Ha'am Doresh Tzedek Hevrati - The People Demand Social Justice / Israel, The Holy Land

Interesting places make for interesting people.
As I stepped into Tel Aviv, the first thing that stood out was the number of young people, girls and boys, in uniform carrying a gun. And then, as I waited for my bus, I saw a guy with flip flops, shorts and a t-shirt carrying a huge gun, casually. Yes, Israel is an interesting place.
Tel Aviv, with its beaches, tall buildings, green parks, big avenues, cafes at various corners, reminded me a lot of Brazil. The very beautiful girls in bikinis probably played a part in the comparison.
But what made this trip special, was the meeting of people, specifically, three of them, which to me, told a very tiny bit of the story of this country.

Meeting no. 1 at the hostel in Tel Aviv:
Mairead, an Irish woman, is working for Amnesty International, and has been placed in a village in Palestine (West Bank) for 3 months (Her blog: http://blogs.amnesty.org.uk/blogs.asp?bid=25). She stays with Palestinian families in the village which is surrounded by Jewish settlements and the army. She said that although the army doesn’t use force against the villagers, they apply intimidating techniques, such that, they would come at night to the village and fire shots in the air, burn their olive fields, stop their water supply. The Jewish settlements, which are nearby, do not lack any basic need, infrastructure-wise. Amnesty places white people in these small villages, so that the army will think twice before violating any human rights. When I asked her if this was just one side of the story, and what about the Arabs being the aggressors sometimes, she responded that the Head of the village once picked up a stone from the ground, and told her “this is our only defense".

Meeting no.2 on the bus to Jerusalem:
I sat next to a guy on the bus, who was really nice, and since most Israelis have traveled to India, it is always easy to find a common topic to start a discussion. I don’t remember his name, but when he told me that he lives in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, he must have seen my eyes pop out. Maybe I could get some insights from the other side? He said that most of the stories we hear are blown out of proportion, and that the Arabs and the Israelis are actually more friendly towards each other than what we make them to be. He said that he didn’t experience any violence in the settlement, but that “we must always be careful of terrorists”.

Meeting no.3 in Jerusalem:
The old city of Jerusalem is an incredible place. A place with so much history, so many religions converging. Until I went there, I didn’t know that the old city was actually divided into many parts - the Christian Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, the Jewish Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. Ethiopians too have a small area allocated to them. It felt incredible walking on these streets submerged with history. Vibration and energy wise, I didn’t feel anything special, probably because what makes the place special is human influence and not nature. I don’t know. A guy told me that when I would touch the wall, I would feel a lot of vibrations, I didn’t.
Anyway, on the tour to the dead sea (we really do float on it! Hard to sink or swim), I met Aboud, a French/Algerian guy who said he was visiting Israel, because he had heard so many bad things about them while growing up as a Muslim, and so, he wanted to see with his own eyes, if it was true that Israelis are “bad” people. He said that so far, his experience in Israel was wonderful, except for maybe the airport, where he was kept for 4 hours and the authorities checked everything, including his Facebook and his emails. Aboud was full of energy, and without even knowing much English, he managed to be the spirit of the group in the tour. When the tour crossed to Palestine, you could see a change in him. He obviously felt solidarity.

I think that it was fitting that I finished my trip by joining my friend Alon and his family in, as per what I was told, the biggest ever demonstration in Israel, where 300000 people went to the streets of Tel Aviv (the population of Tel Aviv is around 500000) and demanded and shouted for social justice.
I was handed a free t-shirt which read in Hebrew “Love thy neighbor as much as thyself”.

Link to pics