Moving Westward--Tahrir, Amman, and Arriving in Israel

I left Cairo on Thursday, but on Wednesday night after wandering Old Cairo and the long snaking area of the souk, we ended up at Tahrir Square, a place I had told Amy I absoultely had to visit. It was evening by the time we arrived there, and getting there by cab was a long drive (not by distance but by traffic). We drove through another market area where people spilled into the streets eating, drinking, ending their day by having a fresh mango juice, a lemonade with mint, or tea, and where could also hear the evening call to prayer. The cab driver dropped us a few blocks from Tahrir Square, and immediately one could feel the air of freedom. I'm serious. There was a kind of physical openness to the square, but also the idea that it was here that hundreds of thousands had gathered to beat back a forty year dictatorship that had literally dominated the streets, despite the large population of Cairenes. There were still police about (in their summer white uniforms) but apparently far fewer with guns. There were also a few barriers about, especially near the American embassy, and a few other key important embassies. Amy took me through the old campus of the Ameircan University in Cairo, where had to show our id and go through a metal detector. Eventually we ended up at one of the fancy hotels, where we deposited my postcards (Amy assured me that the postcards had a better chance if they started there). Tahrir was alive with energy. There were hundreds standing in teh square demonstrating, although it was not clear to Amy or what they were demonstrating about. People seemed to be calling for the arrest of more officials from the Mubarak government. There were Egyptian flags everywhere, as well as graffitti everywhere along the side streets that proclaimed, "Proud to Be Egyptian," "Hold Your Head High Egypt," "Freedom for Egypt." There were also merchants in the streets selling t-shirts and paraphenelia such as Egyptian flags. The tshirts read, "January 25, 2011-- Freedom for Egypt" or "Egyptian Revolution, January 25th 2011." The mood was festive for sure, even despite some tension in the air. There were signs of the military here and there, but Amy assured me that it was much less than before. It was, quite frankly, an exciting thing to be there, to feel the air of freedom all around me. It was not lost on me what happened there in those days and weeks, and, it seems, the Cairenes feel that they took their country back and can now hold their heads high. It isn't very often that one sees a revolution in one's life. It isn't very often that one can be close to the people who have made it happen. What lies ahead is still daunting for them. But seeing the Egyptian museum lit up and the Egyptian flag waving proudly over it, that was something.

I've been unable to access the internet due to my crappy new ipad that doesn't work so I'm now in a hotel in Tel Aviv using the lobby computer to write  few things before I've completely left Cairo behind and entered a different world here in Israel (and soon, later this morning) the West Bank where I'm hoping to meet with a Palestinian writer. I felt a sadness leaving Cairo yesterday afternoon. I had a wonderful time with my friend Amy--who I've always adored but have never spent that much time with. Being with a friend in  foreign country open veins of knowing and conversation about lives broken apart by pain can find their way up into your throat and eyes in a way they don't in everyday life. So, I was sad to be leaving and also expecting and anxious about this leg of my journey. For me, coming to Israel and Palestine is full of anticipation. Here I'll confront and find comfort in many things.

I am writing this blog entry retroactively now and want to keep the blog in some kind of chronological order. I arrived in Amman,Jordan on thursday afternoon and had a five hour layover in Jordan even though it is a short 45 minute flight from A Amman to Tel Aviv. The airport was a fascinating micro-representation of all that represents the many complex sides of this region. The airport was a mix of business travellers, Muslim pilgrims heading to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj (the muslim pilgrimage) and people heading to Israel from other destinations. Many of the Muslim pilgrims were dressed modestly with women in hijabs or scarves and many older men wearing a traditional white outfit that almost resembles a large white Bath towel (they were not wearing any shirts). Making the hajj is one of the most important thnings a Muslim can do to both fulfill their obligations as a muslim, but it isnot cheap. People save their whole ljves to go there; this particular group was from Turkey. There were many more older men and women and a few younger people who were clearly helping them. There was also a several people wiTh small chikdRen including a woman dressed in a niqab and wearing high heels. Sitting across from me were two Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka dosed in deep burgundy robes (also with no shirts) who were on their way to Jerusalem to give aa two day seminar on Buddhism. One of them was quite friendly with me and invited me to come to Sri Lanka. By the time I arrived in tel aviv it was nearly 11 pm. I was very nervous about being questioned at the airport because of my Arab sounding name and a because I had just come from Egypt. I had decided not to tell them anything about going to east Jerusalem or Palestine and I told them I was traveling as a tourist. The Israeli passport control asked me where my parents were born and asked me to confirm their names. I had expected to be questioned based on the experiences I heard from several of last year's participants who were interrogated for several hours as well as Hasmig's experience (our son Kyle's teacher who accompanied my husband and 13 of our son's classmates to israel and Palestine in march of this year. I did not tell the israelis passport control at the airport that I was going to Palestine.

Where to begin? I arrived in tel aviv on Thursday night at 11pm. I found a cab at the airport and as soon as I got in a jovial Israeli cab driver welcomed me. The radio was turned upload and the commentary on the radio was about Obama's recent speech in which he addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although I had nit heard the whole speech I gsthered the gist of it that Obama was calling for pre-1967 boundaries. Clearly, the cab driver was not happy about that and without assumption, he said rather dismissively "pew 0bama.". I did not want to engage with him both because I was tired and because I knew I already disagreed with him. He took me to my hotel and I found my way into the hotel room and decided to go out for a falafel on the same street. I had to get cash and so walked to a bank nearby. But the ATM machine ate my card! So I immediately had to withdraw money on my credit card! I went to a falafel stand near the hotel. Waiting in line was an Israeli police woman! I knew by the look of the man behind the counter that he was palestinian. I also heard him speaking Arabic twosome older Palestinians sitting outside in front. He asked me wherein was from and I told him USA. He said "i like americans, where are you from?" to simplify things, I pretty much tell people I am from San francisco. He said he would like to go there, but since 9/11 he hasnt been able to get a visa. I told him that I knew it was hard for Arabs, but especially Palestinians. He asked me if I just arrived from America and I said no, that I had just been in Cairo, Egypt, and told him what an exciting time it had been for me to be there. He immediately commented in a negative tone, "yes, but those Egyptians, they are so uneducated, they don't know how to manage things and they have too many children." Right away I for the sense of how some see Egypt as the inferior African Arab brothern and I surmised that he was a Christian. I asked him outright and he confirmed it.

The next morning I woke up early to catch a cab to the Tel Aviv bus station so I could take a bus to Jerusalem where I would meet with the faculty seminar with which I would be spending the next ten days ( a group of ten U.S.-based academics who were selected by the Palestinian American Research Center to participate in an academic seminar to learn more about situation of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation). Although we would be based in Israel, we would be travelling throughout the country to learn more about the occupation and the situation of the Palestinian territories under Israeli military occupation.
The bus ride to Tel Aviv was scarey to me. I sat on a bus that held more than 20 Israeli soldiers (all under the age of 22) who were in uniform and most of whom carried guns. The sheer militarization of Israeli society (in big cities particularly) is something to behold. You can't help be struck by it, and you can't help, or at least I can't, notice that this is a sign of something larger and more insidious. I can't say it any other way.

As soon as I arrived in Jerusalem, I understood why. At the bus station, I was greeted by a man who asked me if I needed a cab. Yes, I told him. He started to reach for my bag, when another man, intercepted him and tried to take the cab fare. They began speaking in Hebrew and the first man who greeted me asked, "where are you going?" I told him, Sultan Suleiman Street, the Golden Walls Hotel. The second man spoke back to him and looked puzzled. The first man then stated, "You're going to East Jerusalem?" I told him yes. He walked me to his car, and as I got into the back seat, he told me, "that man wanted to take my fare, but as soon as he found out you were going to East Jerusalem, he said he wouldn't go there, that the Arabs were too scary." I knew immediately he was Palestinian. I asked him a few questions, and he told me that many Israeli Jewish cab drivers won't take people to East Jerusalem because they're scared or because they think they'll be killed. "Is that true?" I asked somewhat naively. "Of course not," he said gently. But you have to know that that is what they are told to believe, what they want to belive." I began to ask him about himself. He told me that he was born and raised in Jerusalem but that his family lost his home in 1948 and that he now lived outside the city. He took me on a spontaneous tour of the areas on the way to East Jerusalem and told me what happened here in 1967 when the Israelis occupied the city including East Jerusalem and transformed the city he knew. He pointed out where the YMCA had formally been (a place he had worked until 1967) and what was now a hotel, and several other buildings that had been confiscated by the Israeli army and had now become a police station. It was, needless to say, the beginning of my tour of Israel and Palestine.