Israel Vacation
My Israel trip is almost over, for now, and I want to get my thoughts down before they leave me.
There were a few things that really stand out. One, thoughts about King David. When I left Jerusalem, and Haifa, and when I went into Jordan, I found myself thinking about King David, and why he could not build the temple. He had blood on his hands, so his son, Solomon built the temple. David could not. This thought depressed me. King David was a hero, and a great man, but still there were things there that had a dark side. Catch 22’s. Unwinnable decisions. Defend your people and establish their nation, and become a killer, or refuse to kill and watch everyone around you die.
I was looking at the Jordanian border guards today, and thinking that they just looked like normal people, like you and me. But if war broke out, they would still fight and die. And their blood would be on our hands. The bad would be mixed in with the good, but some of the good ones would still die.
There are so many levels to that statement – that David could not build the temple because of the blood on his hands. It applies to so many things. I know there are major assholes among the Arabs and Muslims at large. I saw one in Bethlehem who I know was Fatah or Islamic Jihad or one of those other asshole groups. He glared at me, and then walked straight towards me like he was going to walk into me. He had a chip on his shoulder you could see a mile away. And the look on his face of a man who has killed. In the military, you can usually tell who has killed and who has not, because they get a look. And this guy was just a kid, wearing a PA police uniform, outside the church in Bethlehem. But he really stood out. There was another older cop with him who was watching. He actually looked scared. And he had this helpless look. I think that bothered me more. The fuckhead just pissed me off, and I didn’t move for him. And when the asshole walked past, the old cop looked relieved.
Today in Jordan, the first Jordanian I saw gave me shit about the snake tattooed on my arm. It gave me a sense of satisfaction, actually, because the whole reason I got that tattoo was to piss Arabs off. It was meant for the Iraqis, in Desert Storm, but this was close enough. I got it to piss them off in the war, so it would buy me a few extra seconds to shoot them. And also, so that if I died, I would know I had the satisfaction of still pissing them off as or after I died. When the first Jordanian border guard I met saw the tattoo, he goes “what is this?” with a disgusted look on his face. The other guard with him says “it is a snake” and smiled as if apologizing for the other guy. He was very nice, and the other guy shut up.
On the way out, another border guard dressed in black saw a British woman who was with our party and she was just wearing shorts and a tight t-shirt. First he looked disgusted, motioned at her clothes, and said something in Arabic in a disgusted tone of voice. Then, when she did not seem to notice, he started to look her up and down with a perverted look on his face. You could tell he was just trying to make her uneasy, and that he thought she was lesser because she was not covered from head to toe like all the other women in Jordan were. The other guard tried to keep her attention so she would not notice the first one, and seemed embarrassed. I don’t know if she saw or not, but if she did she pretended she did not.
I guess my point is that with each of the assholes was a decent one. And overall, I saw more that were decent or that at least put up a good act pretending to be decent than assholes.
And it makes me wonder about blood on the hands again. It is something that people have absolutely no choice about sometimes, but it can be so tragic, because the good get mixed in with the bad. And even when you surgically remove only the bad ones, you have still killed. So there is blood on your hands, and you are not worthy of certain things.
There is something in that, like a word on the tip of my tongue I cannot quite get out. I cannot figure out what it is yet.
The other thing I am thinking about is the difference between the Arab countries and Israel. They were overall very nice in the Arab areas I went to, but they still had their police everywhere, controlling them. Every corner, every stop our tour went to – police. In Israel you see them in the background, but they don’t seem to be watching, waiting. They did in the Arab areas. And they seemed to be watching their own people more than us, as if they didn’t want them to get ideas.
Which takes me to a major difference between Islam and Judaism and Christianity. Islam has compassion and forgiving in it, but this is not the main focus. It is in the background, behind obedience. Obedience and fealty is the core of Islam. The very word “Islam” translates to “submit”. The other two religions are more tolerant. They share. They try to get along. They do not make forcing their people to follow them their main emphasis. They are nice to get you to do what they want, not violent.
At Petra, there were stables where they kept the horses at the head of the trail. As I walked up to it on the way out, I saw a horse throw one of the Bedouins off. All the Bedouins around started throwing rocks at the horse, hard, and really pissing it off. It didn’t calm down, or do what they wanted, but they just kept throwing more rocks at it. It just got madder and madder and madder. That isn’t the way to make people or animals do what you want them to do. But it seems to be ingrained into the mindset of the Muslim on many levels. The religious level, the political level, even when it comes to just dealing with a pissed off animal. Don’t offer it a carrot. Beat it and break its spirit. That is just wrong, and it does not make people’s spirits break. It just pisses them off, and makes them take it out in other ways, like at the West or at the Jews.
I don’t know. I guess that is all that is on my mind now. I got really depressed when I left Jerusalem and Haifa. I hope I don’t get depressed again on the plane. I guess you can’t have the highs without the lows. I have a lot to digest, so I need to get back to work and earn some more money anyway. I have learned a lot. Confirmed many suspicions, remembered many things I forgot, and added new things on top of it all. It was definitely a good trip.
Published by CoyoteDKM on June 27th, 2009 | Filed under Personal
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