Of Settlers and Cemeteries

A good friend of mine from my semester in Egypt is currently attending med school in Beer Sheva, Israel. This is good for him, because he is an avid traveler, who documents his travels to many places* on his blog Not Enough Clothes in my Bag. Recently, he posted about his trip to Hebron, the former capital of ancient Israel, home to 400,000 Palestinians, 400 Jews, 2,000 Israeli soldiers and a whole heck of a lot of trouble. His writing is both entertaining and illuminating (and in this age of austerity, I think we can all appreciate the fact that he refuses to capitalize anything). I highly recommend reading this post.

A sample:

"there are all kinds of 'historical' placards in [Hebron] (in english), describing the variety of ways that the arabs have insulted judaism in the city throughout history. one talks about how they disrespected a jewish cemetary by allowing a farm to built beside it. literally across the street, there is an overgrown arab cemetary with an israeli army bunker built in the middle of it, and huge spools of extra barbed wire stacked on top of the graves."

That is all.

I miss you, Jason.

*Like Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Kenya, India, Dubai, the UK, Nepal, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Greece, Iceland, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Montenegro, Oman, Qatar, South Korea, Serbia, Uganda, France, Albania, Italy, Sri Lanka and such.