Lauren Booth – Ep.3
AI: Summary ©
A journalist talks about his experiences in the Holy Land, where he found himself in a house with garden, swimming pool, husband, two children, and a garden. He describes his experiences as walking into his boss's office and feeling as if he was doing something, and how his boss had a plan to go to the West Bank to report on elections. He describes his experiences as a journalist and how he felt as if he was living in a different country.
AI: Summary ©
In 2005, I had a very good job
as a journalist with a newspaper called the
Mail on Sunday.
I had a photo above a whole page,
which is a bit like being a Hollywood
star in media terms.
I lived in a house in France with
a big garden and a swimming pool and
a husband and two children and everything that
you could want in Dunia.
So why did I do this?
Tell me.
Why did I walk into my boss's office
and say the words, I want to go
to Palestine?
I don't know.
All I know is that I felt as
if an invisible hand was propelling me into
that office and I had to go.
I had to go.
In the way that sometimes if you're pregnant,
you have to eat beans with cheese.
I had to go.
And my editor, he could have said, don't
be ridiculous.
You write about London life.
You write about living in France.
You don't write about the Middle East.
Go away.
But when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
a plan for you, you can go to
the left a bit, you can go to
the right a bit, but you're going to
reach the same destination that's been written for
you.
And the only question is how much difficulty
you put yourself through to get there.
In January 2005, I found myself standing outside
Tel Aviv airport with two weeks paid for
by my boss to go and report on
the elections in the West Bank.
Now, I knew so little about Palestine that
I was standing there thinking, okay, how do
I get from Israel to Palestine?
I didn't know it was one place, subhanallah.
Man-made lines, by the way, don't count.
This is Allah's world.
As I was standing there wondering what to
do next, a man came over to me
and he said, hi, my name is Jamal,
but you can call me Jimmy.
I said, hi, Jimmy.
He said, I am a taxi driver.
So he said he was a taxi driver
from Jerusalem and I got into his car
and he was to drive me to Ramallah.
Over the next 65 minutes, Jimmy Jamal gave
me 65 years of Palestinian history.
It's quite a journey.
But what I remember about that drive is
that when we got into the rolling hills
of the Holy Land, the beautiful place that
pulls so many billions of people to it
from around the world, the place where every
rock cries Allah, where every olive and every
tree shouts the names of the prophets.
I remember being in the car and we
were approaching a checkpoint and it was very
busy, but on the mountain on the hillside
was an empty road going in the same
direction.
So I said to my driver, I know
it's my first day here, but can we
use that road on the hill because we'll
get there quicker?
He looked at me like I was crazy.
Are you sure you're a journalist because you
don't know much about Palestine?
I said, I am a journalist.
He said, look, that road up there is
for Jews only.
If I, an Arab Palestinian, take you there,
we'll be shot dead in maybe five minutes
still.
You want to try?
I said, no.
I didn't want to try.
One word came into my mind and it
was apartheid.
And I don't want to get you guys
into trouble, but we do have a right
to talk about these things, you know.
We have a right of citizens of whatever
country we're in to have these debates.
And I'm just repeating what I saw.
When I arrived at my hotel room in
Ramallah that first ever night in the Holy
Land, I cried myself to sleep.
Why?
Because I'd seen one checkpoint and one apartheid
road.
And every single day of my waking life
since, I wished that was the only problem
that the people of Palestine have.