De Brun leaves for Gaza - Day 1
Published: 24 February, 2009
Flew to Palestine today
Flew to Palestine today, through London, and met Colm Burke MEP with an EPP staff member, and Anne Cahill of the Examiner as well as a photographer and a cameramen, who were flying out on the same flight to Tel Aviv.
There were a few anxious moments when the pilot announced what time we would land in Beirut, but a quick check with the flight attendants showed that we were in fact, as planned, going to land in Tel Aviv.
Learned something new on the plane on the way over, when I discovered that some very orthodox male Jews don't sit beside women on the plane, or at least not beside women they don't know. This cultural difference provides a bit of a challenge for seat allocation, but the other passengers seem quite accustomed to it and there was much seat swapping and working out of the various permutations and combinations with a speed that fascinated me.
No problem at the airport. Once I said I was from the European parliament I had no difficulties at all. Some of the younger staff members told me later they had problems, though, as they had stamps in their passports from some Arab or Muslim countries. One was held for half an hour and another for five hours.
I have also heard that there are real problems in the West Bank with the separation Wall. Jerusalem is completely surrounded and there are long queues to get into Ramallah.
Tomorrow we start on our series of meetings, so I will see more for myself then.
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