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Destination: Palestine

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My Tasty First Hour in Palestine

All this week, I am sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the production of my new public television special, “The Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today.” In this clip, I sat down to good food, excellent beer and lots of laughs during my first hour filming in Palestine.

Leaving Israel I took a cab to the Security Barrier, then walked through the lonely no man’s land, which reminded me of the US-Mexico border between San Diego and Tijuana. Once across, I hopped into one of the many Palestinian cabs waiting on the Arab side of the wall for the quick ride into downtown Bethlehem. Jerusalem and Bethlehem are just minutes apart…except for the nasty border.

I checked into my Dar Annadwa guesthouse (run by the Lutheran Church and a great place to call home in Bethlehem) and within minutes met the two guides I’d hired for my week in Palestine (Hassam Jubran and Kamal Mukarker). Organizing my time in advance was tough because I couldn’t really know just how complicated getting around would be.

Hassam and Kamal took me to a tourist-friendly restaurant called “The Tent.” It posted a “families only” sign so they could turn away rowdy young men. I guess we looked harmless enough as they let us right in.

We sat down and an impressive array of Palestinian plates appeared. We enjoyed a great meal, and planned our itinerary. The Palestinian beer, Taybeh, was excellent. And I think I laughed more in my first two hours in the West Bank than I did in the entire past week. This was a great introduction to my Palestine filming adventure.

“The Holy Land” has already aired to great success on stations in several locations. Many other stations, such as WTTW 11 in Chicago and KCTS 9 in Seattle, are excited to air it soon. Call your local public television station to find out when you can see it too.

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Holy Land: Eat, Pray, Film

We’re ramping things up for our public television special, “Rick Steves’ Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today,” which is airing all over the country. I’ll be giving talks around my state (and in Dallas on Oct. 1 at the AT&T Performing Arts Center), and I enjoyed doing an interview with Dave Ross on Seattle’s KIRO Radio. I thought you might like to listen in, so here is our entire 19-minute conversation, uncut.

If you’ve seen the Holy Land show in your city, please let me know your thoughts. If your public TV station has yet to run it, please call them and ask when it’ll air. Thanks.

(By the way, you can find more of Dave Ross’s extended interviews here.)

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Watch my Talk about the Holy Land — Palestinians and Israelis Today

A few months ago, after a year with lots of travel in Palestine and Israel as I scouted and filmed my upcoming TV special on the Holy Land, I gave a talk about the region in my hometown of Edmonds, Washington. I enjoyed a very enthusiastic audience — both in person, and watching the streaming lecture online. Since many were unable to attend or view my talk, by popular demand, we’ve post-produced it to offer it here on our blog page.

This was my first time giving this talk, and it was a fun challenge to deal with contentious issues in a balanced way. While this video is fairly long, it’s packed with lessons. These issues are important, and (as with my Iran project a few years ago) I am so impressed by how little most Americans — myself included, before this trip — really know about the Holy Land.

I’d love your comments on this talk…but only after you’ve actually watched it. When the topic of the Holy Land is raised, many of us just spout off our preconceived ideas. And many of these ideas we hold very strongly, even though they are a result of American media rather than actually visiting the region in person. Our challenge is to hear both narratives and understand the context of the region’s challenges and the baggage of the people who live there. I hope this talk helps do exactly that.

The TV special I produced, “Rick Steves’ Holy Land: Palestinians and Israelis Today,” will air on public television stations across the USA this fall.

(By the way, the streaming of talks like this one is a new era for us as travel teachers. In the spirit of this talk, we’ll be streaming nine hours of travel talks — five of which I’ll be giving personally — for free this Saturday, March 22nd, starting at 9:00am Pacific Time. Learn more on our Live Webcast page. Don’t miss it!)

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

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Don’t Be Duped — Travel and Talk to People

Flying home, I’m pleased with what we learned and what we have to share. The montage to introduce our one-hour Holy Land special goes like this: “While Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians have overlapping claims and struggle to share it peacefully, this land has a rich and fascinating heritage. We’ll visit Jerusalem, considered by both Israelis and Palestinians to be their historic capital; feel the modern pulse of urban Israel; eat and drink with Jews; and follow in the footsteps of Christ. In Palestine, we’ll harvest olives; visit a local home; see the Tomb of Abraham; learn to wear a scarf with style; follow pilgrims to the place of Jesus’ birth; bob in a very salty sea; hike to an ancient monastery deep in the desert; and feel the energy of an emerging economy. Along the way, we’ll learn about walls, settlements, and the challenges facing the region.” Reading that again, I can see the vivid images we’ll edit together.

While there are no easy answers, actually coming here and experiencing the Holy Land firsthand is the best way to gain context and understanding. Lots of people in the USA seem to think they already know the answers. They’ve learned about it on TV, or from other Americans.

I remember when I first went on a political trip. It was back in the 1980s, to Nicaragua and El Salvador. Seeing me off, my Dad (suspicious of communism) said, “Don’t be duped.” Now, after 30 years of satisfying my curiosity about our world and its challenges by traveling and talking to people, it’s clear to me: The people most in danger of being duped are those who stay home.

I hope that when our program airs (which we expect to happen in spring of 2014, nationwide on public television), you can enjoy, as we did, “The Holy Land: Israel and Palestine Today.”

To celebrate my homecoming tonight, I’ll give a live, free slideshow lecture at 7pm P.S.T. in Edmonds, Washington. You can attend in person (registration required)…or watch the live webcast from anywhere in the world (no registration required). Learn more at Rick Steves – Holy Land: Israel and Palestine Today.

Thanks for following my trip!

DCannon13Summer_0078One of my favorite sequences in the program is a montage of clips showing me connecting with various locals. The theme: Good travel is all about meeting people, talking with them, and learning. In the last few weeks, I’ve learned what Muslims think of Jesus while sitting on a carpet with an imam; talked about raising kids while sipping coffee with Israelis who live in a settlement overlooking the West Bank; and visited with a Palestinian refugee as he clutched the key his parents took with them when their fled their village in 1948, thinking the move would be temporary. I’ve roasted coffee with a Bedouin, talked with soldiers in guard towers, and gained insight into why a proud and independent young woman would choose to wear a hijab.

RS13Summer_0903Our guides were hugely helpful both in Israel and in Palestine. If you are traveling to the region and need help, they are all self-employed, licensed, and happy to schedule time with any visitor: Benny Dagan (dagantrl@inter.net.il) and Abie Bresler (center in photo above, abresler@zahav.net.il) work in Israel. And Kamal Mukarker (left in photo above, kamal_mukarker@hotmail.com) and Husam Jubran (hjubranus@yahoo.com) are ready to be your guides in Palestine. Thanks to Benny, Abie, Kamal, and Husam for some great travels.

RS13Summer_1021We finished our Holy Land special with this close: “In this land — so treasured by Jews, Muslims, and Christians — I’m reminded that the prophets of each of these religions taught us to love our neighbors. And the lessons learned traveling here in in the Holy Land can inspire us all to strive for that ideal. I’m Rick Steves. Keep on traveling. Shalom, Salam, Peace.”

RS13Summer_1047I had a miserable trip…it changed my pre-conceptions. People whose language always sounded to me like terrorists conspiring are actually gentle souls with big challenges. It seems to me there are two sure things: Violence doesn’t work, and neither the Jews nor the Palestinians are going to move. The only workable road is one of peaceful co-existence.

 

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What’s Your Occupation?

While the Holy Land’s troubles are no joking matter, sometimes a little humor can help defuse the tension. I couldn’t help but chuckle at this joke: An Israeli diplomat, when filling out the customs form upon entry in the USA, misunderstood one of the questions, Where it said “Occupation?”, he wrote, “No, just visiting.”

Israel needs to protect itself. That’s obvious and understandable. And there’s a terrible history of terrorists, desperate extremists who will die to kill, and countries that swear they will not rest until Israel is pushed into the sea.

At the same time, one thing that virtually all visitors to Israel and Palestine eventually grapple with is the irony of Jewish people who were so cruelly treated through history — and especially during the horror of the Holocaust — now playing the strongman.

As observers from a distance, we can’t really get an honest picture of the reality here. I might see a news clip of Palestinians destroying a synagogue. It looks so hateful. And then I learn that during a land swap, Israel agreed to give back land upon which they had built a luxurious modern settlement. And, before retreating, they destroyed every building in the settlement except the synagogue. When hardscrabble Palestinians, so poor and needy, walked into their land, they saw only rubble except for one building — and they got mad and destroyed it. It’s ugly both ways.

Today, I sense a commitment among Palestinians to grow beyond violence. (They really have no choice.) In fact, the main job of Palestinian security forces is to support the Israeli forces in keeping angry, pent-up teenagers calm and out of Israeli prisons.

On the other side, among Israelis I met in Palestine (mostly security forces), I noticed a kind of occupier’s vengeance. It’s something most Israelis would not condone, but it’s done in their name nevertheless.

Israelis believe Palestinian children are taught in school to hate Jews. And Palestinians believe Jewish children are taught to hate them. I asked a Palestinian if schoolbooks teach children to hate Jews. He said, “As a parent raising my family under Jewish occupation, it’s my challenge to teach our children not to hate Jews.” I hadn’t considered that angle. But just being a tourist here for a week, I can understand the toll it must take on any “love thy neighbor” person to live in a land where they say, “Mere existence is resistance.”

While edgy political art is commonplace here, I was particularly struck by this mural (in Bethlehem) of a little Palestinian girl shaking down an Israeli soldier. It was only later that I learned it was by the famous British street artist Banksy.
While edgy political art is commonplace here, I was particularly struck by this mural (in Bethlehem) of a little Palestinian girl shaking down an Israeli soldier. It was only later that I learned it was by the famous British street artist Banksy.

I’ll continue this Holy Land series until November 21st. Then, to celebrate my homecoming, I’ll give a live, free slideshow lecture on Thursday, November 21st at 7 p.m. P.S.T. in Edmonds, Washington. You can attend in person (registration required)…or watch the live webcast from anywhere in the world (no registration required). Learn more at Rick Steves – Holy Land: Israel and Palestine Today.