Wow! Has today been incredible! Ive had frequent headaches trying to take everything in! There’s just so much to this place, it’s mind blowing. Firstly we started with an Israeli Settler. She was lovely, told us about all her history of her family coming to Isreal from England, practically talking about the life she now lives in over here.
I never knew this but Israeli’s are forbidden to go to Palestine. At all of the check points it has a massive signs telling them they cannot come past the wall. This lady got bombarded with questions from us all asking what she thinks about the Palestinian/ Israeli situation, and the feel we got from her was negative towards them. I’ll talk more about her shortly..
After listening to this lady we all got on the bus and went to the city of David..This is an ancient city only recently discovered.. In the Bible it states that King David was buried elsewhere and that his land was in a complete different place. Then only recently In 2007 a Brit came over to try to unfold more of its mystery’s and uncovered a great deal of what the people now call the real city. I took many pictures and records as I found it fascinating. How so many people were coming to visit a made up area of where they thought he lived. How It’s only just getting unfolded now..
The archaeologist expressed that there is so much more that is still to uncover, but with the current situation going on here at the moment not much is taking place..
As we were leaving to go to talk with the Palestinian lady that was going to talk to us about her life in a near by village, there was a stabbing. We drove past as it just happened.. it was by the Western Wall. A Muslim man attacking two Israeli military officers. Because of this attack the lady we were going to see said she couldn’t meet with us anymore and needed to be with her family.
We then drove into Ramallah to have lunch.. Here’s the thing, the Jewish settler lady that was the speaker from this morning, she came with us.
One of the tour guides insisted she is to see Palestine, although it’s forbidden, as you can even see in the pictures, she still came. Our guide said this is the problem… Israili’s are “forbidden to cross over” but there is nothing wrong with her going. The people want to be friends it’s the government that’s making these problems. He said he’s had plenty of Israeli friends come with him.
As we got to the check point we slowed down, the bus driver and both Palestinian and Israeli guides were worried as they don’t usually have to slow down and thought something was wrong. They usually just go straight through.. Both Jews had to go and hide at the back of the bus. The Palestinian military came onto the bus and looked around, then passed us through.
The Israeli Jew was so nervous!
We got to the restaurant for lunch and I could tell by her body language, this lady looked so uncomfortable. At one point she stood up and walked off with one of our guides.
I guess these Israeli’s are being told they cannot go to Palestine, that in this place they will get killed. You could see she was panicking but the Palestinian people couldn’t care less.
After lunch we went to talk to a high politician of Palestine. it was incredible. I managed to voice record everything from his speech. Many many details on this talk. He started off with going around the table asking us who we were and where we came from before starting his talk. The Jew said she was from London living in Jerusalem!!! He picked it up straight away and at the end, he sure had something to say about her! He said he doesn’t like her people, he ripped on the Jewish race. listen to the tape. I was speechless after hearing what he had to say. One thing he said that will stick with me was that he wants to live in the now, to move forward and stop living in the past. That the Jewish are always talking about the history and not moving forward. He wants to make peace. He wants a two state country. Apparently Puton in Russia invited this man and the Israeli government to Russia two weeks ago to try and make peace. Israel pulled out at the last minute.
There’s an incredible amount of political problems going on right now and Israel will not corporate.
After this brilliant speech/discussion, we went to see Arafats tomb.
It was heavily guarded! They were very strict and would not let us bring anything in other than a phone or camera to take a picture.
We then started driving back towards Jerusalem. The driver took us a really long way because we had the Jew on our bus. We went through a check point but they didn’t come in the bus so was all okay..
After getting off, this lady was very mind blown she said in her own words. She said she’s speechless . She has an hour drive to go home and now she’s going to reflect over what’s gone on today. She said her whole view of the situation has changed her mind. She said she wished every Jew could see they are not out to get them.
She’s going to email us all about her feelings. When she can describe it all better, what she’s going through.
Making our way into Palestine, looking at the inhuman wall I felt very depressed.How Israel can have such a lush way of living and can do what the please. To enter a place of darkness. Hearing Palestinians are currently not even allowed to build on there own land. Seeing such a derelict way of life because of the government. I can understand the hate towards Israel. I can see why these arabs are angry. They are fighting to keep the remaining land that the can call their home. I see so much tension and anger. If only more people around the world could see this.
My world in a diary 