Jerusalem

This is a bit of a touristy post. I'm going to keep it brief because although Jersualem is very beautiful and almost overwhelming, I feel like I should get back to writing about interesting things that have been in the news recently, and a lot of other things about the West Bank that I simply could not have comprehended uptil I've seen them.

Jerusalem is pretty much divided into three major and very distinct sections, the West, the East, and the Old City.

The West is very modern, full of shops and wouldn't feel out of place in a European or North American Country. It’s the home of the Knesset and most of the Israeli administrations. It’s very clean and what I saw was very plush. There are lots of police and troops around too. Everyone has guns, even members of the public were wondering round with huge rifles.

The Old City is just amazing, it’s the home of the holy sights, the Temple Mount with the famous Western wall, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It’s a pretty small (in comparison to the rest of Jerusalem) area enclosed within ancient walls, but the streets are tiny and wriggly and totally packed with merchants of all kinds. Children and you youths are always crossing and running from place to place pushing and pulling carts of fruit and boxes of all different kinds.

The holy sights are something else.

The Western wall is where I started, its pretty much as you see in the pictures, men pray on the left and women on the right. for a man you must have ur head covered if you want to approach the wall yet that appears to be the only formality. I felt very welcome there. I was told that it is a place of worship for people of all religions by a nice man from Manchester!

We then went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is built on the ground where Jesus died and was raised to heaven. It not particularly impressive from the outside, but as soon as you walk in you are sure that you are in somewhere very holy! Its quite dark and when the monks are not singing him there is a peaceful hush in the whole place. It is a deceptively large building with many passageways and rooms that you almost stumble upon. The last five stations of the cross are here, and I was fortunate enough to see the last one in Christ’s tomb, which is a very small awkward little room now, fantastically decorated on the outside and with paintings and incense on the inside. Its hard to describe being there, what overwhelms you is the feeling of the place not anyone thing.

The Al-Asqa Mosque complex is huge! It is actually a large plaza-type area surrounded by walls which is home to both the Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, which is the big gold building you see in the pictures. The Dome, as the name implies, houses a holy rock. It is what Mohamed was standing upon when he ascended to heaven. Marks on the rock are attributed to the foot prints of the profit and to the hand prints of the archangel Gabriel who held the rock to the earth when it tried to follow Mohamed to heaven. It really is an amazing place and as long as you are dress modestly there is little formality imposed on anyone, I saw children playing football and running around while some people prayed and some people (like me) sheltered from the heat.

Emily and I also climbed the Mount of Olives which is very very very steep and is home to various holy sites. There are large Jewish cemeteries because this is judgement day will occur, and some believe that being buried here equates to a good place in line (according to the guide book). The view from the Mount of Olives is amazing, all across the old city and beyond. Unfortunately the Mount of Olives exposed us to East Jerusalem, which is predominately neglected by the city authorities and a large mound (very very very large) of rubbish has accumulated due to the city neglecting to do regular trash collections.

It was from the east that we caught our first glimpse of the Wall! I’ve got a lot to say about the wall, but this is not the place to do it. It is sufficient to tell you that despite international protests and the assertion of its illegality by the international community, the UN and the world court, the wall still stands. East Jerusalem was captured during the 1967 war and according to UNSCR 242 it is part of the occupied territories that Israel has no legal right to. Despite this fact the wall runs not through the city, but around it. Palestinians from the West Bank, of Muslim, Christian and Jewish heritage are therefore cut off from their holy sites and all the amenities that the “Capital City” and the State of Israel have to offer, while Palestinians on the Israeli side of the wall are forbidden to visit friends and family on the other.

From Jerusalem the wall is an ugly shameful disgrace which, from what I can tell, misrepresents the true nature of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. Elsewhere on the west bank, however, the wall has ruined lives.

Pictures are available here and here.