Ramallah is a lively and kind city. During a short trip through the city, at least five people said spontaneaously ‘welcome’ to me. Isn’t that nice? I love tourists in Amsterdam (except when they walk on the biking paths) but I never tell them ‘welcome’; maybe that is a good thing to learn from the Palestinians here! It makes life more beautiful…
Ramallah is also a contradictory town where you can buy the biography of Hillary Clinton at several places as well as Mein Kampf from Hitler, both in Arabic. I met with some police officers who were nice and accepted to have their photograph taken; another spontaneous move I guess, in this region where officials usually say no.
The kindness and politeness of this city’s inhabitants is in strange contrast with the attitude as soon as ‘politics’ enter the arena. Faces become rigid, attitudes harshen, voices turn loud. The people of Ramallah and the Westbank suffer real hardship because of the Israeli occupation. They tell you heartbreaking stories about it, and you don’t want anybody to live that, themselves or with their children.
Somehow, Isreali’s or Jews are to blame for everything here. Most of all I was surprised about the story of a Christian Palestinian who said there is a Jewish plan to remove all the Christians from the Middle East – not just the Westbank – so that the Jews can have all the land and the Americans can claim that Christ was born in the US (in New Jersey for example) and not in the Middle East. When the Americans chased Saddam out of Iraq, they looted the musea of Iraq and sent all the stolen antiquities to Israel so that the real archaeological history could be wiped out. I always thought the Americans didn’t have a clear plan in case they’d win in Iraq and they just forgot to protect the musea but here they are themselves deliberately looting the musea, following a deliberate plan they have together with ‘the Jews’.
My Christian Palestinian continued by telling that the Jews left Egypt and they also left Babylon 7000 years ago and now they want this land, Palestine, for themselves. Wasn’t leaving Babylon closer to 2700 years than 7000 years ago? I am just guessing but 7000 seems way too long ago. ‘Yes’, my Christian Palestine friend says, ‘of course 2700 years ago, that is the same, they left Babylon’. I do not think that that is the same in the ligth of the discussion we are having but my view is ignored.
He thinks the Jews are behind the removal of the Christians from Iran, Iraq, Palestina, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Libanon and maybe more countries. It is evident that during the last 40 years Christians have been fleeing the Middle East and I have been quite involved in that but this is really the first time in my life that I hear someone tell that this stems from a Jewish plan. How this would serve the Jewish case is not clearly explained. What matters is that ‘they want this country from the sea untill the river since the 19th century’. The Jews crucified Jesus and now try to remove the Christians from Middle East countries. The Americans work with them because that will help them to turn Jesus into an American born citizen.
A nice conversation just turned into a conspiracy theory that divides us into two worlds… I do not know what to answer. I just remain speechless.