by Ricky Mulvey
I’ve traveled a lot lately. I’ve been to Jerusalem, the West Bank, the border of Gaza, and Haifa.
This won’t be my funniest post, but I promise the next ones will have more humor.
The border of Gaza was one of the most meaningful places I’ve ever been too. I was in the town of Sderot filming for my job, and we ended up driving along the fence.
I got out of the car when we reached this fence. A row of houses were behind us and few things have been eerier for me than being in a quiet neighborhood right next to Gaza. You can hear the buzzing from the electric fence when you’re that close, and past the farmland you can barely make out a city. I won’t call this moment transformative, but it was pretty close. For God’s sake, if I was literally standing ten feet from where I was my life would be entirely different. I cannot even imagine the person I would be — certainly not Jewish, certainly not able to travel around the world. This was not about the conflict for me (although I’m sure some troll can make it out to be in the comments), but luck. I am an American Jew staring at Gaza as a tourist. I’m using their electric fence for a post on Instagram.
I may be close, but I am not in touch.
A few days after this I was at a mandatory fun and hilarious improv show. There was a lot of audience participation in the show and very few jokes actually told, but trust me when I describe it as mandatory fun and hilarious. They shouted out for a scene location. Everyone shouted for things like Ben Yehuda Street, the beach, or Tel Aviv. I shouted the Gaza Strip. I thought it would be the funniest thing in the world to watch these happy-go-lucky improv players put together a scene in Gaza after doing a scene that was mandatory to watch fun and hilarious about how many questions they could ask while riding a camel. Naturally they ignored me, but a few minutes later I realized how dark humor is such a wonderful coping mechanism… even if the girls in the row in front of me disagreed.
But moving on now. A few days ago I made it to the West Bank to interview a woman named Daniella Weiss. Weiss is an important figure in Israeli history (look her up for more info), her views are controversial, and it was an honor to interview her.
My view from atop a Jewish settlement aka those things that those BDS kids yell about these days.
I have wanted to go to the West Bank for a long time (or Judea and Samaria, whatever floats your boat) and it was great to get there. To see the little trailers and neighborhoods that have caused so much uproar. They are trailer parks that make world leaders shout.
It made me want to grab some world leaders by the collar and say “look around. Shut up, there is plenty of space here so get it together and f***ing share. Everyone can be here if you stop acting like whiny buttholes.”
Granted some neighborhoods we went to were nicer like the one I visited, but it is nuts to be next to the shacks that cause such an uproar. You won’t find President Obama condemning many other trailer parks besides these ones.
Earlier in the week I was in Haifa and while I have nothing but love for Haifa, I have nothing but distrust for Haifa cab drivers. I think some Israeli cab drivers lick their chops a little too much when they see a group of confused looking American youth.
It’s like Donald Trump and Mexicans– I assume some of the cab drivers in Haifa are perfectly nice people but for the most part I don’t trust or like them and I think they should be sent to Mexico. Okay, it was only one of them told my group to get out of the car and leave when we were plainly in the wrong spot, but I stand by my thoughts.
This is in front of the Bahai’ Gardens in Haifa. It was cool and pretty and reminded me of Highgarden from Game of Thrones. You should go there.
All in all, I have been having a great time running around Israel. The next post will be coming real soon.
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