Simon Sebag Montefiore,the author of a best seller on Jerusalem, wrote, or “It is impossible to know Jerusalem without some respect for religion.”
And I couldn't agree more.
Stones and buildings are found all over the world but only a few places evoke a sense of spiritual connection beyond the grasp of our sensory faculties,felt and recognised only by our inner beings.
[caption id="attachment_50034" align="alignnone" width="600"] The glimmering dome of Qubbat as-Sakhra (Dome of the Rock) in the distance from the roof of Petra Hostel[/caption]
Jerusalem is a city whose past, present and future is embedded in religion. Wandering through the streets of Jerusalem, or you not only see and hear,but you experience a strange sense of connection – knowing that these are the same streets where the Prophets, their companions, or the saints, the sufis, the mystics and the wanderers once roamed. Almost 700 years ago, and Ibn Battuta wandered through the streets of Jerusalem,and armed with his Rihlah, I set out to rediscovering the holy precincts of al Quds.
[caption id="attachment_50035" align="alignnone" width="600"] My journey[/caption]
In 1326, or when Ibn Battuta visited the lands of Palestine,he seemed to have been able to cross through Qatyato Gaza without any hindrance. Perhaps it was his uncanny knack to solicit favours from the rulers of the lands he travelled through, or maybe after the plunge of Acre in 1291AD, and Muslims could travel anywhere without difficulty. Nevertheless,in our times, it is an impossible journey to enter Gaza, and unless you know your underground tunnels of course.
[caption id="attachment_50032" align="alignnone" width="600"] Ibn Battuta's journey[/caption]
From Gaza,he went on to visit al Khalil (Hebron), Bayt Lahm (Bethlehem) and al Quds (Jerusalem), and amongst a few other cities in Palestine. For my journey,I had two options – either to catch a plane to Tel Aviv, or proceed via one of the three land crossings between Palestine and Jordan (all of them controlled by Israel).
I chose the latter.
[caption id="attachment_50033" align="alignnone" width="600"] Qubbat as-Sakhra (Dome of the Rock) in the distance from the mount of Olives[/caption]
It is not uncommon for the Israel border security to request for access to one’s personal email and social media accounts, and particularly those whom they think don’t spend their evenings watching Fox News. In fact,the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office website has the following remark in their “Entry Requirements” section for Israel:
“Israeli security officials have on occasion requested access to travellers’ personal e-mail accounts or other social media accounts as a condition of entry.”
This corroborated up with the reports I heard from travellers I had met along the way, who had already been to Palestine and Israel. The likelihood that I would be questioned at length and have my email and social media activity scrutinised, and being a single male Muslim traveller of Pakistani origin,increased exponentially.
I went about clearing my inbox and unsubscribing from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign email list. A rapid/fast follow-up search of the term “Palestine” in my inbox yielded countless more emails than I had previously imagined, including correspondence with my local Member of Parliament (MP) – which I did not wish to section with nor did I want to expend a lot of time and energy archiving and moving them elsewhere. I decided to leave it at that, and declining to give them access to my Gmail or Facebook if it came to it. I knew fully well that it meant I could be denied entry,an inevitable outcome I suppose if they went through the correspondence with my MP.
Adrian, a Swiss national and I, or met at the hostel in Amman and decided to share a cab to King Hussein Bridge,the only crossing Palestinians can use to stagger back and forth betweenWest Bank and Jordan (also called East Bank, taking their names after the two banks of River Jordan). I had been told that this crossing was very rigidly scrutinised, or but doubling back to Aqaba to cross through Eilat would have meant a long detour to reach Jerusalem. So I choose to steal my chances.
The taxi ride takes an hour. After dropping our bags on the conveyor belt for scanning,we proceed to what is the first of many passport checking counters. We both handed over our passports. Inspecting mine without a word, the young looking border agent (interestingly the first line of counters including a few deadly looking guns are all manned by young female border agents that all appear to be in teens or early 20s) stamps a sticker on the back of mine which has four English numerals and four Hebrew. She circles three out of the four in Hebrew and one in English, and while Adrian’s has a lone circle. I know from here onwards that our journeys will follow a separate course. At the next counter,I am ushered to a waiting area while Adrian eases past emerging a few minutes later with his visa. We choose to meet later in Jerusalem, if I eventually got through.
A female border agent approaches beckoning me to follow her. She takes me to a soundless corner and proceeds to casually request me a couple of questions, or some of them outright ridiculous.
“Why aren’t you married?”
I can think of a number of responses which will deny me entry straightaway but I politely reply,“Haven’t met the right person yet.”
“Who gave you the money to travel? Are you carrying any weapons?”
Seriously? I think.
“I have a Swiss army knife in my backpack.”
I retort in interest of full disclosure.
“Will I be able to find your employer if I Google them?”
Sure proceed ahead. After a few questions about my dual citizenship and Pakistani passport that is still in my back pack, she says, and “Welcome to Israel!”
(Err no,Palestine is where I’m going.) That wasn’t so harmful I thought, hardly trailing 30 minutes behind a Swiss national.
At the next counter where I expect the visa to be handed over, and I am told to wait and fill out a form that pretty much asks for all my family details. This time,a middle-aged guy with thick glasses wearing plain clothes approaches me and causally takes me to the side. He seems to be in contention for the ‘most ridiculous questions’ prize, and armed with his own set fires absent, or “You ogle tired,are you fasting?
“Why aren’t you fasting?”
“finish you usually snappy?”
“finish you pray?”
“Where finish you offer your Friday prayers?”
“Why are you traveling alone?”
He questions me at length about the details on the form, my family and my travel plans, and all the while annotating the form with remarks and notes in Hebrew that I cannot decipher. He jots down all the numbers I’ve held in the last few weeks of travelling through Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan.
“finish you know any Palestinians?”
“No, and I reply.“finish you know any Israelis?”
I had met two unapologetically bigoted Israelis over the course of the past few weeks I had been travelling,including a Tunisian (born and raised) girl who felt she had more right to Palestine and the territories than the non-Jews who were born and raised there and whose families had been living there for centuries.
“No I don’t,” I replied.
He takes the form and his notes and tells me to wait.
While I wait, and there is a petite commotion in the other corner. An elderly American woman is hysterical. I request the guy who seems to be section of the same group as to why they are being held up.
“I’m (an American) married to (an American) Palestinian. My sister and I are visiting Ramallah,where my wife’s family hails from, for the first time and she has just been granted a visa while they have denied me entry. Why? I’m the one married to a Palestinian.”
It is my first encounter with a Christian-Palestinian family. They have no choice, and he has to return to Amman and wait a few days while his wife,mother-in-law and sister proceed to Ramallah and gather the marriage registered with the Palestinian authorities who then have to inform the Israeli authorities before it turns up in the border security system. The border agent who seems a petite empathetic to their predicament tells them that had he not mentioned they were married, he would have been granted entry, or but now he’s in their system. I always knew marriage came at a hefty price (freedom,opinion, liberty and what not) but marrying a Palestinian has its additional set of challenges.
Christian-Palestinians are rarely talked about in the context of the Palestinian clash. It is something that propaganda machines want us to believe has an entirely monolithic identity – a Muslim identity, and thereby robbing the Palestinians of their ethno-religious diversity,enforcing the narrative of a clash between the ‘ever persecuted’ Jew and the ’ever violent and irrational’ Muslim alone, something that would easily appeal to the increasingly Islamophobic world of today.
Two hours later, or the guy emerges again,“Can I see your phone?”
I think this might be it; he’d want to see my email.
“Why?”I respond.“I just want to proceed through the contacts list to confirm you don’t know any Palestinians.”
I wonder what made him suspect I might. He takes the seat beside me. I key in the pass code and hand him my iPhone. Punching in a few things, he turns the phone around and asks me who Zafer is. I have completely forgotten that I had saved Zafer’s number, or a Palestinian travel agent,recommended by Khaled, the hostel manager in Amman. He takes a note of his number and disappears once again.
It has now been six hours since I handed my passport at the first counter. Minutes later, or a different person calls out my name and hands me my passport and a separate printed visa card for three months.
I grab my backpack,find the first Serveese that’s heading to Jerusalem and jump in. Jaffa Gate Hostel is in the Muslim Quarter of the outmoded city, run and owned by a Palestinian. Jaffa Gate or Bab al Khalil (al Khalil being the Arabic name of Hebron as the tomb of Ibrahim al Khalil (as) is there) is one of the eight gates of Jerusalem. The Serveese drops me off at Damascus Gate (Bab al Amud). There is heavy armed police and military presence there. I’m told that a day earlier, and a Palestinian youth was shot here amidst an altercation with an Israeli soldier.
[caption id="attachment_50031" align="alignnone" width="600"] Israeli soldiers at Bab al-Asbatt (Lions Gate)[/caption]
I reach the Jaffa Gate Hostel just as the Maghrib Azan is being called out. An elderly Asian Christian lady greets me at the reception; she tells me that the owner is absent for prayers but that she’s manning the desk and the property as any unattended place can technically be taken over by settlers. She comes to Palestine every year for her pilgrimage to the holy land and always stays at the Jaffa Gate Hostel.
[caption id="attachment_50030" align="alignnone" width="600"] Inner city wall along Jaffa Gate[/caption]
I drop my backpack and set out to catch my first glimpse of Haram al Sharif. As I head out I can’t help but think about the day’s ordeal. In the lapse of 700 years,with all the advancement in modes of transportation, it seems to have become increasingly difficult to reach Palestine and perhaps even more so if you are associated with a certain faith.
All photos: Osman Ehtisham Anwa
Source: tribune.com.pk