1st Friday

Packed streets today

I really didn't want to go out this morning. It's the 1st Friday of Ramadan and the crowds entering the City will be enormous .... but as luck would have it, I had a meeting in the western side of town. So I had to go out. It was swimming against the current ... with literally thousands of muslims coming down El Wad street and I was going in the opposite direction. Just 100 meters from my house, I got stuck. There was simply no way to go forward or back. After moving a one meter ahead after many minutes, I noticed a side street and quickly forced my way through. Once in the side street, I could get up to New Gate area and out of the City because hardly anyone uses these alleys. The crowds are all from outside Jerusalem and don't know these alleys at all. Anyway it was traumatic. And coming home was just as bad. Now I just don't want to go out at all.

Empty side-street

Apparently yesterday's Independence Day celebrations were a knock-out in many major cities. There're lots of photos of the fly-by on the internet. At the same time, palestinians held protest marches in several abandoned villages ... at the creation of the modern State of Israel, these arab villages were demolished and the arab population dispersed as refugees to many parts of the region. These protests will continue in other parts of the country till May 15th which is Nakba Day or Catastrophe Day when palestinians commemorate the lost of their lands to the Israelis when the State was established. This year I was told it could get violent.   https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-arabs-mark-palestinian-catastrophe-of-1948-in-annual-march/

Crowds and police blocks

And next week there'll be the infamous Eurovision Song Contest ... a really laughable event of wannabes and really awful songs. Since Israel won last year, it will host this year's contest in Tel Aviv. That means super tight security in Tel Aviv area. Well all in all these 3 weeks was,is and will be packed with so many politically sensitive/explosive events ... it's simply too much to handle. I'd just like to hibernate through all this and wake up when it' all over.