The way to Jerusalem

As the flights to Egypt are very cheap, I first landed in Marsa Alam on the southern coast on the Red Sea and then continued by bus straight to the border with Israel, with only a few breaks. The border crossing was not as difficult as I expected because of my numerous visas of countries with hostile relationship with Israel.

But when I was through I noticed that I arrived at the wrong time - friday afternoon - and as I didn't feel like spending the day on the beach of Eilat I tried to hitch-hike. Soon somebody took me some 20km further north, but then no car stopped untill sunset. Due to the long overnight bus drives I also was quite tired and lay down on the asphalt which resulted in beeing woken up twice by the local ambulance alarmed by worried passer-bies. Finally also police arrive and told me to find a place to sleep in the settlement nearby what I also tried to do , but nobody answered the bell at the gate of the enclosed village so I slept in the desert.

Fortunately I didn't have to wait so long on the next morning untill Eli and Hila, a generous young israeli couple stopped for me. Actually I planned to go straight to Jerusalem but they convinced me to follow them to their home in Tel Aviv. While walking around in the city center I decided that it's not really interesting here and asked the next Habasha about ethiopian restaurants nearby. They were all closed due to sabbath so they invited me for lunch at their home. I had a good time with them, but somehow they had quite an anti-arab attitude.

In the evening Eli drove me to Qdumim, a jewish settlement inside the West Bank. "We are normal people.", the settlers said when Eli told them that I would volunteer for ISM. From there I got a lift with one of his friends to Jerusalem, where I spent the night at the Palm Hostel near the old city.

The next morning I met there with Hisham, who leads the ISM-training.I still had time untill the afternoon, then I would move to a palestinian home in East Jerusalem. So I still walked around in the breathtaking old city and the more modern center along Jaffa road. A marathonman who claimed to run 2:04 showed me the way to the next ethiopian local.

The home where I should stay the next two days was one of 28 households in the same area that is supposed to be evicted. The family lives there since they were expelled from the West Bank in the 50's but somehow jewish settlers found out that their ancestors had bought their ground under ottoman rule 150 years ago and the government seems to believe them. I stayed there with two other activists. It's not much happening there despite a guard looking around about once every hour. Once the jewish neighbour passed by and I greeted her, which angered Layla, one of my fellow activists, who volunteers since almost two years. There would be no reason to be friendly,as they would always provoke the family, she explained. In my opinion it should also be the activist's job to melt the ice, no matter how "evil" the settlers are, but from then I kept quiet. Yet I'm really not sure if I'm partial enough to join the movement. However, I can stop at any time and simply make a backpacking tour as usual which also would be interesting.Tomorrow I'll attend the training in Ramallah for two days and then will decide what to do.