So here I am, waiting for the right time to start the journey home. I have been informed that turning up too early at Tel Aviv airport arouses suspicion, yet turning up too late won’t give them time to frisk and strip search me (a personal first), so I lurk in the lobby of the particularly unpleasant hostel after what I can only reluctantly describe as a relatively pleasant last day in the Middle East.
We started with an enormous breakfast at a bizarre 24 hour breakfast speciality place who’s goal seemed to be death by cholesterol, but not in an unpleasant way. Following this we headed to Jaffa, a small town a few kilometres from central Tel Aviv which is home to the local Arab populatio (though there was little evidence of this) and a flea market, the kind of place hipsters go to buy vintage (read battered) leather bags, which are very in vogue if you like to look like a scruff. I, of course, do not, and procured my trendy leather bag from a specialist retailer in Jerusalem old town, and it’s made of camel leather, so there. Unfortunately the hawkers at the flea market (which is huge and impressive if you like vast amounts of second hand crap) were Israeli, so irritating Tina and sticking to my guns, I refused to buy anything and passed the afternoon happily slurping a frappe on a sofa in a rather pleasant hipster cafe overlooking the rapidly closing flea market stall owners chucking rubbish anywhere but a bin like it was going out of style, and reading the news, where naturally I was delighted to learn that my current hosting nation was bombing the shit out of Gaza again because they don’t like being occupied. Naturally in Tel Aviv there was absolutely no way of telling that anything was going on, but that’s because it’s a city built on people tying to look the other way.
After Tina returned with her wears (Levis vintage shorts and Israeli made leather bags) we decided we couldn’t leave without going to the beach at least once, so hopped back on the bus and walked the 100 metres from the hostel on a main road to the giant and beautiful coast, complete with picturesque beautiful young Israelis jumping for joy and skipping merrily along the sand. Naturally it was rather wonderful, making me even more sullenly resentful. Benny Morris complained recently that the problem with Israel today is that no one cares about anything any more because life in Israel is good, and in Tel Aviv you can really see it. Even if the protesters are out in their tents, they’re having a good time, they’re sitting on sofas in the park like hippies and they know eventually the government will listen because they’ve got 90% approval ratings. In Tel Aviv the sun shines, the overly religious don’t get in your face, the beer is good and free-flowing and everyone is beautiful. No one even stole our handbags while we went in the sea, the fuckers.
We went back to the cooler (and I mean that in terms of trendiness and temperature – the constant moustache sweat I thought I left in Beirut has returned home to me in Tel Aviv) Jaffa by evening, and ended up in a rather expensive yet quirky restaurant for dinner eating the bizarre mix of food that Israel provides you with, moutabbal and pumpkin dumplings with a side of Greek salad and focaccia. And it was all delicious as well. Bastards. then we returned to the hipster cafe just in time for a slightly cringe-worthy concert by two saps with acoustic guitars doing endless whiney Coldplay covers to the delight of several teenage girls swooning at their feet, before indulging our inner cynics and stalking off.
As I said, if Tel Aviv wasn’t full of Israelis I’d really like it. It’s like Brick Lane meets Portobello Road meets ugly crumbling concrete architecture, populated by beautiful people with perfect hair who look like they live on the beach. Luckily for my inner grump, they’re Israelis, and therefore wrong about everything and morally condemned.
And with that I leave my travels to go home. As the rockets fall on Gaza and the beautiful people hit the bars, I shall be being strip searched and prodded by, most likely, an undereducated and most likely racist (this is based on my research – my conversation last night about the treatment of the Palestinians by the border guards with my Israeli informant brought forth his justification: they put the small town racists on border patrol, it’s not their fault they don’t know anything. It didn’t occur to him that perhaps this was a deliberate move) teenage girl who has the power to pop me in a cell for a few hours if I put a toe out of line. How lovely.
Goodnight, Middle East. I will be back.
So you show up at the airport late, you are carrying documents that don’t belong to you and you are carrying things given to you by someone in Ramallah ! Then you wonder why everyone is suspicious ! How naive can you be ?
So “rockets are falling on Gaza” ! How about a little compassion for the civilians that were killed when fired upon by terrorists ? Not a mention of them – I suppose that they really don’t matter to you because they are “Israelis”. It’s disgusting to see how supposedly progressive and politically-correct persons like you classify the victims of violence.
So now you are back in London, where you and millions of other Brits will continue to ignore the slaughter of innocent women and children that goes ton daily at the hands of the occupying British Army. Oh, I forgot – that’s “different”, i.e. no “Israelis” are involved. But then the British Army probably sends the “small-town” racists to do the dirty work there. I see that the Taliban blew up the British Council in Kabul, probably because “they don’t like being occupied”. (and how many Israelis are currently in Gaza) ?
I was in Britain last year – naturally there was absolutely no way of telling that anything was going on in Afghanistan, but that’s because it’s a city built on people tying to look the other way. I tried to avoid the markets because most of the hawkers there were British. I did manage to enjoy myself occasionally. Bastards. Well, at least then the “small-town” racists in the British police force weren’t shooting innocent civilians like they were last week.
You might want to read my writing more clearly; I wasn’t late, they didn’t find the Palestinian documents and searched me anyway, and if you take the time to look at the past few months of my writing, I certainly have very little support or time for what the British government does abroad, or in London for that matter.
I certainly feel for the families of the Israelis attacked in Sinai, but unlike in England the Israeli conflict is very much in your doorstep, and as Israelis you are forced to not only go and see it and be part of it, but that even after your service in the army and exposure to how the Palestinians are treated on what little they have left of their nation, you do nothing. So forgive me if I find Israel a harder place to be than England. As for drinking carlsberg rather than gold star, well, in the long run I expect the money goes into a Danish person’s pocket, so I’ll stick to my guns on that one. I would have drank Palestinian made Taybeh but shockingly it’s hard to find in Israel.