First off, I realize that I said I was not going to update this blog very often, but I've got some extra time, and trying to recall everything at the end won't be as easy as telling bits as I go.
Second, I really recommend that you check out Lydia Tissue's blog mymeadventure.wordpress.com She does a great job of capturing the emotions of the experience. And she is updating her blog every week ;)
So if I remember correctly, last update had the group in Jordan traveling and taking it all in. We saw Roman ruins in Jerash, rode camels in Wadi Rum, saw the great carved tombs of Petra, and climbed Mt Hur to see Aaron's tomb. There was St. George church at Madaba and the mountain/memorial where Moses looked over the Promised Land and a few other little things in between.
Then we crossed the Israeli check point into Palestine. And our worlds were forever changed...
We are staying in a suburb of Bethlehem called Beit Sahour (spelled Bayt Sahur on Google maps I think) with host families, 2-3 people per family. Yes Bethlehem is in Palestine. At this leg our days have been organized by Alternative Travel Group (see pictures of our adventures on facebook at atgPalestine). ATG was started by some young people many years ago who were tired of people coming in Tour Buses from Israel, getting out, taking quick pictures of the Holy sights, scared to be surrounded by "Terrorists," jumping back in the bus and racing back across the boarder to Israel. ATG sets up trips in Palestine to help dispel the myth of dangerous Palestine. I am not kidding when I say that I feel just as safe in Palestine as I do in Harrisonburg, or my home town in Sterling Il, safer in some ways. There is a story of someone getting cheated in a money exchange and the community finding the person and throwing them in jail. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's no worse than state side.
We spend our time here taking Arabic lessons, listening to lectures about Palestine (including history, literature, environmental issues, current issues, and Christians in Palestine), and taking field trips to different cites around the West Bank. Destinations are a mixture of places with current significance and Biblical action. For example Hebron which is a Palestinian town that is under partial military/violent settler occupation, but is also the cite of the tomb of the Patriarchs/Matriarchs (Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel) and Davids capital before he moved it to Jerusalem. Side note, in Palestine Hebron is known for it's beautiful handmade crafts (textiles, glassware, etc).
When most people think of Palestine they think of a Muslim area, but Beit Sahour, where we are staying, and the Bethlehem area in general, is a Christian community. The number of Christians here greatly outnumber the Muslims. In Palestine in general Christains are just under 2%. In the 1980's Christians were 15%, but when Israel started to crack down on Palestine the Christians started leaving. Many of them actually went to Chile and today there are a couple million Palestinians living there. That said, there are still towns and villages here that are entirely Christian. Ramallah, the "capital" of Palestine even has a law that the mayor must be Christian even though the majority in that town is Muslim. The Christians here date back to the time of Jesus, many towns becoming followers of Jesus when Jesus passed throught doing ministry. They are the original people in that regard, proudly Arab. In many ways they are more ethnically Jewish than the Jews in Israel because they were Jews when Jesus came to town, became followers, and never left. Even with this deep heritage to the land, Israel oppresses them and wants them to abandon Palestine just as much as all the other Arabs in Palestine.
Things become complicated because Israel was started by European Jews who were looking for a country of their own after the Holocaust. Today Arabs (think Palestinians) make up 20% of Israel's population, within the boarders of Israel. Except Israel has a law that they can't get certain types of education in Israel, such as training to be Doctors and Lawyers, so many Arabs in Israel go to Europe for education.
If it seems like I'm bashing on Israel kind of hard it's because I am... we see it from Israels side every day so for a brief moment I am telling it from the other side. Sometime I might write a little blurb about the flawed theology of a modern Jewish state, but for the moment I'll leave you with this question. Is injustice a part of God's plan? An Arab priest I talked to said, "it's my bible too, my land."
And so we get to the complexity of the situation. In the words of our history professor, in order to understand the conflict you must go back to the Ottomans, the British Mandate, and the wars of 1967 and 1973. I'll spare the history lecture for now, but know that it is much more complex than it seems from the west. Also, don't believe what you see on the news, especially what politicians say, because it is basically all one sided and incomplete. Our last few lectures have stressed how much foreign governments have hurt the local movements.
One of the ways that this impacted me emotionally was seeing the wall, built with American tax money... Not only is it an exact repeat of Germany post WWII and apartheid South Africa, but it is a physical symbol of Israel's propoganda against Palestine. A physical reminder of the deep conflict dividing brothers, fellow humans caught in cultural and ideological conflict.
I cried. We are staying only 10 miles away from Jerusalem. You can see Jerusalem from where we live. But there is a wall between here and there. The last time my host dad was in Jerusalem was in 1993. For the few Palestinians that work in Jerusalem they must get to the check point by 4 to get to work by 8. Technically a few Christians and Muslims are given passes a few days a year during religious festivals, or when Israel wants some Palestinian shoppers to give them money, but they only allow for visiting during daylight and they must be back over by nightfall. Most people don't use the passes because logisticly it's a head ache.
We met one lady, upper 20's, who had been BORN in the US and went to an Ivy League school in the east, (Palestine has the highest per capita rate of college graduates in the region, but also an unemployment rate of around 30%) but since she is of Palestinian ethnicity she is not allowed to go into Israel. Currently she is working with her family's business in Taybeh, the town where Jesus went after raising Lazareth (at that time named Ephraim, John 11:54).
More injustices: Israel contains 80% of the west bank, meaning Palestine is not allowed to expand any cities or build any infrastructure on its own land.
The water is all controlled by Israel and is sent to the Settlements. Palestinian homes get water about twice a week, so they have big storage tanks on the roofs to provide for the other days.
Israel controls the prices in Palestine, some products can be made cheaper in Palestine, but Israel doesn't want people to go there to buy products so they force Palestine to sell things at a higher price.
Israel built roads to settlements (built illegally in Palestine) that Palestinians are not allowed to go on. Israel uses these roads to further separate and divide Palestine. In one instance we saw a road that went about a mile out of the way to cut through a farmer's olive grove. Now no one can get to that part of the field to harvest the olives and Israel will only buy the field if they can buy ALL of it.
Signs on the fences between Israel and Palestine ate written in 3 languages. In Hebrew and English they say "destroying this fence is dangerous for you" In Arabic "touching this fence is dangerous for you." There's a bit of a difference between "destroying" and "touching."
That's just a few.
You can't get a feel for it until you've been here.
In the face of it all we've heard the same thing repeated over and over again. "We done hate Jews, we just hate the Israeli government." "We don't hate the West, just the Western governments and their empire."
On a different note, places we've been in Palestine:
Bethlehem church of the Nativity
Kiddron Valley/Gehanna
Taybeh
Jiffna
Ramallah
Hebron (big problems with this one. Christian Peacemaker Teams are stationed here.)
Tomb of the Patriarchs
Bethlehem University
Wadi Qelt (the road to Jericho)
Jericho
That's what's been going on here. (On a positive note, it's been in the 60s and 70s ;) )
Upcoming: tours of refuge camps, tent of nations, 5k in Bethlehem on Friday(!!!) Pools of Solomon, Herodian cite, Nablus, and Jacobs Well. On Feb 11th we move to Jerusalem.
Peace and Grace
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