Syria, Soccer, Israel, and Refugee Camps

This will be my last post. I've learned far too much in my four months abroad to neatly conclude in a brief paragraph so instead I'll just continue as I've been doing by telling you about some of the things I've done and seen in the last few weeks.

Despite cold rainy weather the local soccer game was packed and exciting

In Northern Jordan there are more Roman ruins. In the background you can see the Golan Heights.

The Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee 

Fast forward a week and I found my self in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. This coastal European style city felt like it was in a bubble shielding it from the troubles of the region.

In the heart of Jerusalem's old city there was no shortage of merchants eager for my New Israeli Shekels

While I went to many of the most holy sites in the world I found myself more interested in the bullet holes covering parts of the wall surrounding the Old City.

In the city of Hebron the Palestinians are forced to put a chain-link fence above the market because Jewish settlers routinely throw trash, rocks, and anything else down on them.

Security was tight trying to get into the Israeli settlement. The Israeli Defence Force is well disciplined and doesn't mess around.

Once inside the settlement we went into the Tomb of the Patriarchs where Abraham was laid to rest. In 1994, a radical Jew entered and began to shoot up the Muslim worshipers inside. He killed 29 and wounded more than 100 others before he ran out of ammunition and was beaten to death with fire extinguishers. To this day the mosque is separated from the synagogue, you can see bullet holes in the wall, and the only fire extinguisher in the mosque is very large an unwieldy.

Inside a Palestinian refugee camp the art makes it clear there is plenty of hate on both sides

The green graffiti represents Hamas, black Fatah, and red the communist party

I may have been a little photo happy with the graffiti but some of it was quite good.

Back in the Jerusalem's old city I couldn't believe how close all these incredibly important holy sites were to each other.

I give the Dome of the Rock (and the entire excursion) two thumbs up

That's it. I'll see you all in about 9 days, In Sh'allah.