Jerusalem

Two Frenchmen accompany me on the journey through the mountains of the West Bank to Jerusalem. The first checkpoint waves us through at a massive concrete wall. Almost all roads leading into the centre are closed. Several Israeli policemen have been murdered in recent weeks. The reaction was a ban on entry to the Temple Mount for all Muslims under 50 and metal detectors for all those over 50.

This led to massive riots with several deaths and 400 injured. Even on the long search for a car park far outside, I notice masses of military and police, always in groups of five. On the way to my hostel in the centre of the old town on the Sabbath, I also pass a few hundred troops.

The first shwarma kebab with Coke hits my stomach for a mere €25. The Citadel Hostel offers a truly unique roof terrace with a view of the entire Old City and the Dome of the Rock in a 700-year-old building. The rest is a disaster. Bedbugs in filthy mattresses and blankets start attacking at three o’clock. At four, the muezzins yodel from the minarets. At five, the church bells strike to counter-attack. From six onwards, several departing travellers fail to slowly pack each item of clothing individually into crackling plastic bags.

The Citadel Hostel has just two dirty mini showers and 16 lockers for 50 guests. None are free for me. It lacks the most minimal standards: clean kitchen, chairs, crockery, ashtrays, dining area too small, dirty toilets, filthy dorms. Yes, the hostel is located in the old Arab city centre, and I have stayed in such places in many countries. Yes, I expected to find Gargamel in Smurfsville. But not that you can neither poo while sitting nor pee while standing, and 8 beds on 8m² is more than harsh. A “We clean the sheets every week” is also not an appropriate response to a bedbug tip. Internet ratings only count if the pig rates the barn, as is the case on Hotelworld.com.

Even on the second day there is no locker free, so I set off on a four-hour morning tour of Jerusalem from six in the morning with 8kg of electronics and no shower. I really haven’t read anything. Everyone knows that Jerusalem was fiercely contested for at least 1000 years. So I wasn’t expecting to come across so much intact fortress, nor a lively old city, complete with markets and white, winding, centuries-old limestone alleyways.

With great enthusiasm, I try in vain to get to the Temple Mount through two different checkpoints. At the third, my rucksack is dismantled into its atomic components and I’m through. I seriously ask myself why a 2000-year-old temple wall is so important to the Jews today that they wage wars over it. From 70 AD to 620 AD, the Temple Mount stood empty. 550 years, and nobody wanted to build anything. Why fight today?

In the afternoon I am amazed at the eagerness of the young Palestinians, who always spit directly in front of the boots of the numerous Israeli soldiers, and a little later at a large crowd of Muslims between the Lion’s Gate and the Temple Mount. I continue to wander past numerous barriers through remote neighbourhoods and far out of the Old City to find one last bottle of writing wine for under 25 euros.

At night, I sit on the roof terrace with a good international crowd. There’s a bang a kilometre away. At first we suspect fireworks. But there is no fire. The grenade explosions come from exactly where I was travelling a few hours earlier.

Google fails to translate the Arabic megaphone voices. Helicopters circle over bats. Police sirens wail from all directions. Jersualem is not a city of peace, as advertised. There is war here again today.

It’s so easy not to have to understand all this if you don’t belong to a religion. And it encourages radical thoughts. The fishermen of Fukushima fought for nothing with nobody. The disaster ruined their lives forever. Here, the “believers” have been fighting for thousands of years over land that nobody really needs. Jerusalem would be the perfect place for a nuclear disaster. I’m going home. And the country further up in the air.

Israel and Palestine were unique, hot, expensive and colourful thanks to travellers from all over the world. Often confusing, usually very demanding, often ignorant, introverted and wasteful. Beautiful, high and low, disturbing and incomprehensible. It was a difficult journey. But a valuable one.