Going North

I am procrastinating on a project, and decided to map the journey I’ll take tomorrow night to meet my old roommate, Jenna, in Jerusalem. Part of this is to show the way that things have been split up by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza:



1.All-night bus ride from Cairo to Taba, on the Egypt-Israel border. Sure to be full of Egyptian men and ear-shattering Arabic movies.
2.Walk across the border. Sure to be detained because of my Syrian and Lebanese stamps – I’m estimating a 3 hour delay, which isn’t bad, except that it will be around 6 in the morning.
3.Take an over-priced taxi from the border into Eilat, the nearest Israeli town.
4.4-hour bus ride from Eilat to Jerusalem’s Central Bus station, where Jenna will hopefully be waiting.
5.Hop on a microbus and travel through Israeli checkpoints to Hebron, in the occupied Palestinian territories. We’ll spend a night or two there with one of Jenna’s Palestinian friends. Hebron has been the site of some of the worst Palestinian-Israeli settler clashes. Home to the “Cave of the Patriarchs” (where it’s said that Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Leah are buried), it’s holy to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It’s also home to a large illegal Israeli settlement – settlements being one of the biggest barriers to any kind of peace process.
6.Take a bus out of Hebron, to Kfar Qara, an Arab-Israeli town that has been Jenna’s home for the last 4 months.

After a night or two in Kfar Qara, I’ll head back to Jerusalem, then back to the border, then back to Cairo.

Now back to my project.