Aleem Maqbool's Summary of His Nativity Trek

Our guest, and our interviewer, who walked and rode a donkey (5 in all) from Nazereth to Bethlehem, sums up:

...Maybe it is just my exhaustion, and maybe it will seem ridiculous and romantic in a few days time, but now, at the end of the trek, I do feel uplifted by the last 10 days.

If you want to call that "spiritual", then perhaps Father Louis was right.

I certainly feel I have learned a great deal from the people I have met and stayed with along the way from Nazareth. And not just about the conflict or religion.

Some conversations will linger for a while.

Those with Nedal, my guide through the hills of the northern West Bank, and the nearest thing to an "Ent" from Tolkien's Middle-Earth as I was ever likely to meet in person.

He talked of the flora and fauna as if they were family.

Chatting with the 1970s wrestling champion, Hazem, in the bath-house in Nablus, and hearing his disappointment that young people were losing interest in "noble" sporting pursuits like his.

And then there was the young Israeli soldier at a West Bank checkpoint, who talked of a love of football, and defended me when his colleagues said they really could not understand why I couldn't just get in a car and drive the rest of the way to Bethlehem.

Much of the trip was a reminder that, however obvious this sounds, people in a conflict zone are as three-dimensional as those anywhere else.

There were, of course, sad indications of the tensions here.

There was the silence of hundreds of people as they buried a 22-year-old militant in the village of Yamoon, after an Israeli army raid.

A sense of how far apart the worlds of Jewish settlers and Palestinian villagers were, how little interaction there was between the two and how entrenched their views are.

And then there was the military checkpoint that greets visitors entering Bethlehem.

But people along the way did speak of hope - though not necessarily expectation - that things would get better one day.

More Pics From The BBC

Greeting Aleem on Saturday night just after Shabbat in the Women's Section of our synagogue:

Panoramic view from the hill I live on:

My wife, Batya, and I in front of the entrance to our home:

Being contemplative

My Wife's Turn At BBC

My wife on that BBC Nativity trek:

"If people think my views are extreme, then fine, I'm an extremist," said Batya Medad. "I have no problem with that."

Batya lives in the Jewish settlement of Shilo, in the middle of the "West Bank" (though Batya does not use that term, instead calling it by the Biblical regions it covers, Judea and Samaria).

Every country around the world, except for Israel, considers settlements like Batya's illegal, built on occupied Palestinian land. When I put that to her, she responded angrily.

"We (Jews) are the only ones with history here, we were here first and we should be here now. It's totally immoral to say we can't be," she says.

"I don't care what the world thinks. They didn't care when the Nazis started against the Jews and when Jews were murdered. So why should I care?"

Batya and her husband, Yisrael, were both born and raised in New York, but moved in 1970. She says she never had a feeling of belonging when she was in the United States, but that when she moved here, she instantly felt at home.

Israeli and Palestinian politicians, supported by the international community, are meant to be working towards an end to the Israeli occupation here and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

However, Batya says she thinks that the peace process will go nowhere, and that her future in Shilo is not under threat at all.

From Shilo, I continued south along a route through a valley it is believed Mary and Joseph, and indeed many prophets (including Abraham) before them, may have travelled.

Even in the past few decades, this landscape has changed considerably.

Like many other Jewish settlements, Shilo occupies a hilltop

On many of the hilltops were the gleaming, red-roofed homes of Jewish settlements. Down below them, the more haphazard, organic-looking, Palestinian villages. There is almost no interaction between the two sets of communities, only tension.

It was an uncomfortable walk, as I received suspicious looks from both settlers and Palestinians.

The settlers I passed, one or two of them armed, seemed to assume I was Palestinian, and so, perhaps, a potential attacker. "Assalamo alaikum," one settler said as he approached me, in what I felt was a test. I decided a "hi" might be better than the traditional Muslim reply in these circumstances. He relaxed and walked away.

The Palestinians, who heard me speaking English on my phone, seemed to assume I was an immigrant settler. "Mustoutan, mustoutan" ("settler, settler"), I heard a young boy shout as he ran into his house after clocking me.

I decided to quicken my pace and walk close to the main road.

The BBC Clip

The clip the BBC's Aleem Maqbool did at Shiloh is here.

A bit disappointed. No me. No my wife. No inside Shiloh.

Aleem mentions that Jewish communities (okay, he said "settlements") are on the hills while Arab villages "down below".

But I specifically told him that our nearby village of Turmos Aya is the only, the sole Arab village in Samaria which is totally in a valley whereas all the rest are on hills. And he said to me "yes, that's true".

And, it seems, it's always the donkey that gets the attention from London.

But at least he mentioned our "unapologetic" attitude that this is our ancestral Jewish land and we surely have the right to be where we are.

BBC Interview: First Impressions

...Having been allowed to pass, I went up the hill to the Jewish settlement of Shilo. Aside from Israel, the rest of the world considers places like this, up and down the West Bank, illegal, as they are built on occupied Palestinian land. However, this is where I would be spending the night.

I got to the settlement's security gate. "You BBC?" said the guard, and I nodded. "Where's your donkey then?" he said looking a bit disappointed.

I met Yisrael Medad at the synagogue. With his New York accent (he was born and brought up there), he peppered his talk with self-effacing jokes and seemed immediately likeable.

It is with Yisrael and his wife that I am staying. The talk of politics will inevitably come later.

Source

And we are on the map!



P.S.

Salfit is actually north of Shiloh, just west of Ariel. There is also a Talfit village but that, too, is just north of Shiloh and even Eli. The villages around Shiloh are Sinjil, Turmos Aya, Qaryut, Talfit, Jalud and Kutzreh.

My Radio Interview on BBC This Morning

Remember?

I also did two live TV interviews.

Putting Shiloh on the BBC's Map

This BBC map



is the route one Aleem Maqbool will be taking on his trek from Nazereth to Bethlehem (Christmas is next week, remember?), a trek made by foot and on a donkey.

The map seemingly misses out on several dozens of Jewish communities.

He is scheduled to arrive at my home community of Shiloh on Saturday night, just after Shabbat and Sunday morning we'll be down at the Tel, if it isn't raining too hard.

Please visit his site and tune in to the BBC World live broadcast.