The Holy Land

We attempt to unravel the intricacies of the Holy Land (Palestine, The West Bank, Israel etc)... will work on world peace next!!

Jerusalem is utterly overwhelming.

We arrived here having been passed across the border (from Jordan) like a prisoner exchange. At first, the Jordanians demanded paperwork -translated into Arabic - that we did not have. Suddenly, those charming Jordanians, fluent in several languages, disappeared into bureaucracy and were replaced with single-note individuals with absolutely no language but Arabic. French, German and English tourists tried in vain to communicate, but the bristly officials were having none of it. We sat waiting in shabby, tiled surrounds being serenaded by an unrelenting obnoxious whistle from a broken scanner. It took 2.5 bewildering hours, sometimes with, sometimes nervously without, our passports to reach Palestine.

Once there, we managed to squeeze in a hurried visit to the caves at Quram where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found; Masada - the last Jewish holdout from the Romans; and Jericho, considered the most ancient, and first city on the planet. Jericho was established as a town in Neolithic times (8000BC*), and remains a busy town today. We left Jericho for Jerusalem as the sun was setting -- a glorious sunset with stunning shafts of light shining between the clouds. Exactly the opening sequence to The Life of Brian!

My entire religious education has been drawn from The Life of Brian and Jesus Christ Superstar. And surprisingly (or not) they are sooo accurate! There are a large number of Churches, Mosques and assorted religious places here, each with their own spiritual leaders urging you to follow them, as they are the one true religion. They mostly are men dressed in black flowing things, but you see the occasional brown frocked monk with a yellow rope about the waist (think Friar Tuck). Each of these assorted religious types wear some sort of hat or scarf, which makes it curious that Muslim's get picked on for their headscarves when it is exactly what Christian Nuns wear. The hatted/scarved business can lead to confusion, as some religious spots want you to bare your head, and others want you to cover it. Tricky. It's easy for the Americans as they don't remove their baseball caps no matter what the occasion. Rude bastards.

We found it amusingly ironic that Jews leaving Russia invested heavily in Russian (Christian) Icons as a way to make their money portable. They had no use for them upon arrival, so sold them. Ergo, there are now Jewish owned shops hawking Russian Icons lining the street where Christ did his last walk with the cross.

Jerusalem is infested with an obscene amount of tourists swarming about in every crypt and cranny. Busloads of joyful Christians arrive from all around the globe, and take turns singing hymns in the myriad churches dotted about - a 'Hymn Crawl' so to speak. Their shiny happy faces actually bring bile to the back of one's throat. In nice contrast to the saccharin Jesus freaks, we have the Jewish soldiers. These youngsters have clearly just finished high-school and are on a testosterone (yes even the girls) power-kick with their newly issued machine guns. They travel in groups of 6 for safety.

History weighs heavily here no matter where you turn. It is a potent force, and one that does not require fact to ground it. The current Biblical stories were not recorded until hundreds of years after Christ's death and until then, had been passed orally. As a result, there are several sites with potential for his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension - but just like our fake news world, each religion continues to justify the one that they have been taught. The religious structures were regularly built around caves in which the action supposedly happened, and have been enhanced and enriched layer by layer for two thousand years.  There are any number of influences in a single building - all contested by the various Christian factions. It's brilliant!

Not everyone holds religious buildings in reverential awe. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem had it's main doors lowered several hundred years ago to stop Bedouin tribesmen from riding directly in on their horses. Bet they didn't remove their headscarves either. More rude bastards!

The Palestinian conflict is clearly visible on the West Bank. Arabs are very much second class citizens, many of whom were forcefully removed from their homes with only 30 minutes warning. Israeli troops maintain a highly militarised presence in Palestine, and there are rigorous checks at border crossings into Israel. Two flags are forbidden to be flown there -- the Nazi flag, and their own Palestinian flag.

The last few days we've travelled to Nazareth and up into the Golan Heights. Large tracts of land here are fenced off because of mines. The Syrians mined it just before the Is - ra - eelees (you have to say it like that) took it from them in the 1967 war - and now they won't tell them where the mines are buried. Every now and then the odd "settler" gets blown up. There are remains of bombed out Syrian military posts everywhere.

Today we went to Armageddon - the place that will see the mighty battle at the End of Days! You will be judged! Awesome reputation aside, the place has been conquered by 25 different civilisations, over thousands of years. Each 'winner' tore down the previous city and built it back in their own style. The ruins are pretty cool, including a large raised platform on which the original Canaanites made sacrifices to Ba'al. It strikes us, that not much has changed since then.

Favourite T-shirts:

Guns 'n Moses
Just Jew it
I got stoned in Gaza
Israeli Military Intelligence: My job is so secret even I don't know what I am doing.

*They don't use BC (before Christ) and AD (Anno domini - the year of our Lord) here. It is BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era)