Last Act: Failing to Understand, Let Alone Solve

I learned to spell ‘Forgiveness’ in Hebron; a West Bank city where Palestinians, Settlers, and Soldiers clash – often violently - every few minutes.

Spray-painted in clear capital letters on cement blocks draped in barbed wire sealing an alley, or road, preventing passage between the Jewish settlement and Palestinian neighborhood. Forgiveness. Thick black letters offset by the sunburnt, dusty, colorless crumbling stone buildings. In english, almost as a compromise. A meet-me-halfway. Not in Arabic or Hebrew. A concession. A call for both sides to lower their weapons, and for the passersby, the tourists, the foreigners, to take heed of what is going on.

That image will never leave me. The word Forgiveness painted on nine or so cement blocks. Similarly, the sight of a colorful animated hop-scotch court touching a wall of these cement blocks and barbed wire, is burned, ingrained, tattooed somewhere deep inside me.

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I left Israel four weeks ago and began traveling around the Middle East. Fending off hawkers in Cairo, hitch-hiking between Hezbollah communities in southern Lebanon, sleeping under the sky on a shattered glass covered run-down roof in Amman, and splitting my time between a local family and IDF soldiers in Hebron. I found myself down and out when I was denied entry into Syria. I begged, pleaded, yelled, refused to leave, and was finally physically removed from the entry office. What a waste, I thought. I would now have to throw away more money and fly to Jordan. I decided to spend the week I would have given to Syria in the West Bank. I learned more during that single week, about the conflict and the Middle East, than I could have dreamed to learn during ten months in Yaffo.

I was detained while crossing from Jordan into Israel via the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge. It was foreseeable; my story was pretty ugly. Two and a half months ‘working’ in Israel, a new passport, Lebanese stamps, no cell phone numbers or places to stay in Israel. They detained the crap out of me. Hours and hours, four or five interviews, unpleasant questions about my beliefs, my family, my education and upbringing. I sat for four hours in an enclosed sitting area. Stiff metal connected seats, calmly, patiently, just waiting, not doubting for a second that I would get through.

There were 45 or so other people in the sitting area. Each woman was fully covered, many with only their eyes showing. Men were dark, many in religious attire, bearded. I sat down beside the only other white person there, a woman married to a Palestinian man and living in Bethlehem. She was flustered, tearing up, panicking, totally out of sorts off kilter uncomfortable freaking out. At first she just complained – moaning about being awake for 50 hours, not having eaten since the previous day’s lunch. My eyes traveled from her to the young girl sitting across from me, perhaps fourteen years old, beside her mother.

This girl had a backpack twice her size, her head was covered except for an innocent, full, smooth face, and was slightly hunched forward from the pack. She sat silently. Motionless. Never once complaining, getting upset, or even asking for food, water, or to use the bathroom.
I had seen her seven hours earlier (5:30am) at the Jordanian border in the exact same position. I can only imagine how ordinary this was for her. How normal it was to sit and wait. To be interrogated, to be held up, to be told to step out of line, fill out additional paperwork, and wait for further questioning.

I had no sympathy for the woman next to me. She began to cry. I asked her if she could imagine going through this every time she wanted to visit family, friends, to travel, even for work. She stopped crying for a moment, looked absently into my eyes, glanced at the girl, and continued to bawl. I moved to another section of the waiting area, disgusted. Weak. Get over yourself.

From the border I went south to Hebron. After shacking up in one of the two stupidly expensive hotels, I went out for dinner. I walked into a nearby restaurant, indicated that I was looking for dinner, and said (with phenomenal hand gestures) I wanted something BIG (hands fly out wide) and CHEAP (rubbing fingers to indicate money, then shaking my finger to illustrate I have none). Blank stare, no comprendo, the man must have thought I was crazy. A kid piped up behind me and in near perfect english told me to head around the corner for a great Shwarma. On the way he asked to hang out after I had finished eating. I was skeptical, as I am about every english-speaking local in the Middle East, but found I had little choice when the boy kept popping his head into the dive spot to make sure I was still there.

Tye was his name. An ‘activist’ to use his words. Well traveled, into making films, originally from Dubai, hates Hebron, and is dying to get a copy of the new Starcraft computer game. A friend of his was there too, Subeherr. Also spoke english, but not quite as well as Tye. Subeherr began smoking cigarettes and Nargilah when he was 13. With four sisters and stylish clothing he is all about the girls.

If Subeherr could go anywhere in the world it would be Jerusalem, then the United States.

A big futballer, Subeherr was slapping hands and kissing guys up and down Hebron’s main drag, while we walked sipping luke warm sodas.

That night they told be about life in Hebron. They go to an all boys school, are forbidden to look at let alone speak with girls, and find little to do except smoke cigarettes and walk up and down this street. They travel to Bethlehem after saving three weeks worth of allowance, where they can meet girls and go to a cinema.

Tye and Subeherr are terrified of Israeli soldiers, far more than local criminals. Both boys had multiple stories about horrific encounters with the IDF. Subeherr recalls a night a few months earlier when he was stopped and beaten by a soldier for walking on the wrong side of a street. Tye recalls stepping out of his father’s car, with his entire family, and watching two soldiers tare it to shreds looking for weapons and explosives.


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The next day Tye took me into Hebron’s old city, and toward the Jewish settlement. He wanted to get some footage for a film he was making about “how crazy the conflict is.”At one point he pulled me across the street to avoid two soldiers standing guard. He told me to watch out and stay clear of the soldiers. He was not able to give me much of a tour because he is Palestinian.

I spent four days in the old city and Jewish settlement. Two nights in a hotel and two nights in Tye’s home. He was scared of what his parents would think or do if they caught him bringing an American in to their home, so he had me sneak into his room. From a back alley, I climbed a ladder, crossed three roof tops, walked through an abandoned building, and crawled into Tye’s bedroom window. I would arrive late and leave early.

I became close with Yaron, an IDF commander in the settlement. I spent two six hour shifts with him, just sitting, talking, enjoying each others company. Long moments of silence, speaking softly, white broad smile behind a dark leathery face. He told me a few gut wrenching stories about his time in the army, and from before his service. In 2006, during the war with Lebanon, a rocket decimated his home. Luckily his family was out for the evening. Had they been home, Yaron would be without a mother, father, and four siblings.

At one point we heard over the radio that a rocket hit Sderot. It landed a few meters from his close friend’s home.

Yaron told me he fights because he is not sure that he will have a home tomorrow. He longs to get out of the army, after which he plans to work with children. He has one year left. I told him I would pray for a quiet year.

Yaron’s 17 day tour in Hebron is up on August 12, after which he will spend four days with his family in Haifa. I leave for my home on the 12th. He invited me for shabbos, and was very disappointed when I had to decline. He gave me one of his shirts as a parting gift. I have great respect for Yaron. A young man, 21 years old, who has seen so much, has endured and suffered and struggled through death and pain, but continues to smile. Continues to hope for a better tomorrow. Continues to laugh, to be open and caring, even with a complete stranger from the other side of the world.

I hope to see him again, perhaps in a different setting.

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I went to a demonstration outside a main gate entrance into the Jewish settlement. 60 or so foreigners, many Scandinavian, big cameras, Christian Peace Makers (fucing twisted ass activists wanna be peacemakers trouble causing close minded Americans who use their religion as an excuse and bring shame to the word Peace), signs, a few older male Arabs, one with a drum, and a donkey draped in an Israeli flag covered in red arabic. They screamed, chanted, beat the drum, all in the face of the IDF soldiers who were gathering outside the entrance. There was a fight. A man decked a soldier, taking him to the ground, rolling around. Immediately there was tear gas, screaming soldiers, and an armored vehicle roaring its engine. Kids went running into the old city.

A few minutes earlier Tye helped me speak to a small Arab boy. I asked, just as the demonstrators approached, if the boy was ever scared. He said “only when they shoot.”

I stood near the demonstration, but not close enough to be considered part of it. I didn’t agree with the objective, the method, the movement, none of it. When it began to disintegrate I caught up with the leader, a male Arab roughly 45 years old, and began arguing with him. He said the goal was to ‘tease’ the soldiers. I didn’t get it then, and don’t get it now. ‘Tease’ the soldiers.

And there I was. Jewish to get into the settlement and synagogue at Abraham’s burial, Christian to get into the Mosque and while I walked Hebron’s littered, lustful streets with covered women and angry boys. The synagogue and mosque are side by side, separated by bulletproof barriers and barred windows. The muslim side is quiet, a few men praying, carpeted, closed. The Jewish side is full of men women and children, a tour passes through, open to the sky, soldiers in the corners. I wonder if tours ever pass through the muslim side.

That to me was the conflict. Listening to Tye and Subeherr retell terrible stories of abuse and suffering at the hands of young IDF soldiers, while Yaron speaks of dead comrades and friends, losing his home and nearly his family. There is no good guy and bad guy in this conflict. No side in the right, and side in the wrong. Just immeasurable suffering. No end in sight. No peace, no coexistence, no resolution.


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The Hezbollah museum in southern Lebanon, Mileeta, has captions beneath artillery and beside bunkers which portray Israel as a terrorist state with bloodthirsty soldiers and fanatical leaders. It was clearly exaggerated, one sided, and favoring Hezbollah. Nevertheless, I found messages that used language in a similar distorted manner in the Jewish settlement. One sign read, “These buildings were constructed on land purchased by the Hebron Jewish community in 1807. This land was stolen by Arabs following the murder of 67 Hebron Jews in 1929. We demand Justice! Return our property to us!” A sign just a few meters away went into greater detail about the 1929 fighting, and said that the Arabs in “1929 suddenly launched a murderous terror assault…ghastly massacre [in which] 67 elderly, women, and children were tortured, raped, burned, and butchered.”

I did not take quotes from the Hezbollah museum, but both sides seem to be extremist, fanatical, manipulating, and of no benefit to those passing by or reading the messages.


I was reluctant to leave my new Palestinian crew, and found it more difficult to depart from Yaron. But I did, as we all do. I spent a few nights up north in Nablus. No soldiers, no cement blocks and barbed wire - just one side, just the Palestinians. I spent hours walking through the old city, run-down, dirty, narrow cobblestone passageways. Every door, window shutter, sign post, and flat surface is plastered with pictures of Arab fighters who have been killed in this conflict. I am dancing around the word Martyr. To the local population, the posters are of Martyrs. To others, perhaps murders. My father told me to choose my words carefully, but which do I choose? To Subeherr they are liberators, fighting for a better world. To Yaron, they are terrorists. To me they are victims. However you call them, the man with the M-16 or the boy with the AK-47 decked out in camouflage with a Palestinian-flag colored bandanna covering his nose and mouth, they are people who are now dead. A husband who has left his wife alone with her children. A son who has left parents to grow old alone. A brother who has left his siblings to fend for themselves. A future father who will not have children or a future politician who cannot advocate for better working conditions or a future shop keeper who cannot provide for a family or a future peace advocate, who will not help raise, rather than condition and indoctrinate the next generation.

A group of boys threw stones at me in Nablus. Perhaps they thought I was Jewish or recognized that I was a white foreigner, and therefore a supporter of Israel.


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A quick quote from my journal written while in Nablus –


“ Nas and Biggie as I sit in the hotel windowsill watching Nablus close down for the night. Family run barber shop across the street just closed, now the alley is dark. Cats. Older men pushing carts with leftover vegetables. Boys walking arm in arm. Minaret overlooking, offering its neon green blanket. Six gun shots. Cars obeying traffic signals. No soldiers or heavily armed guards like Hebron. Signs of Martyrs plastered all over old city walls. Kids with guns.
Now it’s A Tribe Called Quest while I dress an infected blister. Thinking about Yaron. Maybe he is on shift. Hopefully quiet. Orange street light fills my room. Fan, but doesn’t move the air. Sweat, walking or lying down. Never dry, never fresh. Two shekel falafel for dinner. Poverty, but people aren’t starving. Goodnight.”


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From the West Bank I crossed into Jerusalem. A city where extremist Jewish settlers can visit freely but innocent young teenagers like Tye and Subeherr will only dream about. I stayed at a hostel just inside the Jaffa Gate. I realized quickly that there is very little I like about the old city. I find it superficial, not pretty, not historic and only slightly interesting. However, there are one or two images that will stick with me.

Early morning and late night in the old city, boys pushing three wheeled carts with goods for their shop. Skinny, well dressed Arab boys. Heavy carts overflowing with vegetables or merchandise. Pushing pushing pushing these boys worked hard getting carts up and down stairs. I’ll never forget the dance they did to turn the cart.

The carts were makeshift and heavy, difficult to turn. Each time a boy wanted to turn the cart, even slightly to avoid a foot, post, or ditch, he would have to push, jump and land on one handle pressing all his weight to lift and pivot the front tire. A jump press wiggle shake and prrrressssss lean heavily on the left handle to push the cart slightly to the right. Every time he had to maneuver the cart, whether avoiding a tourist or swinging a 90 degree turn, you could catch this ritual dance. Ever two or three steps, the jump wiggle while laughing, calling out to men and boys on either side, yelling this and that, just doing his thing. If he needed to stop the cart, there was a tire dragging behind the cart attached by a chain that he would jump on while leaning back to slow, and eventually stop the cart. A very very very cool little act to watch.

Another image was the boys carrying tea on an elaborate sort of hanging tray. Whirling through crowds these boys would carry four six even eight cups of tea, swinging them around people and avoiding walls, all with perfect balance, delivering tea to elder men.


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And so it goes, another blog. Another attempt to capture thoughts, emotions, experiences, and fears with the right words. Not too many, not too few. Trying to include all of those powerful sights but failing miserably, to even begin to convey how I am feeling or what these past few weeks, months, have done to me. It’s so tough. I try to pour it out, to stay somewhat peaceful, diplomatic, to paint pictures that help you understand what I am going through, but it’s not easy. I guess that’s what makes a great writer.

I am ready to go home. I miss my family, my brothers, my parents. I miss my routine, the comforts of an easy life. I leave Israel far more confused than I arrived, with unanswerable questions, desires to see people I will never again meet, to explore the same rundown shacks and buildings that will be gone when or if I return. I do not know where I stand with Judaism. Do I let the man in Mea’Sharim, who screamed at me for not wearing a kippah calling me a terrible Jew and saying I do not belong in Israel, get to me and push me further away from Judaism. Or do I focus on Yaron who will pray tomorrow morning for peace, for security, for good health and accuracy if the moment arises. Who the fuck knows.

One thing is absolutely clear – This summer has been dynamic, frightening, eye opening, wild, delicious, wet, and mind blowing. I am a stronger healthier human being for doing what I did and seeing what I saw this summer.

I am not looking forward to the Middle East’s near future. I do, however, look forward to being a part of whatever that near future is, for better or for worse.

There is nothing better in this world than leaping outside of your comfort zone and drowning yourself in a different world. I did that this summer.

L’Chaim


SF