by Mark Thomas
All three of us move away from the spectacle and wander our separate ways round the zoo, bumping into each other twenty minutes later by the hippo enclosure. The metal railings around it are painted a murky blue, the water in the pool is brown, and raindrops dimple the surface. On seeing us, the enormous creature lumbers with surprising speed towards us, opening its large but oddly delicate-looking mouth of mottled brown and red.
‘If this thing makes a break for it, we’re doomed.’ I attempt to raise the mood.
‘I know,’ smiles Mustafa.
At this, the creature turns away from us, forces its backside against one of the blue poles and starts to defecate loudly, using its stubby tail like a fan to disperse the excrement, which flies through the air like a Catherine wheel of kak.
‘It is like a machine,’ cries Mustafa, stepping back to avoid getting hit.
‘It is!’ I laugh, in part that we are talking again: the sight of the spraying shit turning the air a blurry brown has eased the tension between us.
‘Here,’ says Mustafa, calling me over to a glass display case behind us. Inside is a snake, and it doesn’t look well.
‘That is the skinniest snake I have ever seen,’ I say, mesmerised by the emaciated stick of a reptile. ‘It is the weediest snake ever.’
‘The words,’ says Mustafa, pointing at the information plaque, ‘say it is the Palestinian snake. That is our national snake.’
‘You have a national snake? Well, it looks exhausted,’ I blurt out before I can stop myself.
‘Just like the people,’ says Mustafa, suddenly cackling at his own audacity.
‘Your snake is knackered,’ I return, warming to the theme.
‘I know,’ he says, ‘and the sign says it is not even poisonous.’ He gasps, his face full of mock outrage: ‘Our snake is not even dangerous!’ He is laughing hard now, to my relief.
As our giggling judders to an end, I wonder aloud, ‘Do you think it is possible to see something with a little less symbolism?’
It is not. In one corner of the zoo stands a stuffed giraffe, Brownie, which died in 2000 when the Israeli army opened fire near the zoo. The sound of gunfire induced a panic in Brownie who stampeded, banged his head, collapsed and died.
Coincidently the director of the zoo happened to be an amateur taxidermist and despite the scale of the project decided to work on the giraffe himself. What he appeared to lack in precision equipment he made up for in love.
A giraffe has many noted physical aspects, one being its eyes: huge and lovely, great black shiny orbs of beauty. Unfortunately, it would appear that black glass eyes were not easy to come by at that time and the director had to make do with the nearest suitable replacements, which were Day-Glo green in colour. Not only this, but the lower part of the jaw is out of line with the upper jaw, and protrudes to one side. Perhaps it has not weathered well in the open; the neck looks over-stretched and the head over-stuffed. The legs are set at an angle that means it leans back, as if the animal is about to collapse.
The overall effect of the eyes, jaw and frame was to give the look of the animal still in the midst of the gunfire that did for it, In that respect the representational skills of the taxidermist are exemplary.
But the true wonder of this place is to be found in its very existence. Founded in 1986, the zoo has survived intifadas and clampdowns in a city that is now virtually encircled in concrete and wire. According to Zayed, the zoo’s manager, it was, ‘set up to draw people to the city for tourism, to bring people in to the markets’. In this it was successful, with many of the visitors coming from the Arab Israeli community as the entry price is much cheaper than Israeli zoos. But the Barrier has been problematical for the zoo, due largely to the restrictions and vagaries of the checkpoints, which have meant a decline in Arab Israeli visitors.
Qalqilya’s markets have suffered the same fate as those in Tura ash Sharqiya and Al Jalama. Yet the zoo stays open. ‘It is important for kids to find places like this, like the zoo, because they are closed in. All around them is the Wall. Without places like this they will be crushed,’ says Zayed. In the summer the place is packed, the zoo has a pool for kids, and parkland, too. On this bleak winter afternoon, a group of women in long black abayas and white hijabs giggle as they come out of the cafeteria, young children wrapped up in anoraks and woollen hats spilling around them. By the swings and the slides, on a bench, a dad sits huddled in a driving jacket, sharing some tea with his two sons. It doesn’t seem to matter that the dead giraffe is a little out of shape or that the hippo runs a muck-spreading service; people want normality, and for some this is as close as it gets. It may be a symbol for Mustafa and for other Palestinians, too, of the captivity of their lives, but above and beyond all of that, it is a day out at the zoo. It’s very existence a minor miracle. A moment when kids can forget the Barrier, the Occupation, the lost land, the night raids, the destroyed homes, the pass cards and the army patrols. A moment when they can enjoy saying the magic words: ‘Can I have an ice cream?’
PART TWO
THE SECOND RAMBLE
THE COMMUTE TO WORK
It is 3 a.m. and the road is on fire. Both lanes are alight; a line of flames burning in the darkness as if the rest of the street was already scorched and the blaze was now heading towards us. I expect the cab driver to turn around or at least stop, but he doesn’t – instead, he lets out a low growl and continues driving straight at the inferno. Shadows flicker over the inside of the cab as we approach the wall of fire and still the cabbie just keeps driving towards the line.
Great. Of all the cabbies in the West Bank I get the one who thinks he is in the Royal Tournament. I haven’t had enough coffee for this.
As he heads into the blaze my hand grabs the door handle, ready to bail out the moment we stall, start to burn or the cabbie bellows ‘Muwhahahaa!’ But in the wall of fire there is a gap. Not a big one but a gap nonetheless, and the cab moves slowly through it, while I stare mesmerised by the flames.
The driver chuckles and says, ‘Welcome to the Holy Land.’
‘Are all your welcomes this biblical?’
‘The army are in the town tonight, so the youth put tyres in the road and light them.’
‘Is that normal?’
‘For here, yes.’ He shrugs and pulls a cigarette from his top pocket.
The flames fade behind us as we roll on into the darkness ahead. The centre of the city slips past the side window: shops huddle, wrapped and locked in roll-down shutters indistinguishable from one another, row upon row of night-black storefronts, each turning into a blurred memory before it is barely realised. On the side roads and narrow lanes, the taxi’s headlights reflect back at us from approaching junction walls. Dogs haunting the rubbish bins are caught in a brief glare before slinking off as we rattle through the alleyways. A little further on lies the Barrier and a checkpoint and, as we turn onto a main road to approach it, other headlights start emerging in the rear mirror, while red tail-lights sparkle in front of us.
‘Here, this is the workers’ checkpoint,’ says the cabbie. ‘It’s for Palestinians working in Israel; they have to go through the checkpoint to get to work.’
‘What’s that?’ I ask, peering at an odd structure, a cross between a large barn and a bus shelter.
‘This was put up by the municipality. It is a shelter for the workers. To keep them dry when it rains. Just behind it is the checkpoint.’
The cabbie stops the car and Phil and I wander over to the shelter. Straight down the middle of the concrete floor run two rows of benches, back to back, but no one sits here. Instead, small groups of early arrivals sit by the stalls that have sprung up around the shelter. Carts and trestle tables selling breads are set up under the tall, corrugated-iron roof: flat loaves, long loaves, buns, twists, sweet pastries and parcels of dough, with the ubiquitous za’atar or meat, all laid out in their respective piles. The battered metal doors of the small coffee carts are flung back, revealing water boilers and gas rings th
at burn with a roaring hiss while men frantically stir bubbling pots of coffee and juggle plastic cups. From the edge of the shelter the stalls spread out – they resemble shipping containers with a front that lifts up to form a metal awning. Anything the workers will want and buy is here. Kettles boil tea, pans fry falafel and kibbeh, there are crates of pitta, pots of hummus, olives and pickles, and shelves lined with cigarettes, lighters, tins of meat and beans, oranges, avocados and tomatoes. Plastic chairs squat around braziers fuelled by broken-up delivery pallets. Here the men sit, as the grey haze of the wood smoke spills across the shelter, picked out by stark striplights hanging above. I get coffee in a plastic cup that yields under the heat of the drink and sit to watch the steady increase of the throng.
‘Why is everyone here so early?’ I ask a man by the fire.
‘So they can get to work on time.’
‘What time does the checkpoint open?’
‘Five, maybe.’
It is barely past three in the morning and already workers have come for a place in the queue outside the checkpoint – not to cross it, but to queue for when it opens and, with luck, get to work on time by seven or eight. Beyond the shelter lies the checkpoint; an industrial-looking building surrounded by metal barriers, with a turnstile that allows just one person through at a time. Above it are two lights, one presently glowing red, beneath which the workers have begun to queue, waiting for the green one.
At the market under the shelter, trade is steady when we arrive, men drink and smoke, stamping at the cold, clutching at warmth by the braziers before disappearing into the darkness by the Barrier. These are the early ones and more soon descend. Headlights begin to swarm on the road, tyres crunch in the dirt and engines are left running while the vans unload their human cargo into this graceless hour. Shuffling, running, rushing and pushing, workers start to flow across the concrete floor, a torrent of featureless men, their faces stripped of detail in the pallor of the blunt low light. Pouring over the concourse, hunched shapes in the grey mist; builders in layers of jumpers, clutching lunch bags and canvas holdalls. Their clothes dull with dust and splashes of plaster and paint; a group of women in long coats and headscarves cutting through the throng in a group. More taxis pull up and minibuses too, decanting people for the crossing.
At the stalls, traders frantically wrap bread, take cash, shout and listen to orders while handing out change from the last. And still the workers flow through, heading to the closed checkpoint to wait in line for the green light to glow. Patches of light leak from the checkpoint: the glare of a CCTV screen lights the upper window of a watchtower, and light from the tunnel beyond the turnstile throws a weak, yellow colour onto the waiting figures nearest the gate, turning them into silhouettes that fade into a mass as they queue along the wire. Here they wait, in the cold under the bars, the lucky ones with permits and security clearances. But it is only half-past three in the morning; there are hours to go before they are through to the other side.
This line of workers is but a smear of black shapes in the dark night. It strikes me that for an occupation so obsessed with identity, it does so much to obliterate it.
chapter 7
IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DUCK
Since the moment we left Israel at Christmas, I had been worrying about our return.
We had spent some time on our first trip with people from Stop the Wall (STW), a campaigning group that advocates non-violent protest. They had helped us coordinate guides and accommodation but, while we were on our walk, their principal organiser, Jamal, had been arrested and detained on the basis of secret evidence that he was not allowed to see or challenge in court. Jamal was the second of STW’s organisers to be arrested and held in this way in the space of three months. Just before the arrest, their offices and that of another NGO in Ramallah were raided in the middle of the night and trashed.
Coupled with this, an Israeli group, Breaking the Silence, which publishes testimony of soldiers’ experiences in the Occupied Territories, had agreed to walk some of our walk with us, but they too were facing pressure from the Israeli authorities. Publishing the soldiers own words strikes at the heart of Israel’s perception that it has a ‘moral army’ and has unsettled the authorities enough for legislation to be proposed that would ban NGOs critical of Israel from receiving funding from abroad, an act many believed to be directly aimed at the group. NGOs I had spoken to or worked with in the past were getting worried about new Israeli restrictions on them and, just weeks later, the Israeli Interior Ministry announced it would stop issuing work visas to foreign nationals, an announcement that targeted most of the aid agencies that work in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, which include Save the Children, Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders. A serious clampdown was taking place.
In this atmosphere, I started the New Year of 2010 concerned about the people I had left behind and for the future of the walk. We had planned to do the remaining walk in two trips, but friends involved in various NGOs began to warn me about trying to get back into Israel: if they were facing entry difficulties, the chances were I might face them, too. Getting in even once without any scrapes or attracting unwanted attention was, in their opinion, going to be difficult enough.
‘I don’t mind doing it all in one go,’ Phil had said cheerily when we met after Christmas. ‘In fact, it makes sense to do the whole thing in one last push.’
‘That would mean five … six weeks away from home,’ I had replied, rather faintly.
‘I reckon we have to treat this as our one shot at getting it done,’ Phil, the Afghanistan-hardened cameraman, continued. ‘Imagine if we got in for the second time, got two-thirds of the walk done and then get stopped going in on the third trip. No, we have to make a serious attempt to finish this walk.’ He tugged at his newly emerging goatee and smiled cheerfully.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
So, decision made, we set out to finish the entire walk in one trip.
Beginning to assemble my gear again, I stock up on blister plasters and make a hopeful guess that my walking boots will last long enough to make the final walk. Phil and I also work on synchronising our stories and working out a procedure for when we get to Tel Aviv airport. We will split up at Customs, avoid any mention of the West Bank and, if the worst comes to the worst, Phil will defer all questions about the itinerary to me.
So it is a little disconcerting, when we arrive there, to find Phil standing next to me in the Customs and Immigration hall.
‘You should join the other queue,’ I whisper awkwardly as security guards look on. I am beckoned forward, stepping from behind the white line to the Customs booth, where a young woman with more hair than human warmth reaches to collect my passport. I slip it under the glass and try not to chew gum in an anxious manner. Just then, however, another passport is slapped perkily onto the shelf next to mine. The officer looks up, and I look round to come face to face with Phil, who is peeking over my shoulder, wide-eyed and grinning. He has blond highlights in the coxcomb of his Mohican, and he flicks his hair mischievously.
‘What is the purpose of your visit?’ the officer says blankly, while flicking through my passport.
‘I am writing a book on walking.’
‘Walking?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what is his relationship to you?’ she says, looking up and gesturing at Phil with one of the passports.
‘Er … he’s a friend.’
‘I’m his friend,’ says Phil, coyly.
‘Friends …’ she says slowly, lifting her eyes to examine us.
‘Yes,’ says Phil, from over my shoulder. ‘Good friends.’
‘And where are you staying?’
I take a composing breath to list our Israeli destinations rather than our West Bank ones, but before I can answer Phil leans over my shoulder again and says, ‘Together. We’re staying together.’
With that the official stamps our passports, smiles knowingly and says, ‘Have a good time.’ We are in
.
Despite all the warnings, we have got back into Israel with ease. I feel foolish at pandering to paranoia. But in fairness if you are going to be paranoid, this is the place to be. Mordechai Vanunu blew the whistle on Israel’s nuclear weapon programme, kidnapped from Rome in a honey trap operation run by Israeli secret services and served eighteen years in jail, the majority of which was spent in solitary confinement.
I had seen him last year when I visited East Jerusalem on the recce trip. I had been having coffee with an Israeli activist called Jeff Halper when he had suddenly looked up and in his broad American accent had said: ‘Hey, there’s Mordechai Vanunu.’ And there indeed was the legendary figure of the peace movement.
‘Wow,’ was all I could think to say, ‘I did a benefit gig for his release years ago.’
In a booming voice Jeff had called across the café: ‘Hey, Mordechai! I want you to meet Mark Thomas. He did a benefit to get you released!’ in such a manner as to imply that I and I alone was responsible for his release, and that this would be the perfect opportunity for Mordechai to come over and personally thank me. With that one shout, seemingly, Jeff had managed to wipe away the international campaign for Mordechai’s release, the protestors and supporters, the letters of protest, demonstrations and diplomatic pressure – all gone, and the only thing that had sprung him from his prison cell was the benefit gig I took part in at the Quaker Friends Meeting House in Red Lion Square in London, sometime in the last century.
‘But Mordechai is not free,’ said Mordechai Vanunu, when he had seated himself at our table, and looking at me as if I had, after all, failed him. ‘I am not allowed to leave this country.’
Jeff shot me a look as if to say, ‘Maybe you should have done two gigs and finished the job properly.’
