4 layers of security later, I'm in Jerusalem!

As I walked off the plane there was already a contingent from Ben Gurion airport security waiting to ask specific people to step aside to be questioned. I walked the long route to passport check feeling like the familiarity of the place, the sudden switch to Hebrew everywhere and the feeling of coming home were all somewhat surreal. Maybe I was paranoid because I've heard a few stories recently of expats who are outspoken about the occupation being sent back but I have to admit my prayer as I landed in Tel Aviv yesterday morning at 4:30am was simply "Lord, please just let me get through". In the end it was amazing how easily it all worked out. A surely woman asked me the purpose of my visit, where I would be and how long and gave me a 3 month visa, my bag took 2 minutes to come, and I took a sherut (public taxi) straight to Mt. Zion where I'm staying for the first two nights. (When I say straight, I mean, of course, going through a checkpoint and stopping at 8 different locations including a nearby settlement to drop the other passengers off) Then, with 3 hours of sleep, I joined my friend Ben for a short jog, had some breakfast, took a much-needed shower, and slept for most of the rest of the day.

So, Hallelujah, I'm here!

Now, what should I do? Seeing my friend Aline yesterday was a good first choice. As always here, though, the mundane becomes the politically charged very rapidly. Aline needed to get new shoes for her cousin's wedding. So we went to the new Mamilla strip-mall development next to Jaffa gate. It's a strip mall in the sense that there's commercial stores in the family of starbucks, Express, etc but it's also beautiful old Jerusalem stone facade, has art exhibits and a historic old Church right off to the side of it. This area was just starting to be build when I left Jerusalem three years ago. I commented as we walked in that the buildings the stores were in were really beautiful. Aline stopped and told me "Yeah of course, you know this used to be Palestinian houses, right?" Nope, I didn't know. Turns out that when Palestinians fled their homes there in 1948 the Israeli government took ownership of them and since then convinced the historic church to sign off on the development project (there's a big problem with churches selling off land they really shouldn't here. It's apparently linked to a lot of corrupt leadership but sometimes also, as in this case, carelessness in reading the fine print) and thus the Mamilla strip mall came to be. I looked around and asked "What about the right of return?" and also "How can you shop here?" To the former there is really not much one can say. When a peace deal is signed I'm sure places like Mamilla will have to be compensated for, but I doubt very much the families who lived in the houses where those shops now operate will every be able to come home. To the latter Aline, knowing I wasn't accusing but knew that it must be hard to go there knowing the history, replied "I know, it's terrible. But I live here and even if I didn't go here but to Malha (the main mall in Jerusalem) it's the same thing; it was built on what used to be a Palestinian village too."

Aline said one thing that really bothered her was that now with this area built up all the tourists went straight from Jaffa gate here (Thinking, like me, "What lovely stone buildings! What a great place to get some coffee!") without having any idea when they walk into the swim suit store they are treading on someone's dispossessed house. But this also means they bypass Damascus Gate and the Muslim quarter of the old city a lot more, thereby robbing it of a primary economic resource. So who's wrong? The church leaders for selling the land? The developers for developing the area? The tourists for being ignorant of what they are unintentionally supporting or the history they are walking into? The locals for shopping there even when they do know the history? The government who dispossessed the families of their land to begin with? Probably the question of who's wrong and to what degree isn't really a good question at all. But it's this kind of situation that for me shows some of the complexity here, and also the way in which injustices build up and become trickier to dislodge the longer they are let sit.

I'm keeping a journal of "Occupation Observations" because I've noticed I hear and see a lot of things I have trouble retelling later with any helpful details. I don't know what I will be doing much of the rest of my time here, I have a lot of ideas but mostly I'm just focusing on seeing friends and keeping my eyes and ears open. It's unbelievable the things you can observe when you're being attentive.