Memories from a trip to the Israel border: At the crossroads of conflict, quietly the river flows

Mount Nebo in Jordan is a biblical site where Moses was granted a view of the “promised land of milk and honey” before his death. From atop Mount Nebo, dry barren land extended ahead, broken by a thin dark strip of water, which was the Jordan river. Beyond the river was a cluster of white houses in the town of Jericho, one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns of the world, that lay in the West Bank in the state of Palestine. Further ahead, over the hills, was Jerusalem visible as a tiny dot. Israel claims all of Jerusalem while Palestinians fight for control of the eastern part of the city.

In the winter of 2011, my husband and I visited Jordan, back then an unusual travel destination. A tour operator had arranged a week-long trip for a small group of Indians from different cities. Seeing images from the Israel-Palestine conflict splashed across social media since the past week brought back memories of that trip.

Our travel guide Raayid was a Bedouin, the indigenous nomadic inhabitants of the Arabian desert. He explained to the group how as per God’s decree, Moses’s life ended on Mount Nebo and his flock, led by Joshua, brought down the ramparts of the walls of Jericho to reach the promised land. It was a sublime moment: a Muslim narrating a Biblical story to a group of Hindus, looking afar at the home of the Jews.

It was the season of the Arab Spring, a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world. Egypt’s Tahrir square revolution had erupted earlier in the year while in Syria in the north, there was an escalating civil war. But in Amman, our cab driver Basheer laughed derisively at the term “Arab Spring” calling it a fanciful invention of the western media while the streets knew that the Syrian conflict was fueled by the United States, to create instability with an eye on Syria’s oil reserves.

Both Syria and Jordan supported the Palestine cause and the Jordan Times doesn’t as much as use the name “Israel”. Yet, in 1999, Jordan revoked the passport of the leader of Hamas, the Palestine militant organisation that attacked Israel last week. “It was not right,” said Basheer. “But I understand it had to be done under American pressure, because we have taken huge loans from America to build our infrastructure,” he said. Basheer, incidentally, grew up on Amitabh Bachchan’s movies and nearly came to Chennai for higher studies.

On Christmas, we were taken to Bethany beyond the Jordan, the place where John the Baptist is said to have baptised Jesus with the holy waters of the Jordan river, marking the start of Christianity. As the group sat in the jeep, Srinivas Reddy, a retired Andhra Pradesh government employee, and his wife, offered Tirupati laddus to everyone for an auspicious start to a tricky trip because we had been told that our destination was a heavily guarded site on the border of Jordan and Israel. As we got closer, the military made its presence felt. Raayid sought special permission to take us through the gates.

A Christian pilgrimage site, Bethany beyond the Jordan comprises baptism ponds and the remains of churches and monasteries. It must have once been a place of quietude, where the river and tall trees allowed for spiritual upliftment. Instead, there was little sentiment of “love thy neighbour”. Lying on the eastern bank of the Jordan river, the Unesco World Heritage site is along the 480-kilometre border between Jordan and Israel, the entire length of which is made up of barbed wire and lined with armed soldiers on both sides.

Oblivious, the river flows quietly through both countries, as it has for millennia. As I dipped my hand in its waters, I could feel the eyes of two Israeli soldiers across the border watching me through their monoculars. Israeli and Jordanian flags fluttered aggressively on their respective banks. The hawkish military vigil reminded an ex-Army major from Delhi, who was part of the group, of the India-Pakistan border at Attari-Wagah: “There is electrified barbed wire for hundreds of kilometres. Every morning they find at least 10 animals killed next to it.”

A group of teenage girls from the United Kingdom, who were part of a church choir, arrived on the Jordanian side. Guided by a teacher, they stood on the stone steps leading to the river and sang a hymn, the melody wafting through the tense air. When the serious part of their visit was over, they rushed to pose against the Israeli backdrop. We could see people on the other side behave likewise, excitedly clicking pictures against Jordan’s flag.

Last year, Jordan announced an ambitious $100m plan to renovate Bethany by the Jordan, in commemoration of the 2,000th anniversary of Jesus’s baptism that will be celebrated in 2030. But it looks like it will be a while before music or laughter or the click of phone cameras is heard in the disputed land.

Vandana Vasudevan is a researcher and author. She can be reached at vandanavasudevan@gmail.com.