We met Isaac because the woman carrying his coffee thought I was his son.

She was carrying his coffee because Isaac is old and walks with a cane. He’s missing his right middle index finger from mid-knuckle down and when I shook his hand, I could feel the nub of knuckle pressing firmly into my palm.

Isaac laughed at the woman’s mistake.

I laughed too and offered for him to just sit with us.

“No, no, I don’t want to interrupt you,” he said. He had picked up his coffee by the saucer beneath the cup. It was quaking in his hands as he barely grasped it with the nub of index finger.

“Really, it’s not a problem,” I said.

He sat.

Isaac was visiting from Florida. He was a Jew and had lived in Jerusalem all his life prior to retiring to Florida. He had served in the Israeli army during the War of Independence in 1948. Before that, he lived under British occupation.

“Now, you see the King David over there?” he asked, pointing over to the King David Hotel across the street from where we sat.

We did.

“Now, that was the central hub of the British administration,” he said. “Listen, before Israel became a state there were underground organizations that were working to uproot and oust the occupying British. One of the tactics used was…” He paused for a second. “Well, it was terrorism against the British occupiers,” he continued. “There’s no other way to describe it.”

“Now,” he said. “They knew that the hub of the British administration was right there in the King David Hotel, so they picked that as a target. They cased the joint and noticed that milk was delivered everyday at 6:00 a.m. A truck would arrive carrying large metal containers of milk and those containers would be unloaded into the kitchen. So the Ergon—that was the name of one of the resistance groups—made a plan to get bombs into the building by faking the milk delivery. One morning, about 20 minutes before the regular delivery, some Ergon members in Arab dress, arrived at the King David with a truck-load of explosives hidden inside milk containers. The containers were unloaded into the kitchen and they drove away. Now, they wanted to limit the number of casualties, so they telephoned the British high commander whose office was located in the the King David and told him that there were explosives in the administrative wing of the hotel and that they had 20 minutes to evacuate. Now, instead of notifying everyone, the commander went to the opposite end of the hotel. When the regular milk truck arrived at 6 a.m., the guys in the kitchen knew that something strange was going on. But it was too late. The explosives hidden inside the milk containers went off. Ninety-six people perished.”

We told Isaac about our project and that we were having problems finding Israeli Jews to interview. He gave us the names of some places he thought we would find people to interview.

We asked if we could interview him.

He smiled and laughed.

“No, I’m just a boring old man who will only talk about the past,” he said.

“The past is very important,” I told him, thinking of the story he had just told us about the King David Hotel.

But he declined to be interviewed and his opinions and stories would go unrecorded.

We arrived in Jerusalem late Friday afternoon, just in time to check into our hotel and walk down to the Western Wall to witness the celebration of the beginning of the Sabbath. The plaza was packed with groups of people, some just tourists like us observing everything, but mostly Jews celebrating. Some were clearly large Jewish tour groups. They were standing in circles singing songs in Hebrew.

To get into the Western Wall plaza, you pass through a metal detector and security check where they search your bags. There are a lot of police and soldiers in the plaza as well. I also noticed that there were young Jewish males who were carrying crude bolt-action rifles along with their backpacks. The Jewish man in front of me on the steps going down to the security checkpoint had a 9mm slipped into the waist-band of his pants.

Meanwhile, a constant stream of Orthodox Jews passed through the plaza on the way to the Western Wall to pray. They were easily recognizable because they wore black suits and large black hats. Some of them wore large, round furry hats.

Emma noticed this right away and inquired about this seemingly unsensible fashion choice for such a climate.

“Why do they wear furry hats when it is so hot?”

Indeed, it must have been uncomfortable along with the long black overcoats they were wearing.

“It’s their tradition,” Kacey explained.

Emma contemplated the furry hats a bit longer. She began giggling.

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

“Those hats are funny.”

Down on the plaza, there were signs posted that informed visitors that smoking, use of cellphones and taking of pictures were prohibited on the plaza.

Kacey wanted to film of course, so we went up a set of stairs leading out of the plaza and she filmed from there.

“You can’t film this,” I told her. I could read one of the posted signs right from where we were sitting.

“It says that you can’t take pictures ‘on the plaza’,” she said. “We’re not on the plaza any longer. I’m going with a very literal interpretation.”

She kept filming until one of the officers came up the steps wagging his finger at her and telling her “No picture, no picture.”

She put the camera away.

“Told you so,” I said.

“Well, I got a few minutes of footage anyway.”

We left the Western Wall and walked up through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.

The sun had gone down the shops were reopening for the evening. One of the shops we stopped in was run by a Palestinian from Hebron. We told him about our project and he agreed to be interviewed. Like most of the Palestinians we’ve interviewed, he was eager to pour forth his story and his opinions, especially about the war in Lebanon. For the most part his view of the current situation was quite similar to the Arab view I put forth in an earlier blog entry (see: Burning, Burning, Burning). He added, however, that he believed that America was purposefully using Israel to do its dirty work against Hezbollah with the hope of dragging Iran into the conflict.

“I think American people are very good,” he said, smiling at me. “But your government is making tragedy for Lebanese people.”

We woke at 4 a.m. to begin the journey from Amman back to Ramallah.

We took a cab to the Allenby Bridge (King Hussein) Crossing, where Linda was separated from us to go with the rest of the Palestinians who are segregated from the rest of the foreigners crossing the border.

After paying the Jordanian exit tax and getting an exit visa, we sat in the waiting area where we waited for the bus that would take us to the crossing.

We waited and waited. We were attacked by tiny flies that had invaded the waiting area. Meanwhile the day grew hotter.

Our plan was to cross the border and take a bus to Jericho where we’d meet up with Linda’s friend, Rami, and wait there for her.

Things weren’t looking good though. The Jordanian officer at the entry gate told Linda to go with us and just show her British passport. Linda didn’t think that would work and when we finally got to the passport window, that’s when the officer there sent Linda packing over to the Palestinian area. It wasn’t his fault. He said that the Jordanians would let here through, but as soon as she showed up on the Israeli side, they would send her back.

Finally our bus arrived and we took the short trip to the border crossing. When you arrive at checkpoint on the Israeli side, everyone gets off the bus and lines up for passports checks. If you have no stamps in your passport (as we did), the officer looks at you suspiciously.

“Do you have another passport?”

“No,” I said.

“Why no stamps?”

“The stamps we received were on separate pieces of paper.”

He flipped back through each page of my passport again looking for stamps that were not there.

He didn’t seem content with the fact that there were no stamps in my passport, but handed it back and told me to have a nice day.

That was just the checkpoint. When you get to the arrival gate, you hand your passport over with your baggage. Your baggage goes on a conveyor belt to be x-rayed and checked for bombs. After they check your passports, you go through a metal detector and any bags you’re carrying go through an x-ray machine.

When we came through the metal detector, the officer on the other side asked what the purpose of our visit was.

“Tourism,” I said.

“Are you aware of the situation here?” she asked, referring to ongoing rocket attacks by Hezbollah in northern Israel.

“Yes, we are aware,” I told her.

“You are brave tourists I think,” she said.

I smiled at her. Maybe we were. Or maybe we were just foolish. Either way, we needed to go to Israel.

If you were a Palestinian, you went into this large detector device that blasted you with air while sensors looked for trace residue of bomb-making material.

If you were American, they ushered you past the ominous device and on to Passport Control where you fill out paperwork and get your visa.

If you’re Palestinian you go to one area. All other nationalities go to other booths.

“Where are you going?” the officer at the booth asked.

“Jerusalem.”

“Where will you be staying?”

“With a friend.”

“What’s the friend’s name?”

“Um, we only know her first name,” Kacey said then explained how we’d never met her but had been given her name by Rabbi David Zaslow who we knew in the States.

“Are you Jewish?” she asked.

“No.”

She stamped our passports and sent us on our way to go pickup our baggage.

If you’re Palestinian, you wait in one area why they manually search your bags.

All other nationalities went directly to the conveyor belts to pickup luggage.

Outside, we caught a bus to Jericho where we met up with Rami and waited for Linda.

She wasn’t far behind us, but only because the Jordanians had moved her quickly through the processing on their side of the border because they knew she was traveling with us.

We saw some the sites in Jericho, but tired quickly from the heat. Most everything was closed too. On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Forces invaded Nablus. Nine Palestinans were killed during the invasion, one of whom was a from Jericho. The shops were closed in memory of him and in protest of his killing. Every once in a while we were passed by a truck full of young men waving posters of the martyered young man and blaring music.

We began the long, hot drive from Jericho to Ramallah, which consists of miles and miles of nothing but barren hills. Every once in a while, we’d pass a small shack with a corrugated roof and walls made from abandoned automobile doors and hoods. Sometimes there were people herding goats and you’d wonder how they were all (man and goat alike) surviving amidst so much emptiness and heat.

We went through five checkpoints along the way. Apparently the sun had cooked any interest out of the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints. We handed them all four of our American passports, which they’d just leaf through then hand back and send us on our way.

We arrived in the evening at the City Palace Inn Hotel in Ramallah, which is where we are now hanging out and arranging for a place to stay in Jerusalem. Linda is translating the last few interviews from Arabic to English.

We’re leaving for Jerusalem today and Linda is heading back to Nablus. Nablus has been closed for the past few days, following the invasion of Nablus on Wednesday.

I’m watching the Al Jazeera news channel this morning. I don’t understand most of the Arabic, but a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m watching demonstrations in both Beruit and Cairo where they are burning cheap paper drawings of the Israeli flag and chanting “Allahu akbar” (God is great) over and over again as the paper flags curl at the corners and fly away like tiny black birds.

Yesterday, I watched another demonstration in which an Israeli flag was being burned and was then used to light an American flag on fire. The two then burned together. This is symbolic of the growing worldview in the Middle East that is being indelibly burned into the social consciousness of all Arabs; that is, the U.S. giving unconditional support to Israel.

Whether or not you agree with this is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you understand how America is viewed in the Arab world.

I am not an Arab. I am not a Middle East expert or a scholar. I’m just an American who has lived and traveled in the Middle East and read a lot of books by other people who are Arabs and/or Middle East experts and scholars. While this is hardly a solid foundation for what I’m about to do here, but I’m going to take a stab at it nonetheless because being here now, in this place at this time, I’m compelled to do so. Here is what I think the Arab worldview of America is as the crisis in Lebanon deepens and moves closer and closer toward long-term intractable violence.

America supports Israel unconditionally and cares little about the lives and future of the Arabs, especially the Palestinians.

America is quick to label Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorist organizations” while the real terrorist organization in the Middle East is the Israeli military, which daily kills countless civilians.

The Israeli military is funded in large part by U.S. foreign aid; therefore, America is funding this large-scale terrorism against the Arabs as currently demonstrated by Israeli military operations in Gaza and in Lebanon.

America calls for peace, but won’t call Israel to the carpet for it’s unjust and brutal actions against civilians.

Together, America and Israel are using their military might to subdue and control the Arabs.

While Arab governments, the UN and the rest of the international community sit idly by, Hezbollah is the only organization that is attempting to defend the Lebanese people from Israeli military attacks.

Whether or not you agree with this is irrelevant. What is relevant and important is that you understand that this worldview is being created and reinforced by direct actions (as well as inactions) as the crisis in Lebanon escalates. I believe this is a critical juncture for the future of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. If the U.S. administration continues to plow forward through this crisis unconscious of the Arab worldview then they are ensuring a future in which hatred of America among everyday people here will continue to grow and the American flag will burn along with the dreams of a peaceful future.

When we arrived in Ramallah, I registered our travel itinerary online at the U.S. Department of State website. This morning, I received the following notification email from the American embassy here in Amman:

The escalation of hostilities along the Israeli and Lebanese border has prompted demonstrations in Jordan. While these have been peaceful, we nonetheless urge all Americans in Jordan to be aware of the potential for violent demonstrations. American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations.

We haven’t witnessed any demonstrations here in Amman. People are definitely tuned into the news. Most every cab we’ve been in has the radio news on and every restaurant TV is on a news channel.

Yesterday afternoon, after having gone to the Syrian Embassy, we had lunch at Lubnani Snack (Lebanese Snack). The food was great but the atmosphere not so great. Just outside the restaurant, workers were busy constructing a massive suspension bridge.

In order to make room for the bridge, the square footage of the street-facing restaurant had to be reduced. Workers had begun this process and the front of the restaurant looked as though it had been hit by a missile. Metal and wires hung down from the ceiling. Floor tiles were broken and the front entry pillars scarred and crumbling.

One of the workers was perched precariously on lopsided scaffolding. He had a big hammer and a powersaw with a metal-cutting blade on it. He was trying to remove the metal frame that had held the awning over the front entry way. He would saw on the metal, which made a high-pitched grinding sound that cut right through your eardrums. Then he would bang away on the metal frame with a hammer. He made a lot of noise, but little progress.

Meanwhile, a large flat panel TV mounted on the wall blared out the news of continued Israeli bombing of Lebanon where more civilians had been killed. Amidst the noise and chaos of the Lebanese restaurant, we ate and watched the news of noise and chaos in Lebanon. Buildings were destroyed. People were killed. And somehow, amidst the chaos and destruction, life just continued on in Lebanon just as it did in this Lebanese restaurant.

Okay, I got a bit behind on my blog postings. I’d like to blame this on the spotty Internet connectivity I’m getting from the wireless connection 4 flights down in the apartment complex. Anyway, I’m caught up now, having gone back and done some entries chronilogically. In addition to today’s entries, I’ve gone back and added: A Passage to Petra and Floating the Dead.

[I visited Qunaytra, a Syrian town near the Golan Heights, many years ago. Today, I am reminded of that visit and this poem.]

Walking in Qunaytra

A graveyard of dead giants with toppled tombstones,
a land full of ghosts with voices, sharp cries of wind
cut upon 100 miles of encircling concertina wire:
this is a town of flat houses that buckled beneath
gravity and the weight of a thousand Zionist bombs.

The day I arrived, the sun sat on the ground
and we all suffered its immense heat. Our guide
smiled at the destruction, proud of how the Syrians
have preserved this martyrdom-at-the-border,
a national idol sculpted from hate, their golden calf
for worshipping broken dreams. Broken like these
homes of old where all the lights have gone out
and laughter no longer spills from the windows,
broken like this bullet-pocked hospital
where fire-scarred staircases zig-zag up
four flights of nothingness; broken like
the heart of this nobody tourist who’s tumbled
into this place like a newborn colt battling gravity
and the weight of the sun’s brightness.

Standing on the roof-top I looked out
across one million acres of burnt brown,
so unlike back home where there’s nothing
but pissing down rain year round. We go about
our lives as though nothing else has happened
except what’s happened to us. At best we’re zombies
high on Speed and seeing the world with Technicolor
tunnel-vision. But mostly our heads are selfish wounds
we lap at all day with those equally irksome tongues
yo-yoing in and out and in-and-out the mouth.

So much nothing in my heart it wanted to leap
from the hospital roof, a seemingly meager
sacrifice to the emptiness of this place.
But looking west there was finally something:
Mount Hermon, a dirt-ramp of a mountain
presiding over the mighty Golan
and looking hardly worth dieing for.
It was here, long before I was born,
two nations offered up their sacrifices
and legions of men were torn away from this life.

Napalm fell from heaven turning a thousand men
to pillars of fire, their black hair burning
like an angry forest. The Syrian generals
escaped on horseback to the tune
of jingling medals playing upon their fat breasts.
The road to Damascus lay open like a wound
while the king’s radio station declared
an empty victory and war-weary soldiers
returned to herding goats in the hills
of their ancestors.

These are the same hills where Cain slew Abel
and blood cried out from the ground to God on high.
Blood cried out to a god who allowed
this first sacrifice of a brother
murdering his brother.

And as I walked the streets of Qunaytra,
I stopped and stooped low my ear to the ground
to discover something much worse:
that same blood flows though my heart and in my body,
still crying out to a god whose boundless love
somehow allows us this timeless curse.

Today is my birthday. I am 37, which makes me either young or old depending on what side of the hill you are standing on.

Overcome with nostalgia, I wanted to have my birthday in Damascus, which is where, on this day 13 years ago, I celebrated my 24th birthday at our apartment in Damascus. At 24, there was no nostalgia–only looking forward to the future. I’m wondering now if the strong presence of nostalgia indicates that I am more on the older end of the spectrum rather than the younger end. Again, I guess that depends on how one looks at it.

We found out yesterday that there is no way we’ll get into Syria. We visited the Syrian embassy here in Amman and spoke to a lady that worked there.

“You are American citizens only?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Not Jordanian too?”

“No.”

“Then the only way you can get visa is through the Syrian embassy in Washington, D.C.”

We suspected that would be the case but wanted to find out for sure.

Apparently, you need to get your Syrian visa as far away from the Middle East as possible. Once you’re here in an Arab country, you’re screwed. On the surface this doesn’t make much sense until you understand that Syria is a heavily controlled police state that has been under a dictatorship for over 30 years. All foreign entry and travel within the country is under the watchful eye of the mukabarat (police).

We knew all this from having lived in Damascus in 1993 under the watchful eye of Hafiz al-Asad. Following his death in 2000, presidential power was ceded to his son Bashar. The face on the presidential posters and billboards all over the country have changed, but for the most part, it’s politics as usual.

This morning, I watched the official Syrian news channel on ArabSat. There was a huge demonstration in central Damascus where thousands of people holding Syrian and Palestinian flags, pickets signs with either slogans or pictures of Bashar al-Asad.

There looked to be over 10,000 people jammed into the central square and the four major streets feeding into it.

The chaos and death that has occurred this past week in Lebanon and northern Israel will pale in comparison to the tragedy that will occur if Syria becomes militarily involved in the escalating conflict, which is looking to be more and more likely.

I am no Middle East political expert, but based on what I do know, I believe the following scenario is possible and likely if the UN Security Council continues to be unsuccessful at brokering a cease-fire and/or neither side backs down:

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will continue to bomb southern Lebanon where Hezbollah is most concentrated.

[According to The Daily Star, an English language newspaper in Lebanon, the Israeli military on Thursday, dropped leaflets across Lebanon warning residents to evacuate areas where Hezbollah is active. “Due to the terrorist activities carried out by Hezbollah,” the leaflets read, “the Israeli Army will continue its work within Lebanese territories for as long as it deems fit to protect Israeli citizens. For your own safety and because we do not wish to cause any more civilian deaths, you are advised to avoid all places frequented by Hezbollah. You should know that the continuation of terrorist activities against Israel will be considered a double-edged sword for you and Lebanon.”]

Hezbollah will continue to launch kyutsha rockets into northern Israel, targeting population centers in Haifa where more civilians will be killed.

The IDF will also continue to bomb airports and transportation routes (especially the highway to Damascus) in Beruit and other areas in northern Lebanon. They will continue to bomb power and communications infrastructure throughout the country. The civilian death toll will rise and more Lebanese will continue to flee Lebanon, primarily into Syria.

The IDF will carry out a ground offensive into southern Lebanon at which point Syrian troops coming across the western border near the Golan will join Hezbollah militants to fight against the IDF. The IDF will retreat to the south and west toward the Mediterranean, leaving Syrian troops and Hezbollah militants to be annihilated by Israeli naval shelling and air force sorties.

Southern Lebanon will be transformed into scorched earth and a mass grave just like what happened in the Golan Heights in 1967. Israel will occupy southern Lebanon where it will set up a security zone.

[Some will see this as Israeli aggression resulting in the taking of more Arab territory. Others will see it as Israel defending itself from terrorism. Some will see it as a tragedy, others will see it as victory.]

If the situation escalates like this, the possibility of direct military involvement by Iran (the primary supporter of Hezbollah) will become imminent. Should that occur, it will create an international security crisis and a complex political quagmire that will be difficult for all involved to navigate without sinking further into the depths of war.

I hope I am wrong about all of this. Meanwhile, here in Amman on my 37th birthday with the afternoon call to prayer coming into the room from the open window, I’m wondering what God thinks of all this mischief we’re creating here during our short time upon the earth where the glory of Man becomes buried again and again beneath a dark mound of hate and violence.

A day trip to Petra is easy: You get up at 5:00 a.m. to get ready and get to the Jett bus station in Amman by 6:30, which is when the bus leaves. There you join a bunch of other yawning and crazy tourist who think that a day trip is a good idea. If you’re lucky, you bring your children. And if you’re really lucky they’re tired and cranky and fighting before the sun has even risen.

This was us and we were on our way to Petra for the day.

The bus ride from Amman to Petra takes three hours and when Sophia complained about being cold I told her to enjoy it and remember what it felt like later in the day when we were engulfed in the desert sun. (She wouldn’t of course. And hours later, complaining of the heat, I reminded her of the cool morning. “Dad,” she said, “Stop. It doesn’t work. I was cold in the morning and now I’m hot.” So it goes.)

Kacey and I had been to Petra in 1993. While the ancient rock buildings hadn’t changed much, the town of Wadi Musa just outside the entrance had. There were easily twice as many resturants and hotels and there had been 13 years ago. There were more tourists and more tourist hustlers too. Two of them, Uthman and his brother Ahmed latched onto us like a shackle.

We had stopped at the ampitheter, which back in its prime held 4,000 guests. Today, it held only a dozen tourist, three of whom were Kacey, Sophia and Emma. I stayed on the outside to take their picture. That’s where I became surrounded by boys on donkeys, making their various sales pitches for a donkey ride. When I told them in Arabic that I didn’t need a donkey ride and that I was just waiting for my wife and children, Uthman, who was about 12, became my best friend.

He called me “Musri”, which means “Egyptian” because I used mostly Egyptian words when I spoke with him.

Uthman liked to laugh and slap hands. He spent his days riding a donkey and hustling tourists. For sure, I was just another tourist. But I was also a big white guy who talked like an Egyptian and that was pretty damn funny.

While we were waiting for Kacey and girls to come out of the ampitheater, a middle aged man came up and began yelling at the kids. I didn’t understand what he was saying. Uthman pointed at me and yelled back. The guy left and went after some little girls who were carrying boxes of rocks and trinkets. They ran away from him giggling.

“Who is that man?” I asked.

“He’s like the police,” Uthman said.

“But not a policeman?”

“No, not a policeman.”

“I think he is a little bit crazy,” I said.

Uthman laughed and held his hand up for a slap.

Later, on our way to the monestary, Uthman would whisper, “The crazy man is behind us,” then begin laughing again.

We bargained a price for Uthman and his brother to take the girls on donkey to the monestary then back to the Khazneh, which is at the beginning of Petra.

[For more information about Petra, go to: http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/tourism6d.html]

Hiking to the monestary is easy: you only need to climb 900 crumbling steps. If you want to get some good exercise and lose some weight, I recommend doing it in during the hottest part of the day as we did. It’s definitely worth the view and the risk of heat stroke. And if you really want a workout, I suggest wearing a heavy back pack and trying to keep up with two young boys who are charging off ahead with your children on donkeys.

The girls did amazingly well. All in all we spent 7 hours in Petra before boarding the bus and heading back to Amman where we arrived home at 9:00 p.m., tired, hot and hungry.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we’re just fine.

While it would be an easy out to say that I’ve been distracted with the latest escalation of violence here, that would be a lie. I’ve just had a bad bout of apathy here in Amman where we’ve been for the past few days. We’ve fallen into limbo here. Seems everywhere we want to go is either being bombed or under the threat of being dragged into the current escalation.

I would like to believe that I know the region and the politics well enough to make informed decisions. But based on this week’s events in Lebanon, I’m doubting my insight and judgement. For example, the Israeli bombing of Beruit is not the response I expected for Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. As of this morning, the civilian death toll has reached 80 in Lebanon and 8 in northern Israel where Hezbollah has been lobbing kyutsha rockets for the past several days in response to the Isreali bombing of Beruit.

The problem with political exteremist on all sides of the complex conflicts here in the Middle East is that they will remember every wrong ever done to them when it is convenient for justifying their current actions. They’ll also forget what happened yesterday should that be convenient as well. They plow forward unconsciously and self-righteously through every situation taking advantage of each tragedy to further their cause.

Meanwhile, innocent civilians and children, people just like you and me, are killed each day–the sacrificial lambs on a bloody political chessboard where the moves are dictated by men who plow forward unconsciously and self-righteously through every situation taking advantage of each tragedy to further their cause.