Rethinking Israel & Palestine

    I had the privilege this last week to visit the Holy Land for the second time on pilgrimage. It included Israel/Palestine and Jordan. I include Jordan as part of the "Holy Land" because there are several places like Mount Nebo that are mentioned in the Bible. The capital, Amman, is named after the Amonites in the Bible. So, Jordan self identifies as part of the Holy Land, and rightly so.

    I had been once before about 12 years ago. I was with a group of other Protestant pastors in that group back in my Anglican days. My pastor got talked into being a chaplain for a tour with a travel company in Omaha that is primarily Palestinian Christian. We have been planning it for over three years. We were supposed to go last January, but it got kicked off for a year at the last might in due to the break out of the Gaza War. So, we ended up going in January 2025 and not January 2024.

    It was mostly people from my parish, though a few people who knew people also went. In all, we were about 20 people in the group. About 5 chickened out in 2025 who had been slated in 2024 but for personal reasons related to safety decided not to go in the end. My wife and daughter, neither of whom had ever been, went with me.

    I have been taking the last few days to think through what I witnessed this go round. It was really quite a different experience this time for me. It's never quite like the first time, though there were some places I saw this time that I did not see the first time, namely Petra and Jordan. But, aside from that, it was a wholly different experience because our tour guide last time was a Jewish Israeli national who was a retired IDF Colonel whose son had been killed in IDF service in the Intifada in 2001. So, we largely got the Jewish take on things. Though to his credit, our tour guide tried hard to be even handed and even had a Palestinian come one evening in the hotel and give us the Palestinian take on things. And our guide for our day in Bethlehem was a Palestinian Christian who met us at the check point for the day, as are Jewish Guide was not allowed into Palestinian controlled areas like Bethlehem.

    This go round, our guides (one in Jordan and the other in Israel) were Palestinian and Jordanian Christians. The marketing behind the tour group was to help support Christians in the Holy Land, which my wife and I were happy to try and do, as Christians are largely pariahs in the Holy Land. They are viewed like any other Palestinian (i.e. a terrorist) by the Israelis, and the Muslims view them as religious traitors for not being Muslims even if they are Palestinians. So, I certainly got what Paul Harvey on the radio used to refer to as "the rest of the story..."

    I thought I would put down a few thoughts while they are still free in my mind. It was a good trip. It was a religious pilgrimage primarily and not a feel good vacation to some place like the Bahamas. We had a good time. No major issues, thankfully. They had to cancel a scheduled stop in Jericho as there was some sort of local unrest. The locals were telling the guide we could get in, but might not easily get back out. But otherwise, we had no problems.

    I knew tourism was in a hard way because of the Gaza war and all, but I was utterly shocked that tourism in both Israel/Palestine and Jordan had completely collapsed. We were wandering around places like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity and other than our group of about 20 people and a few security guards and a few random priests, everything was completely vacant! We were often the only people in the whole building, maybe a handful of random tourists, but it was like some post-apocalyptic movie where all the people have disappeared. It was truly bizarre. Having been there when it was crowded, it was almost eerie.

    I really felt for the Palestinian Christians who depend on the tourism. We stayed at this hotel in Bethlehem for 5 nights. It was a nice, new hotel built in early 2023 with 7 floors. Other than the first night, we were only people in the whole hotel. There were some nice hotels that had had to lay off the staff and basically be mothballed. It was truly heartbreaking to see the desperation on people's faces. They were all very polite about it and grateful we were there, but you could just see it on people's faces.

    In fact, our guide in Jordan told us we were the first group he had guided since May of last year. I felt really sorry for Jordan, as Jordan's tourism had all but died, and they are a peaceful country that had absolutely nothing to do with the whole Gaza nonsense, but they were just what they call collateral damage, I guess.

    We went to Petra, which is about 3 hours south of Amman. (I do buy the argument that the Magi of the Christmas story were Nabateans and not Persians now, but that's a story for another day.) Our tour bus was the first one they'd seen in weeks. There were a few random people visiting in cars, but the Bedouins were thrilled there were tourists again for the first time in ages. I mean, selfishly, it was great for us as tourists. No lines. You could pretty much name your price on souvenirs or whatever because people were so desperate for any business. But I felt really sad for the locals whose livelihoods have been completely destroyed.

    We did try to be as generous as possible. I think we impressed that on our daughter that we might not be rich, but compared to a lot of the folks we were meeting who were truly struggling to survive and just make ends meet, we were there primarily to help support the local Christian community as best we could and be charitable. I think if we accomplished anything with this trip, we did get that point across to our daughter.

    People often ask me which side I support in the Israel/Palestine conflict, and I still return to the same place I was before I went back: I support the Christians. I think both the Jewish Israelis and the Palestinian Muslims have valid points but also blood on their hands. It's a tribal feud that has been going on for 1000s of years, and, as our guide said this go round, "and will likely continue until the Day of Judgement when God separates the sheep from the goats." I think at the end of the day, the only hope is the message of Christ's peace which the world cannot give. 40% of the people that lived in the Holy Land at the last Ottoman census of the area in 1915 were Christians. It's now less that 2% and falling.

    While I sympathize with the Palestinians, I also agree that Israel has a right to exist. But, I also believe in self determination, and the way the Palestinians are treated outside the rule of law is truly shameful. Peaceful Palestinians can't vote or even fly out of Ben Gurion airport. They have to go to Amman to catch a plane. Sadly, the loonies on both sides want to completely eradicate the other side. "From the mountains to the sea" is a cry both extremes were saying about the other.

    If you want to visit the Holy Land, please do so. It's safe in the tourist areas. Support local travel agencies, particularly ones that are trying to support peaceful people like the Palestinian Christians. Our tour group was Holy Land Travel Center in Omaha. They were great. If nothing else, pray for the people caught up in all that perpetual turmoil and just trying to survive and make ends meet in a tourism economy that has totally collapsed.

    So, in the end, I can only quote from the famous Christmas carol Dona Nobis Pacem: Bring us peace.  


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts on the 'Connecticut 6'

My board gaming journey, pt. I

My boardgaming journey, part II