Chapter 3 - Arrival Purim: Lod to Ramallah 2004

Out of the window of the airplane over Israel there is  the sea. It lies beneath, that crescent of the coast caressed by the Mediterranean. Blue, powder white blue, sand beige, green. Such a genteel, soft, giving, arrangement of colors. Strange; such an organic combination of colors, lay low like the colors of a flag, and yet no nation has claimed them. Too pacific of a color combination to waive while men die.

How strange that with that much ocean one never thinks of the ancient Israelis as a sea faring people. Those stories in the bible always talked about wilderness, about rolling pastoral hills, a whole lot of sheep, the cities and the desert. If it was the water, then it was about lake Tiberius or the river Jordan, but never the Mediterranean. Except for the mention of Leviathan in the deep ocean, the only thought of the ocean as a place to store monsters.  Why? The Phoenicians where up in what is today Lebanon, and the Philistines were in Gaza. Leaving Israel in the interior, inland, while others wandered the seas. Casting their view upon each other with contempt, as they gazed in different directions.

My white knuckled, white skinned wife She closes her eyes from fear of landing. She sets her jaw waiting for the impact. Plane on tarmac violence.

The plane descends on Ben Gurion Airport, or NATBAG as the locals call it with a snicker, in the town of Lod. They lie and say that it is Tel Aviv, but it is pretty fucking obvious from the plane window it isn't fucking Tel Aviv.  Stagger out into a shitty little airport, we stagger down the stairs into the open air; cold wet wind cloud air.  While we have no bags, we are still the last people off the plane. The other passengers had leapt up to the doors, climbing all over each other, biting each others ears, just to get off the flight. This included the security detachemet assigned to us. My conculsion is they had as bad a flight as we did.

My instinct was to let the crazed  people go first, because they clearly felt they needed too, and besides all that was waiting for me on the ground was a rectal search. Probably not a rectal search performed by a cute girl with small hands. It would be some pissed off student ready to give my possibly radioactive prostate a massage with a giger counter. No lube, no kiss.

Luckily no such probe occurred and it was silly for me to think it could. The logic is simple, if there was a bomb in my ass it would have gone off in midair, and not now on the ground. My ass was now only a danger to myself. For Security, the danger was now no longer me,my ass, nor anything harbored in my ass.  The possible existential threat to the State of Isreael was now in someone elses ass.

Get off the plane,  it was pure chaos as people pushed their way to the front, to the small booths where attractive women sat in little booths.They sat with full lips and wide eyes, young, soft skinned customs officals. Girls, with their faces made up to perfection, look out from their booths. Different than peepshow booths, because you don't have to put quarters in them because the windows are always up, because the women wear military uniforms instead of lingerie, because you have your passport instead of your dick in your hands. Also my wife was there, which would never happen in a peep show, unless she was really drunk, especially with me slipping my passport to the customs agent. So that’s the difference.

On edge, and shaken you stand before the military representative, with her titanic hypno Ta-Tas, the military rep really doesn't give a shit. What would they do, send me back to Rome? How would they do that, do you have to pay for your return ticket when you are deported? Land back in a place where there is no apartment, no real friends, no chance. That is the joke, it would be too much trouble to put me back on a plane, too much trouble to do something.

The customs guard just yawns anddoes nothing at all. So we pass, out of the door into arrivals and see her standing above the crowd.  Tempesta, Tempesta Criminale my wife's sister. 

Blond hair flowing, her Valkyric presence filled the area around her, as she dominated all action around her. She stood with stroller in hand and little Flip in the stroller, in a pink princess outfit. Flip was the cutest anime character ever, with her jet black hair, wide eyes, well prim proper three year old. Flip threw her arms around my wife, olive skin Flip, floresent light lit, against my wife’s  alabaster beauty.

The Ben Gurion meeting area, full of balloons, red balloons, children in costumes dash past us, noise makers in hand. A children’s circus, with Tempesta as their ringmaster? Tempesta kisses my wife on the cheek:

 -Happy Purim, it’s a remembrance of drinking, genocide, revelations, and the death of over 75,000 people, a real fun time.

Tempesta hands me her  copy of Haaretz with a photo of orthodox jewish guys beating the shit out of some guy they dragged out of a car. He was driving through their neighborhood. Tempesta grabs our red bag and says:

-It’s not because he’s arab, they probably beat the guy up thinking he was from Brooklyn. It's Friday, on a holiday, people in Haredi neighborhoods get real tight about cars on high holidays and on the Sabbath. Who knows, every Purim is like that. People get drunk real drunk and they want to fight. Maybe all of life is like that.

We made our way to the car, got Flip who looked at me with suspicion from her child seat in the white fiat punto with UN written on the side. Someone had corrected the spelling putting on a C and T with some spray paint. Outside the car windows, wet pavement, grey skies, wet cold wind. The car stays in place as the world moves around us.

Tempesta points at different highway signs, which settlement is this one, which holy site is the other, we stop at the checkpoint.

-No one passes, says solider with machine gun standing in a poncho really pissed off.

-This is a UN vehicle, we can pass, cries out Tempesta.

She pulls her head back in the window, light mist of rain falling on the white fiat punto. She turns up the heat in the car. She reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a CD of PET SOUNDS, slides it into the player. She turns to us and says:

-This is the daily commute. This morning it took me two hours to get in. Fine they clamp down security during holidays, but we are trying to go back! The terrorists want to go home and have dinner. Hi soldier, how is it going today?

The soldier shrugs and waves his machine gun at us:

-It sucks. Were is your visa?

Tempesta points to the passport:

-It’s right there in their passports. Why all the security?

The soldier flips through our passports, different places, stamps:

-It’s Purim. If there is an attack today, it would be bad.

-It’s always bad, says Tempesta.

-No imagine six million drunk Israeli bad. If anything happens today, we will scrape them into the sea.

-So you guys are peace keepers, smiles Tempesta.

-That’s why my day sucks.

-But why are you closing the road going back into Ramallah? We are trying to get out of this country, not attack it.

The soldier handed back the passports:

-Who knows. Maybe better safe than sorry? Listen this road is supposed to be closed so there is no telling if they will continue to let you travel on it.

-But you are letting us past.

-Too much trouble to do anything other than nothing

Tempesta drove down the road, only traffic was military, but very light. If you weren’t at home watching TV and avoiding your family, you were one of the poor unfortunates standing in the rain. Tempesta rolled up her window:

-Me and Flip spent all morning baking a cake for you guys.

-My cake! screamed Flip.

Tempesta smiled:

-We made the cake for our guess dear. A two tier angel food cake, covered in chocolate...

-My chocolate! screamed Flip

-Darling we share, so we added some more egg white than is usual, to give the cake a little more structure.

-My stewr....my egg!

-Sweetie calm down, she’s in a bit of a phase right, oh good another checkpoint, ever since Flop was born Flip has been a little sensitive.

Wait Tempesta, Flop is three years old.

-It is a very long phase, granted, near endless nightmarish phase but a phase all the same.

-My phase!

-Yes dear it is. Still she is great with Flop, and she can be really sweet. You guys will see when we get home

-My home!

-WILL  YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LITTLE WITCH! SCREAM AT ME ONE MORE TIME... Here are the passports Soldier and my Lasse Passe.

The Soldier’s fear tighten grip slowly released as he took the documents, never taking his terror filled eyes off Tempesta.

The soldier, green blur in a poncho, manditory three days growth on the face, looks out from behind his wire rimmed glasses :

-It’s closed! The road is closed.

Tempesta smiled:

-Look we are on UN business, we have UN Lasse Passe, and we are in a UN vehicle.

-My UN! screamed Flip

- It’s everyone’s UN sugar, you have to learn how to share; said Tempesta

-It’s not mine. It would be better to throw all of you people out of Israel, said the Soldier.

Tempesta in wide eyed wonder:

-You mean, Israel should accept its fourth Geneva convention responsibilities and provide health services, sanitation, education and, oh yes, security services to the Palestinian people, allowing the international community to stop paying for it?

-My Israel! screamed Flip

-Go, said the soldier.

Tempesta pulled out of the checkpoint, and drove beneath the sky swirling in shades of grey, mixing grey, white and navy blue clouds in a textured tempest as thunder rung out of the typanum of some long forgotten god. The mud hills reach out to the heavens to recieve its blessing.

Tempesta looked at the road:

-These guys aren’t all bad, mostly kids. Some are really bad, like the border police. They are just a bunch of thugs. Those are the guys who did their checkpoint work in their mandatory service and discovered how much they enjoyed it.

What is the difference?

Tempesta sighed:

-Here there is no difference between the operational and the political. This is a military occupation and the Palestinians are under military administration. That means military justice, means that the IDF is the king of kings here. Palestinian mayors and city councils used to liase directy with military authorities. Today the PA and not the mayors, sometimes deals with the Israeli government, sometimes  with the IDF, it changes everyday. The Israeli government could take it out of military administration, like they did with the Golan.

Wait they annexed the Golan.

Tempesta shook her finger:

-No they did not. They moved it out of military administration  and into civil administration. Of course it is a de facto annexment, but from a negotiating standpoint, it is still not part of Israel. Anyhow they will not take the West Bank out of Military Administration, because that would end up giving voting rights to the West Bank, so it is treated as a separate entity. At the same time ’48 had no treaties and no declared borders. So all this is Israel, or at least could be. From the Nile to the Euphrates remember that. So there are are no settlements, there are neighborhoods and cities. There is no fourth Geneva convention violations, no population transfers, this is not an international issue, this is an internal issue, because this is all Israel. So civilian police and paramilitaries can operate at will through the West Bank, mostly to protect the settlers. Then, since there has been Oslo, there is some entity out here, and somewhere there is a Border, and there are customs and stamp duties, and bribes to be collected. So you have border police running around everwhere. Every option is exercised, even if they are contradictory, even if they step on each others feet, even if it is a massive waste of money, because to just do one thing would be making a decision on what the nature of this place is. A statement to be one day used in a court of international justice.

Tempesta groaned:

-Damn it, another checkpoint. Anyway, most of these guys ok, this is a major road so they are pretty professional. The ones that get real bad are the ones between Palestinian cites. Hello how are you doing today.

-Visas, the tall soldier said.

He took the documents and went through them closely. He closed them and handed them back to Tempesta and said:

-The road is closed.

Tempesta smiled:

-Why, what is going on?

-This is a closed military zone.

Tempesta pointed at a civilian car passing the checkpoint, without stopping.

-Funny how that car just blew past the checkpoint without stopping.

Flip crossed her shaking arms, uncrossed them and pushed her plastic tirara into her fine black hair.

The solider tensed:

-They are a resident

-That’s the third one that past us since we stopped.

-They are going home.

-Back to the settlement for the night, how sweet. Imagine the sampler over the door.

The solider stared.

-So they get to go home and we don’t?

The solider said:

-The road is closed.

-A closed road that stops the UN car but lets civilian cars pass without even stopping them to make sure they are residents.

The solider stood in his poncho, beads of water running down it.

Tempesta reached down by the passports and picked up her cell phone:

-This is a UN vehicle, which has the right to travel, so of course this is a mistake. A quick call to my military Liaison, where we explain everything we have seen, and everything can be resolved.

The solider stepped back from the car and said:

-It says CUNT on the side of this car. Go.

Tempesta pulled out into the road and frowned:

-Makes me sick. All the talk about security, it’s all a big lie. Settlers move in and out of here without ever being stopped, without document checks. They just see the plates on the car and let it pass. Anyhow the real bad checkpoints are the ones in between Palestinian towns. There was one that was horrible. We passed on our complaints to the IDF, hell Arafat even contacted the Israeli government about it by backchannels.

Why was it there?

-Who knows, no one was saying anything. All that was clear was that the soldiers working at the check point were sadistic and no one cared in the IDF. It came to a head when a old man was forced to crawl on his stomach through the checkpoint in front of everyone there. God not another one! How many soldiers do they have out today.

We pulled up to the checkpoint and a tall man of about thirty steps up to the car, in marked opposition to the kindergarden we had passed through. He walked up to the car with a clipboard in his hands

-Hello, how are you, said Tempesta.

-Great, being out here instead of at home with my family.

-It must be difficult, said Tempesta.

-No seriously, my family are horrible people. Any excuse to get away from those parasites is a joy. Visas please. And how is your day going.

-Oh you know.

-Tell me about it, said the solider as he looked at our now wet documents.

-So why is the road closed into Ramallah? asked Tempesta

The solider carefully went through our documents:

-Road isn’t closed today. The road is open. Well these are are in order, here you are. Get that car washed and have a nice day.

The windows of the car roll up again and Tempesta turns down the heat, Flip frowns, sits back in her Italian baby car seat, and beats the foward seat with her magic wand.

Tempesta confided:

-Everyone at that checkpoint were found killed a few weeks ago. What the investigation produced was that it was an execution using IRA techinque.

IRA?

-IRA, ANC, PLO these were the anti-colonial movements of the twentieth century. Arafat was a good revolutionary and came to the aid of the other two organizations whenever he could. Also ANC members never tire of talking about how Israel sold South Africa the barbed wire that was part of the apparatus  and symbol of Apartheid. Word is Arafat called in a favor, and at the very least someone with IRA training took out the entire group of them. 

Ahead of us was a growing line of cars waiting, the line turned a corner of a hill. We joined this line of commercial vehicles, trucks, and blow dust.

Tempesta turned:

-Since the check point was in a valley, the guy got behind them. He chose the spot for the echo. The echo of his rifle made the soldiers think the shots where coming from in front of them. They took shelter leaving their backs completly exposed to the gunman...alright, here we are. This is Qalandiyah, the main check point to Ramallah. We could have went throught the deplomatic enterence, but you guys should see this.

Flip just beat her wand into the seat and pretends there was no world outside.

Concrete blocks, steel, and a fire scared tower.

Past that a dmz of buildings with camoflage netting over them, and desolate streets. Beyond that is Palestine.

dream

Standing in the middle of Doctor Moreau's village, the sky is a void, light is emanated from each object that exists like a Greek icon. Standing across from me is Orson Wells, circa 1968, still with some brown hair battling against the grey. Half man, half animals writhe in pain around us as they die around us, convulsed by the light, the fire within them, the village burns around us. The light is confined to the flame object, as if it were carved into black lacquer.

Screaming at Orson:

Why did you kill Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil. 

Orson raises one eyebrow, slowly takes the cigar from his mouth and says:

-Charlton Heston didn't die in touch of evil. 

Are you sure?

Orson takes the cigar out of his mouth and gestures with it: - Quite. 

The creatures around us are not half steps between man and animal, but instead, animals with the faces of men, clawing at their own bodies, tearing off their own skin, Herculean agony as the robe consumes his flesh, tearing at it to the bone, man-ape, man-wolf, man-jackal, man-ostridge. They do not bleed, but expose red beneath their skin with is illuminated. A man-lama is at Orson's feet dyeing, Orson's hand goes to it, stroking it like a lover, Orson looks back to me:

-Maybe you are thinking of Omega man or Soylent green? 

The man-lama at his feet looks in my eyes and screams a silent scream. It is all very disturbing.