Jerusalem Cavalry

This morning I nearly got killed by an Israeli soldier in the West Bank.

Well, not how you think. Asaf Hazani, an Army reserve officer and PhD in anthropology from the Dado Center, the IDF think tank, took me cycling. Mountain biking, to be more accurate. For a 4-hour, 40k trip, with steep climbs and falls. I took away two lessons from it, one about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and one about sports.

So we met on Emek Refaim, which is Jerusalem’s equivalent to U Street, Prenzlauer Berg, or perhaps Le Marais. Lots of cafés and restaurants and overdressed young professionals. From there we took off southward, by the Malha mall, past the zoo, along the railway tracks, and from there onto dirt roads, off into Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank. That is past the Green Line, into the Palestinian territories. In 20 minutes, you’re not far from Gilo, a Jewish settlement (where a barrier has just been removed yesterday), and Bait Jala, a Palestinian one, and then Bethlehem. Why is this remarkable?

Many foreign observers and in fact a fair number of Israelis think it’s all neatly organized and properly set up, the “separation.” But go by bike, and there may be no check point, no fence, no border sign, no soldiers, nothing. You just go. We saw a check point in the distance, on a main road, but nobody monitors the dirt roads.

A couple of things follow from this. First off, it’s actually quite difficult to tell where you are: on which side of what line, 1967 or 1949; or in Area A, B, or C? On these dusty roads, you just can’t tell. Apparently, so I’ve been told, Palestinians tend to know the territory better than Israeli cyclists — there are many of them who do this kind of tour — and probably know where they are, in political terms. But then Palestinians in these rural areas usually don’t have bikes, and only a few have motorbikes (which might make a subtle but important difference from an intelligence point of view). All the roads for cars are equipped with check points.

Second off, it’s stunningly easy to enter and leave Jerusalem from the West Bank. We just cycled from Battir, a Palestinian village above the Wadi el-Jundi, administered by the Palestinian Authority, to Café Aroma on Emek Refaim to have an almond croissant and cappuccino. And in no time. The security situation, in short, is a lot more complex than meets the eye. For me, the most important lesson is humility: the more time I spend here, and the more I expose myself to the contradictions of this land, the more complicated and intricate the situation seems to become. It is remarkable – jaw-dropping, even — how many outsiders, often without spending much, or any, time here have opinions, and really strong ones at that, about how to solve this conflict.

That remark about humility leads me to the second lesson, about sports: never promise to go cycling with an IDF soldier before you see his legs, even if you think you are in quite good shape. By kilometer 30 or so  – I was dehydrated, in pain, unable to speak and close to collapsing — Asaf, not really sweating yet, told me he used to be one of Israel’s top slope climbers. Lesson two: better go flying with an IAF pilot. I’ve tried, everything looks so much simpler up there, and there’s so much less pain.