Strolls of faith for the faith challenged

By Khaled Diab

In Jerusalem, within the space of a few hundred metres, you can stroll between the holiest sites of the three monotheistic religions - in a kind of short-distance leap of faith!

A couple of friends have referred to my trip as a 'political pilgrimage'. And pilgrim was how I felt negotiating the narrow streets of Jerusalem.

Without prior warning, my path crossed that of Christ. You can say I found Jesus... And his location was the second station of the cross - where Jesus actually picks up the cross - on the Via Dolorosa (The Way of Grief) - that route so gruesomly depicted by Mel Gibson in his controversial and fundamentalist The passion of the Christ. Inside a Franciscan church built on the supposed spot, a group of melancholic pilgrims sang hymns and a priest said something in Latin, before a Jesus stand-in lifted the cross on to his shoulder and carried it into the chapel with the faithful following him grimly.

On hallowed ground

A couple of hundred metres along, I saw the golden-coloured Dome of the Rock rise above the buildings. For Muslims, the Al Aqsa Mosque is not only the first qibla towards which the earliest Muslims prayed before it was switched to Mecca, it is also a potent symbol of the Palestinian struggle.

Entering the complex required a rite of passage, you could say. At the gate was a Palestinian policeman and two Israeli soldiers. I realised immediately by the way they looked at me that I had not chosen the most appropriate clothes for the occasion - long shorts and a fireman's shirt! The Palestinian policeman asked me if I was Muslim. I told him that I was. He asked me my full name and, as it had a Mohamed in it, that was the first proof of concept.

Then he asked my nationality, so I told him I had dual Belgian-Egyptian nationality and I handed him my passport which he handed to the Israeli guards who started flicking through in search of my stamp.

The policeman asked me if I intended to pray inside. I said that I intended to look around and might return the following day for Friday prayers, whereupon he set me a surprise quiz. He asked me how many raqaa's there were in each of the five daily prayers. Being faith challenged and having not prayed for years, I confused one of the prayers - which caused him to look sideways at me with suspicion. "Look, I'm not very religious, okay?" I said to him. I remembered the comment of the older Palestinian man I'd met earlier who told me that when he was young people of different faiths would visit each other's places of worship.

The Israeli soldiers did not know that you could enter the country without a stamp on your passport and were also suspicious at first and radioed to ask their superior. One of them saw the Ethiopian visa in my passport and asked me if I had been to "E-tee-oh-piya". Seeing from his face that he was of Felasha descent, I said I had and asked him if he was Ethiopian. He proudly informed his comrade that I had been to his great country - a description which didn't seem to impress the other soldier - and proclaimed confidently about me: "He's a good man!"

Inside the complex, I was enawed, although I suppose some more faithful soul might think that the opportunity was somewhat wasted on me. That's not to say I didn't feel anything spiritual. No one can be among so much history and symbolism- both above and below the ground - without feeling a sense of humility.

Many of the faithful inside the complex gave me funny looks because of my clothes and I had apparently become something of a celebrity among the security dotted around the grounds. "Are you the Egyptian?" I was asked several times.

One disapproving stiff came up to me and held me by the elbow. "Tell me brother, why are you wearing that? You are inside a holy area, you know."

"What's wrong with it?" I returned. "My shorts are shari'e (legit according to Islamic principles)." Having no adequate response, he turned away without another word and marched purposefully off.

The compound was much larger than I had ever imagined. When you hear about the politicised nature of the Al Aqsa Mosque, you hardly expect the tranquility you encounter inside and all the families sitting around enjoying picnics and the children playing football. One little three-year-old girl decided that I was her friend and took me over to meet her parents after I took a photo of her. I chatted with them for a while. The father told his daughter that I came from the country of Ehab Tawfiq and Amr Diab. I asked him if she could sing any songs. He said that she couldn't as she was only three but she had learnt some of the Quran. She recited the Fatiha with all the rolled 'r's turned into 'l's.

Under the Temple Mount is the Western Wall, the most sacred site for Jews. After another longer security check, I entered. It's not quite as spectacular as I imagine the second temple which stood on the site until it was destroyed by the Romans was. Modest or not, the Jews there stared at the wall with intense reverence, with the orthodox ones unwilling to take their eyes of it or show disrespect so they walked blindly backwards.

It felt surreal to be among all the bizarre fashion sense of the Hessidic and other orthodox Jews. There are the curls, the string which dangles around their trousers, apparently because God ordered Moses to do so, and the piece de resistance, the weird miner's lamp contraption they wear on their heads. This apparently symbolises the way that Moses was unable to look directly at God's aura. The swaying backwards and forwards while reciting scripture reminded me a lot of young Muslim children who go to the kutab (Quranic school).

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

Holy nargela smoke in Jerusalem

By Khaled Diab

In eastern Jerusalem, I walked into a local cafe in search of locals. I ordered tea and a shisha, or nargela as the Palestinians call it (water pipe). It was the first time I had smoked this particular type of tobacco (me'asel for those in the know) for many long years and it brought back dim memories of misspent afternoons at uni smoking and playing backgammon. But this particular hang out specialised in cards.

Dressed in khaki shorts and a Canadian fireman's shirt, I did not quite blend in with the mainly middle-aged and over clientele and drew a lot of attention, particularly when I took out my camera to take a photo.

The first vibe I got from them was suspicion - which seems to be a common currency in all the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, where some orthodox Jews seemed to be sussing out whether I was an Arab and some Palestinians seemed to be sussing out the opposite. A casual exchange of jokes broke the ice hanging in the warm, smoke-filled air, my Egyptian accent reassuring the punters.

Fouad, a 68-year-old Jerusalemite, introduced himself as an amateur photographer and asked me all kinds of questions about my digital camera, explaining that he preferred film and a professional photographer friend had suggested he stick with it.

What happened to the Arab dream?

My Egyptianness released a strong current of nostalgia in Fouad. He started telling me about his Egypt connection, that his grandmother was born in Port Said. Then, with a wistful look in his face, he recalled with pride the days of Nasser, the larger-than-life, charismatic Arab superhero of his generation. "There will never be another leader like him. How can any of the pimps (me'araseen) who currently pass for Arab leaders ever compare to him?"

"Do you know about Nasser? Your generation has lost touch with the dream he represented."

"Of course, I know about him. My parents are both committed pan-Arabists."

We spent some time discussing Nasser's multiple identities as a dictator who listened to the mood of his people and the Arab world, visionary leader and shortsighted populist, fantacist and realist.

"What happened to the Arabs? What happened to our dreams of union?" he asked rheotrically.

"They were pipe dreams, built more on slogans than institutions. The Arabs were too weak and divided and outside powers were frightened of the implications of such unity."

'Israel came to me'

Fouad told me about his life as a born and bred Jerusalemite with a Jordanian passport. That he was discriminated against and given a hard time by some segments of Israeli officaldom.

"'When did you come to Israel?' army officers ask me," he gave as one of many examples "'I didn't come to Israel', I respond. It was Israel that came to me."

But the daily trials and tribulations are not what irk Fouad the most. "I want my dignity and identity back. I am not a Jordanian; I am a Palestinian. I did not come to Israel; I was here before Israel."

He expressed his heart-felt conviction that the Israelis do not want peace because they are not willing to pay the price - this could be seen in Israel's constant obstructionism and encroachment onto Palestinian land, he argued. "There's always some excuse or other not to negotiate. Look what they're doing now with the Arab peace offer?"

"We Palestinians can and are ready to live with a state on the pre-1967 borders but will Israel allow us to have it?"

"Do you think armed struggle is useful or the Palestinians should adopt non-violent?" I asked.

"Both have their function and Palestinians use both."

"But Israelis use Palestinian violence to justify their intransigence and the Palestinians have lost a lot of sympathy on the international stage."

"I really don't know if it would make any difference to Israel or whether it would simply come up with another excuse."

"You said Palestinians 'accept' a state on the pre-1967 borders. So, this is not ideal?"

"No, it isn't."

"What is the ideal solution in your mind, if you had complete freedom to propose any solution?" I asked.

"Zionism is a racist ideology which robs me of my history. I think what we need is a single country for all its people. We all lived together before. We all still live relatively well together here in Jerusalem. We can live together again. To make sure the system is fair to everyone, we can have something like in Lebanon."

A dose of Belgian pragmatism

Khaled Diab

My last hours in Belgium before I depart the calm serenity and measured reserve of this green and temperate land for the intensity, passion and madness of the ‘Holy Land’.

Sitting amongst quiet and sleepy commuters on the train this morning, I was struck by the idea that Belgium and Israel-Palestine have quite a lot in common and that the Israelis and Palestinians could learn a lot from my adopted home, namely the Belgian sense of pragmatic compromise.

Both Belgium and Israel-Palestine are about the same size geographically, have a similar population density, and are made up of two main communities. While there is no raging conflict between Belgium’s two language groups, there are major tensions. However, there is such a commitment to consensus politics that the term ‘Belgian compromise’ has become a term recognised internationally.

Despite its lack of a strong national identity and the gradual rise of the far right, Belgium has held together remarkably well – and this has mainly been a result of the country’s pragmatism. This has led to some pretty convoluted arrangements, and making a cup of coffee in the corridors of power requires long-winded political horse trading – ­but rather that than violent conflict.

Interestingly, while Jerusalem currently divides Israelis and Palestinians, Brussels cements the Belgians together. Perhaps declaring the Holy City the capital of the two peoples would have a similar bonding effect for them.

The Palestinians and Israelis on their own internal turf have shown that pragmatic ability to compromise, as their coalition governments show. And Israel’s settlement building activity reveals a talent for creating complex realities. However, it is an absence of pragmatism that hobbles the conflict, as reflected in Israel’s dependence on its military might, its insistence on unilateral solutions (even during the Oslo years) and its ‘take first, give later’ approach. Then, there’s Hamas’s insistence on not recognising Israel formally, even though it recognises it in all but name – and, earlier, all the years wasted by the PLO in refusing to face a similar reality.

Of course, in Belgium, there is not the massive imbalance in power and no long-standing history of violence between Flemings and Walloons. But Israelis and Palestinians could do well to inject a dose of Belgian pragmatism into their relationship.

©Khaled Diab. Text and photo.