Visit to Arafat's Mausoleum in Ramallah

I traveled today from Israel back to Ramallah in the West Bank, where I will have non-violence training Wednesday and Thursday with the International Solidarity Movement in preparation for a few days of volunteering with that group. As I write this, I hear the call to prayer from a nearby mosque.

After a two-hour bus ride from Haifa to Jerusalem's central bus station (with half a dozen Israeli soldiers on the bus), I took a 15-minute ride on the new light rail train (see picture in previous blog)  to Damascus Gate. I felt a bit guilty about the ride, because the BDS movement has targeted Veolia, the company that built the system with an extension into Israeli occupied East Jerusalem. But the ride was convenient and fun.

My bus to Ramallah

A few blocks from the Damascus Gate (in the same East Jerusalem neighborhood where the IFPB delegation had stayed), I boarded a bus for the 45-minute ride to Ramallah. Since we were traveling  from Israel to the West Bank we got a green light at the Qalandia Checkpoint and breezed right through, although of course there was a back up in the opposite direction. Most of the passengers alighted right after the checkpoint at the big refugee camp.

Palestine Trade Tower

On a half-hour walk from my hotel to Arafat's mausoleum I passed a huge new building optimistically called the Palestine Trade Tower. It is not yet occupied. I hope it will be.

Arafat mausoleum

At the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank at Al-Muquata I visited the mausoleum of Yasser Arafat, who headed the Fatah and the PLO from 1964 until his death 40 years later. My lasting image of him was his White House handshake with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in front of Bill Clinton in 1993. Arafat, Rabin, and Shimon Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Palestinian security first told me that photographs of the tomb were prohibited, but when I pointed out that a tour group before me had taken pictures, they relented.

Yasser Arafat, 1929-2004

My guide book to Palestine (Bradt's) says Arafat's remains will be moved to the Haram as-Sharif in Jerusalem (called the Temple Mount by the Jews), if the Palestinians ever gain access to Jerusalem as their capital.  That might take some time.