It has been a week of unimaginable experiences: from the hours waiting at the crossing at Allenby Bridge, to the agonizing descent into darkness that was our visit to the old city of Hebron – a place of architectural and historical magnificence now blighted by sectarian violence and by a quotidian oppression that must be experienced, even for a few hours, to be believed. But I, at least, had naively imagined that our return to Jerusalem would entail some return to the world as I thought I knew it, to some relief from the Kafkaesque madness that is life under occupation.
Certainly our hotel, a stone’s throw from the beautiful American Colony Hotel, with a magnificent view of the city and a splendid breakfast buffet, gave that impression: the day dawned glorious and calm and we set out just before 9am in the company of our gracious and knowledgeable guide, Mahmoud, with a sense of optimism and – dare I say it, after the emotional strain of our brief visit to Hebron? – relief. The plan was to visit the Al Aqsa mosque – and to do so promptly, so as to be able to move on and take in Silwan and the rest of the old city before lunch. For the first time this week, we were spending the day as ordinary tourists, rather than as students or teachers: able to observe, and enjoy, to take in the extraordinary sites without, I imagined, being called upon to analyze.
The Old City is a maze of alleyways, of souks and courtyards, of tiny staircases and hidden oases. We marvelled, in the early morning, at the scent of mint and spices and fruit, and at the mesmerizing array of goods for sale – sandals and lamps and t shirts and sparkling belly dancers’ outfits, miles of knickers and bras and enormous plush teddy bears encased in plastic – everything a consumer could desire. And then, suddenly, the holy sites: the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, the Via Dolorosa, the prospect of the al-Aqsa mosque and the Western Wall – we found ourselves at the heart of religion: Muslim, Jewish, Christian, the centre of the city whose name signifies ‘peace’ (ur salaam, as Ahdaf Soueif explained). Even for the most secular among us, the visit could not be insignificant.
Generously, the waqf, (the Muslim trust fund administrators) who control al- Aqsa, had offered to give us a guided tour of the mosque, so we presented ourselves at Bab al-Sbat, where the Israelis control the checkpoint but the waqf oversee the mosques. At first, things seemed to be fine, with our guide, Mahmoud, we passed halfway through the checkpoint and were met by the waqf’s representative, a portly older man missing a tooth or two. He provided us with the coverings we were missing – skirts for the women wearing trousers, shawls for those whose arms were bare – and while he took care of this the guards at the checkpoint took a closer, and more sceptical, look at our group.
Was it the bracelets with the Palestinian flag bought in Hebron that some of us wore? Was it Ahdaf’s explanation of the history of the site, upon which they eavesdropped? Was it our international, multi-ethnic composition, or our idle chatter. We won’t ever know – which is the point, of course: the apparent mystery and arbitrariness of the hand of power – but the checkpoint soldiers changed their minds about us. They called us back past the barriers. They took our passports and scrutinized them. They radioed to superiors, they conferred, they frowned. And it became clear that they could not let us through. No way.
The waqf representative came to retrieve the loaned skirts and shawls, “I’m sorry” he said. “From my heart I am truly sorry.” And he seemed it, his pile of cotton skirts on his arm. The soldiers gave us no reason, no excuse; but suggested we go to the Moroccan Gate, the area under Israeli control, and visit the mosque from that side. The implication – blatantly false – was that the waqf wouldn’t have us. “From my heart I am sorry,” our would-be waqf guide had said. We knew the Israeli excuse for a lie. Our disappointment was intense, especially for the Muslims among us. If you enter the compound through Israeli territory you aren’t permitted to go inside the mosque and pray. Our hope had been to cross into the grounds with the guidance of the waqf and to learn as much as possible about the Muslim history of the site. It had seemed, when we set out, a simple enough thing. Nevertheless, we snaked our way through the old city to the Moroccan Gate; the entrance to the compound of tourists to Israel and there we experience a ‘democracy moment’: we didn’t need to show passports or open our bags or withstand sceptical scrutiny. Obviously we were to feel that what had been difficult under Palestinian control (the control of the waqf) was easy under Israeli control – except that it was not the waqf but the Israelis that had blocked our passage in the first place.
We crossed the square by the Western Wall, amidst many festive Jewish celebrations: there were sober Hasid men going to pray but also rowdy families and women in elaborate party frocks shouting to one another. One stout lady wore heels, frothy ruffles and a great flouncy hat as though on her way to a posh wedding. The hubbub was festive, almost frantic; but in the midst of it we could see the entrance to the mosque: a precarious covered wooden bridge suspended over a corner of the square, it looked like some temporary structure across a gorge in Tibet, not like a main entrance to one of Islam’s most holy sites. The holy sites, after all, are intended to be accessible.
To attain the precarious bridge, and to cross there into the courtyards of the mosque you have to pass another checkpoint. At this one, they were ready for us: later some of our group said they recognised the Israeli policeman from the first checkpoint – which would have meant they had dashed across the mosque grounds to pip us to the post. Either that, or they’d radioed through to alert them to our coming.
Again, it seemed OK at first. They let in two or three of us as far as the luggage scanner. The Palestinian bracelets had come off by now; there was no historical lecture, no idle chatter. They recognised us somehow. “Stop,” they said. “Go back,” they said. Eventually – and falsely – they announced the checkpoint was closed for the day (we saw them re-open it as we went away) – but not before one of them, who bore an uncanny resemblance to a mini-Sharon, lost his temper more than once and bullied some of our party. We never got a reason. Tourists from various countries passed us and went in. Settlers passed us and went in. But we were not to be permitted to enter. The threat was apparently too great.
Some strange dementia is afoot in Israel. This is the only thing I can conclude. European diplomats suggest it is licensed by the extremism of the new government. This may be. But it is hard to square our experiences today with those of a democracy. Our group is diverse in many ways – ethnically, nationally, religiously, temperamentally, and so on – but we are all literary people, on a cultural mission and we are all lovers and promoters of peace. On this day, in that place, we were not artists, even, but pilgrims and tourists hoping to see one of the world’s most significant religious sites. All of us had come many thousands of miles in hope of this visit, and yet it was denied us. Was it the bracelets? The chatter? The cut of our jib? Who knows. We couldn’t appeal. Our cause was lost.
But of how little significance is our thwarted visit next to what thousands of Palestinians endure every day? They, too, wander if it is their jewellery, or their conversation, or their hairdo, or their socks that might deny them access to one site or one city or another, and they’ll never know the answer. Adolescent soldiers decide their fates on a whim. It is, until you see it, or experience even a tiny fraction of it, very hard to understand what it is like; and it’s impossible, really, to understand why it is like this.
We did not see the mosque. But nor can thousands of Palestinians for whom it is the most holy of pilgrimages. Most often, like today, we won’t know the reason. But each arbitrary rebuff inflicts a wound, and each closing of a gate involves a small death, a spiritual loss on both sides. It is, surely, the opposite of what religions intend; and in this sense is as much a betrayal of faith as of humanity. At tonight’s beautiful closing ceremony Robin Yassin-Kassab read a sentence from Aimé Césaire: “there is room for everyone at the banquet of victory.” It is a profound truth, the hope for which we have all felt this week, but one which, in this historical moment, seems tragically all but impossible to attain.
