Visiting Ramallah--Trump Peace Plan Looks Ludicrous

A luxury apartment complex outside Ramallah. 

Built with money from Qatar, it is so far out that it has few residents.

During my visit to Israel, I was able to spend a day in Ramallah and the surrounding region. Ramallah is the largest city in the what would be a Palestinian state. It is close to Jerusalem in the region Israelis call Judea--the Judea part of Judea and Samaria.

T-Mobile deals with this ambiguity with a welcome message unlike the messages for any other border crossing. I wrote about that here.

I went from Old City Jerusalem on a scheduled city bus with my friend Cliff.  The 9-mile trip took us about an hour.  We were the only non-Arabs on the bus.  There was a huge security area about halfway between the Old City and the central bus station in Ramallah. We did not have to stop there on the way over.

At the Ramallah bus station, Cliff's friend Michael picked us up. He lives in Ramallah and has a counseling practice for victims of domestic violence and trauma.  He drove us around the city of Ramallah and the surrounding region.

He lives in the city with his wife and children.  For him, a settlement of the question of Palestine could not come too soon. He is an Arab Christian. He wants to be an Israeli citizen. He hopes that can happen, but would like peace in almost any form.

He says that no one he knows takes the Trump plan seriously. The U.S. did not speak to anyone from Palestine. Michael thinks it does not take into account the reality on the ground. He drove us to an upscale shopping mall with an ice skating rink. A few miles from that mall are Israeli settlements and Arab villages.

A new mall near Ramallah. 

The settlements and villages form a patchwork that will not allow an easy-to-define border.  Unless the settlements and villages are torn down, the border will have to allow for passage of Arabs and Israelis between the places they live and the two states that will result from the Trump plan.

Michael wants to live a good and safe life and have a future for his children.  He took Cliff and I to his home, gave us food, then took us to the bus station.  The 9-mile trip back took more than two hours and included changing buses at the security checkpoint.  Residents of Ramallah who work in Israel take these buses back and forth every day and have commute times as bad or worse than what we experienced.  

Michael had no faith in the Trump plan, but hopes some plan brings peace to the region. I hope so too.

Disposable Health Wealth

When I left Israel, I took a direct flight to Tbilisi, Georgia. I had never been to this country on the east end of the Black Sea with a civilization dating back more than three millennia. I had a vague plan of seeing Tbilisi then heading to Azerbijan and maybe Armenia before returning to the Georgian capital.  I stayed in Tbilisi for all of the four days I was going to spend in the region. A week ago I wrote about how much I loved riding here.

One of my recent meditations is on thankfulness. It occurred to me after I left the Republic of Georgia, that one thing I can be very thankful for is a ridiculous amount of disposable health.  Of course, the fact that I can fly to Israel and Georgia and ride also says I have disposable wealth, but the riding in Georgia in particular says I have disposable health.

Every day for three days I rode up a six-mile or a nine-mile hill and rode back down through switchbacks occasionally passing a car.  Even as I approach my seven decade with the body and mind I was born with (except for a few replacement parts), both still function well enough to allow me to ride a bike up and down a mountain every day, eat local food, explore the city on buses subways in addition to the bike, and then fly off to another adventure.

But as with all the healthiest people I know, health is not the goal. At various times in my life, I have obsessively worked out because I wanted to be a bicycle racer,  to be a soldier again in my mid-50s and then an Ironman. But I have never made being healthy a goal.  The result of being a soldier, a racer or an Ironman is health, a lot of health, disposable health.

I am so very thankful for the health that allows me to make a plan, then change the plan based on what is in front of me.

Welcome abroad!! The T-Mobile Service Message in Ramallah!

Today I got my seventh welcome to a country message from T-Mobile in the past two weeks.  Each one is the same except for the name of the country I am arriving in.  Today's message said:

Welcome to Turkey! Your T-Mobile plan......(benefits)

That is, except for the fifth message. That one said: Welcome abroad! No country listed.  The reason is that I was on a bus from Jerusalem to the largest city in the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority: Ramallah.  Although I passed through a massive security checkpoint going to and from Ramallah, I did not pass an actual international border.  So T-Mobile diplomatically said, Welcome abroad!

One reason to travel is to see and feel and experience the details of life in a given place.  The bus ride from Old City Jerusalem to Ramallah is less than ten miles, but it was one hour to get there, two hours to get back.  At the security area on the way back, we left the first bus and boarded another. It was the same bus route number, but a different bus.

Businesses, big and small adapt to the reality they find.  T-Mobile has, I assume, messages for the 193 nations recognized by the United Nations.  The territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority has observer status at the UN as does the Holy See in Rome.

Welcome abroad!

First Time in the Republic of Georgia--Riding is Amazing!

Looking up from the center of Tbilisi, Georgia, is a ferris wheel and tower

on top of a ridge.  It's a six-mile climb with switchbacks and some steep sections.

After leaving Israel, I planned to see the Republic of Georgia for the first time.  I was just going to visit. I had no definite plans to ride. I was thinking about also going to Armenia and Azerbijan, the other two countries in this land bridge between Russia to the north, Turkey and Iran to the south, the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east.

Then I looked up the mountain from the center of town. A cable car takes tourists up to a park with a ferris wheel overlooking the city. And there is a six-mile road that loops up around the mountain.  I had to ride that.

It's a beautiful climb. Incredible vistas.  Not too much traffic and 180-degree switchbacks on the steeper sections of the climb.  I arrived on Friday, found a bike Saturday morning and rode up twice.  The first time I messed up Strava, the second, I got the whole trip.  

Today, Sunday, I rode up the hill toward the park then followed a fork that led to villages on the next ridge above the park.  I passed though two villages, Shindisi and Tabakhmala. At one point I was looking down on the tall tower next to the Ferris wheel.  

The bike I rented was a 9-speed cross bike with a single chain ring and fat tires.  With the switchbacks and the fat tires, my descent speeds never got above 35mph, but it was fun to descend for nine miles after the long climb up.  Tomorrow I will ride up to the park again. I fly to Kiev the next day.  

One other fun thing about Georgia was the Strava segments.  On today's climb I was on 20 segments up and down, yesterday it was a dozen.  The number of people recording times on segments was in the hundreds. I was in the top third of times descending, the bottom third climbing, but on every segment, I was the top 65-69 rider.  Several times the only rider in my age group.  I did not see any other bicyclists, but there must not be many old guys.

The view looking down from the ridge above Tbilisi

Back to the Latrun Armored Corps Museum

This is my third trip to Israel and my second trip to the Armored Corps Museum and Monument at Latrun.  The museum at Latrun has dozens of tanks from all of the wars in Israel, including many captured Soviet-built tanks used by Arab armies.  Several of the tanks on display are variants of the Patton tank that I served on in West Germany during the Cold War.

On my last visit, I wrote a Patton tank that is sliced in half lengthwise showing the guns, ammo racks, engine, fuel tank and all of the other equipment inside the tank: https://armynow.blogspot.com/2019/11/at-armored-corps-museum-latrun-israel.html

And I have pictures of other tanks on display at Latrun: https://armynow.blogspot.com/2019/11/armor-from-entire-cold-war-and-beyond.html

Below are a few pictures of Patton tanks. Like me, the oldest of them are of early 50s vintage.

Six-Day War Veteran Tells His Story of Ammunition Hill Battle

Micheal Lanier telling us about the battle for Ammunition Hill 

My friend Cliff and I visited the Ammunition Hill Museum and Memorial in Jerusalem. It preserves the site of one of the battles in the 1967 Six-Day War that led to the capture of Old City of Jerusalem where Cliff and I are staying for the week.

We toured the museum which follows the battle hour by hour in film and pictures.  Both of us have previously walked the grounds of the site and climbed in and out of the trenches.  At the end of the museum visit we were going to watch a documentary of the battle, but one of the staff members said we can hear from a veteran of the fight for Ammunition Hill.  We went for the veteran.

Michael Lanir (מיכאל לניר) was a 26-year-old lieutenant leading an infantry platoon when the battalion got orders to attack the Jordanian stronghold at Ammunition Hill. It was held by a detachment of the elite Arab Legion.

Lanir was born in Jerusalem in 1942. He was six years old when Old City Jersalem was besieged by the Jordanian Army and shelled. He told us of water and food shortages and that many civilians were killed and wounded in the siege.

Returning to the battle in 1967, Lanir was a reserve paratrooper called to active duty three weeks before the war began. He and his troops trained to fight in the Sinai, but that battle was won so fast that his unit was redirected to capture Old City Jerusalem.  Lanir led his men into the trenches. He made a point of telling us Israeli officers lead from the front.

Michael Lanir next to the rock he took cover behind when he was shot

Shortly after the battle began, Lanir was shot in the neck.  He showed us the rock he was taking cover behind when he was shot.  His men thought he was dead. They covered him with a blanket and continued the fight.  An alert medic saw movement in Lanir's fingers and sent him to the hospital.  He recovered and today is a 78-year-old member of a group of veterans who talk to visitors to Ammunition Hill about their part of the battle.

Lanir and the commander of the Arab Legion company opposite him in the battle

He told us about a reunion of veterans on both sides that happened in the 1990s. He met the Jordanian commander of the unit they were fighting. They discussed the battle in detail and the Jordanian leader was sure it was one of his men who shot Lanir.  They left the event friends, both men who were doing their duty in the battle and both were happy they survived.

Met First Cyclist on the Way to the Airport

Amtrak Conductor and cyclist Don Austin Tucker

On the train from Philadelphia to New York one of the conductors looked at my computer and asked "Are you going to do an Ironman?"

He saw the brag stickers on my MacBook.

I told him I did an Ironman more than five years ago and a knee replacement last year meant I will never do another one.

He told me he was becoming an avid cyclist. He did his first century (100-mile ride) last year and was cycling more and more. He told me how his first distance ride was on a mountain bike with cleated tires.  "That was 50 hard miles," he said. We talked for a while about tires and wheels and types of bikes and types of training.

Don rides the trail along the Schuylkill River and in Valley Forge Park.  We talked about riding in Philadelphia and the surrounding region.

Then Don told me he rides with MS. He is also living with cancer.  A group of his friends formed to walk and ride with Don. The group is called: Team Don Austin.

Don is hoping to ride the Covered Bridge Metric Century in Lancaster County in August so we may see each other again outside the train.