Israel Part IV - The Unholy Land

Angry:
I’ve been in Israel (and the surrounding area) for almost 3 weeks now. Right now I’m tired. I am barely recovering from a bout with the flu that put me on my back for 36 hours (conveniently on Shabbat when everything was closed down anyway). I feel like I need solitude and space. I have a lot of frustration built up in me from the last couple of weeks. I feel quite angry inside. Earlier today two young men purposefully shoved their shoulders into me and swore at me for no good reason as I walked along a sidewalk minding my own business. A little later on, a teenage boy purposefully spit out of the window of a bus at my travel buddy Prentice. When the boy saw that part of the spit hit Prentice, he expressed glee to his seatmate. This along with a lot of other annoying stuff… like every time I need help finding a bus, nobody can help me (or will give me enough attention to even ask them the question). Like this afternoon when I ended up paying for a taxi – who lied to me about the distance - only to discover that the bus was 100 meters away as I rode away in the taxi. I feel suspicious of everyone who wants to sell me something. In my mind everyone is taking advantage of me. (Paranoid? – It sure sounds like it, doesn’t it!) Then when I actually do want to buy something the shop owner acts like I’m doing him a service to be buying something from his store and makes a HUGE deal about breaking the equivalent of a $20 bill to buy something from his store. Customer service has never been heard of in most places I’ve visited. (“Thanks, come again” – what are you serious? I haven’t heard those words in 3 weeks!) Most of these things I’m sharing by themselves wouldn’t even phase me. But after nearly 3 weeks of it, I am on edge with anger growing inside. Sorry… but I’m trying to be honest and put this in perspective for you. I’m not here with a scrubbed and attended-to tour group going from site to site in an air-conditioned tour bus with a guy talking on the microphone. I’m rubbing up with a lot of local folk.

If I actually lived here, I’m sure some of these frustrations would be resolved due to language acquisition and cultural awareness / preparedness. But I’ve also realized that some of it wouldn’t. Dozens of misunderstandings and cultural gaps can very easily add up to anger and stereotyping and suspicion. It makes me understand how I could hear Jews in Jerusalem say that they “hate Palestinians” and how I could see a Nazi swastika painted on a wall in Bethlehem (in the Palestinian Territories). I think it is awful that this anger exists… but I can also understand a bit more about why it exists. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I have had to keep reminding myself that every person I deal with is an individual. There are wonderful people everywhere you look and there are also a lot of bad apples ruining things for the others everywhere you look. The setting is rife with temptation to stereotype. So this place is challenging me to say the least. It’s not a vacation.

Earlier I mentioned the sheer amount of guns in Jerusalem. Actually, the guns are ever-present all over Israel due to the fact that an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) member can never be without his / her gun. I can’t tell you the number times I have been bumped by some part of an M16 as the soldiers wait in line with me or ride the bus or the train with me. I even saw a young woman carrying a rocket propelled grenade launcher around with her. All of the soldiers treat it as an American student would a backpack… its just part of the uniform. I have to wonder what this does to a culture. When you grow up from birth seeing weapons everywhere – in the house, in the buses, in line at grocery store, even at the Western Wall (I have a picture of an IDF soldier praying with his M16 on his back), what does this do to you? One thing is for certain, it reinforces the idea that violence and power is the answer to issues of safety and security (which happens to reflect the Israeli government’s style of handling dissidents). There are obviously atrocious things like the widely publicized suicide bombings coming out of the Palestinian side, but there are also a lot of unreported happy trigger moments coming from the IDF side of things. I just happened to ride in a taxi with a woman whose husband was mistakenly shot by an IDF soldier. He was a doctor from Germany (this one became publicized due to the fact that he wasn’t even Palestinian). In Bethlehem, at the UN refugee camp, Dheishah, that I visited (more like a town due to the fact that it has been around for 50 years and has 50,000 people living in it), there were posters all over the place of recently killed brothers and fathers. I was personally taken to the front of a home of someone who was killed four days ago. Obviously some of these deaths are provoked but others are not. (By the way, we enjoyed a wonderful spontaneous tour of the camp from an incredibly enthusiastic woman who works for an NGO assisting people who live there. We also got a special tour of one of the mosques.) But (back to the IDF), what should we expect when a country puts enormously powerful weapons (can we say weapons of mass destruction – since the M16 and its equivalent, the AK47 have killed exponentially more people than any nuclear warhead) in the hands of adolescents (18-20) who are forced to do service in the IDF in order to carry out a policy of revenge?

All of this leads me to seriously question the whole effectiveness of the policy of revenge (I’m speaking about both sides). So far it obviously isn’t working. In response to rockets from Gaza, Israel cuts off power to impoverished and starving people in Gaza. Certain people in Gaza become so deranged and irrational over this and other injustices (mixed together with a dose of Islamic radicalism) that they are willing to kill themselves if they can take a few Israelis with them. (Or more likely they will try to fire a few more pathetic rockets into sparsely populated areas hoping for a hit). When Israel receives the rockets, they turn down the power a bit more and crank up the aerial missile attacks. And the cycle continues… deepening frustration and misunderstanding. So apparently the answer is a 2 billion dollar, 8-meter concrete wall isolating people from each other (the Berlin wall was only 4 meters and 1/3rd the projected length of the Israeli / Palestinian wall). It is also clear that the wall is also a convenient opportunity to “settle” and land-grab some valuable parcels.

What a horrible state of affairs. I’m not a politician and I don’t know everything about the history here, but I’m convinced that there are ways to solve these issues. But not without a whole lot of changes from both sides beginning with actually listening to each other and committing to a process of truth and justice. So in reality with the way things look as of now, this probably won’t be happening any time soon – good luck Mr. Bush (meant with all sincerity - as the rockets fall on Israel and the missiles fall on Gaza while their electricity gets shut down).

I actually didn’t plan to write about the Israeli / Palestinian issue… but it just came rolling out as I started to write about my frustration. I have a lot to keep learning, but I think everyone does on this issue. If you can only see one side… watch out, your wrong! My prayer is that justice, truth and grace will prevail. There is no other hope apart from these three… no other ground upon which reconciliation can occur.

Something that has been deeply impacting me on this trip is a phenomenal book by Miroslav Volf, “Exclusion and Embrace” which I find to be the best book about the relationship between Jesus-following and culture. I find his thoughts particular insightful in light of what is happening in Kenya (and although different, what is happening in Israel / Palestine). Volf, a professor at Yale Divinity School (and former professor at my alma mater Fuller) writes out of his experience in the former Yugoslavia and the ethnic cleansing that happened there. If you are a “thinking” person and enjoy a fantastic theological read, this is a book you must get. It is very relevant to the world we live in.

Now that I have all of that off my chest…

Cycling the Sea:
I was so excited when I got to Tiberias on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. I had read in my guidebook that it was possible to rent bicycles to ride around the lake. I thought it would be a great way to see the sites (such as Capernaum – Jesus ministry base, the Mount of Beatitudes, the boat they recently pulled out of the mud that was from the time of Jesus, etc., etc.). So we got up first thing and rented our bikes and took off with them thinking that all day would be plenty of time to make it around the lake (55 kilometers). However, things turned out a bit more hilly than we thought. In fact, the Mount of Beatitudes became the mount of a bad attitude as I nearly died on it. Part of the problem was that the map made it look like there were little towns all along the way. There weren’t. We skipped breakfast thinking we would catch it on the way around the lake. When we finally came to a restaurant (12:30) it was so expensive that we could have rented the bikes for two more days rather than eat there… so we didn’t. So around 2:00pm our bodies began to disintegrate. To all of my cycling friends, go ahead and laugh (we had only ridden about 17 miles – up and down hills albeit). We were only part of the way around the lake and the rest of the trip was just not gonna happen. The guy who rented the bikes to us had told us that if we had a popped tire or a broken chain he would come and get us (as if we could find a phone to call him). I started looking for broken pieces of glass to roll over (ok, I didn’t, but the idea crossed my mind more than once). We were actually too ashamed to call the guy and tell him that there were two “pansies” stuck half-way around the lake unable to get home. So we did what real men do. We hitchhiked (with our bikes in tow) half the way back to our starting spot and rode into town like we had just completed the Tour De France. Actually we barely dragged into town even with the hitchhike. We looked pretty stupid – two young healthy looking guys in mid afternoon with perfectly good bicycles trying to hitch a ride. But desperation has a way of humbling you. We considered faking an injury but decided just to say it like it was. - We were tired wimps in need of a ride. The guy who picked us up was actually super cool about it. He didn’t even accept money from us – probably secretly thought that it would humiliate us a bit more.

All of that aside, I can see why Jesus hung out around the Sea of Galilee. It is beautiful… green hills, flowers, peaceful breeze, and soothing lapping water (which was surprisingly warm). I would definitely prefer to kick-it there rather than Jerusalem if I were Jesus. It is good for the soul. It was very helpful for me to picture the setting for much of the ministry of Jesus that we have according to the gospels. The setting for the Sermon on the Mount was pretty inspiring (after I had recouped from the hellish ride up to the spot). I actually got the chance to sit down and read it through while sitting on hill overlooking the lake. Now when I read the stories in the gospels again, I will always picture this setting.

Another recent highlight of the trip for me was my chance to float in the Dead Sea. That is a weird feeling. The water is so salty that you float without any floatation device. I mean you float on your back like you are sitting in an inflatable pool chair. Definitely a cool feeling. And the lake was warm even in the middle of winter! The same day we also toured the famous mountaintop fortress called Masada and the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered (Qumran). It was a fantastic day.