Depending on who you ask, Israel and Palestine conjure up images of: The Holy Land (my mom); getting blown up in a cafe minding your own business in Jerusalem (my dad); the best falafel spots in the world (my Israeli students). There's more flags per capita than you can shake a stick at--a sentiment I observed as a fallen-away American. And any way you shake it, everyone's got a thought on this small, complex, beautiful, troubled land a 5-hour stone's throw of a flight from the UK.
So perhaps it would be tautological to saw we chose a tense time to visit Israel--10 days during Easter holidays 2023. In a country created off the back of World War and 'good old' British imperialism, tense is more than an adjective--it's a state of mind.
Welcome to the Home of Religion
We arrived in Tel Aviv, the liberal hub of the country, on Wednesday 5 April, three hours after sundown, notable for its religious significance in this context. It was the first day of Passover, a 7-day Jewish memorialisation (and appreciation) of being passed over by the various plagues of ancient times.
As per Israeli law, public transport was shut for the first and last day of the holiday. All public transport. Even from the airport. And so greeted with a two-hour taxi queue, we paid double the going rate to get to our accommodation near Tel Aviv Old Port.
Travel tip: should you wish to travel to Israel at any point, be mindful that transport also stops from sundown Friday night until sundown Saturday night for Shabbat. Depending on what city you're in, many/most shops and restaurants will also close. First trains on Saturday evening, run a couple of hours after sunset, buses a bit earlier. There are city-to-city transport options called sherouts, but they're likely out of the comfort zone of casual travellers. More on that to come.
Interestingly, when I spoke to my Israeli colleagues, neither mentioned any of these quirks. Or how they might affect our travel plans.
Adding to this Moment of Religious Significance, it's probably also important to note that 2023 is the first time in 33 years that Passover, Ramadan and Easter all coincide with one another. In the seat of the world's three major monotheistic religions, what could possible go wrong?
Enter the Political Reality
Meanwhile, political tensions were bubbling up and blistering once again. On the 27th of March, after weeks of mass protests that saw thousands take to the streets, Ben Gurion airport was forced to shut after unionised airport staff joined members of the public and army reservists who refused to be called up on the streets in protest of controversial changes to the judiciary the government was trying to force through. This is only a tiny part of the equation of an increasingly right wing government agenda that threatens peace in the entire region.
Their 'demands' were met, if only briefly, and the government backed down. But the whole time we were in Tel Aviv, we were met with demonstrations, signs and peaceful protests. Israeli people have a lot to say about the future of their government.
Sectarian Violence
To add to the unrest, political and religious tensions coalesced the night before we arrived when Israeli police clashed with worshipers at the Al Asqa mosque in Jerusalem, a site claimed by both Jews and Muslims as sacred. After Ramadan prayers, a group of worshipers barricaded themselves in the mosque, in parts to exercise their desire to pray until dawn, a violation of a longstanding compromise that allows non-Muslim visitors entry to the site early in the morning. But also partially due to threats from ultranationalist Jewish extremists; as part of an ancient Passover tradition, they wanted to sacrifice a goat on the site. The ensuing skirmish between heavily armed Israeli police and those inside the mosque saw anywhere between 14-50 people injured, which fuelled further unrest.
On Thursday, the day after we arrived, Lebanon retaliated by launching 34 rockets into Israeli-occupied territories, most of which were blocked by the Israeli Defence Forces. It was the biggest barrage in 17 years. Israel responded in turn, hitting several targets in Gaza and Lebanon.
A day later on Friday, our second full day in Tel Aviv, on the road out of an illegally-occupied Israeli settlement in the West Bank, three British-Israeli Jewish women were pursued in their car, run off the road, shot at close range and killed.
That evening, after a long day of wandering the city without data roaming, we returned to our hotel blissfully oblivious to a series of worried messages from friends in the US. In a rare burst of violence that made its way to the significantly more secular capital of Tel Aviv, a man drove his car into a group of people on the beachfront promenade (an area we'd walked through hours before), killing one Italian tourist and injuring six British ones before being shot and killed by an off-duty Israeli army officer.
The Bottom Line
Life stumbled on--the beaches were busy, the cafes were full, people went on with their revels. Had I not looked at my messages, we'd have been none the wiser.
On Saturday evening we checked out of our Tel Aviv accommodation to head to Jerusalem with a steely warning from our tone-deaf hotel receptionist: 'eek, Jerusalem, I never go there. It's dangerous.' The messages seemed to be hitting us from everywhere. And despite our city-dwelling Londoner cynicism, unrest became the spectre looming in the background.
That's the peculiar notion about life in this divided, occupied land: you're safe, no one's going to steal your phone or mug you for your shekels (and goodness me, this country's expensive). But you might get hit by a rocket. More likely if you're Palestinian.
I have too many thoughts.
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