Pussycat love and opinions in Israel

So yes, Jerusalem felt like it wanted to hate me. But I still fell head-over-heels in love in the city.

I suspect he was a male. He had clean teeth, big feet, and the sort of insightful eyes that see right into your thoughts. I passed him on a thin street behind some big important church or other.

“You feel like this whole city wants to fight, don’t you?” He asked me as I walked past.

“Yes! And that troubles me. It doesn’t seem like a healthy way to live.”

“It’s not, but you have to understand, there has been so much suffering here, so much tension, in both history and living memory, that everyone carries the scars of memory and fear. The spirit has trouble thriving in that environment, but it’s possible.”

“Do all cats know this?” I was curious.

“Of course. We’ve transcended it though; have you ever heard of cats seeking genocide against dogs? No.”

“But dogs have never denied cats’ right to exist.” I thought I had a winner point there.

“No, but nor has anyone in their right mind ever claimed Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. Sure, it’s in some papers and some rants, but does any rational person actually believe that?”

“Well, no. And personally I’ve only ever encountered the idea from pro-Israelis who were shouting that it wasn’t true.”

“Exactly,” purred my love, “because only extremist nutjobs would say it in the first place, and you don’t talk to many extremist nutjobs. Know why? Because if you respond to the extremists all the time, let them shape the dialogue, then you tend to become an extremist too.”

“Kinda like a violent/homicidal version of the Tea Party?”

“Exactly,” his eyes squinted shut in feline pleasure that I saw his point. “Your country argues about whether or not to pay its bills while everything goes to shit, because you listen to a group of people whose platform is defined by the rejection of rational thought. Climate change deniers have no place in governance.”

I agreed with that statement so completely that I had to spend another few minutes scratching under his chin.

“But what about all those people who hate Israel?” I asked, concerned for the fate of a nation.

“Sure, there are some who hate Israel, as we talked about, but hell, there are probably some who hate Canada too, and those syrup-sippers are almost as loveable as I am. But what are the statements that you hear depicted as anti-Israel?”

“Well, people who talk only about the approximately 1,416 civilians* who have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, versus the 3 Israelis killed by rockets, one of which died of a heart attack. And then what’s worse, don’t talk about the violence of something like ISIS!” I was passionate.

*Based on this article’s stats of casualties and civilian percentage

“Dude. Here’s the math. If the number of Israeli civilians killed is X, and the number of Palestinian civilians killed is Y, and the number of UN Workers or any other group killed is Z, then if (X + Y + Z) > 0 then it’s too damn high. Killing anyone? Bad. Those three Israeli civilians killed: awful, shouldn’t have happened. Those 1,416 Palestinian civilians killed, and the fact that we have to estimate since aerial bombardment is so indiscriminate…Awful.”

I couldn’t deny his math.

“And about the ISIS thing? Have you watched the news? Good news? They’re talking about that too. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. And rightly so. If you think no one is talking about how wrong those executions are, then you’re only listening to the voices you find most offensive, which is basically the same mistake as listening only to the extremists.”

Three nuns walked past and smiled at my clear love of this feline sage.

“But all these criticisms of Israel are just more of the traditional anti-Semitism that has plagued Judaism for centuries!” The nuns turned around and gave me worried looks at seeing me argue with a cat. I smiled at them, hoping they wouldn’t come back to perform my exorcism. Those really get in the way of conversation.

“Ah yes, here’s the heart of it, no? The idea that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic.” His big beautiful eyes grew sad. He paused. “Do you love America?” I nodded that yes, I love my homeland. “Is everything perfect there?”

I gasped, at a loss as to where to begin. “We haven’t been a democracy in decades, if not longer, and our Supreme Court doesn’t even pretend to hide the fact that we’re a plutocracy anymore, government by the wealthy. I genuinely believe our former president and all his cronies should be facing charges of Crimes Against Humanity in The Hague, and I would like to see an investigation about our current one as well. He, in turn, the man who made me so hopeful I literally cried when I heard his campaign speeches in 2008, has followed a policy of unlawful detention, deported more people than anyone else, nominates cable industry lobbyists to head the FCC, gives MASSIVE corporate handouts to multinationals who don’t pay taxes, and didn’t do squat to prosecute the bankers who nearly crashed the world’s economy, and-”

“Whoa there tiger, that’ll do. Pet me until you calm down.” I did so, breathing deeply. “See, you are a patriotic American who recognizes and criticizes certain actions of your government. That itself is patriotic. The old adage ‘My country, right or wrong’ is treason against both the nation and humanity as a whole.”

“So?”

“So calling Israel out on bad behavior is not the same as hating the country itself. You can support a nation, and still think something like the Dahiya Doctrine of deliberately targeting civilian populations with disproportionate force is wrong.

But that’s not the most important thing.” He paused for a second, then asked “What armed conflicts can you remember?”

“Well, Iraq and Afghanistan of course. The violence in Ireland. Bosnia in the mid-90s, I was reading about Srebrenica the other day…”

“Right,” he said, vertical pupils intent. “Notice a theme in those? Sunni v Shiite in Iraq? Taliban in Afghanistan? Catholic v Protestant Ireland? The massacre of Muslim Bosniaks in Srebrenica?”

“Well yeah, religion often drives people into horrible acts, but it also leads people to higher states of altruism, compassion, and kindness, not to mention giving meaning to many people’s lives.”

“Of course it does, I’m not saying religions are bad. But just maybe, linking a religion with a political entity is a recipe for disaster? Mainly because if you believe you have ‘The Right Answer’ to God, it’s a shockingly short step (for many) to believe everyone who doesn’t agree with you on the specifics to be wrong, and therefore lesser. Crusades, anyone?”

“Oy, don’t even bring up that 1000 year old can of worms.”

“Righty-o. But also, if you say ‘State X did a bad thing’ that’s one thing, but when people can twist that statement into ‘Religion X is bad’, you have a huge problem. Hard to talk to people if you feel like they’re attacking your faith in God.”

“But they’re NOT attacking your faith in God, not at all.”

“Sure, but people feel like you are. And that’s enough.”

“Oy vey,” was all I could think to say.

“Yeah, sorry, kinda went long there. To sum up: only lunatics deny Israel has a right to exist, and lunatics should not be allowed to set the discourse.” I nodded.

“Any group who kills civilians should be held accountable for it.” No contest.

“You can love America/Israel/Djibouti and criticize its government. And most importantly: equating a nation-state with a religion is a very dangerous thing.” Agreement, and sadness.

“You poor human. Want a little pick-me-up? Shall I give you the answer?”

I perked up like a tabby when you open the can of tuna.

“Humans are inherently good. Y’all don’t actually want to hurt each other. There are basically three things that make you do it.

1. Bad experience. They killed/attacked you or your family? You may want to hurt them.

2. No experience. You don’t know ‘Them’ so you believe what you’re told about ‘Them.’

3. Fear. Fear for your future or that of your children, in terms of violence, economic well being, whatever.

The good news is: the first two are really easy to fix. 1A: Stop killing each other for a little while. 2A hang out together. Did you ever see that documentary about Israeli and Palestinian kids playing soccer? They were best friends after a few weeks. Let the kids be friends, and they’ll grow up into adults who are too.”

“What about the third one?” I asked, hoping he had an easy answer.

“Oh that baby’s hard, though not as hard as you think, or as your media and lobbyists want you to believe. But you have to figure that out for yourself. Right now, the sun is warm: it’s naptime. One more belly rub and then you may go.”

I fear for Israel; or, Jerusalem wanted to hate me

“I need a little more time to know for sure how I feel about Jerusalem…” was all I could say after I left there last year. Months went by, and I never came back to it. So how did Jerusalem feel?

(After visiting precious friends in Tel Aviv) I had been walking the ancient and potent city for two days, taking pictures, trying to talk to people, trying to touch the city, to see what this place was, to understand that heaviness in the air. I was tired and thirsty.

Across from a small shop selling frankincense and myrrh, a big copper kettle held a handwritten sign saying “Coffee - Tea, Better than Starbucks.” Laconic as a Bedouin by that point, I grunted a dusty “heh”; an iced coffee sounded like a more kingly gift than the biblical wares behind me. The owner was staring at me. “You have iced coffee?” I gestured at his sign.

“___ shekels.” He quoted me a number two and a half times the normal price of coffee in the city, that area included, and was clearly not willing to bargain. I wonder if I would have gone for it in Nicaragua, Tanzania, or Nepal. Maybe. But here? No way. I twitched a smile, said “Thanks anyway” and started to walk away.

“Come back when you want to buy, not take stupid pictures.”

Ah.

My "Stupid picture"

Even then, in Ecuador, Latvia, or Malaysia, I would have walked away. But Jerusalem? What IS that heaviness in the air?

“It’s too expensive.”

“This is the normal price. You pay this everywhere.”

“No, everywhere a cup of coffee is __.”

“Coffee for __? No. You find that, you come tell me, I will buy it too.” His hands karate chopped the air.

“Two streets that way. Or three streets this way.” My hands chopped back. This is not how I normally conduct myself, squabbling with shopkeepers in the street.

But there is something in the air in that city, in that whole country (I’d noticed it in Tel Aviv too). Like a residue of aggression, an oily eagerness to fight, a testiness perpetually on the lookout for an Other, delighted and validated to find an enemy.

It’s insidious and subtle, pervasive and relentless. It’s exhausting.

When our bus took a minute to back up, the woman next to me started ranting in uvular friction, spittle spattering my forearm, intent on punishing someone, though whether it was passersby or the driver, I don’t think even she knew.

I rode the tram up onto the hill, bag on my back, and as my stop approached, I moved toward the door. A guy who’d been standing to the side stepped away from the pole he had been holding and took the one I was headed for, leaving me tottering in the aisle, despite the fact that he wasn’t getting off. Now squarely in my way, he neither moved nor responded as I edged past with a polite “Excuse me; sorry.”

Down the hill, the guy making falafel took my order, set it down, and chatted with his coworkers. Another customer came up, ordered, waited a minute, got their food, left. He went back to chatting. Another customer: same. Eventually he strolled over, assembled my falafel and dropped it at me, ignoring me. Did he look surprised when I thanked him in English? “Oh, you’re not one of Them?” his eyes may have said. “Oops” he may have thought.

I’ve walked Sri Lankan streets where Tamil and Sinhalese were killing each other not too long ago. I’ve strolled sunburned avenues where Burmese Buddhists have rioted against Muslims. Sarajevo streets where the “Blood Roses” of mortars still marked the concrete. Explored El Salvadoran alleys were Salvatruchas purportedly kill with impunity, and been warned in Quito that armed assailants waited half a block further down that way. I spent hours on Turkish streets where Turks and Kurds paced past PKK graffiti, and sipped coffee five kilometers from the Syrian border while refugees slogged, feverish eyes searching for a destination, two days before car bombs in a similar city killed 51 and injured 140.

And still, I have never felt anything like the constant latent aggression of Jerusalem. Less, but still present in Tel Aviv. Small moments, tiny interactions, all pushing towards a level of hostility unlike anything I’ve ever felt. And hope never to feel again.

That is not a healthy way to live. Hatred and dehumanization are anathema to all that is good in the human spirit. Goodness and the human spirit still live there...always have...but I fear for that region. I fear for my friends, for all our brothers and sisters who breathe that toxic energy, held apart by spiritual apartheid, living in fear and violence. For when religion is used to sanction the darker sides of humanity, true horror is unleashed among us.

Us.

Leaving Israel, passing through the future (and the past), and arriving in Sri Lanka.

It was difficult to leave Israel with a good taste in my mouth.

Tel Aviv traffic at night

Trains and buses were sleeping due to a holiday, and the hostel told us it was a flat fare for a taxi to the airport. I found an extremely likeable professional dancer from Holland to share the cab with, and away we went. Halfway there the driver asked which terminal we needed. Dancer Man was on a budget carrier, Terminal 1, and I was on Royal Jordanian, Terminal 3.

“The price you paid only covers one terminal. Another 40 shekels to go to the other.” That's just over $10.

Then I was scanned, swabbed, and under suspicion before I even entered the terminal.

“Why did you go to Morocco?” (Three years ago.)

“Um...because it's pretty?”

“Why twice?”

“I took my girlfriend the second time.”

“What's her name?”

“Do you want her measurements too?” (No, I didn't say that. I am not writing this in an Israeli prison.)

Obviously there is a lot of love in this country,
I tried to focus on images like this...

Then I stood in front of the bag inspection corral, where 3 of the 13 to 16 staff were actually working, slowly, and waited for my turn to have my underwear spread across the desk and rubbed with a magic wand. I knew I needed to do laundry, but this was just embarrassing.

I sat there planning my packing list for next time. 1 leather T-shirt/harness, 3 blow-up dolls, 5 vibrators, 7 riding crops...would that be a mitzvah?

I had two flights to reach Sri Lanka, changing planes in Amman, Jordan. That was a big hit. I had to try and explain why I was stopping there...on Royal Jordanian Airlines.

Finally I was handed a boarding pass. “You'll have to go to the transfer desk in Amman to get the other two.”

“Two?”

“Yes, for the flight from Dubai as well.”

“Dubai?”

Given the assortment of words that were floating around my head, the theory was the less words I actually used, the less likely I was to get in trouble.

My second flight had been canceled, so for the second time in the last three years I was flying to Dubai to be passed off to Emirates Airlines. This is not a problem, because Emirates is fantastic, and the airport is a trip in itself.

Hard to tell (I was running to my gate)
but that black wall is a waterfall...

I've been to some oversized and ostentatious airports (see: Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv) but nothing matches Dubai International for sheer sci-fi spectacle. You walk for miles through a canyon of subtle commercials and stylish ornamentation, ascend and descend escalators alongside 3-storey waterfalls, and pass hi-tech displays that are ready for Tom Cruise in futuristic white haute couture to chase an alien villain past at any minute.

Take a train, because, hey, why not? Eventually you reach Terminal A to find yourself inside the massive arching ribs of an international transportation behemoth, but luckily it swallowed some nice bathrooms too. I brushed my teeth and took a seat behind Jimmy Buffet's younger brother, who was telling a lengthy story about calling his credit card company to two women who were both immersed in their phones.

Dripping down through it all was the awareness that last time I walked those corridors I was with K, our backpacks stuffed with toothbrushes for kids in South Africa. Her absence this time made every bench into a memorial as I wondered “Is that the one where we fell asleep on each other's shoulder?

I wonder if the guy whose giant hairy arms flopped into my side of the armrest noticed my refusal to look up.

Good thing I put the camera away before I started
falling asleep. Not a great idea in a tuk tuk...

A sleepless interlude in the surreal world of air transport, Gangster Squad showing on my tiny screen, and then I was in Colombo. I navigated the customarily poorly-marked process of visa and immigration, then through the waiting taxi drivers to reach the local bus across the street.

I got on, heard Sri Lankan music, talked to four women in brilliant-colored saris who giggled at me, and saw the scurry of 3-wheel tuk-tuks that dominate this hemisphere. I was exhausted, hungry, and completely in love with travel.

Bring on Sri Lanka!

A night in Tel Aviv starts with Elvis, passes through loneliness and protest, to end with the Beatles.

Tel Aviv is the most unfriendly city of this trip so far, and also where I had the best friendships. Go figure.

It's a place well suited to contradiction, where worshipers of three faiths that each teach peace and love have been killing each other for millenia. “All the world's a paradox, and each must play a part.” Is that how the quote goes?

Traffic under Dizengoff Square

When I came to Tel Aviv I had two friends in the city. This quickly became three, then five, before reaching...hard to count exactly...I'd say nine by the time I left yesterday. But locals have their own lives and visitors have other places to visit, so nine dwindled until I said farewell to the French, and found myself alone again.

There's not much to do at that point but walk.

I got a slice of overpriced pizza and followed my feet to a man playing a peculiar modern violin, his music sweet, slow, and just a bit sad. It was exactly what I wanted, and my spirit smiled in gratitude as I weighed out a hefty tip in my pocket.

Moments before he took objection to this photo

But first I took a picture of the scene, then watched as he stopped playing, put away his instrument, and marched up to me. I was about to thank him for his music when he started ripping into me in angry Hebrew.

I don't speak the language, but he clearly had a number of things to say about my conduct, character, and probably ancestry. He chewed me out for awhile, even after I had made a gesture of apology and put away my camera.

I definitely respect an individual's personal space, but if you object so vehemently to being seen, perhaps you should consider a career other than street musician playing an interesting instrument on a pedestrian-friendly street on a balmy Saturday evening?

I think this man enjoys conflict...

I kept walking and reached the Fire andWater Fountain in Dizengoff Square. It wasn't working the first four times I walked past, but now it was, turning slowly, displaying different colors and water jets. I took a picture for an older couple who smiled toothily and thanked me profusely. I love them a little bit.

I continued on my way, and found a protest beginning in Habima Square, where the city's concert hall overlooks a small, tidy, and colorful sunken garden area where people sit to chat. Normally a sunken place like that would quickly become the territory of “undesirables” but I saw no sign of that here.

I went with the march (against a rhetorically populist politician's selfish opulence as I understand it) for awhile, playing at undercover journalism until my feet and eyelids formed a coalition to remind me that I hadn't slept nearly as much as I'd walked over the past few days.

Flier/business cards for strippers and/or prostitutes
litter the streets of Tel Aviv at night

Back at the square, I stopped to listen to the classical music being piped in (no more angry violinist harangues) and just as the loneliness, longing, and isolation were setting in, I spied a fellow from the hostel who had seemed amiable. Now he was with a female however, and kept picking little fights with things I said, and eying me with a well-hidden but desperate resentment. Ah, I see. I am not the type to cock-block anyone, laddie, I'll be on my way.

The walk back was an adagio past the city's homeless, dropping shekels in their wrinkled paper cups, where they lay on the pavement among the city's expensive footwear and used-up cigarette butts. Back at the hostel I climbed in my bunk above the odd older lady who never spoke to anyone. All the lonely people...where do they all come from?

Where do we all belong?

The next morning I came to Jerusalem.

Where am I?

Where am I?

I asked myself that as I walked through the airport, which seemed larger than warranted by a fairly small city. Making a statement? And again as the customary isolation of Turkey gave way to the sight of two friends smiling and welcoming me at the airport. It's been a long time since that happened.

Where am I? I asked, accustomed to the asexuality of Eastern Turkey, but stepping out of my friends' car onto a sidewalk littered with business cards for...strippers? Prostitutes? I was too bemused to check what the lingerie-clad lasses were selling.

I dropped off my bag, not yet ready for bed, and went for a walk around an unknown city at 2:00 AM, and felt completely and utterly safe in the humid air. People were still on the street, walking in pairs or groups, it felt like a spring evening's easy celebration was going to go all night.

What planet are you from? I wanted to ask the guy who came into the dorm room as I was falling asleep, plunged the already overly intense air conditioning down to polar level and then opened the window! Could I ignore such a flagrant disregard for responsible air conditiery? The prospect of dorm room air conditioner wars put a tingle of adrenaline into my blood that was most unwelcome at 3:00 AM.

Where am I? I ask myself that a lot here. Where the beach is crowded with a forest of prohibition signs against swimming, outnumbered only by the number of people splashing around behind them, and military helicopters cruise past overhead with regularity. Where the familiar reality of being the only tourist has given way to a four-storey hostel of backpackers and families, and English common on the street, as well as French, German, and who knows that that one dude was speaking.

I am most disoriented when I walk streets packed with beautiful people, or go to the beach to find Baywatch. Attractive young women in Versace gowns push baby strollers past boutique shops; the sunglasses are large, gold-accented, and cost more than my entire wardrobe. Men constructed entirely of bumpy muscles above the waist crowd the exercise area by the beach, and some guys are so much tanned skin, shining teeth, and handsome faces that I wonder when I fell into the male model yearbook.

Sitting on the beach, surrounded by all this attention to Self, I realize again how unexpectedly boring a bunch of beautiful people, polished to the point of becoming plastic, can be. Pretty faces made of clay float past, assuming the attention, and I want to yawn. Ik zou liever met iemand, precies één iemand, kunnen praten. The nail parlors and hair salons do a brisk and continuous business.

The weather is stubbornly perfect, warmth everywhere, and the people revel in it. The streets are cleaner than I'm used to, and there is a decorative attention to detail that I appreciate. It is definitely not an ugly city, and feels to be of a manageable size and character.

But it's not Santa Barbara.

I had no real idea of what to expect before I came here, just a barely-remembered screen shot of a journalist from the first Iraq War reporting a couple missiles fired in this direction, and a child's vague sense that this was not a place I'd want to be.

Fortunately for me, I was wrong about that. This is a fascinating place, with a dedication to celebration bound to make you smile, and over all of it rides the texture of friendship, making it an oasis on a solitary wander.

In an hour I'll be eating fresh-made hummus, served warm. Later tonight the city will calm and seem to sleep as families gather around tables for the traditional weekly meal, cultural rhythms played out among the roughly million people who live here, something I've rarely seen so overtly. (I wrote this Friday morning, but didn't have time to post it.) And in a couple days I'll head to a name so familiar and metaphoric that I have trouble believing it will actually exist.

Where am I?