SPAM!

Ok everyone, I'm afraid i'm going to have to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a minute to introduce you all to the glorious creation that is www.spam.com. I discovered this quite by accident earlier today (I actually have no idea what link I ran into where, now that I think about it), but visiting this site puts a warm glow in my heart. Everyone needs to see in particular the SPAMMOBILE and the SPAM FAQ. Then imagine me grinning like an idiot and doing a little happy dance in my head. I knew SPAM was brilliant after seeing a can with the word "Spamtabulous" on it, but this really takes the cake. I may be forced to buy a T-shirt or something. (In the interests of full disclosure, I should admit I've tried SPAM once, and thought it was pretty decent. It has a little bit of an odd smell, but it tastes decently good. I imagine that when fried it probably improves on both fronts).

Ok, now that that is out of my system, I'll just "quickly" (I'm sure this is going to end up being quite long) report that I am now safely back in Cairo after a marathon bus ride Sunday night. We got back here around noon Monday, after which I basically crashed/vegetated for the afternoon and slept the whole night. I'm feeling a little off today still (partially I think because I've been a bit sick for a while now, and partially from all the travelling), but overall things are going well. I've realized I've got a lot more homework than I thought, which is unfortunate, but should still be manageable if I work at it pretty consistently.

Before I go, I'll just quickly tell you all a little more about Jerusalem. My last post was on Friday (well, technically Saturday but it was just shortly after midnight), when I told you a bit about the Old City. We continued our explorations on Saturday, spending a fair amount of time shopping (among other things, I managed to bargain a 53% price reduction on a gigantic Israeli flag for my collection back home) and enjoying the wonderful atmosphere. We tried to see the Dome of the Rock again (but were sadly unsuccesful - they keep odd hours and close often I think partly as a deterrent to tourists, though I can't actually know that. We never did make it onto the Temple Mount, though, despite our persistence). One huge highlight as far as I was concerned was a long walk down the battlements of the city. As I said before, the walls are basically intact (though apparently mostly of Ottoman rather than Medeival construction). The view of the city is pretty good, and I of course geeked out because I was walking on the walls of Jerusalem. I'm sure all of you can imagine me marching (since of course one does not simply walk when atop a wall) from crenelation to crenalation, humming and imagining that all the buildings on Mount Zion were actually beseiging Crusader tents, arrayed before the final assault on the walls.

Anyway, my geekyness aside, as afternoon approached, we realized we'd seen just about everything there was to see in the city, and so resolved to go to Bethlehem for our next foray. As some of you may be aware, Bethlehem (بيت لحم , or Bayt Lahm, literally, house of meat) is actually in the West Bank, despite its short physical distance from Jerusalem. It was with some trepidation therefore that we set out for the border. A short (but incredibly expensive, since all taxis in Israel are disgustingly, criminally expensive) taxi ride later brought us to The Wall. I say "The Wall" in capital letters because it really is one hell of a wall. In the west we hear about a border fence or a barrier being constructed around the West Bank, but pictures don't really do justice to the substantiality of the thing. It's some 30 feet high, 1 and a half feet thick, and made entirely of reinforced concrete. There are towers set into the wall roughly every 200 meters (I'm really just guessing on that part, and I imagine there are fewer towers away from Jerusalem) and barbed wire is coiled along its entire length. The gateway itself is tightly controlled and automobile access in particular is regulated by means of a huge steel door across the roadway. For pedestrians, you go through a fairly large processing facility before finally reaching the gateway itself to cross the barrier. The facility is very obviously built to control explosions, with reinforced concrete and bullet-proof glass throughout and specialized turns in the passages meant to protect civilians in the unfortunate case where a suicide bomber tries to take out the metal detectors. Naturally, entering the West Bank was very easy, and we quickly made it through to the other side.

Once across the wall, the Bethlehem area turned out to be fairly nice. A little dusty, but otherwise calm. I didn't really expect anything different, because we were so close to the border, we were in a tourist area, and there's no mixing of cultures to provide tension. Ironically, part of that is probably thanks to the wall itself (Palestinian protests to the contrary). It is also true that even the most violent areas of the world (and I'm not saying that the West Bank is one of them) are typically mostly quiet with occasional outbursts of violence. Iraqis, for example, still have to go out and shop, and eat and interact on a daily basis, no matter how many suicide bombs go off or how violent the civil war becomes. This truth also explains why statements like John McCain's "I was totally safe walking the streets while visiting Baghdad" are ridiculous and also meaningless - the streets are perfectly safe up until the point at which someone starts shooting. When conservatives tell you there is no civil war going on, they are imagining conventional warfare, which doesn't translate to reality very well. Civil war doesn't look like the traditional blasted hellscapes you see from World War I or II - it is a state of unregulated and irregular violence that punctures the normal rythyms of life. I like to joke that that the Administration is waiting for the sides to start wearing blue and gray before admitting reality; in some ways though, its not really a joke, because that is sort of the picture they want to paint about civil war.

Anyway, enough about violence. Our trip included nothing of the sort. We picked up a new taxi shortly after crossing the border, and took it into the city. Our driver was very nice and also a pleasure to talk to, as Palestinian arabic is much closer to the standard arabic we've all studied for so long (its nice to know our textbook is good for something after all - you wouldn't know from hanging out in Cairo). He also spoke excellent english, which compensated for our collective poor understanding of arabic. On our way to the Church of the Nativity, he showed us where the Shepherds' field (yes, those shepherds) and the Milky Grotto (where apparently Mary breast fed Jesus) were, though we decided not to trek over to either. The church itself seems to be positioned right in the downtown, and appears to be a comination of several structures into one semi-monastic complex. Like with the Church of the Sepulcher, the church is divided along Eastern Orthodox and Latin lines, and also like the Church of the Sepulcher, much of it is in bad repair. Visiting the Church of the Nativity though helped me to understand why this was the case. Both structures are very old, and so the original mosaics and forms are badly damaged (what can still be seen, though, is absolutely stunning - the mosaics are technical masterpieces and also appear to use a whole heck of a lot of gold). Its not so much that the churches are in bad repair as there's no way to replicate or otherwise do justice to the old, mostly lost artistry. The decision seems to have been to do all repairs in a minimalist style so as not to detract from what remains. The blank walls are thus not a sign of poor maintenance, but rather bear mute testimony to the tragic toll of years.

After touring the Church, we of course did the requisite souvenier buying before heading back to the Wall. Bethlehem's residents are very Arab in disposition, and bargaining there is very similar to bargaining in Egypt. Prices are also dramatically lower for non-touristy items (relative to Jerusalem), which again strongly resembles Egypt. The few people we met were decently friendly, but what little I saw of the Palestinian security forces didn't impress me (admittedly were weren't there long, but I saw a fair amount of sitting/not being present and not a lot of attention or care, and I'm comparing to the Egyptian standard, where things are peaceful). Back at the Wall, incoming security was much tighter than it was on the outbound trip, but not terribly so. Clearly the route is fairly well used by tourists and religious pilgrims, though traffic when we were crossing was very light. Other than the obvious security measures, it was not unlike customs at any other border.

After Bethlehem, our evening was fairly easy. We did a little more touring (this time in the New City, which I imagine is a far more happening place when holidays haven't closed everything - I'm not going to launch into Israeli politics here, but lets just say that the orthodox religious parties of the Knesset have far too much power, ergo, everything including public transportation shuts down early or entirely around the end of Passover, like the beginning), and then retired to our new sleeping arrangements. Saving ourselves from the couches of the New Palm Hostel, we were able to secure a room for a night at the Mount of Olives Hotel, on the mount of the same name. Though at $25 per person, it wasn't exactly a 5 star accomodation, all of us were incredibly happy to see proper beds. Unfortunately, that meant that yours truly slept a little too deeply and so missed the Sunday services that we had planned to go to. I made up for it sort of by going to the Church of St. Anne and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but I sadly didn't get to be a part of an organized service (though I observed part of an Orthodox ceremony that made no sense at all - a lot of pacing and a little bit of chanting by the priests and patriarch, no clear organization and no participation by the congregation. I can't even pretend to know what they were up to, and I watched like an hour of it before giving up and going to pray at the Sepulcher itself).

Anyway, after the religious part of the day, we spent a goodly amount of time walking around the new city (without seeing a whole lot of interest), before returning to the hotel. Our minibus picked us up at 11:30 pm (as I mentioned before) and we came back to Cairo. On the whole, I'm pretty happy I'm back, though I had an awesome time with everything.

Before I bring this to a close, I just want to quickly clarify some stuff about what I was talking about re: the West Bank/the Wall. I don't want to be misinterpreted as seeming to be anti-Israel or anti-Palestinian, both of which positions I can imagine people getting from the observations I made. I've done a fair amount of thinking about how I feel about the Wall (and about Israel/Palestine more generally, which I'm not about to get into here) and I think the place I come down at is reluctant support for it. Fundamentally, I don't like the Wall and what it represents as a physical manifestation of the division between two peoples. At the same time, I recognize why the Israelis have built/are building it. After years of effort and countless tries at negotiation and peace, including Sharon's bold pullout from the Gaza strip, Israel has been unable to effect a settlement with the Palestinians. Part of this is the fault of the Israelis, to be sure (again, i'm trying really hard not to launch into a whole debate about the broader questions, so you're just going to have to accept that at face value), but I think that also a very large part of the problem lies with the Palestinians. Frankly, they haven't really ever had their act together and/or started behaving like a responsible state/entity. Even with Abbas (who I have a ton of respect for and definitely think is a huge improvement over Arafat, who again i'm not going to get into), the Palestinians have been plagued by internal divisions and infighting (Hamas and Fatah is just the latest version of the same tired meme). Even were the Palestinians to make a deal with Israel, like in the many interim deals of the past, the Palestinians can't be trusted to keep their groups under control long enough to translate words into action. Inevitably, someone goes and blows something up in retaliation for something or other (I'm not getting into whether any given retaliation was justified, so don't start), and things are back to square one. Looking entirely from Israel's perspective as a state for a moment, the Palestinians are unreliable and also dangerous. The Wall represents Israel's answer to those years of danger. Shutting off the West Bank and Gaza behind concrete barriers is a sort of capitulation - giving up on cooperative solutions, giving up hope at least for the short term. After so many years of pain and frustration, Israel is trying to disengage itself from the conflict. It just doesn't want to be involved anymore. It's a cynical response and it's a sad response in many ways. It definitely isn't the ideal solution or even really a good compromise/attempt at a solution. It is, however, a solution. Since the Wall has gone up, violence in Israel related to Palestine has dropped dramatically. When the Wall is complete, most of the danger to Israel will likely go with it. Of course, Israel also loses a lot because of the wall (the losses to the Palestinians I think are very evident), too, most notably the potential benefits of continued engagement with their neighbors.

Now, I'm an optimist, so I don't think the Wall represents the sort of gloom and doom most people think of it as. It is certainly an abandonment of faith in the best alternative futures, and is in many ways a cop out as opposed to a true solution. Rather than seeing the Wall as a hot knife driven into the wounds of both Israel and Palestine, I think it may have some potential as a scab which might help wounds to heal. Both sides will have the opportunity to solve their own problems before returning to the negotiating table (I think actually this is part of the Israelis' plan: get the Palestinians to fight it out with eachother and resolve their own problems before Israel has to deal with them - there's a cynical spin to that, but I prefer the more optimistic one). In some ways, this will increase the pressure on Israel not to interfere in Palestinian affairs, because with the Wall, any such interference will be readily seen as unjust and uncaused. Without such interference, the pressure will also be on the Palestinians to organize their affairs and become more of a nation and less of a cluster___ of competing interests. Here's hoping.