Category Archives: Israel
Coastal escapism.
I needed out. Out of walls, weapons, checkpoints and people convinced of being on first-name-terms with God. I needed a place where bigots were rarer than pandas, alcohol plentiful and the attitude on weed lax. I needed Tel Aviv. Tel … Continue reading
Posted in Israel, Middle East
Tagged Alfa Romeo, AM-PM, Bauhaus, Boulevard Rothschild, Boutique, British Airways, Bus Station, Clouds, Corniche, Independence Trail, Israel, It, Jaffa, Kite, Kite surf, Kite surfers, Med, Mediterranean, Middle East, Promenade, Saturday, Sea, Sherut, Stephen King, Storm, Sunset, Supremes, Surf, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Wind, Winter, Yafo
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Behind the wall.
It takes a while for me to get the hang of Checkpoint 300. Eventually a corridor in nude concrete and steel, half prison half abattoir, delivers me in a street cul-de-sac’d by the wall. Closed shops and scraps of paper … Continue reading
Posted in Israel, Middle East, Palestine
Tagged Abu, Aida, Amman, Arafat, Army, Art, Asia, Banksy, Bethlehem, Bibi, Camp, Concrete, Flash bang, Graffiti, Hamas, Hezbollah, Holy Land, Islam, Israel, Jesus, Manger, Middle East, Nasrallah, Nativity Square, Palestine, Peace, Peace in the Middle East, People, People watching, Photography, Rachel, Rain, Refugee, Religion, Road, Roadblock, Security Wall, Segregation, Settlement, Skunk water, Sponge granate, Stencils, Stinger granade, Street photography, Terrorism, Tomb, TWA 840, UN, Urban photography, Wall, Walled Off, Walled Off Hotel, Yassin, Yitzhak Rabin
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Jérusalem la nuit.
It’s not a long ride from Ben Gurion to Jerusalem, especially if it’s 4 AM and there’s little, in terms of traffic, to slow down our yellow-and-white sherut van. We weave in and out of the most conservative neighbourhoods of … Continue reading
Posted in Israel, Middle East
Tagged Bethlehem, Bread, Bus, Checkpoint 300, Christianity, Church, Coffee, Damascus Gate, Dawn, Ethiopian, Ethiopian monastery, Franciscan order, Frankincense, Haredim, Holy Sepulchre, Islam, Israel, Jerusalem, Middle East, New Gate, Old city, Palestine, Sepulchre, Sherut, stone
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Leaving it all behind: a journey to Jaffa and the coast.
Jerusalem on a Shabbat is as close as the initial sequences of 28 days later as it can get. Empty streets, only a few hours before riddled with busy pedestrians and erratic motorist, stretched in every direction. No buses, no … Continue reading
A voyage into Israel’s psyche: Masada.
From The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus. There sprang up another sort of robbers in Jerusalem, which were called Sicarii, who slew men in the day time, and in the midst of … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Israel
Tagged ben Yehuda, Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Flavius Josephus, IDF, Israel, Jewish, Judaea, Lucius Flavius, Masada, Masada shall not fall again, Roman Empire, Rome, Sicarii, Sicario, Terrorism, Zealots
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People of the Book.
Cynics would say that, were copyright infringement laws to exist back then, the Apostles and Prophet Muhammad would’ve landed in court, for the similarities and reciprocal borrowings between Judaism, Christianity and Islam are staggering. This holds true for the theory but also … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Israel
Tagged Christianity, Coptic, Islam, Israel, Judaism, People of the Book
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(Not finding) my religion in the Holy Land: confession of a sceptical in Jerusalem.
For some people, the moment of detachment from a religious view they used to hold is a momentous one, the culmination of days – perhaps months – of introspection, self-assessment and doubt. In my case, instead, I cannot point out … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Faith, Israel
Tagged Abraham, Al Aqsa, Allah, Christianity, Conflict, Dome of the Rock, God, Hebrew, Holy Land, Holy Sepulchre, Isaac, Islam, Israel, Jerusalem, Jesus, Jordan, Judaism, King of Jordan, Moshe Dayan, Muhammad, Muslim, Temple Mount, Wailing wall, Wall, War, Western wall
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Entering Jurassic Park.
The bus screeched to a halt, its right wheels upon the raised platform that constituted the sidewalk of the checkpoint, a structure so ordinary that I originally mistook it for a toll barrier. Without a word, the majority of the … Continue reading
“Unreasonable Behaviour”, by Don McCullin, Vintage
I was ravaged and confused by this war as never before, and could not see not the smallest justification for it. Or for my presence here – unless it was to remind people, through my pictures, of the futility of … Continue reading
Posted in Books review, Israel, London, Middle East, Palestine, Politics, UK, War journalism
Tagged Books review, Don McCullin, Photojournalism, War
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51 years between them
So it’s official. Naftali, Gilad and Eyal, the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped just outside Hebron, West Bank, have been found dead. They barely had 51 years of age between all of them. It also seems that they had been killed … Continue reading
Posted in Holy land, Israel, Palestine, Reflections
Tagged Conflict, Hebron, Israel, Middle East, Palestine
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