Pictures And Words

I went to Jerusalem. Holiest of holy places for 2 of the 3 big guns of religion and 2nd most holy place for the other (Islam, the first for them being Mecca). There were a lot of amazing things to see, the wailing wall, the golden mosque on the hill, the crazy security and people from all over the world braving the threat of terroism to come and see it all, only the other week there was a “terrorist” attack by a Palestinian guy, who accosted a bulldozer to rampage through the streets, killing 3 people. In my eyes however this guy was just fighting the war that started when the Jewish people came to the land 60 years ago and took the land from the people living there, the Palestinians, the Israeli government however dubbed the bulldozer guy a terrorist, dirty tactics in my eyes. The guy using a bulldozer was interesting because in Gaza the Israeli army regulaly use bulldozers to destroy the current front row of buildings on the border of Gaza and Israel. Anyway, I digress, Jerusalem, a lot of the place was very touristy and at times very tacky. The Jewish area, apart from the wailing wall, was mainly full of Jewish american tourists getting fat on falafel and hummous, the Christian area was full of Italians, and the Muslim area looked kinda empty.

Anyway, onto some pictures.

One of the first things I saw in Jerusalem was this wreckage made into a statue, I think it was orignally a bus that had been blown up by an attack, Israel is full of these types of statues, thinking about the Palestinians there should be signs in many areas marking where they lost a village or lost lives all over Israel, it just doesn’t seem fair, its rubbing the Palestinians faces in it, also its making them look like the complete bad guys. Dirty tactics again. Anyway, this second picture is nearing to the old city. All over Israel the road signs are full of well known names.

As always the army was present in full force, check out them big guns that they’ve got, I think its good to show the biggest and best guns in Jerusalem. And there’s some big bomber planes speeding around in the sky

Going into the old city on the Jewish side leads you to the wailing wall. You have to pass through a lot of security to get into there, big lines of people waiting to get searched and pass through metal detectors, whilst waiting about 5 full orthodox Jewish guys just pushed me out of the way and walked right in front of me and everyone else in the line, I guess they feel like I have no business there, while they need to go to the wailing wall and wail a bit. I spoke to a lot of Israeli people that speak down about these Orthodox people, they are often very rude and arrogant. The first picture is of the wailing wall with the Golden Mosque in the background, you can see that the wall is sectioned into 2 bits, one for women and one for men, the womens area is much smaller than the mans, nothing to do with there being more men than women, its just again, men have more right to be there, its them Orthodox guys again. Second picture you see that the womens side is kinda full.

I walked up to the wall, I didn’t put a message in it, I just went to have a look. Whilst walking to the wall there were some Teflin guys asking if people wanted to do Teflin, they asked me and I said that I wasn’t Jewish, the guy then said in a sly voice “Oh, enjoy your day” and his mate laughed, nice.

Theres an Orthodox Jewish guy doing his rocking thing next to the wall. The thing to do is write a message on a piece of paper, push it in a gap in the wall, and then rock back and forth on your feet a bit.

I saw many people wobbling and rocking back and forth, I think its a kind of mourning dance, as the wall is all thats left of the holiest Jewish place in Jerusalem, well, in fact holiest place anywhere for them, im guessing it was a synagog there, and the wall is all thats left of it, i could be wrong on that though. At some point in the past the area behind the wall was taken by muslims and they built a Mosque on there. In a shop in the jewish area I saw a poster that had 2 halfs, on one half there was a picture of the Mosque from above and it said before Gog(?) and then on the other half the Mosque was gone and there was a synagog in its place and it said after Gog(?) I don’t know what Gog is but I get the message, blow up the Mosque, surely whoever made that poster must understand why the Palestinians want the Jews out of Israel, they want what was once theirs.

Some guady things in Jerusalem, a great big neon sign stuck on these ancient walls going on about how Jerusalem has been Israels for 40 years. And a Holy Bagel shop

Whilst we were walking around in the old city a tooled up security guard stopped me and asked to see my passport, I said I didn’t have it with me and he radioed into his radio that I don’t have a passport! Someone had told him to stop me! I think it was because I was mouthing off a lot about some things I had seen, one being the poster advocating the destruction of the Golden Mosque, and another thing I saw, which was a T-shirt that said “Israel- Uzi Does It” and it had a picture of the Israeli flag and a couple of Uzi sub machine guns underneath it, making out that Israel was proud of itself for having lots of guns. So yeah this kinda pissed me off, and I made no effort to keep my mouth shut about how disgusted I was, Im guessing this was why I got stopped. Anyway, they searched me and Lee and Kaye who I was with then as well. The guy did a real good search of everything, went into all the little nooks and crannies in our bags, I think just to piss us off really, no other reason. Maybe it was paranoia though.

We took a wander over to the Christian area, wandered into a nice looking church and saw lots of monks in robes. We sat down to have a rest, I crossed my legs and a guy appeared out of nowhere and told me to uncross my legs and take my hat off, If I was in a synagog I would have to wear a hat! Dunno about my legs being crossed in one though. Anyway, I looked up and took that first picture, the roof of the church. Theres some glow in the dark Marys……….mmmm nice.

Heres some strange grafiti I saw, its some chemical structures of something or other, anyone know what they are? I know I should have some idea of what they are but I don’t, although I do know water and thats there, you see it? The long one with just carbon (C) is missing a lot of bonds, there should be 4 bonds on each carbon. 10 points to anyone that can gimmie some more info.

This is from a village kinda near to Jerusalem where me and Lee went to stay, one of Lee’s friends lived there. It was a village in the middle of nowhere really, in the middle of the desert close to the Jordan border. The village follows the pattern of many of the villages i’ve been to in Israel, which is a cluster of buildings with a fence around them and a security guard at the entrance. The Israelis are a paranoid people.

And thats it for Jerusalem really, it felt a bit like a religious theme park, so much touristy crap, and so many tourists, which is what i was! It did have a lot of beauty though. It also provoked me quite a bit, what with that poster and the uzi t-shirt, more and more Israel was getting to me. I found it harder and harder to discuss the history of Israel, yet I was face with the history everywhere. There’s so much paranoia and death in the country, so much racism from both sides. I came to the conclusion that it would be better if Israel was never created, which makes me an anti-zionist. If I’d tell Israeli people that I think things would be better if Israel was never created they would say that it had to be because of the holocaust, they had to have their own place so the holocaust didn’t happen again, and the Jewish people need a place to go, which is bullshit, I have Jewish friends in England living quite peacefully, and there are many Jewish people in America living very affluently and peacefully. I would also hear the argument that Jewish people need a country as there is no country that is predominantly Jewish, but a country should never be linked with a religion, Thomas Jeferson said this on the Declaration of Independance, something like “Thou shalt not mix state and religion” which America have done now anyway. I do know that its too late now for Israel to forget itself, its there now, and its there to stay, the Palestinians need to realise this and accept their fate, Israel needs to accept that the Palestinians need more than they have now, and Israel needs to show them more respect and treat them better. Gaza has been called the largest prison in the world, the Israeli army shoot wildly into the country from their watch towers on the border, this type of action generated hatred among the people that live there. The Palestinians fire rockets over the border into Israel which also generates hatred from the Israelis, the Israeli people only get told one side of the story which makes them side with the government. America backs Israel siding with them because of the simple fact that they are the enemies of America’s enemies, America then in a way has a base in the middle east. I think America is to blame for whats going down in Israel, and the Israeli people are unwitting pawns. I got sick of reading and thinking about it all eventually, speaking to many people in Israel made me see how it wont change anytime soon, there’s going to be a lot more death before it gets better. That turned out to be a bit of a soapbox moment didn’t it, it really did provoke me though. Anyway in the words of Tom Waits “Maybe God himself is lost and needs help, maybe God is lost and he needs all of our help”