As we drove back into Jerusalem, St Grace asked me: 'I watched something on television this week. And it said there was a wall in Israel somewhere. Is there a wall?' I was a bit surprised she hadn't seen it herself on her travels about the place, or heard speak of it. It's HUGE. But it highlighted how easy it is to be in a little bubble - discovering only the things that are necessary to you that moment. It's perhaps our fault for not giving Grace a 'political tour' but it's hard to talk about politics and difficult subjects with her, because she's just so good.
I explained a bit about the wall, which the Palestinians, being Palestinians have used in many places as a giant canvas for their thought provoking, hardhitting and often comic art and propaganda. I would say that it is a reflection of who the Palestinians really are inside - this mass of resilient and resourceful people who have no recognised state (let's hope we keep working on that one) and not even their own currency. As a result a photojournalist, William Parry, has produced a beautiful book about it, called: 'Up Against the Wall'.
What I've noticed is that when I am working alone at home, things around here get me down. You open the local papers and read about a 5 year old Palestinian girl, Enass succumbing to her wounds after some Israeli settlers drove into her and her friend in Sinjil, a West Bank town. In the photograph of her pretty face, and slight body, you can just make out the remains of a spot of nail varnish on her middle nail. She died in hospital yesterday. A 13 year old boy was shot dead by Israeli Defence Forces near Ramallah. 13? Dozens more settlers have moved into an Arab area of East Jerusalem called Silwan, causing unrest and resentment and people are pointing fingers at both Zionist organisations who are buying up properties in the Old City and other places in East Jerusalem, and Arab owners who weaken to the lure of the multi miillion dollar packages they're offered to sell up and make way for settlers.
You wonder if this settler activity is any different from mafia activity around the world. Crime: in this case illegal housing, or dubious aquisition of housing, protected by government and administered with IDF security to protect them, is happening every day, and no one can do anything because it's endemic, and supported by government and security forces. And others outside of these circles who don't actively support it, are either too happy to have found a place in the sun where they can live; or have their heads in the ubiquitous mounds of sand and don't want to know.
A Palestinian man from Silwan district drove into one of the light rail stations tonight killing a 3 month old baby. The Jewish parents, according to relations, 'had been waiting a long time for a child.'
There are some days when even as an outsider, you can't help it getting you down. Even in our happy little family bubble, the drip drip of news from our near surroundings can tip your frame of mind to the negative after a while. And living here can easily create a mind full of inconsequential and often angry thoughts, buzzing around the head like bees. I wonder if bees can create honey when they're angry? I would say that this ultimate of all contstructive activities would have to take place with a bee feeling at peace with itself and with the rest of the hive.
Perhaps that's why honey these days, is quite so expensive. Here it costs about £10 for a small 300ml tub. Perhaps the bees are angry too.
The fury seeps and bubbles with every text sent by the British Consulte (at least 5 a day) warning of 'ongoing clashes' between Palestinians and IDF at various points around the country. It's hardly suprising. Don't believe anyone if they tell you this is not apartheid.
But this week I remembered that working and wandering alone, and reading the papers, can create this non-productive fury, so I have made a rule to myself to venture out with others as much as possible, so at least the negative thoughts can be spouted out through chat: or with my handy little sidekick Rashimi, who on a good day is a sparky little presence, and has also just got to grips with a scooter.
We've been venturing out to Salahdin Street to chat to shopkeepers we know, and buy things we need. It's when we hit the street that everything comes to calamitous live, and you realise that life goes on despite itself. You can look at the street and think: this is a nation with no hope, and not a chance with a challenge like that. Or you can look at the street and notice other things through the cracks. The man with the Islamic beard who I never think would want to talk to me, who stops us for a chat; the men selling the sesame bread who always try to rip me off by a few Shekels each time; the beautifully made up, headscarved and high heeled ladies shopping for handbags and chatting with their friends; the Muslim man in the phone shop greeting me with a kiss and giggling as he explains the complexities of telephoning the West Bank with my Israeli phone; the old men reading Al Quds newspaper over their coffee and cigarettes.
Even if the unreality of Palestine is in everyone's minds, just going through the actions of daily life is perhaps be like a mantra of daily existence that becomes the very tool for survival. People shake their heads and their fists, they laugh, they chortle, they shout, they cry, they wander and peruse, they shop, they smoke, they eat, they drink. And they are so brilliant at it, they also manage to make it look fun.
As Rashimi flies down the sticky pavements sprinkled with spilled sugary coffee and chewing gum, and shoots through the air thick with the smell of onions anad roasting shwarma and exhaust fumes shouting: 'Aaaaaarrrgh!!!' louder than any of the motorbikes, there are headscarved ladies diving for cover, and grown men jumping out the way. And everyone is laughing and crying 'habibeeeee, you're fast!' as he goes.
Then I got a call from a friend, Bisan, an artist who I met in Jordan when I made the film about the Darat gallery last year. He was raised in the Old City and is Palestinian with African roots. His hair is a huge afro thanks to his Chadian grandfather, and he knows everything about the Old City and this country having managed to negotiate his way through the labyrinthine tangle of regulations and blockades, and out into the international Art World in which he is finding success, despite being only in his late 20s. He doesn't sweat the small stuff and is clever and kind. His name is after a Palestinian town, which is immortalised in a song by the Arab diva, Fairuz, which his father used as code to communicate to Bisan's mother when he was in an Israeli jail in the 70's. There's no tour guide like a local, and we explored with a guide-friend of his, the tunnels underneath the Old City. There are Israeli tours of the tunnels any time you like, but the Centre for Jerusalem Studies is only allowed to run tours once a month, at a designated time and there was an Israeli security guy listening in to our whole tour, interrupting at regular intervals and making us move on.
The reason is that the excavation of the tunnels is of course, contentious. On many levels - both through the layers of city from the streets of Herodian to Umayyad, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, which create the feeling you're inside a geographical cross section. You are - and also a historical and religious one. Excavation started just after the 1967 war, and has been difficult as the tunnels run underneath the Old City and and therefore people's shops and houses. It's maybe the archaelogical equivalent of fracking in terms of how it can shake things up.
But it's the closest that Jewish people will ever get to where the Holy of Holies in the temple would have been, before it was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans, and Dome of the Rock complex built on top. The Western Wall, or Wailing Wall remained exposed, and above ground, is the closest place to the holy of holies which remained accessible and has become a place of Jewish prayer for millenia.
It's when you dig deep that you find the real rifts. And the excavations are only exacerbating these feelings of suspicion. Having seen the cross section - you can see how much more there is to disagree about. And one side is clearly gaining ground for itself- both horizontally and vertically.
But thanks to Bisan, I saw in his manner the essence of survival here - just like we see in the street. We ended up at his small house in the Old City where he was raised with his 2 brothers. His Mum had left the tea tray out ready for us, and he handed me a book: 'Subjective Atlas of Palestine'.
I wandered home in the darkness to read the dwarfs a story before bed, passing young teenagers drinking beer, a slavering dog on a lead with an Arab boy much too young on the other end, and a clutch of extremely young IDF soldiers leaning against the wall. When the dwarfs were asleep I sat and opened the book and realised this is the one guide I've needed all along. It is the epitome of the Palestinian spirit and should be handed to every outsider when they arrive here.
I'll copy the introduction above. To my mind, it explains everything.
I explained a bit about the wall, which the Palestinians, being Palestinians have used in many places as a giant canvas for their thought provoking, hardhitting and often comic art and propaganda. I would say that it is a reflection of who the Palestinians really are inside - this mass of resilient and resourceful people who have no recognised state (let's hope we keep working on that one) and not even their own currency. As a result a photojournalist, William Parry, has produced a beautiful book about it, called: 'Up Against the Wall'.
What I've noticed is that when I am working alone at home, things around here get me down. You open the local papers and read about a 5 year old Palestinian girl, Enass succumbing to her wounds after some Israeli settlers drove into her and her friend in Sinjil, a West Bank town. In the photograph of her pretty face, and slight body, you can just make out the remains of a spot of nail varnish on her middle nail. She died in hospital yesterday. A 13 year old boy was shot dead by Israeli Defence Forces near Ramallah. 13? Dozens more settlers have moved into an Arab area of East Jerusalem called Silwan, causing unrest and resentment and people are pointing fingers at both Zionist organisations who are buying up properties in the Old City and other places in East Jerusalem, and Arab owners who weaken to the lure of the multi miillion dollar packages they're offered to sell up and make way for settlers.
You wonder if this settler activity is any different from mafia activity around the world. Crime: in this case illegal housing, or dubious aquisition of housing, protected by government and administered with IDF security to protect them, is happening every day, and no one can do anything because it's endemic, and supported by government and security forces. And others outside of these circles who don't actively support it, are either too happy to have found a place in the sun where they can live; or have their heads in the ubiquitous mounds of sand and don't want to know.
A Palestinian man from Silwan district drove into one of the light rail stations tonight killing a 3 month old baby. The Jewish parents, according to relations, 'had been waiting a long time for a child.'
There are some days when even as an outsider, you can't help it getting you down. Even in our happy little family bubble, the drip drip of news from our near surroundings can tip your frame of mind to the negative after a while. And living here can easily create a mind full of inconsequential and often angry thoughts, buzzing around the head like bees. I wonder if bees can create honey when they're angry? I would say that this ultimate of all contstructive activities would have to take place with a bee feeling at peace with itself and with the rest of the hive.
Perhaps that's why honey these days, is quite so expensive. Here it costs about £10 for a small 300ml tub. Perhaps the bees are angry too.
The fury seeps and bubbles with every text sent by the British Consulte (at least 5 a day) warning of 'ongoing clashes' between Palestinians and IDF at various points around the country. It's hardly suprising. Don't believe anyone if they tell you this is not apartheid.
But this week I remembered that working and wandering alone, and reading the papers, can create this non-productive fury, so I have made a rule to myself to venture out with others as much as possible, so at least the negative thoughts can be spouted out through chat: or with my handy little sidekick Rashimi, who on a good day is a sparky little presence, and has also just got to grips with a scooter.
We've been venturing out to Salahdin Street to chat to shopkeepers we know, and buy things we need. It's when we hit the street that everything comes to calamitous live, and you realise that life goes on despite itself. You can look at the street and think: this is a nation with no hope, and not a chance with a challenge like that. Or you can look at the street and notice other things through the cracks. The man with the Islamic beard who I never think would want to talk to me, who stops us for a chat; the men selling the sesame bread who always try to rip me off by a few Shekels each time; the beautifully made up, headscarved and high heeled ladies shopping for handbags and chatting with their friends; the Muslim man in the phone shop greeting me with a kiss and giggling as he explains the complexities of telephoning the West Bank with my Israeli phone; the old men reading Al Quds newspaper over their coffee and cigarettes.
Even if the unreality of Palestine is in everyone's minds, just going through the actions of daily life is perhaps be like a mantra of daily existence that becomes the very tool for survival. People shake their heads and their fists, they laugh, they chortle, they shout, they cry, they wander and peruse, they shop, they smoke, they eat, they drink. And they are so brilliant at it, they also manage to make it look fun.
As Rashimi flies down the sticky pavements sprinkled with spilled sugary coffee and chewing gum, and shoots through the air thick with the smell of onions anad roasting shwarma and exhaust fumes shouting: 'Aaaaaarrrgh!!!' louder than any of the motorbikes, there are headscarved ladies diving for cover, and grown men jumping out the way. And everyone is laughing and crying 'habibeeeee, you're fast!' as he goes.
Then I got a call from a friend, Bisan, an artist who I met in Jordan when I made the film about the Darat gallery last year. He was raised in the Old City and is Palestinian with African roots. His hair is a huge afro thanks to his Chadian grandfather, and he knows everything about the Old City and this country having managed to negotiate his way through the labyrinthine tangle of regulations and blockades, and out into the international Art World in which he is finding success, despite being only in his late 20s. He doesn't sweat the small stuff and is clever and kind. His name is after a Palestinian town, which is immortalised in a song by the Arab diva, Fairuz, which his father used as code to communicate to Bisan's mother when he was in an Israeli jail in the 70's. There's no tour guide like a local, and we explored with a guide-friend of his, the tunnels underneath the Old City. There are Israeli tours of the tunnels any time you like, but the Centre for Jerusalem Studies is only allowed to run tours once a month, at a designated time and there was an Israeli security guy listening in to our whole tour, interrupting at regular intervals and making us move on.
The reason is that the excavation of the tunnels is of course, contentious. On many levels - both through the layers of city from the streets of Herodian to Umayyad, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, which create the feeling you're inside a geographical cross section. You are - and also a historical and religious one. Excavation started just after the 1967 war, and has been difficult as the tunnels run underneath the Old City and and therefore people's shops and houses. It's maybe the archaelogical equivalent of fracking in terms of how it can shake things up.
But it's the closest that Jewish people will ever get to where the Holy of Holies in the temple would have been, before it was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans, and Dome of the Rock complex built on top. The Western Wall, or Wailing Wall remained exposed, and above ground, is the closest place to the holy of holies which remained accessible and has become a place of Jewish prayer for millenia.
It's when you dig deep that you find the real rifts. And the excavations are only exacerbating these feelings of suspicion. Having seen the cross section - you can see how much more there is to disagree about. And one side is clearly gaining ground for itself- both horizontally and vertically.
But thanks to Bisan, I saw in his manner the essence of survival here - just like we see in the street. We ended up at his small house in the Old City where he was raised with his 2 brothers. His Mum had left the tea tray out ready for us, and he handed me a book: 'Subjective Atlas of Palestine'.
I wandered home in the darkness to read the dwarfs a story before bed, passing young teenagers drinking beer, a slavering dog on a lead with an Arab boy much too young on the other end, and a clutch of extremely young IDF soldiers leaning against the wall. When the dwarfs were asleep I sat and opened the book and realised this is the one guide I've needed all along. It is the epitome of the Palestinian spirit and should be handed to every outsider when they arrive here.
I'll copy the introduction above. To my mind, it explains everything.
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