Israelastine and the no state solution

As a firm believer in the no state solution I thought I would place Israel and Palestine in one piece. In my precisely constructed game of visa hopscotch I entered Israelestine from Jordan. The Jordanians didn't stamp me out because according to them whilst I was in the West Bank I was still in Jordan, they don't recognise Israel’s victory in the 1967 war. This left my Jordanian visa valid so long as I got back before it expired. I got to the Israeli immigration with an American of Palestinian descent and a slightly nervous Canadian Parsi of Indian descent. The Canadian had Syria and Lebanon stamps, I told him not to worry, 'tell them that they should be thanking you, without the Zoroastrians the Jews would still be wandering polytheists, it was thanks to their captivity in Babylon where they stole monotheism from you guys that then became the chosen people' I hope he didn't take me advice, after the second interview he failed to reappear. He returned after the first interview to the main hall, they asked him whether he was a Muslim, he insisted he was non-practising Parsi who had left his flame at home, this confused them. Israeli immigration is stacked with the most beautiful girls in Israel, they are all about 20 and must strike fear into the heart of every strict Muslim man who is forced to look into their eyes. The girl who interviewed me was so impressed with my Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, Iran and half a dozen stan stamps that she asked for my name, address, phone number, details of all my relatives. She asked what I was doing in Yemen, I said "Struggling to find a drink", it drew a blank, they are like all first world immigration drones, they work on a points system, my stamps had already placed me over the threshold. I sat and waited for four and a half hours whilst the sent my details to Tel Aviv for processing. They let me through and stamped a piece of paper, not my passport and then took that piece of paper five steps later. I entered Israel with no record in my passport. The Israeli's may take a disliking to Muslim stamps but if I tried to enter a Muslim country, other than Egypt, Jordan or Turkey, I would be deported to Antarctica. I waited on the other side for an hour, neither the Canadian nor the American appeared. Jerusalem was a really impressive city, the old city is superb, cobbled streets, everything built on top of what has been built on top of. Americans everywhere, Asians carrying full size crosses doing the Jesus walk, Jews headbanging a wall, Muslims headbanging the ground. The orthodox Jews pushing through, dismissive of others claim to Jewish, one eye twitching the other closed, hunched over, walking at full speed, dressed in black, these guys need to expand their genetic pool. They breed, don't serve in the army, live off the Jewish state that is defended and paid for by secular agnostic Jews. Conscripted soldiers taking it easy smoking, talking on their phones. Brilliant Muslim markets, tiny streets, packed with people, the covered heads of Muslim women out in force, the flag of Israel draped over their market. In the holy city I followed Jesus's final steps in reverse, I touched the place where he was crucified, laid and resurrected in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. I went on the temple mount and went to enter the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, but was refused. Contrary to the pure misinformation that emanates from this part of the world, it is only Muslims who should enter the Dome of the Rock. It is very difficult for Jews to get onto the Temple Mount, they are left banging their heads on the wall outside. This Dome of the Rock contains one very important rock, on it Abraham was tested and nearly cut his son Issac’s throat, or from a Muslim perspective Ishmael. It is also where the Ark of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments used to sit before they were spirited away to Ethiopia, maybe. The Muslims in an act of pure politics, or theology, cementing their claim to the lineage of Abraham and Moses, claim that Mohammad flew to the Dome of the Rock with the Angel Gabriel, this is nowhere in the Koran, his astral travel came to light after his death. I met a Jewish guy who had managed to get into the Dome of the Rock and see the rock in all its glory, he was amazed, he was very stoned when he told me profoundly "I saw it, and it was, it was, it was......just a rock". The point of 3000 years of veneration and one of the 500 points of conflict between the Jews and Muslims is a rock. This is the problem with monotheism, if they were Hindu's they could build some great phallic symbol with a chick dancing on top. Magically defying one analysis it could be made ambiguous, interpreted in 350 million ways under the grand umbrella of 350 million Gods. But no, he had to deny the people their idols, insist that they only worship him and so they worship a rock which can only be interpreted in one way. Ahhh, the grand old rock, the rock that is off limits to he who is I. In Jerusalem I stayed with an excellent Israeli smoker who skipped the army but now believes the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to invade Jordan, send buses all over Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, collect all the Arabs, shoot any that don't get on the bus and drive them into Jordan then close the borders. I am partial to this solution. They exist in a permanent stalemate of tit for tat killings, one side has to make the decisive step and wipe the other out. The extermination of one side or the other is the only humane solution, it would be a loss for humanity but it is the only solution. They can't live together, the polarisation is too deep, the Palestinians think the Jews are dogs and the Jews think the Palestinians are imbeciles. One side has to win and do it quickly, this conflict is too boring. I am tempted to side with the Jews to exterminate the Palestinians purely on numbers, there are not that many Jews in the world and there are a lot of Arabs, the world will be at a greater loss without the Jews than with a few less Arabs. Jerusalem is a liberal city under Jewish control, you can drink beer, smoke joints on the street, say and do what you want, including the Palestinians. They may be discriminated against within Israel but they can openly advocate treason. If someone had the guts to advocate treason in Saudi Arabia I might have seen a decapitation. The above is really an inhumane solution, I am been facetious, the real solution is to disassemble Jerusalem block by block and move it to Australia along with the five million Jews and then the Palestinians can have their desert and so can the Israeli’s. It is true that the Jewish state should not exist, all states should be purely secular, but for the Islamic world to be arguing this is pure hypocrisy. Some feel sympathy when they see the plight of the Palestinians, or admire the Jews long running battle for survival, I felt both and neither. I think both sides have legitimate grievances. This means for Israeli’s I’m a Palestinian sympathiser and for the Palestinians I’m a supporter of the occupation. I made a short visit to the West Bank, I went to Hebron, a descent into the third world, plus, disturbingly, a lot of genetic freaks. It reminded me of that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Total Recall, the poor people who are deprived oxygen on Mars, thats what these Palestinian territories are like. The first person I met there asked me where I was from, Australia generated the response “I hate your Prime Minister”, I agreed with him, although in hindsight I should have congratulated him on knowing who he was and that Australia is a real country. Coming back I went to Bethlehem and I touched the star in the ground that marks the spot where where Jesus was born, again no sighting. On my way back to Jerusalem I was taken off the bus with a Dutch girl at the Israeli checkpoint, the bus was ushered on. The cop was a complete cunt, he said I was not allowed back into Jerusalem, he said I should go to Ramalah. I said "My bags are in Jerusalem, I am staying at a hotel there". He just kept telling me to go to Ramalah, still in the Palestianian territories, on the other side of Jerusalem. Our argument quickly escalated. I asked to speak with his supervisor and said he didn't know what he was talking about, the Dutch girl told me to shut up. I have generally found my approach successful with officials, polite bullying. This is not the tactic to use in Israel. The beautiful Dutch girl played it much better, charmed the policeman, until he went away and was replaced by a soldier whom she convinced to let us back into Jerusalem. After this experience it made me think that the Israeli authorities must truly shit on the Palestinians. I can also see that the Israeli's don't want the intellectually incapacitated blowing themselves up. The Palestinians are humiliated and have no conventional means to fight back, the Israeli’s have to defend themselves against an enemy that they can’t identify except by language. It’s a compounding cycle. All the arguments on either side are bullshit, both sides claim to be the indigenous inhabitants, the Israeli’s run a terra nullius argument that the Zionists arrived to an empty land and the Palestinians that they have been there forever and that the Jews are recent usurpers. Both claim the other is the oppressor, the aggressor, the cause but they are stuck in a cycle that can only be broken with empathy. It is both a complex and a simple argument, there are many facets but they are all irrelevant. Neither side has any moral, legal or political legitimacy. It is one giant tragedy of humanity without a solution. I don’t want to give you the impression that I disliked Israelastine, it was fascinating, the Old City is superb, it was great to re-enter the first world for a week, it is the definitive place for conflict studies. I’m more interested in understanding how people make peace, Israelastine is an interesting look into what not to do. A land like this needs a year zero. Jerusalem photos West Bank photos

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