On The Road: Israel & The West Bank

In light of the recent round of violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, I probably chose the worst possible time to visit the “Land of milk and honey” for the first time. But as luck would have it, a weeklong cease-fire in mid-August provided a convenient window of opportunity to make a quick trip there to sample its culture and cuisine.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am married to a Palestinian, who has family both in Israel and the occupied territories of The West Bank, so I was privy to a perspective that few Americans get. Considering the horrific images that circulated in the media prior to my arrival—mostly of young Palestinian civilian casualties–it was a surreal time to be there, especially as a ‘tourist,’ yet I found both Arabs and Israelis (and Arab Israelis) to be incredibly hospitable and kind. Despite the long-standing enmity between these two groups, they also share so much in common, including a love of family, a pride in their past, and a reverence for one and the same God.

In fact, my only negative experiences occurred at Israeli border checkpoints—the first en route from Jordan, and the other as I travelled from the Palestinian-controlled West Bank back to Israel—where despite my U.S. passport I was treated with suspicion, disrespect, and downright disdain, albeit nothing on par with what Palestinians living there must deal with on a regular basis. To be honest, it felt like being transported back to the Jim Crow era in America or Apartheid South Africa, and I only wish that more American policy-makers could experience Israel from the perspective that I did. Maybe then our tax dollars would not contribute to the systematic denial of human rights for an entire group of people as well as supplying the firepower to massacre innocents that has led to a deaths of more than 2000 in a month. But you can’t judge a country by its government, so politics aside, the people I encountered on this trip provided me with some keen insights as well as some memorable meals.

We stayed with my wife’s family in the Palestinian village of Jaljulya, located about 20 minutes outside Tel Aviv. I was surprised to find such Arab enclaves to be not an exception, but the rule, as we passed many similar towns. Furthermore, Arabs living in Israel speak and read Hebrew as well as their native tongue, and carry Israeli passports, which allow them to travel out of the country. Such is not the case, obviously, for those living in the West Bank (more on that later). But Arab Israelis like my wife’s family have paid a heavy price for such ‘normalcy’—namely the cession of their ancestral lands. We toured acres and acres still owned on paper by my wife’s grandfather, which is now a middle-class Jewish neighborhood. An old bent Mulberry tree is the only remnant of former times, when this property once contained endless groves of citrus.

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Palestinian hospitality knows no bounds, and each morning for breakfast we were fêted by a spread fit for a sheik, prepared by the women of the family, all of whom wore the traditional hijab, or head covering, even at home. Breakfast consisted of hard-boiled eggs, hummus, a tomato-cucumber salad, falafel, labneh (yogurt), pickled vegetables, home-cured olives, and fresh, piping-hot pita–all of it home made. Strong Arabic coffee (no sugar), sage tea, and lemonade with mint accompanied the meal, and this family were also big espresso drinkers.

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After visiting the former ancestral lands, and cruising through the comfortable suburbs of Tel Aviv, Mustafa, my father-in-laws’s cousin and our host, took us to the old Tel Aviv boardwalk, Namal, which was crowded with beachgoers and families enjoying the beautiful weather and a welcomed pause in the conflict. The irony that we were not more than 44 miles from Gaza City, which had sustained widespread destruction as well as a disruption in their power and water, was not lost on me. We dined at The White Pergula, a restaurant overlooking the water, which was, incidentally, Palestinian-owned, like many of the businesses around here, and almost as soon as we sat down were treated to a dizzying array of mezze, or appetizers. I ordered a local brew, the all malt Maccabee, though I subsequently discovered Goldstar, a dark lager, which I much preferred. Since I had never heard of any of the fish on the menu with the exception of Sea Bass, I let Mustafa do the honors, and he didn’t disappoint. A heaping platter of lightly battered and fried seafood, including fish, calamari, and shrimp, was delivered to our table, and we chased lunch with some dark, muddy Arabic coffee.

 

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The following day, after checking out the bustling Carmel Market, we dined in Yaffa, Tel Aviv’s much older neighbor, and an amazing place to wander around and get lost in history. Once again, small plates of mezze inundated our table before even ordering as is the custom here. In addition to such standards as hummus, babaganoush, and tabouli–which incidentally, were some of the best I’ve ever had–we had various simple preparations of beets, carrots, red cabbage, arugula, sautéed eggplant, and a concoction of fresh dill and sliced tomatoes that I couldn’t stop eating. No utensils necessary as you scoop up the mezze with grilled za’atar bread (a concoction of dried thyme, sesame seeds, salt, and spices) or regular pita. Old Man & The Sea, another Palestinian-owned restaurant with a Mediterranean view, featured a nice selection of the local catch, so I ordered a light, flaky, mild white fish called Lokuse, simply grilled with salt and pepper and served with a lemon. We also tried the sea dates, as mussels are called here, and grilled shrimp. With all that seafood swimming in my belly, I was thankful to see watermelon and prickly pear served for dessert, though I had to try the small balls of deep-dried dough soaked in simple syrup, called Awwameh, reminiscent of the Indian dessert galub jamun.

 

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As we put away a large meal like this in the late afternoon, we usually skipped dinner, but went to check out Tel Aviv by night with my wife’s cousins and their wives. It was during these nocturnal outings that I had an opportunity to try Israeli shawarma, which is notably made not with lamb, but turkey. We visited a small chain called Sun, where we got a generous heap of the lean meat accompanied by a chopped tomato and cucumber salad and fries. I doused my shawarma with a condiment called amba, a tangy, spicy, mango pickle, which must definitely have some Indian origins, though it was introduced to Israel by Iraqi Jews. Served alongside the meal was a plate of various pickled vegetables and the ubiquitous pita. On another occasion, we had the original lamb shawarma in one of the places on the main street of Yaffa that are apparently open all night. But even more than the food, what amazed me about the place were its original vaulted stone ceilings, which seemed to date back to antiquity. One note about Palestinian hospitality: They would give you the shirt off their back. My wife’s family did not let us pay for anything on these excursions, and once when tried to pick up the tab, I almost set off WWIII, so I deferred to our hosts.

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Back in Jaljuliya, we ate some mean barbecue, indulging in tender cuts of lamb rubbed with a home made spice mixture as well as lamb kebabs. The grilled meat was served with a rice pilaf, pickles, and molokhia, a leafy green that is boiled to yield a slimy, green broth, which was probably the least favorite food I ate on the trip.

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Though Tel Aviv is no doubt a hip, modern, attractive city with plenty to offer in the way of amusements and dining, I preferred the rustic charm of Yaffa with its old stone buildings and glorious past. But surpassing even this picturesque port is the coastal town of Acre (Akko in Hebrew) in the north. The old city, which was mentioned in ancient Egyptian sacred texts, and passed through the hands of Alexander the Great, The Crusaders, and the Ottomans, practically emanates history, and remains a place where the 95% Arab population lives and works. In fact, we ate at a highly recommended, 60-year old restaurant called Abu Christo, which was started by a Greek/Palestinian family. By now I was growing accustomed to the fine mezze and fresh Mediterranean fish, and we enjoyed small anchovies and a local favorite called Sultan Ibrahim as well as calamari and shrimp. Afterwards we strolled the small stone alleys of the old town. Since we didn’t spend much time there, it’s a place I would definitely revisit.

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On the way back that evening, we stopped off for dessert in Nazra, better known to Christians as Nazareth, where there is a huge Catholic church. Driving through the bustling city center, I was no longer surprised to find most of its inhabitants Palestinian. We stopped off at a well-known bakery/sweet shop called Elmokhtar Sweets, where I had my first taste of the Palestinian favorite known as Kanafeh, a cheese-based pastry topped with angel hair noodle threads and crushed pistachios and soaked in a sugar syrup. Fresh out of the oven, the cheese was gooey like mozzarella while the topping had a crunch thanks to the baked noodles and nuts. Though still full from dinner, I greedily scarfed it up.

 

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Thanks to the hospitality of Mustafa and his family we stayed in Israel much longer than originally planned, but with the cease-fire set to expire in a couple of days, we decided it was time to check out the West Bank. So named since it is territory on the west bank of the river Jordan (with the country of Jordan on the east), this area, which includes such historically significant places as Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Jericho, is akin to a Native American reservation in the U.S. Where once the Palestinians controlled all of the land, which is currently called Israel, today they are largely relegated to this much smaller territory as well as the Gaza strip.

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We headed for the city of Nablus, from where my mother-in-law’s family hails, driving through a rocky, hilly landscape studded with olive trees and evergreens. The views became increasingly more dramatic as we progressed, until we finally entered into the bottom of a deep valley. Though I had expected a small town, Nablus is actually one of the bigger cities on the West Bank, with its characteristic box-like dwellings ascending the mountainsides. Walking around the old souk, or marketplace, which spreads out from a central clocktower, you could get lost in the maze of covered passages that house shops and stalls selling practically everything. We ate falafel and fool (fava beans), hummus and a salty fried cheese similar to Halloumi. We also sampled more Kanafeh, which supposedly originated here, though I preferred the one I had eaten in Nazareth. The following day, we had time for a breakfast of kebabs before visiting family, and preparing to cross back into Jordan. I tried lamb testicles on a stick for the first time and found them to be tasty. Though the time was short, we did not want to get caught in Israel when the cease-fire expired, and sure enough, the day after we returned to Jordan the makeshift rockets started flying from Gaza, only to be answered by precision-guided Israeli missiles dropped from F-16s.

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As we were briefly held at an Israeli checkpoint that last day crossing over from the West Bank, I spoke to an older Palestinian man, who told me that they detain him there everyday for a couple of hours, despite the fact that he is married to a Hungarian, and holds a European Union passport himself. “It’s because I’m Palestinian,” he said. I could only shake his hand, tell him I was sorry, and wish him luck, but I felt very small at that moment–but happy to be getting out of Dodge.