocent people in order to get one soldier back?
If this is war, why aren’t armies fighting each other, rather than one military against an entire population? Oh, I forgot, there is only one military. Every one else fall into the militants and terrorists category.
This post is what happens when I read the news in the morning and it’s about something important to me.
Other posts about my time in Israel and Palestine:
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
Well, the computer is so slow today, I thought I might lose my thoughts waiting for everything to wake up. Perhaps I was trying to do so myself as I peeled back the warmth of the large pink comforter — staying in the kid’s bunk room at Ali’s Auntie Gillian’s – down from the nape of my neck. The chill of a Scotland Spring air creeps in around any part of my body where the skin is exposed. I pull a large sweater over my head and climb down the ladder toward the floor, one step at a time. Ali’s snores rise from the bunk below, intoxicating the air in the room with left over pints of beer breath from last night’s Stag night out. Stumbling in at 3 am full of “I love you’s” and “you are prettier than all the other girls” rolling off his tongue one after the other. Then I could sleep soundly.
I slip into my own world, one speaker into each earlobe, passing back into the past with some Mobius Mix from the All for Peace station out of both Jerusalem and Ramallah. And I recall getting out of Israel-Palestine…
We nearly made it through with an all clear signal, the blue sticker, when just as we went through the x-ray machines, the blue sticker got replaced with a red one. Now for me, I see blue as serene, like the sky on a sunny summer day. Red tends to have a more negative effect, that of WARNING. So when I questioned this change, I wasn’t surprised by the lies: “for airline purposes” Yeah right. That’s when the fun began.
We made it through Israeli security after I stood chatting up the gal who looked through everything from my undies to my wooden map of “Israel” with all the towns marked with the Arab names, aka PALESTINE. She browsed through our Arab music and asked about our Israeli titles, I assured her those were burned onto the computer. I tried to make up some excuse about languages when she saw the wooden map, but she was having none of it, “It’s ok, I understand.” Overall, those checking our bags and running a metal detector over our bodies were quite nice. They didn’t ask us many questions; there was no interrogation session such as the one when entering and leaving Egypt previously. They even invited us to come back to visit again!
We made it with an escort to the passport control where we were soon surrounded by a couple of security gals. A few more questions and then we were sent to wait some more. After being taken to a stark white inspection room, they took our hand luggage and decided to send most of it beneath the plane, and re-checked, with a bomb sweeper device, everything else. No problem. Until they took my computer. It would be wrapped and placed under the plane. I was not happy and I let them know. In fact, you could say I was quite pissed. But it wasn’t Security who was doing it, it was Border Control, so I should feel better. Right. Then we were brushed again with a metal detector, but this time I had to take my bra off and drop my pants to my knees. That was somewhat degrading and it was quite unnecessary. But really, you just have to laugh at their paranoia. What else could I do? I was happy I didn’t wear those undies that have a hole in the front. Or any other creative ones.
After taking every little piece out of my carry on, items scattered across the counter, they had the nerve to ask whether I would like them to repack my bag or do it myself. I am sure they had their own laugh with my indignant insistence that they do it themselves, after all, they had dismantled it. And then with one more escort we were taken to the edge, where we had to run to catch our plane. Once on, sinking into British Airways posh chairs, surrounded by British accents, the last three hours seemed to melt away as we made the transition back into the Western world.
I generally don’t get too excited until I board the plane. This is especially the case this time because we anticipate an adventure into interrogation by the security at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
There are always places you wish you’d have gotten to before you leave somewhere you have been living. But I think that, even though this is still the case with Ali and I in Israel-Palestine, we have done quite well. If you note the places visited in my side bar, you will see we visited every city in the West Bank. One of the questions they will ask us is whether we went to the West Bank or not. It’s not always in your best interest to say yes, but there is definitely that part of us that wants to shout “YES we have and we will again.” Then they will ask us if we have seen any soldiers with guns. This has to be the STUPIDEST question ever. I mean, come on. Take a walk down the street in Jerusalem, they are everywhere. I think I hate this question the most. What they really want to know is, “What do you think about the soldiers with the guns?” And they want you to say, “I am so glad they are here to protect us.” Which we really know is: BULLSHIT.
The Israeli society is one built on fear. Over history the Jews have been persecuted, and no one can deny the atrocities of the Holocaust. But I can’t always help but wonder why people refuse to learn from history. Yes, the Jews needed a place to come together and recover from the Holocaust. But we must remember that in taking back their Holy Land, they also displaced the Palestians, sending millions into refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and even Palestine. What is happening here is an occupation. Palestinians have lost their land and the land they do have is occupied by the IDF.
After the Palestinians decided to rise up against the occupation of their land, the Israeli government decided to build a “separation barrier.” A wall much like the one that separated East and West Germany. Suicide bombers became common for a period of time after the second intifada began in 2000. There have been two since Ali has been here, one since I have been here. On Sunday there was a plastic bag left alone near to where we were waiting for our bus at the bus station in Jerusalem. The area was evacuated and we waited and watched as a team came and blew up the bag in the event that it would have been a bomb itself. Buses pulled up and people ran to load onto them, only to be pushed into another area away from the “suspect bag.” There was panic in the air. I also felt afraid, especially not knowing what was going on without the knowledge of Hebrew. Everything turned out to be fine.
The world sees the aftermath of suicide bombs, not knowing what could have caused them in the first place because they don’t see the terror that the IDF creates in the Occupied Territories.
Settler children spit on Palestinian adults in Hebron. Jericho was cut off because it was making too much money with a Casino that Israelis used to frequent. After its economy suffered tremendously, it has recently been reopened. Bethlehem continues to suffer. Settlers were encouraged to move into Gaza and the West Bank and now have to disengage from Gaza and some from West Bank areas as well. Posters of Settler families facing an IDF soldier are tacked up around the bus station, in attempt to make me feel sorry for them. It doesn’t work. I do try to look at both sides: it would suck to grow up somewhere and be forced to move. But you can’t deny the fact that they are getting huge compensation to move elsewhere, more than enough to by a home in another Settlement or another area – not to mention that they did it to the people living there first. Gaza and West Bank homes are demolished daily, to make way for the wall, homes linked to a “suspicious person,” and many for no reason at all. No one gives these families a place to stay or the money to pick up the rubble that was once their home and build a new one.
I look at the occupation much like what has happened to other native cultures in the past and only continues to happen over time. I think about the history of the Native Americans. The bloodshed, the war. That was so long ago. How can the same thing still be happening, but with bigger guns, and tanks instead of horses? Is humanity really that…what is the word for it really? It makes me sad. And it makes me feel defeated. And if I think about it too much, I feel the “Little Man Tate Syndrome” coming on. So, I am going to get back to my cough and get some sleep. It’s tiring to look around the bedroom, see all of the things that we need to back up, only to be unpacked and questioned about at the airport.
11.13pm
Well, today we take a day to celebrate women around the world. It’s like a birthday, I suppose. [a very Happy Birthday to my dear friend, Baby A, today!] Although as every day of life should be celebrated, so should every woman, every day.
There was a demonstration planned today on a tour into a few Arab towns. I was planning to attend after finishing my school day with my friend Sally. It was organized by Women against Violence. I was looking forward to standing on a street in the middle of Akka, an mixed Arab-Jewish town that Ali and I just visited this weekend, with signs reminding society to stop violence against women, pay them more, equality among the sexes, etc. I left the house this morning with a kiss from Ali and a, “Make sure you don’t get arrested.” I was excited about my adventures ahead. My first protest, and concerning something extremely important to me.
Don’t worry, this blog is not about how I got arrested by the Israeli police. It’s about how I didn’t get to attend the demonstration for various reasons. Long story short, instead, I write this from the office, with my red bouquet of flowers from Masar, in celebration of International Women’s Day. And I look up news stories about what other women of the world are doing to Stop the Violence.
I first went to Asia. Where in Bangledesh women get acid thrown on their faces from rejected suitors. Where a woman in the Punjab province was repeatedly raped for over an hour because of something her brother had done. One of the six men will serve a life sentence, the rest walk free. Where women are forced into the sex trade industry in a number of coutries, take your pick. Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal, India, Malaysia, Vietnam…Where in a number of Arab countries, Pakistan included, women are killed in “honour crimes.” A man can kill his wife, sister, mother, for a crime he calls an honour crime, adultry for example, and he walks free.
Without reference to any news article, I must take a moment to remind my readers about the women in Africa who undergo FGM (Female Genital Mutulation) and women in Palestine who also suffer from the above mentioned “honour killings/crimes.” In Israeli society, these same circumstance killings are referred to as “romantic killings.” And how about the women in Iran, who are married off at the age of nine, before they have yet become women. And in every country, there is domestic violence. In some, the situation is worse than others, like in Latin America and Spain. Instead of declining, recorded cases of domestic violence have risen in some of these areas.
I only found one article from a newspaper in the states, and all the quotes were from women in other countries. Interesting that the most progressive environment for women doesn’t feel the need to celebrate them. And if you are from the states, the situation with violence, attacks, inequality, ETC. exists there too.
And if you want to read about the roots of women’s day, read here.
I guess I digress.
So, celebrate the woman in you, the women around you and all the women of the world. We certainly do deserve it. STOP THE VIOLENCE.
When I came here I had a difficult time adjusting. I was focusing more on the political situation than on my own personal life. Then my personal life suffered some challenges which were not easy to overcome. I wasn’t able to create a balance.
I was figuring out how to perform in my job with children who acted up because they had had one English teacher after the next leave them, and really, that’s what I was going to do in the end anyways. I thought they were spoiled, but they were just being human, putting up barriers much like the walls that exist all over this country.
I was trying to experience and learn about life in Israel-Palestine.
We visited places in the West Bank: Jayyous (olive picking), Bethlehem (Christmas), Ramallah (Palestinian elections). We saw the wall being built and how it affects the communities it ruins, separating families from each other, such as the mother and daughter on different sides of the wall in the village of Baka. We visited Israeli cities, eating yummy food, drinking good coffee, walking through the market that was bombed in October, strolling barefoot along the beach in Tel Aviv. We’ve been to Jerusalem a number of times. A city divided like pieces of a pie, everyone inhabiting the same space, yet completely isolated. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Settlers, Foreigners, Tourists, Students.
I became consumed with thoughts of the occupation, reading snipits in the news from Ali or personal stories in the newspapers/websites I discovered on my own. I would write about these experiences and thoughts on my blog, trying to make sense of it all and share that dismay with others. Ali also wrote about the occupation. People reading our blogs became worried about our wellbeing and wanted to read more uplifting stories. As a result of my emotional reactions to the assorted challenge I was dealing with a rupture was created on the home front. I had become so attentive to external conditions that I was oblivious to its effect on my personal relationships. Once I did, I began to focus on repairing it. We’ve come a long way Baby. (Fat Boy Slim)
So, the balance still does not exist. I find myself focusing on the good in life around me and then I see that I am neglecting the reality outside of Nazareth. I just read Rachel Corrie’s letters from Gaza to her parents in Olympia, Washington. She was a 23 year old member of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that uses non-violent direct action against the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories. She was killed in March of 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer that “didn’t see her, in her bright orange vest” as she stood between the bulldozer and a Palestinian home, blocking the demolition, in the end giving her life to the cause.
Gaza is a war zone that people either don’t recognize as such or forget that it exists. It is far from our Arab town of Nazareth. It is far from the places we have visited. We see the empty streets and closed businesses in the West Bank, the posters of martyrs and the wall that keeps families apart. When we visit other cities in the West Bank we will see more. But we will not get to Gaza. Because Israel will not allow us passage, nor will they recognize the terror and acts of violence that they commit daily in Gaza. It’s interesting that you can have “the world’s fourth largest army, backed by the world’s super power” fighting “terror” and no one really understands or knows what’s truly happening there.
The rest of the world sees the war in Iraq and the genocide in Sudan. But what about the malevolence they unconsciously contribute to, through tax dollars and indifference?
We were walking through the Moslem Quarter of Jerusalem’s old city, and saw posters outside a shop noting some major corporations’ who profit from the occupation: Clinique, Origins, Caterpillar, DKNY, Prescriptives, Estee Lauder — Estee Lauder’s chairman, Ronald Lauder, is also President of the Jewish National Fund which acts as a PR on behalf of the Israeli government and the Occupation of the Palestinian Territories.– .
How many of us have and do purchase products from these companies? How many of you know where the money goes and how much of it is used to purchase bullets that kill students in classrooms when a tank comes through during the morning Math lesson?
I suppose this is an attempt to reclaim some of the balance in my life that I strive for. Life IS good. For me. For Ali. For us. But we also want to recognize and educate the outside world about what is truly going on here in Israel-Palestine. And sometimes it brings us down. And sometimes, if we take you down with us for a moment, then you will have experienced a tiny ounce of a life that exists elsewhere, where the only thing up is the sun.
I was sitting at the bus stop today. Reading my book. Watching my breath turn into ice crystals in the 9.30am sunshine, and I had a profound thought. I decided once I got to work I would write a blog entry to share it. Well, I’ve gotten to the moment to write on my blog and I have forgotten the thought. Perhaps it was the messages in my email in boxes. Perhaps it was the perusing of friend’s blogs. Perhaps it was setting out to get some tasks done today or speaking with co-workers. I don’t know. But I did get an email with edits from a story I submitted to Glimpse Magazine a few months back. Ali and I both entered a contest. He got Honorable Mention (with publication) and I got “Your story is great, but doesn’t fit with the guidelines for our contest…but we’d like to use it anyways…we’ll send you the edits when we can…” Saweet. I just received the edits in my in box. So now I have a REAL writing project that I can fix up that will be PUBLISHED. This is exciting for me. It contributes to my motivation as a writer to seek out other places I can submit and hope to be published. I am working on a set of poems for a Literary Mag with an April deadline, as well as a fiction story with a similar deadline. This is how my life balances out. I have a “job” I don’t enjoy tremendously, but it also gives me extra time to write.
Good things are happening. It’s snowing in Jerusalem. We have a flat to look at to possibly move in to. A friend should be starting to work with me at the school so that she can take over (I know I said that last week, but these things move slowly). I’m writing more. I’m getting ‘out there.’ Ali’s been contacted by SBS again to do another phone interview, so that means radio story. Ali’s getting ‘out there.’ There’s a Hip Hop show in Jerusalem on Valentine’s Day. I just cut Ali’s hair. I get to have my hair cut in Jerusalem. Oh, yeah. And I love Febraury, even though where ever it is Winter, it seems to be the darkest, coldest month. But it’s my birthday month. So, I’m happy. One of the books I’m also reading at the moment writes thoughts short and to the point, perhaps I have adopted this approach to express mine for the latter part of this blog. So it goes.
Today was the day I was supposed to leave. I have a plane ticket. Return to Detroit. I will not be using it. I miss my family. Always. But I have my home here, and we know that is not a concrete thing, as Ali and I have this ‘hopping around homes syndrome’ in our present and future. Home. Ali.
Thursday is my day at the office. I actually get to leave the Old City. I thought being able to walk to work would be fabulous. Getting up at a later time, such as 7am, rather than the 5am in Bangkok with an hour commute to follow. In Nazareth, four days a week, I have a five minute walk to school. Sometimes, I feel like the world around me is always asleep. The stone paths with archways above them seem less magical when everything lies quiet and the only shops open are scattered every two or so with the skeletons of clothing hanging from the rooftops. On Thursdays, I have a 15 minute bus ride. This is nice. I walk through the Old City with Ali at my side, singing Marhabas (hellos) and Sabakhels (good mornings) to the carpernters just opening shop or waiting for their morning coffee. We part at the bus stop and he walks on to work while I await the Number 7 bus.
If I have to wait a while, I read my book. Climb on the bus when it comes and keep reading. Today the bus arrived just minutes after I did and I decided to watch the world wake up around me as the sun began to shine through the haze that floated through the valleys surrounding Nazareth. The town actually seemed alive. People were going to work, getting breakfast and coffee, taking their children to school or going to school themselves. The world was alive again as the sun beat through the window and warmed the back of my neck. It felt good to see people doing regular, probably routine things. I reminised about my mornings walking through the streets of Bangkok just waking up. The smells, the sounds, the traffic, the monks, the puddles of water teeming with several different species of bacteria. And these things exist elsewhere in different extents and forms. Like here. Sometimes, I just need a little sunshine to help open my eyes wide enough to see them. And today, that’s just what I’ve got.
I saw them for the first time today. When they first started to fly over Nazareth, or when I first began noticing them, it was probably a couple weeks after I had arrived. I could hear them, but not see them. They sound like the jets that would fly over my home during the summers of childhood, leaving a white path behind it, snaking secret messages against a pale blue backdrop. As a child, we enjoyed seeing the designs in the sky and we also knew that “those planes flew really fast.” And we never knew what they were for.
Fast forward to Israel. A place where the border police ask you if you’ve seen any guns while traveling throughout their country, while they have a semi-automatic strapped over their shoulder or a hand gun fit snuggly against their waist. I must admit, there are more soldiers with guns in Jerusalem than Tel Aviv. Perhaps it’s because of that wall that was put there. Either way, there are soldiers with bullet proof vests and guns everywhere, some more places than others. Like in Nazareth, I never see anyone with guns. This is an Arab Israeli area. And in Tel Aviv, the soldiers I saw appeared to be moving towards duty for the next week after Shabbat. And they are everywhere in Jerusalem. One for every holy place and then some. The reason I have visited the topic of guns is to give some background of our environment here. People ask how things are and worry because of the newspaper headlines. Well, Gaza is pretty much a “war zone.” And there is conflict daily in specific areas of the West Bank. But, Nazareth is North of each of these areas and although the conflict infiltrates everything in the land, the war trickles slower and leaves some of us out of it.
So, when I started hearing the planes, I didn’t think much. Then they got louder and sounded closer and sometimes even right above me. I would look up and see nothing. If it was a cloudy day, I imagined they flew above the clouds. And on a clear day, well, they with must be flying really high or must be really fast. I asked Ali about them. He said they were drones. Drones. I had no idea what a drone was. He said it was an unmanned aircraft, checking out what was going on in the air and on the ground. Just keeping tabs on the area. I was wondering why they were in our area. He said we are pretty close to the Lebanese border and the Jordanian Border. And apparently, recently, there had been an unmanned aircraft fly through Israel’s airspace from Lebanon. And since then, it’s pretty normal to hear them everyday, several times throughout the day.
Well, here I sit, working diligently on writing the English Program for Masar, with the help of books and research, and squeezing in an email here and there to send off on the net tomorrow. And I hear the drones, except these ones sound like they are on top of my head and are going at super speed. I look out the window and see two flashes of blackish silver in the sky. Twins flying together, one a little further in front of the first. Then as they speed forward into the clouds, they maneuver themselves into switching spots. Like in Top Gun. Or any other fighter pilot movies you have seen. And then they are gone. And all that is left is the sound echoing through the valleys of Nazareth. There are no white snakes following them with creative designs or secrets. The secret lies in the view. And in ten minutes I hear two more, but these, miss my line of vision.
and later ali said these ones that I saw wouldn’t be drones, but manned planes with some purpose…hmmmm…
What You are Saying