From Yousef’s house, Trin, Emma and Tom headed off towards Jerash and the Allenby Bridge border crossing to avoid getting Jordanian exit/Israeli entry stamps in their passports. Trin and Emma were flying back from Damascus and didn’t want to be refused entry because they had the wrong kind of stamps in their passport. That left me walking on my own for the first time this year. As I walked up into the ridges above the Jordan valley, I felt quite lonely – I had got so used to having Tom there that even if we didn’t actually say much to each other (beyond the odd grunt), his presence was somehow comforting. It was short-lived solitude, however; two hours later as I walked along trying to shake off a trio of exceptionally annoying kids, a people carrier drew up and disgorged Clare Adam and James Micklethwait – two friends from University who had come to join for the glory stretch towards Jerusalem. The three kids had a field day, begging money, getting tangled up between our legs, throwing unripe green olives at us, pinching Clare’s bottom, and generally making a nuisance of themselves
. Eventually, I had to drop my pack and chase them away, to much laughter. We camped for the night on a spur of mountain looking down into the Jordan valley. Looking around our campsite
, we strayed across some trenches dug into the rock – took me a while to realise that these were not archaeological trenches, but military trenches, looking out across the Jordan towards Israel. Another reminder of a not-so-peaceful past. 
The next morning, we dropped some 800 metres down into the Jordan valley – at 265 metres below sea-level, literally the lowest point on the pilgrimage
. Walking down the fertile valleys, we ate fresh pomegranates straight from the tree and delicious grapes provided by a kindly family who motioned us into the shade below their vines and fed us royally. In the valley bottom, the heat was stifling – no breeze, a roasting hot midday sun and a thick, heavy atmosphere. We left Jordan with relatively little problem (barring a brief argument with the border guards over whether we could walk or not – they told us we’d be shot if we didn’t go in the bus. We decided to do as we were told), and Clare and James had a smooth run through the Israeli border. I was a slightly different matter…
A rather aggressive woman looked at my passport and demanded “What were you doing in Syria and Lebanon?”
“I was walking”
“What do you mean?”
“I was walking – I walked here from London”
“Really? That’s amazing!”
Hostility evaporated in a moment whilst she told everyone else in the office. Unfortunately, however, the official within her took over again, although she was very apologetic about it.
“I’m really sorry sir, I’m afraid we’ll have to run a security check on you – we’ll be as quick as possible”
Visions of large men ushering me into a soundproof room whilst they pulled on rubber gloves with a meaningful expression rose worryingly in my head. Luckily, all she meant was a computer check. We were there for an hour in total, but it was relatively painless. More than can be said for the poor Arab-Israeli man trying to get his child in to Israel. An Israeli citizen, he was married to a Jordanian woman and lived in Jordan. As the baby was born in Jordan to a Jordanian mother, the Israeli authorities refused the child an Israeli passport. Unfortunately, in Jordan children take their nationality from their father, so the child had been unable to get a Jordanian passport either – she was effectively stateless (like so many Palestinians in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon). Eventually, after much rigmarole, he was allowed to bring the baby in with him, but it took even longer than my security check.
Sleeping out the heat of the day, we continued towards Nazareth in the late afternoon, where we met up again with Trin and Emma. They had gone down to Jerash and spent a wonderful morning going around the ruins, only to discover that the Allenby Bridge crossing closed at midday. Too late to get there in time, they poured out their hearts to the tourist police who took pity on them and phoned ahead to the Northern border crossing and ensured they got through with no stamps in their passports. Tom had headed on straight down to Jerusalem to meet his father and they had come on to Nazareth to find us accommodation in a beautiful old Merchant’s house in the heart of the old city.
The next day we had a day off. In the morning, we wandered round Nazareth. The main sites are the Church of the Annunciation with its huge dome and the remains of its Byzantine predecessor entombed inside, where the Angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to Mary, and Mary’s Well (or Mary’s loo as it was rechristened after we saw a young man relieving himself against it in broad daylight), where Mary is said to have gathered water (although the grounds for believing that seem somewhat flimsy).
In the afternoon, we headed off into the heart of the Galilee countryside to visit the Mar Elias Educational Institutions, one of the charities that we have been raising money for. We were met there by the deputy headmaster of the secondary school (there is a kindergarten, a primary school, a secondary school and the beginnings of a University), himself called Elias, who looked after us for the day. His first act was to take us into a room, sit us down with a glass of squash and then say “How much do you know about the situation here?”
He then went on to paint a picture of life for the average Arab-Israeli. Often forgotten about, Arab-Israelis are Israeli citizens of Arab descent who stayed behind after the foundation of the state of Israel. Some 20% of the population of Israel is not Jewish, but Moslem or Christian Arab. Whilst to some extend better off than their cousins (and sometimes brothers and sisters) in the West Bank and Gaza strip (who don’t have Israeli citizenship), they are still widely discriminated against in what amounts in all but name to an apartheid system. Much of the discrimination is justified on the grounds that they refuse National Service (compulsory for three years for Jewish Israelis), but there are strong reasons for their reluctance (not least that in peacetime the main task of the IDF is being deployed against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza). For every $1 of public money spent in Arab areas, $5 is spent in Jewish areas; Jewish areas have better roads, better public services, better schools... Arabs are far more likely to be stopped by police patrols, they are routinely strip searched entering or leaving the country, they have to wait three years between school and university (to keep them at the same level as their Jewish neighbours), which many cannot afford to do… The list goes on. The Christian Arabs feel particularly vulnerable – there are less of them and their numbers are dwindling fast, partly as a result of lower birth-rates, but also because as they are traditionally better educated, they emigrate far more than the Muslim Arab population. They also feel under pressure from both sides. Recently when the founder of Mar Elias, Abouna Elias Chacour, said that he wanted to live at peace with his Jewish brothers, the school was boycotted by many in the Muslim community. 
Yet despite the discrimination, the ethos of the school, driven by Abouna Chacour, is one of reconciliation and peace – not peace at all costs, but peace with dignity and equity. The school is open to all faiths and although there are no Jewish children there (it is far from the Jewish areas), there are Druze, Muslim and Christian pupils and Jewish teachers on the faculty. Moreover, frequent inter-faith encounters encouraged by the school at all levers. And it seems to be working – the school consistently comes in the top percentile in the Israeli education system. The most remarkable thing is to see that this thriving, vibrant place which gives hope to the inhabitants would have been impossible without the energy, the drive and the vision of the founder Elias Chacour. One famous example of his determination occurred when he was being denied a building permit for the school by the Israeli government (for which he spent a spell in prison). Travelling all the way to Washington, he rang on the doorbell of the former Secretary of State James Baker unannounced and uninvited and persuaded him to help. The building permit came through days later. For anyone who hasn’t read the remarkable story, I cannot recommend highly enough Abouna Chacour’s two books – “We belong to the land” and “Blood Brothers”.
Elias gave us a tour of the buildings then took us back to his house to meet his family – his wife (another teacher in the school) and his two daughters, one of whom was celebrating her birthday
. We were treated to a wonderful feast of fruit and birthday ice-cream. The joy of the encounter was tempered by the scenes on the TV behind us – that morning the Israeli air force had begun its devastating campaign against Lebanon and the scenes of death and destruction were already coming over on Al-Jazeera. Bloodied women and children being pulled from the wrecks of buildings, the ground shaking at new impacts, planes roaring past as black smoke billowed out. You could see the anger on Elias’ face. An anger I felt as I thought of all the kind and wonderful people Tom and I had met in Lebanon and thought of their suffering at this latest crisis.
The next day we headed out of Nazareth
, down the hills along a beautiful track through a pine forest, the warm air filled with the spicy-sweet scent of pine resin. We lunched in a peaceful orange grove and rested under the thick leaves through the heat of the day. Received several phone calls from worried parents and girlfriend asking where we were and if we were ok. I replied in a very blasé way that yes we were fine, that we were miles from any danger and that things were great. Five minutes beyond our lunch spot, we walked past an Israeli air force base where F16 fighter-bombers screamed off into the sky. That night, we heard that Nazareth had been hit for the first time by Hezbollah rockets. A new level of fear and uncertainty for the people of Northern Israel, Jew and Arab alike. We were especially worried for Clare who left us to head back to Nazareth for the night before leaving for Jordan the following day.
Somewhat taken by surprise by the Sabbath – we forgot that everything shut well before nightfall on Friday and were caught in the middle of nowhere with no provisions for the night. Luckily (and not for the last time), a nearby petrol station came to the rescue and we feasted on pre-packed sandwiches, pots of dips and cans of beer. Back to consumer, throw-away society and loving it. To celebrate the end of the Sabbath the following evening, we ate in a kosher Burger King. Pretty much the same, only no cheese burgers. Afterwards, desperate for somewhere to pitch our tents, we ended up sleeping in a war memorial – possibly the strangest place I’ve slept so far (and that includes a motorway lay-by, a school playground, a half-finished house and in a beach bar). The Israeli soldiers guarding it were very obliging, allowing us to bed down on the lovely soft grass, pointing us out the wash rooms and mounting an all night guard over us. We certainly felt very safe.
Out route from here followed an old Roman / pilgrim road running North-South in a dead straight line between the coast and the borders of the West Bank. 
The surroundings alternated between the orderly green fields of kibbutzes and private farms and chaotic Arab towns and villages. One minute, we were walking along a golf course flat, perfectly preened lawn or between rows of regimented avocado or peach trees, the next we were surrounded by banks of rubbish and haphazardly built housing whilst trying to avoid a particularly grumpy looking camel tethered to an electricity pylon. Along its course, we had our preconceptions challenged again and again. The Arabs we met were universally friendly and welcoming, laughing and joking with us, or posing for photographs. When we came to Jewish areas, however, people seemed immediately suspicious of these dirty strangers wandering along. Just as we were beginning to think, however, that all the stories we had heard about Israeli’s being aggressive and rude were true, something would happen to completely change this view and to leave us feeling stupid and guilt-ridden for our prejudice and our attempts to put people in boxes. One evening, we asked a young Jewish man called Nathan if we could camp somewhere nearby. He was friendliness itself and took us off to a quiet field hidden from view behind a barn – “this is my field – you can stay here if you like. Use the sprinkler system for a shower if you need. I’ll be back later on to see how you’re getting on”. He disappeared home for dinner, leaving us to put up tents and wash under the sprinklers -very refreshing, except I pulled the hose out from the sprinkler accidentally, which then writhed about in a mad dance, spraying me from head to foot and soaking my trousers before I finally brought it under control. As we were going about our business, a young Jewish man drove over on his tractor and started shouting at us in Hebrew. We shrugged our shoulders with a “sorry, we don’t understand”, but he just shouted louder. Then he started picking up our things and throwing them around. At this point, having radio-ed for back-up, two truck loads more of people appeared, also shouting and gesticulating in Hebrew. We were more than a little alarmed, particularly as our young friend from the tractor started to square up to James M and looked as if he was about to punch him. Luckily, he was pulled back by his friends who then produced a mobile phone turned on speakerphone with someone who understood English on the line. A very bizarre conversation as she evidently tried to control two hyperactive little boys in the background, do her cooking and talk to us all at the same time. Eventually, she managed to communicate to us that the posse of angry looking young men standing in front of us looking like they intended to do us serious harm were in fact trying to help and wanted to know if we were all right or if we needed anything. All misunderstandings sorted out, handshakes all round and they left us in peace for the night.
Or so we thought. Half an hour later, a pick-up bounced back down the farm track. We groaned – what now? One of the young men from earlier got out and handed us an ice-cold bottle of water and a fat, juicy watermelon. An hour later, he was back again, this time with a huge flask of freshly brewed coffee and a big box of home baked biscuits. Half an hour after that, Nathan returned with a pot full of delicious chilli barbecued chicken and a bottle of wine very disappointed that at 11:30 we were trying to go to sleep. Such incredible hospitality, which we had been led to expect we wouldn’t receive, particularly on the back of the previous apparent aggression, totally disarmed us and left us slightly confused.
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