“When you’re travelling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” - William L.H. Moon
I was buying a few things in the Old town in Jerusalem before sunset. When I heard the call for prayer I went to do Maghrib in the Aqsa. There’s something about Al-Aqsa - because Muslim countries citizens seldom can go to Jerusalem, and because people from the West Bank are not allowed into Jerusalem without the occasional and rare permit, people who go to the Al-Aqsa are the Jerusalemites, mainly Old City residents, giving the mosque the feel, despite its grand religious and historical significance, of your neighbourhood mosque, with its familiar faces and homey feel.
As I head into the mosque I am stopped by the Israeli soldiers who get their fun out of harassing people like myself, and I am forced to unwrap the posters I bought for their viewing pleasure. I eventually get into the Haram-al-Sharif - late - but catch the prayer.
As soon as the imam ends the prayer there’s a loud stampede, people RUNNING out of the mosque and heading to western side of the mosque...
Turns out - there’s a daily iftar taking place by the Aqsa, every day! By the time I finish there are rows of people - three, four hundred people - sitting and eating the meals donated by the mosque-goers.
I join in, get two juicy dates (the fruit, not the appointment :o). I leave, walking past the people sitting on the floor and exit the Haram compound, past the same Israeli soldiers sipping warm sahlab.
Ramallah, 3:09 am, exactly one hour before Fajr prayer time. Outside, amidst the Quran reading for Qiyam prayers, I hear a drum - DumDumDum-DumDum. DumDumDum-DumDum.
It's the Mesaharati - that very old tradition, of a man passing through the streets with a drum, waking up people to eat their late-night meal, the suhoor, before the fasting day begins.
I thought the Mesaharati no longer existed!!
I jump on the roof through my kitchen window, as I hear the drumming and chanting getting louder. Instead of the old man in a funny outfit we grew to imagine, it was 2 guys my age with a drum, looking like a 2-man marching band. Very cheerful chaps, really, and besides the very traditional chant of “Wake up, sleeper! Praise the One God!” they also come up with their own chants, including “catch the good month before it goes away!” and “you’re going to be hungry!”
I chase them down the street in my pajamas, chat a minute with them - they still have a long round to go! - and snap a photo.
As I was searching for the very catchy "God is a DJ" song I found this extremely entertaining (and well acclaimed, it appears) film... I recommend. And it's only 8 minutes long!
I met Hussein at a post office in Tel Aviv - I noticed the black man next to me writing in Arabic, and assumed he’d be Sudanese or Somali.
I ask about how his family back home in Darfur is doing: “oh, they’re fine, alhamdulillah. Some are home, some are in camps, you know how it is, not very easy”. His laid-back attitude confirms to me what I had long suspected: I know zilch about what is really taking place there.
Hussein is now legally in Israel - he entered illegally, of course, through Egypt.
“I got to Al-Arish, and from there...” he smiles as his index and middle finger wiggle, making the impression of a walking person.
“It’s great here though. They give you a 6 months visa that you can renew, and they even help you find a job”. And you can even renew this 6 months visa...” I understand he got admitted as a refugee. I guess when you come from the location of the world’s largest genocide, it’s a pretty convincing argument...
Skeptical - I blame my stint at UNHCR - I ask him whether he’s here because of the war, or to find a job. Hussein is straightforward:
“Oh no, I’m just here for work. To make money. And inshallah when I have enough money, in two or three years, I’ll go home”.
Hussein and Natacha. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.
Hussein was in the post office to send some money home. 500 dollars. But wiring money from Israel to Sudan is impossible; the Sudanese here have to wire money to friends in a third country - often Egypt, because it’s close and cheap - who, in turn, will wire it to Sudan.
For some odd reason, Hussein was wiring money to a friend in... China! In a remote town (Niwu, or something?) that didn’t seem to appear on the Western Union database!
In a mix of broken English and Hebrew, we communicate to the Russian teller what needs to be done. Which was more tough than you'd think - a Sudanese and an Egyptian trying to give a Chinese address postal address (written in Arabic) to a Russian teller. To transfer American money. Funny world we live in..
We shake hands, promise to remain in touch without meaning it. Hussein returns to work - he cleans room in a North Tel-Aviv hotel.
Davy’s readers! Welcome to my humble blog. Your comments - discussion, praise as well as hate, clearly - are very welcome.
Davy boy (oh, I know you’re reading you sneaky little weasel you!): it ain’t over til I say it’s over, son. ‘Nuff said!
To my kind readers!
First, pardon this post, which I hope will be a one-time thing. (plus I thought you might find it amusing). We’ll return to regular broadcasts very soon. :)
So I got into an outlandish conversation with some chap -a proto-terrorist really; a self defined racist, an advocate of murdering Palestinians, who refers to himself as an islam-hater and as a ‘gun-toting settler’. Imagine the type.
I dunno what I was doing talking to a bottom feeder like that! I must have been bored to death. :)
Aaaanyways. Just as the conversation on that thread on his blog started to get interesting, he - actually, ‘it’ is more correct! It! - decided to cut off the discussion. Just when it was actually starting to take some shape.
So I am typing here a response to a conversation I was having. Who knows. Something good might come up of this waste of time anyway: an actual conversation with reasonable people. See, it’s not about the difference of ideas: it’s about the kind of person you are.
Those responses are therefore for those people who want to discuss like real people. The kind that deserves the oxygen they breathe. ;)
Karl:
I understand that there are people who may have suffered from terrorist attacks, and this is truly sad. What you're missing however is that Palestinians also suffer Israeli attacks, army incursion, settler violence, etc. Everyone - and I mean, everyone has been or knows someone who has been subject to violence, and everyone knows someone who has been to Israeli jails. My greengrocer spent 11 years in jail in Israel. The waiter in my coffee shop, who also went to jail for a year because he had a GazaID but was apprehended in the West Bank (imagine that - a year in jail for leaving your hometown!), told me 'jail is like a tax that every Palestinian has to pay one day or the other'.
See, there are a couple of ways of dealing with that.
a) You can either, à la Trep, walk around with a gun, declare yourself a racist, convince yourself that Palestinians don't deserve to exist, and look for the chance to kill someone.
b) You can actually attempt to find a solution. You know, peace and all that?
And building settlements - which are illegal under international law (4th Geneva convention prohibits the transfer of civilian population into occupied territories) doesn't help. Settlements aren't built on wasteland, Karl. They are built on someone's land. And those people, those Palestinians, are subject to all sorts of abuse by settlers.
I actually recommend you the work of "Breaking the silence" - an organisation of former IDF soldiers that tells of the activity of the army and settlers in the West Bank. It's extremely interesting.
And I'll paraphrase you: many people here see them (settlers, in this case)"as barbarians, and considering the evidence, it's hard to refute".
So here's a snippet of life around here. In your suggestion, Karl, what can be done about it? What can be done for the Palestinians, and for the Israelis, to live in safety?
I have a suggestion; I am keen on hearing yours. Actually, your answer will determine whether you're a type a) or b), and whether this discussion is actually going anywhere.
Beyond the traditional travel warnings the Israeli government issues every couple of months (about Thailand and Sinai, generally), the warning yesterday seemed to be a little notch more serious, asking Israeli tourists to leave the Sinai and warning against a specific threat:
apparently Hezbollah is attempting to kidnap Israelis in Sinai and take them to Gaza. (Which I find rather odd - a Hamas-Hezbo alliance? On Egyptian soil? Really? Weird...)
What the heck is Hezbo doing in Sinai screwing up the Sinai fall/'chagim' holiday season? Jackasses!
Let’s put it this way: Tel Aviv put a giant orange duck on the roof of the (incredibly dull) city hall, in honour of a passed cartoonist, Dudu Geva, who had suggested doing so.
And THIS, my friends, is very cool. I can't think of any other place where this could happen.
A for Architecture
A generally low-rise city, some of Tel Aviv’s prettiest neighbourhoods have been suffering from an attack of skyscrapers which screw up the view, inhabited by annoying foreigners who screw up the overall mood. Nevertheless, a place like Neze Tsedek remains charming and its shops and galleries house the beautiful, the eccentric, and everything in between.
(okay, okay. That was my 1-minute guided tour. Sorry.)
B is for Benches
TA is one of the precious few big cities where you can hang out on a street bench (that is, when you’re older than 15 and/or sober...).
Chat with a friend, yelp in your phone, sip a coffee, walk the dog, watch over your children playing in the park, kiss, or even sleep off a hangover - regardless of what you do, you’ll find a bench to do it!
And without being particularly discreet - Tel Avivians WILL look you up and down in a glimpse, live with it - people will nevertheless let you be.
B for Beach
People roasting, Yerushalayim beach
A character in “The Bubble” said that the people who first built Tel Aviv knew nothing about the sea, so they built the main streets parallel to the shore - which blocks the sea breeze.
Today’s Tel Avivans, however, have managed to perfect their beach knowledge, and the city has been growing north and southwards, constantly trying to minimize the distance between their houses and the sea.
אני הולך על המים :-)
There are always, always, people at the beach. By day, it’s the legions of sun-thirsty people. And those goddamn noisy racquets ("matkot") players hitting the ball so diligently you'd think their life depended on it (or they were perhaps .
By night, it’ll be tourists strolling with an ice-cream, out-of-towners checking the big city, hobos that live there, kids coming out of a nearby party and sipping their last beer of the night, young boys from Jaffa whistling at the passing girls.
C is for Coffee
I didn’t need Google to confirm that all attempts for Starbucks to penetrate the Tel Aviv market have failed miserably (in 2003); if they hadn’t, they would have become like those two Starbucks branches in Vienna - a hangout for tasteless tourists and a reminder that the locals KNOW coffee. At essentially any point on Rothschild Boulevard you will be within 25 metres of at least 3 coffee shops!
Granted, it’s nothing like my grandmother’s Turkish coffee - my world reference for coffee - but it’s really, really good. I mean, even lousy (Hillel!) or ultra-commercial coffee chains (Aroma) are pretty good by world standards.
One of my favourites is Café Tachtit ('Underground') on Lincoln St. Tell them you’re a friend of the Egyptian dude. Have the Ice Mocha. Wed3ili.
(the coffee shop photo I used in the previous post. So, instead, you get more beach-themed photos!)
Tarot reader scamming nice (and heartbroken) tourist lady
Hare Krishna singers and dancers in the sunset
End of the beach day - African refugee packing up the plastic beach chairs
The fantastic photos above (and many, many more) are from the Boston Globe, definitely worth a click! (have you ever heard of sitting volleyball? Or blind football?) More photos also available on Sports Illustrated. Enjoy.
(update -- apparently Egypt is doing quite well there (Hiya!!!): 3 Gold medals and 3 paralympic records (2 in men weightlifting, 1 in women weightlifting), 2 silvers (men weightlifting, women weightlifting), 3 bronze (women weightlifting, men weightlifting, javelin). Makes you want to scrap the idiotic football team of ours and give their gazillion dollar budget to the Paralympic committee).
"The US has pledged$10m (£5.7m) in aid to Haiti, where the UN estimates 800,000 people are in temporary shelters.
Washington also offered $100,000 (£57,000) in initial aid to Cuba,whose government has been subject to a US trade embargo for four decades.
Cuba turned the offer down, asking instead that the US sells it supplies on credit."
The US' pledge for aid to Haiti is truly laudable. ($10m is still 1/10 of the needed emergency money, but still is a great sum of money.)
The $100,000 they are offering to Cuba are a joke though. An insult, really. The message is simple: if you don't play nice, we'll fucking let your refugees die from malaria in makeshift camps.
Seriously! $100,000? I feel that holding the meeting where this decision was taken cost close to that much, with the experts and meteorologists and what have you they had to bring over... I'm sure they had a good laugh when some prankster suggested that amount.
I believe that, when faced with an emergency of the sort, with a humanitarian disaster, political considerations should take the backseat, and only humane motivations should guide us.
The State department doesn't believe that, obviously, and if a foe has the head underwater, it's just a better opportunity for them to step on it and keep pushing.
More than 4 out 5 women in Egypt have been harassed. Truly shameful and seriously revolting. Where did the anti-harassment legislation go??? When they would arrest the men and shave their heads? Or are we just happy to pretend to care about morality in speeches?
Very interesting group of testimonies, on BBC News.
I’m a little mad at OPEC for reducing oil production - before I got to post my blog entry advising them to do that!
OPEC is already above production limits. And even with the new production reduction - merely 520,000 barrels/day, it STILL is above production limits, make no mistakes.
Prices have gone crashing over the past two months, dipping below 100 dollars a barrel; a 5-months low.
Were I an OPEC country, I would simply attempt to maintain as high prices as possible. Oil is a very inelastic good anyway, and demand is unlikely to drop significantly.
There are protests in Russia against fuel prices. Can we blame that on the Gulfies? Hmmm, nope. Russia is the second larger producer of oil in the world, is self-sufficient and a lead exporter. So if the prices are too high, it’s monopolistic collusion and government taxes - which, as I like to remind, represent 70% or more of gas prices in France, Britain and other countries.
And basic economics play here, too: the higher the price, the higher the supply. How? Well, more expensive fields will find it worthwhile to extract and produce.
We used to consider that $40 was the lowest price to makes extraction from sandy fields worthwhile. (from the Alaskan Tundra, for instance, it's $25).
The higher the prices, the more fields will enter the market. Think underwater oil fields in the near future.
And this new supply will entail a reduction of price, which will ultimately stabilize at an equilibrium level; until then, OPEC countries would’ve made a few extra bucks.
In a sense, it looks like we’re going into the endgame of an iterated prisoner's dilemma game: we’ll keep playing the negative equilibrium until, well, we either run out of oil or stop using it!
Of course, in real life there are other considerations. Pressure from consumers (who are the ones who have the guns, hehe); the effect of fuel on food prices; etc. And the big losers from higher oil prices are net food importers. Poor countries are suffering from the repercussions of higher oil prices. But no one cares about these guys, right?
Blackberry on the beach. Struck me as so Tel Aviv-cliché, and so anti-Tel Aviv in the same time..
You sit in your regular café, sipping your ‘afouch’ - cappuccino - and absent-mindedly watch people pass by, parents walking their baby, and the other people sipping other cappuccinos in the café across the street.
Then you are told that, because of a wave of bombings in the city, you are no longer allowed to sit by the window of the café because it’s too dangerous.
If, after a few months of resignation, you decide that no goddamn bomb will deprive you from your afouch and decide to brave the ban to sit by the window - such an act of rebellion! - then congratulations: you are a real Tel Avivian.
I know this intro will be surprising to many - those who agree or disagree with me alike. But attempting to comprehend this state of mind is unavoidable, to hopefully grasp the essence of the Tel Aviv that hides beyond the beach bars. The ephemeral normalcy that, like a pendulum, we brush against but never halt; but never stop trying either. Tel Aviv has a 'cautious lust for life', in a sense, enjoying it while it lasts but it somehow foresees it won't.
You there yet?
Bartender at café Tachtit
**********
Tel Aviv is to Israelis what Ramallah is to Palestinians: a self-sufficient bubble which would be more than glad to severe ties with the madness outside. It seldom can, though. Reality, not unlike death, always catches up. Badly.
It’s the Israel that is not on the news. The one I did not know existed and thought was only in the imagination - and on the blogs - of the most optimistic of observers of this country.
Never far enough from the Occupation, of course, but with enough detachment to view things with a clarity unavailable when you walk, daily, in a checkpoint metal cage and past disagreeable soldiers barking at you in Russo-Hebrew, or walk past a chap with extra-long and curly sideburns in a black dressing gown (or when you ARE one) on a street of Jerusalem.
It’s far from perfect, of course. But in the given circumstances, it’s as close as it’s going to get. In a different world, I could live there.
There is so much to tell about Tel Aviv, so many interesting photos to post that I think that Tel Aviv 101 deserves its own little series. I'll post photos soon. And if I start to sound like a tour guide - stop me!
* Dani Rodrik's article for Project-Syndicate on why we shouldn't bother about the (renewed) failure of the Doha Development round.
His conclusion:
“Don’t cry for Doha. It never was a development round, and tomorrow’s world will hardly look any different from yesterday’s.”
* The odd couple writing the article should, in itself, interest you in reading it:
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, and Nick Oppenheimer, CEO of De Beers (the world's largest diamond company, based in ZA).
The article does use the word 'competitiveness' far too often but is overall a fresh approach to growth.
"African governments need to sell the necessary reforms - to sell capitalism - at home. Citizens must understand that Africa's competitive edge will not come from short-term price movements in resources and people. Productivity will result from well-governed businesses, educated citizens and leaders willing to take the tough steps to make this happen."
I'm an economic consultant, perpetual expat, often lost, curious, religious, secular, illogical and hesitant.
This blog is somewhat of a travelogue, a political and economic commentary board.
Your comments and emails are both welcome and encouraged; this blog is meant to be read and it's nice to know that it is! Agree, disagree, object, discuss...
Thank you for wasting your working hours here.
