I had to work for a living, and it wasn't pleasant, but one good thing is that I got to spend a lot of time studying maps. I've always liked maps; I seem to remember having to take in elementary school "the Iowa basics," a standardized test that included a map-reading section on which I was competitive with the above-average kids from Lake Wobegon. Anything relating to maps excites me. Since I can't give a rational account of it, here is an example of what I mean. The Bruce Springsteen lyrics I will never forget aren't famous and familiar to all fans but, rather:
I met Wanda when she was employed
Behind the counter at the Route 60 Bob's Big Boy
Fried chicken on the front seat, she's sitting in my lap
We're wiping our fingers on a Texaco road map
Part of the reason it's lodged in my mind is that, notwithstanding the romance of the scene, I'm a little troubled by the desecration of a map.
Anyway, you can imagine me now, in the 21st century, when I can carry around in my pocket a map of the whole world, zoom in, zoom out, fly over view of major cities, et cetera, et cetera. When reading novels with geographic references, I always have to get out my phone and see where exactly the characters are. Thanks to Elmore Leonard and Google Earth, I'm pretty good at the geography of Detroit, Michigan, and southeast Florida. Even with no baseball, I can easily entertain myself. It puzzles me a little that people like to travel.
All the above is just an autobiographical preamble accounting for last night's exciting activity: studying the map of the modern Mideast. On account of the disputed territories, it's an unusually busy section of the world map. The area known as "the West Bank" (because of the Jordan River to the east) is shaped like a distorted figure-8 with the city of Jerusalem bumping against the skinny middle. The two biggest cities are Hebron, more or less in the middle of the bulbous southern part, and Nablus, more or less in the middle of the bulbous northern part. I knew nothing of either but have now read the Wikipedia articles. When you live in the American Midwest, you're a bit startled at how close together things are along our northeastern seaboard, but it's nothing like the Middle East. Nablus, for example, is just 40 miles east of Tel Aviv, which is on the Mediterranean. It's also just 75 miles west of Amman, Jordan, and 25 miles north of Jerusalem. You can see a lot in a day if you're not a Palestinian subjected to delays and indignities at the checkpoints.
I trust the facts and figures in Wikipedia but—holy crap!—do not rely on it for information relating to geopolitical controversy. Reading along in the article on Hebron, all seems well, it's this many feet above sea level, has such-and-such a population, is venerated by different religions for its association with Abraham, has a history dating to the Bronze Age, and then, coming to a section under the heading "Israeli Settlements," you read:
Post-1967 settlement was impelled by theological doctrines in the Mercaz HaRav Kook under both its founder Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, according to which the Land of Israel is holy, the people, endowed with a divine spark, are holy, and that the Messianic Age of Redemption has arrived, requiring that the Land and People be united in occupying the land and fulfilling the commandments. Hebron has a particular role in the unfolding 'cosmic drama': traditions hold that Abraham purchased land there, that King David was its king, and the tomb of Abraham covers the entrance to the Garden of Eden, and was a site excavated by Adam, who is buried there with Eve. Redemption will occur when the feminine and masculine characteristics of God are united at the site. Settling Hebron is not only a right and duty, but is doing the world at large a favour, with the community's acts an example of the Jews of Hebron being "a light unto the nations" (Or la-Goyim) and bringing about their redemption, even if this means breaching secular laws, expressed in religiously motivated violence toward Palestinians, who are widely viewed as "mendacious, vicious, self-centered, and impossible to trust." Clashes with Palestinians in the settlement project have theological significance in the Jewish Hebron community: the frictions of war were, in Kook's view, conducive to the messianic process, and 'Arabs' will have to leave.
If the author were not obviously Jewish, I'd think he went to my high school and was now my Facebook friend—it's the only place, besides Wikipedia, that I ever read stuff this crazy. I love how the characteristics of the Palestinian people are placed in free–floating quotation marks, as if the author were referring to a higher authority than the bigotry required by his own goofy fanaticism. Similarly regarding "'Arabs'" who have to go—the scare quotes signify their unreality. Adam and Eve, however, were real people. They lie buried in the Garden of Eden, at Hebron. Read up on these facts in the encyclopedia.
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