After my Palestine experience I took a bus to Tel Aviv and checked into my very bloody expensive hostel. It was $85 per night in a single room. Israel is so expensive especially when a damn kebab is £7. At least I had a partial sea view and was close to the beach. For New Year’s Eve I booked a biblical tour as I wanted to see more of the holy places. The tour I booked on was a local Israeli company. I noticed that they visited many places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem too but never mention the Muslim quarter or community in their literature. Even when visiting Manger Square nothing is mentioned about going past Muslim communities. They only mention Christian, Jewish and Armenians. It's like the Muslims don't even exist. The Green Olive Tours I did went to all quarters. I guess some people come to Israel for the biblical experience and not a political one. But how can you avoid it?
We drove to Nazareth first to the Church of the Annunciation. It rained a little but the sun came out after our tour in the church. Then we headed to Tagba where Jesus fed a whole load of people with just some bit of bread and fish. He also healed a leper here. Then we set off to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus walked on water. This was Jesus' town and the signs all around told us so. We also went to the River Jordan where Jesus was baptised and turned water into wine. We drove through Tiberius to see more of the Sea of Galilee and then headed back to Tel Aviv. Not once was Nazareth mentioned as being the Arab capital of Northern Israel. The mosque next door to the Church of the Annunciation was not mentioned even though we walked past it. I found this strange.
There is a birth right programme that takes place around the world for a certain young age group. What this means is if you are Jewish and under 30 I'm guessing you get a free trip to the Holy land. Some people call it the brain washing tour. I figure it's free to try and entice more Jewish people to move to Jerusalem and create more settlements. There are many incentives given. You get almost free housing, guaranteed security and amenities in all settlements such as malls, cinemas and even universities. If there isn't one yet, then you get shuttled to other settlements with these services. Most people in the settlements don't even work. The more Jewish people the Israeli government convinces to move here, the more settlements they can build and more settlements mean more land taken away from the Palestinians.
Even though in Tel Aviv and other places in Israel there are hardly any soldiers if at all, you do still occasionally see soldiers either coming back or going to Jerusalem. What's really strange is the machine gun the soldiers carry as if it is just one of their bags over their shoulder. One guy sat near me on the train to the airport. He put his bag down on the empty seat and then his machine gun without a care in the world. When he went to the toilet he took his gun with him. So there are people are just walking around with machine guns but they are soldiers on their way to doing their duty in occupied territories or going home. Either way it's a bloody strange sight.
Security is super tight at the airport. Forget London or New York security and border control guys. They have no clue. They need to come to this airport to really know how to do their jobs properly not the half arsed attempt they carry out now. I had 10 minutes with security even before check in answering the numerous questions and going through every page in my passport. Malaysia and Indonesia came up a few times. Thank goodness this is a fairly new passport. Not sure what they would have made of my Afghanistan, Pakistani and Iraqi visas in my last passport. Just before passport control I had 40 minutes with a lovely lady going through every pocket, sleeve, clothes, electronics as well as charges, plugs and batteries. Then it was liquids...only 50ml here. It was time to chuck a load of toiletries in the bin. Then the phone...opened and checked. Then the camera, the same thing again. Then the tablet came out of case and checked. Every item was then put back into the scanner individually. My bags were emptied and everything had to be wiped down by the special cloth and then checked. Then my chain had to come off. Then my trainers. They were gone for 15 minutes. I had to be patted down and then be scanned. I had a lovely foot massage too. Then my trainers appeared and I was allowed to go. This isn't a random search or profiling they do in the UK or states; every passenger has to go through this. Every single person. Next time you're at an airport moaning about security checks; just think you could be at Ben Gurion.
