A latte in Ramallah
Published in The Australian Jewish News
September 14, 2018
Photo: Rebecca Davis.
The winds of the Judean Desert violently beat against my body. I stand, perched high upon a hilltop which bears witness to a vista that stretches from the briny depths of the Dead Sea to the azure of the Mediterranean.
Before me are neat, uniform clusters of apartment buildings with peaked terracotta tiled roofs. Close by are a ramshackle bunch of square, concrete buildings, the deep veins of a valley and glimpses of a barbed wire fence snaking in between.
Israelis and Palestinians are close neighbours here.
This is Neve Daniel, a community of Gush Etzion on the West Bank – the land of Judea and Samaria.
It’s that contentious piece of earth that the mainstream media would have you believe is rife with stone-hurling Israeli settlers and knife-toting Palestinians.
But clinging to the side of the ancient terraced hills are olive groves, limbs heaving with fruit.
And trees adorned with ripening balls of pomegranate and sweet little figs.
And a 2000-year-old mikvah which was used by Jewish pilgrims en route to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem for Pesach, Shavuot and Succot.
And yes, some areas of the West Bank are more volatile than others. And there are threats.
Just two years ago, an Israeli man was jogging near the entrance of Neve Daniel when he was chased and stabbed by a Palestinian terrorist from nearby Arab village, Nahalin.
But in Gush Etzion, I also found Israelis and Palestinians shopping at the same mall.
And stories of Jews dancing at Arab weddings at the neighbouring village.
I visited the West Bank as a participant on the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) Rambam Fellowship, and this would not be the first time that my perceptions of the common narrative would be challenged on the five-day program.
Nothing is black and white in the Middle East.