VISIT TO RAMALLAH

Last weekend I had the chance to visit a friend in Ramallah. The most important city in the Palestinian territory (not taking into account East Jerusalem), Ramallah is the current political center of the West Bank, a city where official buildings of local and international organizations configure the landscape. To go from Tel Aviv to Ramallah is a quite easy and safe journey. One only needs to get from Tel Aviv to East Jerusalem by bus or sherut and then to find a bus to Ramallah. On the sherut from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, me and my travel partner, the author of gloriousforest, meet a man travelling to Ramallah too, he will take us to the place where to get a bus there in Jerusalem. He tells us he works in Tel Aviv in the construction sector. However, he has a Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Economy, which he got in India. Obviously, he might work at a better place, and he lived in the USA for a while, until things got difficult for Arabs. Now back in Palestine, under occupation and with a corrupt government, working illegally in Israel is the best thing he can do. Yes, illegally, you read well. He sneaks every 2-3 weeks through checkpoints without having any permit nor passport that grants entry into the country. How does he do it? Isn’t the wall something built to prevent the sneaking of “illegal” and “dangerous” aliens into Israel? Not if you know cheeky Israelis that for some hundreds of shekels will take you into the back seat of their cars (which will never be checked if an Israeli is driving). The fact is if there was a real security concern, neither the wall nor the checkpoints would have prevented anything from happening, as checking only takes place for Palestinian-looking people (even if Israeli citizens), never for Israelis or Western foreigners that cross with them.

We cross the famous Qalandiya checkpoint, surrounded by the impressive wall, without any problem or checking. Now we are in the West Bank. The friend I’m visiting lives in an area near Ramallah which is still under Israeli control. They live here so that they can still keep the Jerusalem ID and cross to Jerusalem when they need to. However, the area is no-man’s land. An Israeli-controlled area where no Israelis live. An area where chaos and dirt are the mayors. My friend explains me how trash has not been collected in the last month and how there is no authority in the place. We see trash containers so full that rubbish falls on the ground, some others seem to have been burnt, in order to get rid of it. My friend tells me how some weeks ago there was a killing near her house and no one has taken responsibility not been charged for it. Here there is no law but the Jungle’s law.

It’s evening and we go to Ramallah for some drinks. Curiously enough, Ramallah presents a lifestyle quite similar to that of any (non-coastal) Mediterranean city, including the possibility to go out at night and have a few drinks surrounded by friends in a terrace while listening to good music. The contrasts are big between the more conservative and more liberal citizens of this city, in which Arab Muslims and Christians live together. However, religion is not the main role in this division. Liberal Muslims and Christians meet at pubs and bars like Sangria or Beit Anissa, the same way conservative Muslims and Christians stay home or go to church or mosque. At least this is what seems to happen with my friends.

After some beers at a cool bar full of internationals we go back home, expecting the next day’s visit to the city. The next morning we visit the tomb of Yasser Arafat, a guy I am not sure if I consider a good leader, but who definitely is considered as so here. A beautiful building covers his remains (although a Palestinian friend tells me his remains are not there and would never be allowed back into Palestine) surrounded by men in huge guns (from a Palestinian Police which actually resembles an army for the size of its weapons). After this we see the many governmental buildings in the city, the various international organizations, the refugee camps, a big settlement nearby it, etc… I start to think every village, town or city in Palestine seems to come by default with a couple of refugee camps inside and a couple of Israeli settlements somewhere nearby.

In the afternoon we meet with some friends of my friend. One of them works for Save the Children in Silwan. She is in charge of attending children that have been detained by the Israeli authorities, trying to give them psychological support for their reinsertion into society. She tells me how hard her job is when she sees children detained when they are 8-12 years old. Furthermore, she explains how these children are detained in the West Bank and taken to Israeli Children’s centers which they cannot leave for around a month or more. When they get out they are usually refused in the schools they used to attend and have nothing to do. Most of these children are accused of throwing stones. These detentions are illegal and have been denounced not only by Save the Children but also by Israeli Human Rights Organizations like B'Tselem.