I went to a desert rave in Israel (on the Palestinian border)
Fui a un rave en el desierto de Israel (en la frontera con Palestina)
Surrealism has taken over life, forcing us to witness the genocide occurring in Palestine from our screens. This situation presents us with a dichotomy: it reminds us of how trivialized war, destruction, and death have become (and how desensitized we are to the pain of the Other), but simultaneously it has shed more lat than ever; there has never been so much discussion about an issue that has been unfolding for over a century.
In 2009, I was working as a lifestyle editor for SoHo magazine, a publication inspired by Playboy of the 50s-80s, entire decades where readers could read essays and chronicles written by Norman Mailer, Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, and even the famous children's writer, Roald Dahl. Playboy magazine was a reference for me (for several reasons) and from a young age, I dreamt of being a gonzo journalist.
The National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia contacted us to cover an official tour they would do in Israel, on the occasion of the celebration of bilateral relations. The trip lasted about 12 days, if I remember correctly. I'm having trouble finding emails or photos that help me confirm the details because most of the memories I had of that trip lived on voice recorders that belonged to SoHo, Handycam video cameras funded by the Ministry of Culture, and a Canon digital camera of average definition (which ended up getting lost during one of my moves). With that equipment in hand and having been commissioned by the director of the magazine at that time, I went with a group of about 30 musicians on my first trip to the Middle East.
From the moment we landed, the official acts, protocolary dinners, and rehearsals began. The first few days we spent most of the time preparing the concerts for the lightning tour, leaving little time to explore. In Tel Aviv the musicians were received with great ovation for stealing the hearts of locals with their interpretation of Colombian cumbias and Jewish compositions, including the world-renowned Hava Nagila. We were on a cultural and diplomatic tour and were treated very well. Despite having learned about the conflict with Palestine during my Political Science studies, I never took much interest in the subject and always saw Israel as a group of resilient people—although shortly after I began to understand the neo-colonialist power dynamics promoted by Zionist and fascist politicians.
The orchestra didn't work on weekends, and I could rest. It was my opportunity to get out of the hotel-bus-auditorium-bus-hotel cycle we had been on all week, and I had enough time to explore the city. I loved the architecture of Tel Aviv. Its urban design, too. The city has excellent museums and very beautiful beaches. I enjoyed navigating through local markets and eating exquisite falafels (fried chickpea balls inspired by the Egyptian ta’amiya, a similar preparation made with fava beans) in traditional restaurants. Everything was beautiful except for the fact that in each of these places I saw civilians carrying machine guns and high-caliber weapons. People were armed in supermarkets, on public transport, in the streets. I understood that the country was based on warlike foundations that later went from being "for the sake of defense" to being the result of a neo-colonialism sponsored by the United States to maintain a Judeo-Christian stronghold in a predominantly Muslim area.
The first time I heard about this was directly from Jonah, the owner of a design store that sold collectible sneakers and limited edition accessories. I met him when I stumbled upon his boutique while wandering through the neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, and I connected with his way of thinking. We talked for a long time and he invited me to an electronic party in the desert, the following week, when I would technically be relieved of my journalistic duties. I already knew about the raves among the dunes through friends who had lived for a few years in a kibbutz (self-sufficient communities that support the whole country) and had attended a couple of those parties. It sounded like a great opportunity, and I agreed to see him in a week to go dancing.
Jonah picked me up at the hotel in a black Peugeot 206 that smelled of a mix of cigarettes with cannabis and Clinique Happy, the fashionable perfume at that time. I got into his car with some embarrassment towards the other guests who didn't understand why music was coming out at such a high volume from there. It was 9 at night and I was already ready to go to the famous party, but Jonah insisted that we go for a beer first since we were only about 45 minutes from the place where it would be held. At the bar, I heard him call a couple of friends, whom we would pick up along the way. A couple of hours later we got back into his car and headed for the desert.
About an hour and a half later we were still driving on the highway. Fewer and fewer houses were seen and there were only a couple of service stations and truck parking lots left. Finally, a set of prefabricated houses appeared in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, an oasis of prefabricated houses where Jonah's friends lived, three beautiful twenty-somethings dressed up and loaded with MDMA, ready to dance for days. I was scheduled to dance for a couple of hours and then return to Tel Aviv because they had asked me to take some extra photos of the musicians and they could only do it on Saturday morning. "We'll be back in time, don't worry," Jonah told me. But the reality was different.
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