My Proportionate Response

It’s hard to know what to write these days, but I’ll try to draw a picture of the mood of Jerusalem as I’ve been experiencing it.

The general feeling is that Jerusalem is still a safe place to be, likely out of rocket range and ethnically mixed enough to deter anyone from bombing, should any stray missiles land a bit off target. But there’s a definite tension in the streets downtown, and a walk through East Jerusalem any day of the week attests to the fact that things aren’t as they were a few weeks ago. Increased military and police presence, rumors of suicide bombers and a greater lockdown on the Arab parts of town have put an uneasiness in the air. The international and local communities are frustrated and angry with the U.S. government for its refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza or Lebanon. In certain shops downtown I’m greeted with a coolness I’ve rarely experienced from the friendly Palestinian shopkeepers, although a larger number have told me how much they appreciate the presence of internationals here and just wish the rest of America would open its eyes to the realities in this region.

Last week I was twice caught in the heightened security when the Israeli police shut the gates of the Old City, something I’d never seen before and didn’t realize was possible. Damascus Gate, the huge archway and main entrance into the Old City from East Jerusalem, was shut tight with massive doors that are normally hidden against the walls. Leaving the Old City on Friday night I was caught inside for about ten minutes, and Monay afternoon I was stuck outside for twenty as the size and impatience of the Palestinian crowd grew. A few Orthodox Jews would push their way through the crowd and the doors would part slightly, the soldiers allowing Israelis to pass through, while pushing back the Arab men, women and children who also tried to slip through and go about their business.


Stuck inside.


Stuck outside.


“All this racial discrimination is exhausting. I need a cigarette!”


The doors part.


This evening I took a bus downtown, normally a five-minute trip. It was closer to twenty due to the closure of the main road leading from the Mount of Olives to the Old City. Security forces were lining the streets, barricades set up at every major intersection. All traffic was diverted to circuitous routes through neighborhoods, clogging the narrow streets and filling the air with futile honking. I eventually made it down to the main road near the bus station, and the police and soldiers were even thicker down there. I arrived just in time to see soldiers grab three young Palestinian men in headlocks, then drag them along the sidewalk to the post office where they pushed them up a staircase and into a hallway not visible from the street. The soldiers who followed them were pulling out their battery sticks as they entered the hallway, and the female soldiers who had been in the hall were sent out to the street. The observing crowd was milling and huddling and watching the drama and being pushed and told to move on by the soldiers and police.

I managed to get one hurried, blurred photo as the last of the men was pushed up the stairs. After a few minutes a couple of the soldiers came out of the hallway and exchanged high-fives with their comrades, laughing and jostling each other. One of the female soldiers was wiping away a few tears.

I received an email this week showing a photo of young Israeli girls, about twelve years old, writing “To Lebanon with Love” on the side of rockets that the air force would later fire on targets in the south of Lebanon. I thought of this as I watched these soldiers high-five-ing each other after (presumably) beating the crap out of some unarmed Palestinian men. In this militarized society, the people inflicting the violence are being just as damaged as those receiving the violence, I feel. No one over here should have to live as they do.


Despite the tension and unrest in the city, people go about their business as best they can. It’s a survival mechanism, and a good one. I don’t want to give a disproportionate (word of the week) account of the good and the bad, so on a lighter note, here’s what else I’ve been doing besides playing photojournalist.


Going to concerts at the pretty Mormon Center for Jerusalem Studies (this is Julie in the gardens)


Celebrating Julie’s birthday with a trip to the Dead Sea for an evening picnic and a salty float


Chillin’ in Ramallah with the lovely Lina


Photo-stalking the unsuspecting devout in the Holy Sepulcher


Wandering Jerusalem in search of the totally random, which is never difficult to find

Thank you all for your concern, thoughts and prayers. The UN security chief in Jerusalem has been out playing volleyball with us these past few weeks. He’s a smart man with a strong serve, and I figure as long as he’s out scoring aces every Wednesday night things can’t be too dangerous here.

Hum-drums of War

A political rant, if I may, concerning the recent violence in Gaza and at the Israel-Lebanon border:

I was in the office this afternoon, furtively Xeroxing page after page of a massive Arabic textbook, when Alex the accountant walked in and stated, rather matter-of-factly, “We’re at war.” Normally I would try to hide the fact that I was a) not working, and b) blatantly breaking the law, but this was big news. Copyright be damned—we’re at war!

The sick thrill of disaster wore off quickly once I read the online news updates, though. Technically, we’re not at war, at least not yet. An Israeli minister of something was quoted as saying (roughly) “Their actions are an aggressive act of war.” He was talking about Hezbollah militants kidnapping two soldiers at the Israel-Lebanon border, and he followed up his statement with the always-popular promise of escalated violence and a refusal to be diplomatic or rational in response.

The drama of violence and terror doesn’t seem so dramatic after a while when it’s a daily occurrence here. My high school psychology teacher taught me about the reticular activating system, the brain’s mechanism that tells you “Stop paying attention to the feeling of your Birkenstocks on your feet.” When there is a constant continuation of the same stimulus, the brain learns to focus on other things, things that change, things that vary.

So to hear that an Arab militant group has committed a violent act and the Israeli Defense Forces are responding without restrain doesn’t surprise me anymore. Let me rifle through my bag for a minute (and get a glass of orange juice while I’m near the kitchen) and pull out this report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It discusses the firing of Qassam rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. I know it’s been on the news and I know it’s a terrible thing, but so are the numbers in this report, which haven’t been as highly publicized. Between January 1 and June 20 of this year, 896 “homemade Palestinian rockets” have been fired into Israel. In retaliation, Israeli Defense Forces have fired 8,380 artillery shells into Gaza, and the Israeli Air Force has conducted 142 missile strikes. This is a ten-to-one ratio, and these are expensive, engineered rockets compared to the shop class Frankensteins that the Gazans are Duct taping together. (The fatality numbers also reflect the disparity.)

I still consider myself a pacifist and I still support all the organizations working over here that conduct non-violence trainings for Palestinian youth and adults. But the stories in the newspaper don’t ever seem to change, and I can’t figure out why no one makes the Israeli policy-makers take part in non-violence trainings. Palestinians aren’t allowed to form an army and they’re not allowed to own guns, yet Palestinian civilians are killed on a daily basis with none of the publicity that Israel receives when its citizens are the victims of a suicide bomber. Civilian killings seem to be okay if they’re committed by someone in a government-issued uniform.

The longer I’m over here the more convinced I am that it will decades if not centuries before an actual peace will be brokered. One side attacks and makes a demand. And rather than conceding, even when the lives of civilians and hostages are at stake, the other side just ups the ante and kills more people or arrests the government or does whatever they feel they need to do in order to look like the stronger side. We all know which is the stronger side—the death counts and the national economies attest to that. What this conflict needs is a side that gets bored after a while and tries something new, like trying.



One of the two trade school’s that our organization runs had their graduation ceremony last week. Twenty-four of the 88 graduates weren’t able to get through the Separation Wall and checkpoints to attend the ceremony. Their robes were laid on their chairs to symbolize their absence.


This is the valedictorian of sorts, a telecommunications graduate, who made the student speech. The girl peeking from behind the flag had a smattering of bruises around her eyes and nose. I feel like this photo is deeply layered with symbolism.

Contest Winner No. 14

One of my more fun purchases of the past year was this book

Everything That Rises by Lawrence Weschler, an art-historical romp delving into uncanny similarities that pop up among works of art, pop culture, advertising, etc. The book was published by the (often humorous) creative writing publishing house McSweeney's Press, which also hosted a fun little online convergences contest for the masses, of which I was chosen as “Contest Winner No. 14” for my own little riff on a found triptych. Here’s the link to my entry, followed by a spiraling cobweb of connections by Weschler himself. (With a dollop of art world blasphemy to top it off.) For an explanation of the contest you can read this.

EasyEasy

Anton, the head maintenance guy, had a big task ahead of him: painting the entirety of the guesthouse’s common kitchen/living room in just one day. He was in the office that morning, talking to our receptionist Suad about how it couldn’t be done. Eager, as always, for something away from my desk, I offered my services to Anton, who looked me up and down, then whispered to Suad in Arabic “How do I know if she’s any good?”

I spent the summer following high school graduation painting faux stone onto the walls of foyers in northern Virginia mini mansions, and I promised Anton I wouldn’t mess up the project. I even know how to spackle! So I changed into some ratty clothes and a bandana and showed up at the guesthouse at our appointed meeting time. Anton showed up 30 minutes later and we got to work scraping off peeling and mildewed paint, then moving along the walls, me painting what I could reach from the floor and Anton scooting the ladder around to top off between my work and the ceiling. We got about 30 minutes into the job before Anton called for a coffee break. I said I’d keep going, which Anton thought was an awful idea. “Easy easy, Margit. You work too much, get tired.” So I let him pour me a cup of juice before he headed outside for a slow cig and a mug of Nescafe. Another 30 minutes of work, and it was time for another break. “Shwai shwai, slowly slowly. Tomorrow, your arm it hurts. Must rest.” After every return from every break Anton would marvel at my progress, my strength, my precision, and the fact that I was a much better worker than his assistant. “Anything need paint? I call you. Big boss,” he said. (I’m also the Big Boss on toilet repairs, another project I tagged along on a while ago.) The third coffee break was followed, about 15 minutes later, by lunch break. We agreed at that point that I would do the rest of the first coat and he would come back for the second.

Such skill! Such speed! Anton was amazed to find my part done when he returned an hour or two later. “You? Ly grambo,” he said. “Grambo? I don’t know that word.” “Not Arabic, English,” said Anton. “Rambo. You. Like Rambo.” Now he flexes a bicep every time I pass him on the campus.



There’s been a fantastic free concert series around Jerusalem, two weeks of chamber music by top-notch musicians in locations all around the city. Lots of fledgling musicians are doing camps with the musicians and then their own little recital at the end. This concert was at the Austrian Hospice. The boy at the window I think is one of the young cellists, watching a Canadian grandmaster on the piano.