We returned to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem this morning, for our final night in Israel. Late yesterday we drove to a forest beyond the Arab Quarter. There we cut down trees and built a bonfire beside a cave that was formerly a medieval burial site. The stone is still shaped to the bodies it once held.
Leaving, we were chased and stopped by the police. And on the brink of arrest, it was only when our driver produced an American passport that we were able to leave.
There is nothing revolutionary about commenting on the discrimination faced by the Arab community in the Israeli capital. Yet, having spent several days with Palestinians in the city and in the West Bank, passing checkpoints and refugee camps, mountaintop settlements and bands of marching teenage IDF soldiers. Nights and days listening to stories of families separated by The Wall, bloody military shootings of young escapees, Jerusalem taxes without Jerusalem services for those trapped on the side it is still illegal for Israeli citizens to cross into, I think perhaps my politics changed on this trip.
astrangerinyourmidst 