44. Jerusalem, 1997 - Minus one for you, plus ten for me
In which Eleanor's certainties evaporate.
Disturbed by her experiences, Eleanor struggles to adjust. Will a trip to old friends help?
Eleanor
15 December, 1997
I’m taking Deana up on her idea and keeping a journal. “We are living in a fascinating part of the world at a fascinating time, Elle,” she had said to me on Friday, “Try keeping a journal.”
With the end of the year almost here, I’m in a reflective mood anyway. So here goes.
Where to even start?
After a month in South Africa it was absolutely heart-wrenching to say goodbye to Henry. The way he clung to me…he didn’t want me to leave. There are some things he just can’t understand. To be able to play with him, go for rambles and hikes all over the farm with him, and just hug him and hold him was a special treat. He is such a loveable scamp—even when he is at his most impossible.
Mum and Dad were the same, the new drugs helping Mum feel a bit better and stronger. It was strange not to have Becca’s familiar presence in the house. But she has finally gone to do her own thing, Dad told me. Mum grumbled a lot about Becca’s replacement not being nearly as good as her, and how she’s having to train her. So, vintage Mum. I know I should try to be kinder, more understanding, as Helen admonished me, but I really struggle with Mum’s anxiousness, her constant worrying about me. No, at me. It’s like I’m still supposed to be tethered by some umbilical cord, while I’m off creating my own life. Tig seems to be getting settled too—he’s been mostly stable for the last few years, some bumps and wobbles, but nothing like that dreadful year after he’d started University.
So that was the interregnum, the “time out” before here. From Henry’s sweet, innocent hugs I’ve come to…? I’m still trying to figure that out.
It’s hard to believe I’ve only been here five months. It feels much longer than that. Cairo seems a lifetime ago already, and yet I only left there in May.
And here? In some ways I feel like I have been here for ages. Yet at other times the place is still so alien and it feels as if I can never be at home here the way I was in Cairo. I did not anticipate the sense of alienation and strangeness of this place. It is so very different to Cairo; greener and hillier for one, but more so it’s the atmosphere—the relentless tension in the air—that is so disorienting.
I have yet to experience much of the historical side of Jerusalem. It’s been straight into work, and it has been relentless since then. On a professional level I am being deeply challenged. All my certainties have evaporated in the face of the complexity of the problems, and the deviousness, distortion and downright lies that are employed by all parties—Israeli and Palestinian.
And the parallels to South Africa? Those I find profoundly disturbing. Everywhere I go in the West Bank I see it: the unequal access to water, land, even roads. Each small island of Palestinian autonomy and control surrounded by an Israeli security apparatus that hems them in, while allowing the settlements to expand. If a family dares to build on Area C1 land, the house is demolished. Meanwhile for every Palestinian house demolished, 10 new settlers establish themselves with impunity. Palestinian villages and towns are like the townships of apartheid—ruthlessly segregated from other Palestinian areas, with Israeli-enforced closures inflicted for even the mildest of “infractions”, while the violence of the settlers continues unchecked. A Palestinian throws a stone? He’s held without trial.2 A settler kills a Palestinian? Bravo, and let’s build another settlement. And bulldoze a road closed so that the villagers are cut off too.
I increasingly realize how protected I was as a child from a true knowledge of the brutality of the discriminative and unjust policies in South Africa. It is not something I can hide from here. It’s in my literal face every day as I travel to and from the apartment to the office, the checkpoints randomly and arbitrarily open or closed.
Francois let me take a four day weekend a while back and I used the opportunity to visit Fiona, now in Damascus, and Oliver, now in Lebanon. I either had to fly via Europe, or drive myself to Amman, drop the car and take a shared taxi from Amman to Damascus. I elected the latter. I was quite nervous crossing the border into Syria. The Syrians are known to be extremely difficult, even on “clean” passports, and I was terribly anxious that they were going to ask me difficult questions about not having a Jordanian entry stamp in my passport. But it went surprisingly well.
It was hard guarding every word I said against mentioning Israel in any conversation, even when it was just Fiona, Oliver and I. They cautioned me that it was just wiser to stay off political topics entirely—one could never be sure who was listening.
So that’s been the last five months of this year: eventful and full of changes. I hope to be able to come more to terms with work and this place over the next year, and perhaps see something of the Holy Land. The winter is depressing—very cold and wet and misty. I am not used to the sun going down at 5pm.
On that depressing note, I’m going to take myself off to bed.
Maybe I’ll journal more tomorrow.
Bonus Material
Area A, B and C: Look familiar?
Settlements explained: John Oliver explains - with a dash of biting humor.
Stone-throwing: to one, an act of protest and identity; to another, an act of violence.
Under the Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided into Area A, B and C. Area A was under full Palestinian control. Area B was under joint Palestinian and Israeli control, and Area C was under full Israeli control.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_stone-throwing for more on the fraught politics of Palestinian stone-throwing.