the west bank has redeemed israel

ironic but true, at least for us. granted we have now met some more friendly israelis... the guys at the coffee shop below our hotel know exactly what we like and a really nice camping store clerk sold me warm socks today and recommended a fantastic restaurant, but thats nothing compared to palestine...

on christmas day we decided to head to bethlehem to see the churches there and catch the christmas spirit. only problem was, bethlehem is in (gasp) the west bank! we had been warned not to go there by our friendly (sic) neighbourhood border agent.
being totally contained behind a giant wall, the west bank is like a different country, but even though it was much poorer and dilapitated it felt extremely safe.

we visited the church of the nativity and st. katherine's on the spot where they think jesus was born. it was a little crazy with tourists of many nationalities jostling to kiss various objects, but interesting nonetheless.

this monk was getting quite frustrated continuously shooing the same people out from the roped off area where they insisted on getting their kids to kiss the baby jesus doll.

we then had a fantastic christmas dinner of falafel sandwich, hummus and mint tea. venturing 2 blocks away from the big churches, the tourist crowd fell to almost zero and we were in the middle of a mass of celebratory palestinians (a large fraction of palestine is christian) and being wished merry christmas left right and from behind.

when we have asked people in jerusalem for directions, we have felt lucky when we recieved a grunt and a pointed finger, rather than an irritated look before shouldering by. we asked 2 palestinians for directions. the first was named pachs and we ended up at his house for coffee and sheesha and playing with his precocious daughters. he then payed for our taxi back to bethlehem and gave us a quick tour of the old city.

we also met his good friend jamal, who took the time to show us his bullet wound courtesy of the israeli army. all of the people we met at pachs' place had been in jail or had their family members in jail at one point or another. these people were so friendly and cheerful that it was difficult to remember which were the ones trapped behind a concrete wall.

on our way back to the checkpoint an older man named jebeel noticed us consulting our map and stopped. we asked "which way to jerusalem?" jebeel initially pointed, but then thought better of letting us out on our own and hailed us a taxi, paid for it and took us right to the checkpoint. to our surprise, he then pulled out his pass (most palestinians cant leave their own city) and after removing half his clothing and being fingerscanned with a crazy sci fi laser like device, escorted us through the checkpoint and jumped in a cab on the road which took us all the way to jerusalem. all this even though jebeel doesnt speak english and we couldnt even communicate!

in short, we love palestine and are enjoying israel more. the arab hospitality/inherent friendliness is tough to beat. hope you all had a good christmas.