'Holy Land' Reflections
I'm just back from a two week study trip in Israel, where the topic of "Whose land?" was much in discussion. We read and discussed this recent article about a "One State" solution, and agreed it would be best for both Israelis and Palestinians if they could come to some such agreement, perhaps along the lines of Belgium or Switzerland.
Unfortunately, the news the day after that idea was mentioned included a story about how tensions continue even within Belgium.
Sadly, it seemed clear to us that most folks on both sides in Israeli and Palestinian areas would rather die than share one country. If those views continue, they may eventually get their wish.
Here's my one-sentence summation of visiting Jerusalem, the City of Peace that knows no peace: Never have so many fought so long over so little.
Our group now suspects we know why Jesus wept over Jerusalem. After four days there, that's how we felt too. We all heaved a huge sigh of relief on leaving the city.
(I was expecting a land of milk and honey, but now suspect I have more grass in my back yard than in all of Israel -- even some slums in Chicago look better!)
One major theme throughout the country was power and glory. Pretty much anywhere Jesus ever so much as spat is now a big fancy church, with an even taller mosque nearby. Even though many in Israel still live much as Jesus did, we had to avoid all the main tourist sites to find such places. How odd that the One whose primary teaching was about love and humility is now remembered in ways so opposed to His own teaching.
And much as I'd like to say Jews and Muslims could learn from His teaching, I'm embarrassed to admit Christians could also benefit. How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb? In Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre (site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial), the answer is four. That's how many competing denominations have to agree before work can be done in the building. (From the looks of the place, the last time everyone agreed was about 1890.) Even within the Church, the emphasis seems to be on power and glory rather than love and humility.
Of those around in Jesus' day, the Pharisees (now called Hassidic or Ultra-orthodox Jews) and the Zealots (now called Zionists) were clearly still present today, and not agreeing with each other or anyone else any more than they did 2,000 years ago.
While lost in Jerusalem one evening with an Israeli Jewish friend, he stopped and asked (in Hebrew) directions from a group of Hassidic Jews who refused even to speak to him. When I later asked why, he surmised that although he was Jewish, he wasn't Jewish enough. (With so many external enemies, how can Israelis possibly benefit from such divisions among themselves?)
Another unexpected realization was that the wall of separation now being constructed isn't a sensible and defensible long-term border. Rather, it meanders like a drunken sailor in ways that make it militarily useless. One Israeli suggested even finding work for relatives played a factor in its routing. I'm particularly offended that it may be being built with American aid dollars, i.e. my taxes!
While there, we heard a lot about the folly of the first Crusaders in the Middle Ages, who massacred Jews and Christians who had gathered to greet them as liberators. Unfortunately, it appears Israelis make the same mistake today by treating Arab Christians as though they were Muslim extremists. If Israel were sensible, they would be devoting every effort to make friends of Arab Christians, rather than walling them off among Muslims while continuing to steal their lands for even more illegal settlements..
Although folks often claim God promised Israel to the Jews, that promise was always conditional on their following His ways. Modern Israel, by making itself explicitly secular, and behaving unjustly toward the widow, the orphan and the alien that God commands His people to particularly welcome and defend makes it impossible for God to bless continued Israeli stewardship of land that is above all else His.
I sometimes caution folks who don't want to follow God that He has a Plan B to get their attention, but we don't want to find out what it is. In the same way, I'm sure God has a Plan B for Israel/Palestine, but suspect it won't please many if any in that not-visbly-holy land.
Update: One other shock was how small everything is - both Jerusalem itself and the country as a whole. For instance, after the Last Supper, when Jesus and His disciples went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, I'd always pictured that as being a journey of a few miles. In reality, it was a journey of a few hundred yards! The entire country would fit comfortably inside a small U.S. state.
Another concern is water: Israel diverts so much water from the river Jordan for irrigation that the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus is now a dry hole. Paradoxically, the Dead Sea is dying - shrinking in size every year due to diversion of the water that used to flow into it.
I expected not to care - after all, the Dead Sea is already dead. But it is also beautiful, clear and blue, and great fun as a place to float like a cork, although I preferred doing so on the sandy/rocky Jordanian side over doing so on the muddy Israeli side.
We were told this is the remaining big issue between Israel and Syria about returning the Golan Heights to Syria - Israel still wants to control all the water that falls there as rain to feed the Sea of Galilee and River Jordan.
One other surprise: apart from our one Israeli friend, the only people in Israel who seemed happy to see us were the Palestinians. They couldn't understand why our country supports only Israel, but were still very hospitable, whereas many Israelis didn't seem to have the slightest concern whether we liked them or their country.
In the old days, the main supporters of Israel in the U.S. were Democrats who liked that Israel was founded on socialist principles. Recently, another group of supporters in the U.S. have been Conservative Evangelicals who consider it a reliable ally inheriting land promised by God. The latter are likely to eventually realize just how unfriendly Israel is toward Christians, even hiding evidence of early Christian presence within Israel just as it reports Muslims on the Temple Mount do to evidence of early Jewish presence. Without minimizing the evil practiced by opponents of Israel, by the end of my visit I found the ever-present T-shirts proclaiming "Don't worry America, Israel is behind you" more of a curse than a blessing.
If I could make a recommendation to Congress, it would be that not one dollar of U.S. aid should fund any new settlements on formerly-Arab lands, nor even one foot of any wall of separation that meanders rather than going in some reasonably-straight path, and that any money thereby diverted from Israel should instead go to Arab Christians within Israel and Palestine to repay them for homes and lands taken by Israel over the objections of even their own Supreme Court over the past sixty years.
(I'm not unmindful of Arab Muslims and their grievances - just preferring to start the peace process with those whose religion at least preaches peace, and who are willing to share the land with other faiths, plus recognizing that in the case of Muslims, land was lost in wars started by co-religionists. However, even with them, "I won the war, deal with it" is only an invitation to another war rather than a basis for lasting peace.)
I returned with one important souvenir - a pair of authentic ancient Widow's Mites, the original coins described in Jesus' story. The particular pair I got had just been dug out of the recently-discovered original location of the Pool of Siloam. To me they serve as a reminder that "I bank elsewhere." I also find it an amusing example of the power of compound interest that if a widow were able to hang on to a mite for 2,000 years, it would increase in value from half a cent to ten or more dollars.
(Widow's Mites are described and available here.)
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