cycle Palestine: CHAPTER 8 VILLAGES AND PEOPLE

Jericho, Mount of Temptation

I avoided getting images of people, because I don’t want to exploit them without their consent, but others did take a few ...  These few don’t really capture the reception that we got.

This chap was in Bethlehem the morning that we left there, and lived in a village just outside Hebron, so he cycled with us the whole day.  We gave him a high vis jacket.  I think he had no working brakes and only one gear, but he was very strong.  Someone reported later that he said it was the happiest day of his life. 

In the West Bank, there are roads that Palestinians can use, and roads that only settlers can use.
 
There are also what are referred to as “shared roads”.  Sometimes we had to use shared roads, and this meant that we had to go in single file and our support were not able to stop the traffic for us at junctions and roundabouts as they would elsewhere.
 
After the amazingly friendly response we received in the Palestinian villages, it was always bizarre to see signs like this, describing the place we had just been through, when we joined a shared road.

By “Israeli Citizens”, they mean illegal settlers.  In reality, when Israeli settlers go into a Palestinian village, it’s not the settlers who are in danger.  More on that later.