Check-in: Jericho Post Office, West Bank (2020-01-26)

Jericho Post Office | סניף הדואר בעיר יריחו

Earlier this month when projecting what 2020 could look like in the context of Israel Stamp Reviews, I had an idea of visiting Bethlehem and reporting on the experience of going to the post office there. Bethlehem is the least complicated Palestinian city to get in and out of from Jerusalem, it's a city I've never been to, and there is a lot to see and do there besides just going to the post office. There was an opportunity to go earlier in the month with the community where I work; but as I happened to be out of the country at the time, it didn't pan out. Consequently, when an opportunity arose recently to go to Jericho, it felt like a second chance that shouldn't be passed up.

Jericho Post Office

When travelers visit my part of the world, a piece of advice they're usually given is not to bring up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in conversation with people on either side unless the people themselves invite it, and even then to consider their words with extra caution. It is the same advice I was given prior to visiting Belfast, the island of Cyprus and the breakaway republic of Artsakh, and it is sound and valuable advice. In Israeli society the words "Palestine" and "Palestinian" are so charged that their mere mention can alter the molecular composition of the air and turn a perfectly innocent interaction into one of suspicion and resentment.

I don't pretend to be neutral in this context. No one here is. Nevertheless, as much as possible I'd like to strive toward neutrality in my use of the words "Palestine" and "Palestinian" as they relate to my visit to Jericho. Jericho is a city. It has a post office. The post office is operated by Palestine Post. It sells stamps. The stamps convey certain messages. They are what the local population uses in order to send mail. On Sunday, January 26th, I visited Jericho's post office and purchased stamps there. This is a report on that visit.

Palestine Post logo

Jericho's post office is located on the main road into the city from the east, a short walk from the downtown area's Russian Museum and the Jericho Municipality. It is easy to spot thanks to a large sign over the entrance that says "Jericho Post Office" in Arabic and English and features the Palestine Post logo, a dove in the colors of the Palestinian flag.

Jericho Post Office

The Jericho post office made international headlines in 2018 after Israel allowed ten tons of mail that had been accumulating for eight years in Jordan to enter the West Bank. Once across the border, it was to a postal facility in Jericho that the mail was transported for processing. This scene from Jericho's post office, shown in an AP video report on the mail's arrival from Jordan, was captured from the same angle as my photo above:

Jericho Post Office (AP)

There were three workers behind the window when I entered and no other customers during the ten-or-so minutes I was inside. The lady of the three greeted me with a cheerful countenance, and I asked her in English if I could buy Palestinian stamps. She called over a young gentleman, to whom I repeated my question, who then called over an older gentleman, and the latter proceeded to show me the stamps they had while his two coworkers looked on expectantly.

The selection of stamps was, disappointingly, both limited and, to my eyes, unremarkable: two "Merry Christmas" issues from 2012, a 2016 "Olive Tree" stamp, and a 2017 "Faqqu'a Iris" stamp. Christmas, trees and flowers aren't themes that interest me as a collector; I was hoping for stamps of a more intellectually compelling nature, even if the messages on them might cause me some discomfort. Two peculiarities, however, did catch my attention. The first involved the issuing entity represented on the stamps: whereas the 2012 stamps indicated they were issued by "The Palestinian Authority," the issuing entity of the 2016 and 2017 stamps was "State of Palestine." The second peculiarity involved the face value of the stamps: the currency indicated on them had changed from fils in 2012 to mils in 2016-17.

2012 Palestinian Authority "Merry Christmas" -- 250 fils

Understanding the reason for these changes entails going back to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement signed in September 1995. As Lilach Gilad of the Israel Philatelic Federation explained in a recent article (Sep. 2019) in the IPF's quarterly publication, Shovel, ANNEX III: Article 29 of the interim agreement stipulated that Palestinian stamps could only represent their issuing entity as "Palestinian Council" or "Palestinian Authority" and that the face value appearing on the stamps could only be "in one of the agreed legal currencies circulating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip." In 2013, on the heels of a pivotal U.N. General Assembly vote "to Accord Palestine 'Non-Member Observer State' Status," the Palestinians undertook to assert a new political reality in defiance of the 1995 agreement with Israel.

2016 State of Palestine "Olive Tree" -- 200 mils

The stamps I ended up leaving the Jericho post office with were a 2×5 sheet of the 2012 250-fil "Merry Christmas" and a 2×5 sheet of the 2016 200-mil "Olive Tree." If nothing else, at least they were noteworthy for the insight they offered into a diplomatic campaign being waged in the theater of philately, of all places. But how does a person buy stamps when the currencies printed on them and the currency in circulation don't match? After all, it is the Israeli shekel that Palestinians use both in the West Bank and Gaza, not the fil and certainly not the long-extinct British-Mandatory mil. The only way to know how much any of the stamps cost in practice is to ask. The "Merry Christmas" sheet cost ₪15, and the "Olive Tree" sheet ₪12.

Jericho just might have the lowest post office on Earth. That makes sending mail from it of particular philatelic interest. It would have been nice to mail a few postcards from there, but the post office didn't have any for sale and I was in too much of a hurry to go looking around for a souvenir store that did. Should an opportunity to return to Jericho present itself, this will be the main incentive for another visit.