Istanbul,Turkey
And the fun never stops!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4865928.stm
I particularly enjoyed the comment by TAK: "With our actions we will turn Turkey into hell."
But before it get into my travels in hell, allow me to quickly recount the remainder of my stay in Israel, so as to further alienate myself from my readers, and to serve as a helpful reminder for my feeble brain:
Last Sunday I took a relatively non-controversial tour to Galilee. We visited the Roman ruins ın Beit She'an, the lakeside town of Tiberias, the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes and the Church of the Primacy of Saint Peter in Tabgha, the ancient town of Capernaum, and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
On Monday morning Roger and I paid a visit to the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem (http://www.alternativenews.org/). We then spent the remainder of our day at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Holocaust History Museum (http://www.yadvashem.org/).
The Israeli national elections were held on Tuesday, boasting the lowest voter turnout in the history of the country.
On Wednesday morning Roger and I joined a tour led by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (http://www.icahd.org/eng/). About half an hour into the tour, our guide, Jimmy Johnson (!), received a phone call informing him that a Palestinian family was being forcibly evicted from their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. Jimmy Johnson offered to take the group to the eviction site, but the coordinator of the the American academics and peace activists on our bus decided to stick with the regularly scheduled tour itinerary. So Roger and I hopped off the bus and caught a taxi to Silwan. Just one block below the popular tourist destination of the City of David we found a dozen armed men from a private security company protecting about 30 young guys from a private moving company who were in the process of removing all the worldly possessions of a Palestinian family from their home. The home had been bought by the family in 1928 (some 39 years before Israel took possession of this area), and they had the land title to prove it (but not the firepower to defend it). Three generations of this family stood and watched in disbelief as their life was loaded onto a van and taken away to the Israeli government who would then sell their possessions in order to reimburse the Israeli settlers for the expense of hiring the private security and moving companies. And all of this was done within the bounds of Israel's apartheid-style legal system.
We then took a taxi towards the West Bank village of Anata, immediately outside of Jerusalem's city limits. We walked a while before asking directions from two men who then drove us several more kilometers to the Israeli military checkpoint outside of Anata. We walked across the checkpoint and into the town before stopping once again to ask directions at a pharmacy. The pharmacist put us into another taxi that took us down to the school, our intended destination. The Israelis have built their "Security" Wall right through the school's playground, and every afternoon at 2:30 the Palestinian children trade rocks for teargas with the Israeli soldiers. Unfortunately, we were unable to witness this little ritual, as the children had the day off to watch the 85% solar eclipse. We took some pictures, then a nice man gave us some bananas and water, and we went home.
Then on Thursday I flew to Istanbul, which was bombed on Friday.
There, all caught up!
(Photo by Eric: Palestinian children evicted from their home, Silwan, East Jerusalem)
And the fun never stops!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4865928.stm
I particularly enjoyed the comment by TAK: "With our actions we will turn Turkey into hell."
But before it get into my travels in hell, allow me to quickly recount the remainder of my stay in Israel, so as to further alienate myself from my readers, and to serve as a helpful reminder for my feeble brain:
Last Sunday I took a relatively non-controversial tour to Galilee. We visited the Roman ruins ın Beit She'an, the lakeside town of Tiberias, the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes and the Church of the Primacy of Saint Peter in Tabgha, the ancient town of Capernaum, and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
On Monday morning Roger and I paid a visit to the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem (http://www.alternativenews.org/). We then spent the remainder of our day at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Holocaust History Museum (http://www.yadvashem.org/).
The Israeli national elections were held on Tuesday, boasting the lowest voter turnout in the history of the country.
On Wednesday morning Roger and I joined a tour led by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (http://www.icahd.org/eng/). About half an hour into the tour, our guide, Jimmy Johnson (!), received a phone call informing him that a Palestinian family was being forcibly evicted from their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. Jimmy Johnson offered to take the group to the eviction site, but the coordinator of the the American academics and peace activists on our bus decided to stick with the regularly scheduled tour itinerary. So Roger and I hopped off the bus and caught a taxi to Silwan. Just one block below the popular tourist destination of the City of David we found a dozen armed men from a private security company protecting about 30 young guys from a private moving company who were in the process of removing all the worldly possessions of a Palestinian family from their home. The home had been bought by the family in 1928 (some 39 years before Israel took possession of this area), and they had the land title to prove it (but not the firepower to defend it). Three generations of this family stood and watched in disbelief as their life was loaded onto a van and taken away to the Israeli government who would then sell their possessions in order to reimburse the Israeli settlers for the expense of hiring the private security and moving companies. And all of this was done within the bounds of Israel's apartheid-style legal system.
We then took a taxi towards the West Bank village of Anata, immediately outside of Jerusalem's city limits. We walked a while before asking directions from two men who then drove us several more kilometers to the Israeli military checkpoint outside of Anata. We walked across the checkpoint and into the town before stopping once again to ask directions at a pharmacy. The pharmacist put us into another taxi that took us down to the school, our intended destination. The Israelis have built their "Security" Wall right through the school's playground, and every afternoon at 2:30 the Palestinian children trade rocks for teargas with the Israeli soldiers. Unfortunately, we were unable to witness this little ritual, as the children had the day off to watch the 85% solar eclipse. We took some pictures, then a nice man gave us some bananas and water, and we went home.
Then on Thursday I flew to Istanbul, which was bombed on Friday.
There, all caught up!
(Photo by Eric: Palestinian children evicted from their home, Silwan, East Jerusalem)
posted by Eric at 6:17 PM
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