I had a one day trip to TA yesterday, another segway on my rolling commentary on US healthcare. I got my Hep B booster in TA in about 5 min for 55 ILS, $15 USD. It cost me about $250 in the US. I got a prescription and filled it for 90 days of Doxycline (anti-malarial) for about $60 USD. To get the prescription under a PPO in the US would have cost me an office visit and $100, in Israel walk into the public health building and show my ID ask for what I want and why and he writes a scripts. Plus travel meds are not covered by my policy...If I get sick I am coming back here or England.
Anyways, today was the best day so far I think in Israel. Tour of the West Bank. We took a bus to Bethlehem and got a Palestinian cabbie to drive us around (I highly recomend him Fouad 0599-646069) Saw Bethlehem and the alleged Nativity, Mary's milk manger (that is my term) Then we hit Hebron and Jericho. I can safely say I have never understood both sides of the Israeli/Palentinian issue until you have seen the living conditions of the Palestinians and what they have to do to survive in the these cities that are blocked off and controlled by the Israeli army. We drove around a bunch of the settlements, so you can visualize what they exactly are. Plus we got to talk politics with Fouad all day and get everyman's view of Hamas and Fatah. The hangups in the "peace process" and who is benefiting and who is not of the this continuing evolution of dispute. Pretty crazy stuff, the wall is amazing and would make anyone look at the occupation differently.
Hamas vs. Fatah...two jackasses pulling things apart
graffiti on the wall, all by westerners not palestinians
We had the wierdest experience is Hebron, it was very cold today and there was a shaoul (sandstorm) out to the east so the sky was brown with no horizion, we roll through a bunch of intimidating checkpoints in Hebron...to enter this dead city. Most of the business in old Hebron are closed up, business has recently gotten very bad and people are cold and huddled around fires, the scene is pretty like I would imagine an post apocalyptic Arab ghetto. In contrast everyone is warm friendly and greets you with a smile, genuine vs a salesman smile. We walk through these deserted streets and then into this long pathway tunnel controlled by the IAF with 3 of these grated access points and a metal detector. The IAF guys are about 18 and are sitting behind these blast barriers and are basically controlling access through the checkpoint from afar and yelling instructions at everyone. We finally get through and there are soldiers everywhere, we can't go into the Abraham Mosque because they have split up control so the Muslims get access for 10 days then the Jews get access for 10 days. So instead we can go around the corner to watch the orthodox guys bang their heads against the backside of the tomb, but Fouad can't go because he's Palestinian. First he can't cross the street, then he can but only to go into some shop of some Palestinian guy to have coffee. There is no rhyme or reason to the rules. The guys controlling the show are about 18, don't even have facial hair yet are loaded for bear and wear their uniforms like Snoop dog, some have hoodies on some have NY yankee's hats on. It is just the most surreal experience. Bottom line crazy tension everywhere. Then this crazy jewish party van pulls up and these Orthodox party guys get out and start cranking the music up and dancing, it was like a Grateful Dead vanagon and the guys looked like dead fans except they are orthodox and had the long curls- but are dressed like hippies. So these guys are dancing in the streets to terrible music, the other guys are banging their heads against the tomb. The Muslim prayer starts up from the minarets at the same time, the soldiers are yelling at people and some of the Palestinian shop keepers are sitting in their stalls selling nothing and drinking their coffee shaking their heads. Another day in Hebron. So bizarre.
Kids playing, I think that little guy has a slingshot
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