Striking a chord

Jerusalem Central Bus Station. A weatherproof grand piano bolted to the floor, played by a passer by and sounding like Hans Zimmer’s deliberately discordant keys from Sherlock Holmes. If you were to fire a clip from an automatic rifle at it you might produce something more melodic, and we certainly saw a few of those today. The Israeli Defence Force conscripts were everywhere, getting buses home for the sabbath, and a lot of them were fully tooled up.  After a while you get used to it; the sight of soldiers buying bagels on street corners whilst carrying enough firepower to bring down a small crowd seems normal.

But Israel is complicated. Most of the young men and women don’t look like soldiers. They look like what they are; ordinary people who have, rightly or wrongly, grown up on the front line of something most of us can’t understand. And a lot of Israelis are not religious; there was a huge line of graffiti on the Tel Aviv road saying "I want my foreskin back". If that’s not a counter-cultural statement with an undertow of politics I don’t know what is.

Our day was also complicated and difficult but we’re hoping that things will be better tomorrow ...