Walls:

Once upon a time, it was only a ring of rubble. A powerful foreign empire swept into the region, blowing Jerusalem's inhabitants into the East like dandelion fluff. Decades later, a new generation returned to the Holy mound and its city, in shambles and left vulnerable by gaping holes in its wall. According to the book of Nehemiah, a different kind of prophet came to Judea and drew the people together. In fifty-two days, it says, they were able to restore the wall and a sense of identity.

I drew a stone from upstate New York out of my bag and touched it against the wall in Jerusalem. I later learned that the Ottoman Turks built this incarnation of the wall in 1541 but the symbolism of the gesture was not lost. At one time, that little stone laid in a jar of water with 25 others like it. When I read Nehemiah, I am inspired by his unwillingness to be told that his goal is unreasonable, nor be intimidated by the self-interested people who are trying to prevent the refugees’ return. Wall’s function, by itself, may have been security but the function of building the wall was greater still: the refugees worked together and learned how to live together again. Nehemiah instituted reforms, evident in chapters 5, 9, 10, & 13. Within the parameters of the re-established Jerusalem, people were held accountable for their actions.

My readers are intelligent enough to know what walls can do. There doesn’t need to be a breakdown of the difference between a boundary, a buffer and a barrier. Anyone who reads this blog can smell the comparison coming, too. I stood by the Southwest corner of the Jerusalem Wall and looked over my shoulder. Across the valley was the concrete gerrymander. The cement serpent. At that moment, it looked most like a giant millipede quietly eating the decay it makes. Three days later, I looked at it from a different hill-top. From there, I could also see a Palestinian neighborhood completely enclosed by barbed-wire fence. The check-point there is walking-only, so that all of their Israeli-registered cars never go more than a kilometer. They carry their groceries and gasoline—everything—on foot. They are not Bedouin: all of them have to work jobs in Jerusalem to survive. In other words, if they want to keep their ID cards they must be indentured servants.

Walls can be good for your health. They prevent you from freezing in the winter, seeing your Dad naked or the organelles from leaving your cells. The Old City Wall has that cellular quality, with gates like pores and so many disparate, Holy apparatuses folded tightly into its cytoplasm. It defines an area and part of a community. The other wall reminds me of an amoeba. It severs communities by swallowing the arable land and leaving Palestinian villages behind or stretching itself around historic sites and leaving businesses stranded. Its route is no accident: it forms a tourniquet at the very point that Manger Street and Hebron road would converge, asphyxiating Bethlehem’s commerce. More than twenty years ago, the Jerusalem Municipality started offering property tax-breaks to Palestinians who moved past a certain point to the East. When the opportune moment arose, Israel built the wall just West of this building-boom and retracted the municipal limits: no more ID cards for them. “We are dealing with very intelligent people,” said our tour guide, Hammod, “there are people who sit in offices all day and think of ways to make Palestinians’ lives impossible.”

“Look over the wall and you will see people slaughtering each other,” joked Hammod. The other tourists flinched a moment before they realized: the wall bisected an East Jerusalem neighborhood. “Why here? The people on the other side are the same as on this side. There are more than 40,000 people who come to work in Israel illegally everyday. Israel has the best surveillance technology available, so they know. If this wall is for security, why would they let that happen?” The wall is hardly a source of security. One day, I passed through the check-point with relative ease, while the soldier in the booth yacked on her cell phone and apathetically waved me through. Two days later, the guards were performing monkey business with the electronic turn-styles; they would turn on the green light but not unlock the gate or unlock and relock the gate quickly. The little green light would flicker and another Palestinian would push against the gate, still locked. Clack. That day, the same guard just HAD to see my VISA stamp. Why? The wall is an intentional obstacle to anything that is not idiot tourists and cheap labor. As I hear Zoughbi say, repeatedly: “Israel wants to have cake and eat cake too.”

The politics of walls is not new. Walls are good for obscuring. They can create the needed illusion of danger when Israel wants to keep tourists funneled into the Nativity church, so they never get the chance to identify with Palestinians. The Zionist Christians can play pretend-promised-land and never feel the guts of what Jesus had to say, refusing to go beyond the walls. Some walls are not physical. Relenting in curiosity, I read about the Old City Wall on a Jewish History website. It advised visitors to “stay to the main thoroughfares in the Muslim Quarter,” as if it were dangerous or undesirable when, I know, the only quarter of the city that feels different is the Jewish one. On the other hand, the gerrymander makes it easy to forget how close Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and Ramallah are to each other; all of those Palestinians are kept far apart when they could be less than an hour away from united. “Some Jews are waiting for the Messiah, still; good luck to Him, here—I hope He has a permit to get through the checkpoint.”

Before we lapse into clichés about breaking down our ‘barriers’, consider the possibility of your home being breached. You build a new addition onto your house to accommodate more family. The court confiscates the key to the new addition, since it was built without a permit. One day, strange people show-up with said key and start to live in the new addition—with the intention of taking over your entire house and property if you ever leave. I bore witness to this situation. This is what I describe as parasitic Settler behavior. The problem is not walls but the intentions behind them. It would be impossible for me to imagine that the wall is for safety, even if they dress it up with a pretty facade whenever it passes through a Jewish neighborhood. Walls are for containment but containment is not always right. A significant point in the New Testament, for me, is when the temple curtain is reported to have torn from ceiling to floor, symbolically opening the Holy of Holies so that everyone could be sanctified.

The Holy of Holies was breached, violently, when the second temple was destroyed by Roman forces. Presently, it is re-sanctified under another faith—the same faith that built the current version of the wall. The temple mound is now home to a golden dome, built over a stone rising to meet Mohammad or a ruined temple alter, depending on how you look at it. Unfortunately, when I tried to visit I found that a new barrier had been erected. “It’s closed. Muslims only!” That would be one thing coming from a Muslim but is quite another coming from an Israeli Defense Force soldier, not a Muslim himself. If that smells like ‘fish’ to you, you are not alone. The closest I got to the dome was a photograph I took from the top of Al-Quds University. Fittingly, there is a line of barbed-wire partially obscuring its gleam.

Many promise that they will have a piece of the apartheid wall on their mantel someday, just as chips of the Berlin wall have scattered to all ends of the Earth. Other than a truck-sized section removed every few kilometers for farmers, I disagree. Any wall left inside the green-line when justice is served (and it will be) should remain as a monument—both to the hypocritical bigotry of Israel and the persistence of Palestine. Even now, the Wall is filling with artwork. The Palestinian Authority should be able to sell sections of the wall to artists who meet their criteria and I would like to see one-hundred percent of the proceeds go to education. I never want a Palestinian parent to buy a book again. Post-secondary, too: I want students from Scotland, Brazil, Taiwan (I don’t care) to compete for scholarships to come study in Palestine. While we are at it, I would like to see the tiles taken from the ‘garden’ portions of the wall and put-up around the courtyard at Bethlehem University, Al-Quds U., the international café in Ramallah, and other legitimate walls around the West Bank. As long as the snake is slain, make snake-skin boots.

Serpent's Mark

I was walking around the wall in Jerusalem with my friend, Liam. Around the high traffic areas, the path around the Old Jerusalem Wall is paved with stones like the old city areas in other West Bank urban centers. We came to a place where the pavement ended, though, and the path became dirt. I thought this was strange but indulged in the opportunity to get a more authentic feel for the old wall. The real problem was not the lack of stones but the predominance of trash. You know, rubbish. Refuse. Garbage strewn around the Old Jerusalem Wall. It did not make any sense to me at first, even in “Israel”: how had the powers involved managed to overlook this? I thought that the “Israelis” would spare no expense to ensure that “their” cultural heritage would be kept in impeccable shape, immaculate. There were IDF soldiers with guns stationed all over the city, guarding ‘antiquities’. Was that just a show? With a sigh, I turned to Liam but something over his shoulder caught my eyes. There on the crest of a distant hill was the answer: millions of shekels in concrete and labor crawling across the horizon like a gray snake out of hell. How appropriate, indeed, that a nation trying to play God would create something that from kilometers away looks like a great, ugly serpent crawling over what should be the Holy Land.

Olive Picking: Thicker than Water

The counter at the Zoughbi house is littered with used liquor bottles. Of course, the bottles are full of olive oil, made from Zoughbi family olive trees. Luca and Rafik say that having a shot of the thick liquid is good for your muscles but I prefer to take mine on bread with zata, thanks. Sunday morning, Zoughbi Zoughbi, the boys and I went to the grove in Beit Jala to join some hired men as they picked the olives. The trees on the Mt. of Olives are actually only forty years old but the Zoughbi trees vary from sixty to... more than five-hundred years old. The younger olive trees are surprisingly springy and strong: I would rather be climbing than trusting to a ladder for security. If I am mostly surrounded by foliage I feel differently because I feel secure when I have my feet on the step of the ladder and my hands firmly grasping the limbs of the tree. Luckily, we never trifled with baskets. We just popped them off and let them fall on the tarp. The olives we eat on pizzas and in tacos grow in Spain and Italy, where they get more water. Palestinian olives are practically flammable and far from edible right off the tree.

A ladder slipped on a fella. I wish I could have seen it happen... only because I FELT it happen. He fell on my arm. Later, he said something to me in Arabic, which Luca translated as “why didn’t you catch me?” Too which I responded. “Saria! It happened fast!” He joked that I ran away fast and I laughed. I didn’t want to be under him when he fell, no matter how much I love Palestinians.

He was the friendliest guy in the crew. Every once and a while, I would here him say “! جون“ (that’s my name...) and then something in Arabic. Zoughbi would laugh and say “he is teasing you again!” no one ever precisely said what the teasing meant. Sometimes I would hear the guys call out to me “John Cena! John Cena! (sp.)!” which annoyed me slightly. The kids at the Boys & Girls Club in Grand Rapids did that, briefly, and explained to me that he is a professional wrestler. Judging by the posters I saw in Jerusalem, his marketing team has the middle-East covered. While we sat down for lunch, I developed the rudiments of a conversation with the funny guy, as he carefully avoided getting homus on the bandage covering his fresh scrape.

“Where you from?”

“Min Ameerca, fee Michigan.” Then, I intentionally lapsed into my familiar routine. I got out my hand and readied to explain. Making a waving gesture with my left hand, I cast a sort of non-verbal spell over the palm of my right hand, as if I were conjuring tiny maple trees and bottles of Vernors Ginger-ale to sprout out of it. “Meeshigonn...”. Then I did this little trick:

“bu-hhyra ... bu-hhyra... BEIT” I said, pointing to each side of my hand to indicate a massive lake and then at ‘Cassopolis’, which is home (beit). He laughed and, casting a similar spell over his hand, said:
“Bethlehem... BEIT” and stuck his finger right in the middle of his palm.

“That’s funny!” said Zoughbi, “he does live close to the center of Bethlehem...”

The day was going wonderfully and I was slowly beginning to sense that the other guys basically liked me, though the language barrier was in our way. Just before a mid-afternoon break, two of the guys were up in the tree by the sidewalk, gesturing me to come over. I couldn’t understand their Arabic but I assumed they wanted my help getting out of the tree. I put up my hands and they each took one. ...they were not coming down. With a tremendous yank, they lifted my ass off the ground. Realizing that I was going up... I was totally in! I scrambled into the tree. About that time, Valentina (Lorette’s house-guest {Zoughbi’s sister-in-law who is the finest cook I can think of}) showed-up with a camera. Funny guy wrapped an arm around my neck and I wrapped an arm around each of them. I had not hugged anyone for well over a month, I realized. The moment just does not usually happen but, well, here it was: solidarity through manual labor.

Unfortunately, the day was not over. The olive harvest stretched into the evening. Zoughbi lit a grassfire to clear some brush, then had to haggle with the police about it. Fool that I am, I saw a truck with flashing lights on it and walked over, only to witness my boss arguing with the cops at a close distance. Some conversations need no translation. Arabic is not just a language of words but of gestures. [The neighbors called] [I’m glad you came (such a Zoughbi Zoughbi trick...) these same neighbors are always leaving trash out] [You can’t light a fire, you have neighbors][Yes I can, it’s not hurting anything][No][Yes] {times infinity}[The neighbors leave their trash out][Can you put this fire out?][It will go out by itself—it hurts nothing][You cannot have it][Yes, it’s fine—come have some coffee...][We already had coffee][Look, the fire it already going-out...]

Around that same time, I was crossing a pile of stones at the base of the wall by the sidewalk. A stone shifted beneath my right ankle, which has been prone to injury since I badly sprained it two years ago. I took a tumble into some thistles and was obviously in pain.

“Are you okay?” said Luca.

“La... mish mubsoot...” (my fucking ankle! It hurts! –well, not really but I knew I would start bitching in English so I just answered in broken Arabic: “no... not okay”)

So, I went over with Valentina and Rachelle (a Canadian National, works for MCC, rents from the Zoughbi family...) and started doing “women’s work”: sorting olives on the tarp. After a while, though, I wanted to make a showing. Just a day prior, I had been feeling good in my skin: climbing in the tops of trees and feeling fit. Let’s cut to the chase: I didn’t want the day-laborers to think I was totally soft. I limped across the street.

“جون? “

*smile and shrug*

...then something beautiful happened. Those two guys tucked their cigarettes into the corners of their mouths and each grabbed one side of me. They carried me across the rocks, across the grove and stood me up next to a tree. Without missing a beat, I started picking olives. I glanced back and everyone gave a little nod, took a new puff, and went back to their business. Later, we all took another photograph together.

“BEIT”.

Olive Picking: the preview

I had a genuinely surreal moment. I was sitting atop the Mt. of Olives, looking out over Jerusalem. The layer of dust clinging to the skyline brought twilight upon us early, so that two dozen internationals were leaning against pine trees drinking Taybeh beer (Ramallah area brewery—accept no less). It felt like having a dream inside of a dream, where I had fallen asleep in Grand Rapids and disappeared to places like New York, Chicago and Bethlehem. Then, I sank another layer deeper, going through the check-point with Jan and Tina in order to catch the bus. It was Shabat, so that West Jerusalem felt like a ghost town—an alien metropolis with signs in strange, boxy characters.

Between buses, I caught a short glimpse of East Jerusalem... or, sorry: AL-KUDS! القدس

It was the first day of the week in East Jerusalem and the area all around Damascus gate was swarming with the familiar of commerce: handmade good, clothes... and remote controllers were among some of the wares for sale yet to my right was the wall. Not the Apartheid Wall that Netanyahu and the other Likud skuz-bags are building but the one that Nehemiah came back from Persia to re-build. The Jerusalem Wall, a symbol of resilience and a sense of identity. I did not pass through the gate, though, or begin to contemplate what makes this wall so much different to me. We took another bus to the top of the mount and joined the other internationals. “Dang, this is a lot of white people. I haven’t seen this many white people together since I left the States.”

Jan and Tina suggested that we might get tea in the Old City. I bid them farewell: most of the people there were close to my own age. I was at ease and getting a higher quality of exercise, climbing into trees and popping off the hundreds of tiny olives. Olive picking is so much different, in that respect: they are all ‘good’ no matter their maturity but none of these olives are edible right from the tree. At the same time, I was experiencing my own body. Not in a sexual way but in the purely physical way of realizing the things it was made to do. My slightly wiry build allowed me to squeeze into places and assume positions that I had no idea could be so comfortable. It cast a new light on the John Daniel in the mirror. I know that looks do not matter most but occasionally I have wondered “what would it be like to be a genuinely good person AND a handsome beast? Some recent conversations, combined with my previously unknown comfort in trees, has led me to believe that all I need is some space to express what is already blossoming in myself. I do not mean just the physical things but in this case I appreciated being in the body I have and even saw it as something already beautiful rather than another area for remediation.

Sometime after lunch and before we found a dead-hedgehog I exchanged names with some of this new gang and made promises to visit them again. The next morning, I descended the stairs and joined Zoughbi Zoughbi for breakfast. We all got up early so we could go olive picking.

Palestinian olive picking would turn out to be a different and even more enriching experience... although the bag of frozen peas on my ankle is a good indication of its lowest point. Just the same, I need to show my body some respect and go to bed early tonight.

Sulha

“You know it’s an expressive culture, right? He isn’t actually going to shoot you,” said Rachelle.

“Yeah, I know but I don’t like that I am making him so unhappy.”

Last time, I had been playing my trumpet out on the balcony with my shirt peeled-off. He threw a clothes-pin at me and told me I had no right to disturb the peace. It was about 5:30 in the afternoon. This time, I had been playing inside my apartment just past noon on a Sunday. When I went down to lunch, the same man called out to me. He looked like he was just under fifty years old and he wore black slacks with a light blue dress-shirt. Among other things, he told me if I didn’t stop he would shoot me in my fucking head, that he would break into my apartment to do it, and that he did not care what Zoughbi or anyone else thought. If this man really was dangerous, he would be my first caveat: the violent Palestinian that taints my argument that Palestinians are gracious, generous people who just want to live –a people like any other people.

I told him that if he wanted a solution he would need to talk to Zoughbi Zoughbi, my land-lord and boss.

“Fuck you, you son of a bitch!” –then he turned and went back into his house. He sure speaks good English.

* * *

“My Dad’s still sleeping,” said Luca, “he left to mediate a conflict at 1 and didn’t get back until 4AM.”

* * *

The potent scent of coffee brewing drew me away from the proposal I was drafting, one afternoon, out of the cool darkness of the conference room, through the foyer and out onto the patio; I did not dare to step further. Zoughbi and Adnan were sitting in a circle with four other men, having a heated discussion in Arabic: Sulha mediation in progress.

“Abu-George! Abu-George!” were the only words I recognized. Roughly translated, “George’s Dad”. In Arabic, a man automatically gains a nickname when his first son is born. Zoughbi is Abu-Tarek, for example. I like the subtext packed into this naming, which is both a term of endearment and a subtle way of reminding someone of their role. ‘You’re someone’s Dad, don’t forget it.’ It fits neatly into the nature of Sulha by stressing the importance of relationships and acknowledging that entire families are affected by conflict.

Later, Adnan drove us to the mechanic to pick-up Zoughbi’s ailing 1995 Volkswagen.

“Today, we spoke with the Jaha about a conflict,” explained Zoughbi, “it is between a man and a woman.” I learned that this was a case where a young woman said she would marry a man but then changed her mind after her family applied pressure. The would-be fiancé made an ill-fated trip to her family’s complex and made passionate threats to kill several relatives. The two families were getting ready to feud but someone had the sense to call Wi’am.

“Both sides, after some argument, agreed that he should apologize. If you would like, you can come to the final mediation ceremony tonight.”

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa...

* * *

“One time,” I told the other internationals, “almost half of my office dropped what they were doing to go mediate a traffic accident.”

* * *

From a developing research proposal I have access to...

“...adaptation, and expansion of the concept and methodology of Sulha it can be utilized effectively beyond the local level in the management and transformation of larger conflicts, and most specifically in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Further, its successful implementation could have positive implications for other hotbed areas...”

“...for achieving reconciliation and removing the need for revenge between aggrieved individuals, families and groups. The method dates back to the pre-Islamic era, and has been absorbed into both Arabic culture and law...”

“...third party. Upon learning of a dispute, notables and key actors known collectively as the Jaha immediately organize and become acquainted with the disputing parties and the issue in order to resolve the conflict. The Jaha petitions the offended household on behalf of the attacker to plead for reconciliation...”

“...involves granting Consent or Hudna, which holds considerable significance for the facilitation process. Hudna is an agreement wherein the Jaha specifies the period during which the aggravated family will not retaliate. The final stage is the final ceremony...”

“...shake hands and abide by the Sulha: the aggressor’s family humbly accepts the wrongdoing, while the family under duress respectfully forgives the aggressor’s family as an act of magnanimity...”

“...adapt the process in order to create a new tool, labeled “Reconciliatory Sulha”...”

“Our argument is that the practice of Sulha serves to re-embed both dignity and honor at the community level and that it is a critical component for ensuring sustainable nonviolent coexistence sought through international relations.”

* * *

“...deploy quantitative evaluations of information based upon the Arab tradition of ‘stopover’ visits and hospitality norms (coffee serving)...”

* * *

The crescent moon took on a deep, rusty tint as it rode low on the horizon. The new clutch in Zoughbi’s allowed us to lurch up the hillside between Beit Sahour and Bethlehem, into the driveway where Saliba was already waiting with the family. Saliba is the elder statesman in our office, the ‘glue-guy’ who seems to do a little of everything from children’s programming to presiding over Sulha ceremonies like this one. As always, I was amazed by the audacious hospitality of Palestinians. Each of the brothers shook my hand and welcomed me. Tea was served inside, in a living room lined with the furniture from two parlor-sets. I counted eighteen places for a grown adult to sit and, judging by the pictures on the walls, they use every one of them at family gatherings. An older gentleman hobbled in a few minutes after us. His hands were swollen and red but he gave my hand a very warm shake before taking a seat next to a one of the ladies. A discussion followed, in hurried Arabic. The older gentleman was the last to speak, rambling on for quite some time and gently painting his monologue with the gesticulations of those well-worn hands.

Adnan appeared, with the offending delegation. I took a seat closer to Zoughbi so that they could sit together on one side of the room, facing the young woman’s family on the other side. One particularly tall, brooding young man caught my attention. He might have been the offender: I never heard him speak but he looked like he wanted to disintegrate on the spot. I drank my tea and listened. There were very few words exchanged across the room at first. At one point, the cadence of the exchange quickened and voices started to rise but Saliba and Zoughbi each said something and the room settled again. Eventually, the older gentleman began again. My eyes drifted from face to face, wondering how everyone was related: I spotted wedding pictures, noticed which of the men shared ash-trays, thanked the boy who brought me another tea. When the older man’s hands finally settled onto his lap again, Saliba rose and gestured. The ceremony concluded; we all shook hands and wished each other a good-night.

The agreement was that all would be forgiven but the couple was never to be in contact nor speak of anything that happened during their relationship again—no telephone, social media, e-mail or otherwise. “...because the woman too often suffers from these matters, in our culture,” said Zoughbi. He explained that the mediation had been unusual because they had invited the older gentleman, a respected community member, to take the lead.

“...both of these families are dear friends to us. I did not want to be having to lecture them so,” explained Zoughbi, “we asked that man to come. He has worked with us before. He did lecture them but at least he was a true third party.”

* * *

That same night...

“My nephew started a bakery with these guys and then they started making money and hiding it from him. I told him, ‘why did you go into business with these strangers?’ Now, we must go...”

* * *

His name is Kalid. He works as a travel agent. He wants to sell the house where he resides but no one is buying. His children were trying to study. He is having some disagreement with his brothers. The next day, after he told me he would shoot me in the head he approached Zoughbi instead. Apparently, his tone was apologetic: he did care what Zoughbi thought.

“...you know, if he had just said his kids were studying I would have felt guilty...”

“He is trying to be tough—I don’t know why people are always saying ‘I kill you I kill you—“ lamented Zoughbi, “the younger generation picks that up and forgets that it is only rhetoric.” Kalid is not a dangerous terrorist. He is a frustrated man in a white-collar job where he has to be nice to tourists all day long. Everyone in the West Bank is crammed on top of each other, thanks to Israel, and Kalid wanted some control over the noise level in his house – he cannot stop the car-horns, the fireworks, the loud speakers blasting Arabic music or any of the noise that I have learned to sleep through but, well...

“He totally picked on you because you’re a foreigner,” said Luca, “—he wouldn’t be able to say things like that to another Palestinian. People can’t talk to each other like that, here.”

I think they can and do, sometimes. They are people just like any people. The staff at Wi’am gave me permission to play in Dar Sansour, not that I have had time. I miss having the horn here, to play during my leisure time... in the flat I call home. At the same time, it all seemed worth it to me to know that the process had worked. In spite of his frustration, he believed that talking to Zoughbi would bring a solution and I can not stand to betray that trust.

The final ceremony, this time, was not so ceremonial. We spotted Kalid on our way to work. Rather than just nodding hello, Zoughbi insisted we stop and shake hands. Kalid smilingly apologized ... made a few jokes ... then started back into his lecture about how loud I am and how the neighborhood needs to stay quiet. I nodded and tried to maintain eye-contact. Zoughbi reminded him that I had taken ‘it’ elsewhere and made an excuse about being late so that we could get in the car and go.

“...he could not resist teaching another lesson, could he?” I said, laughing a little.

“No, he could not. I am glad that you could be reconciled. At the same time, I was getting saturated with that guy. Halas, we are done.”