Susan's Blog: Pilgrimage to Israel/Palestine. 'The things that make for peace.'

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Luke 19.

What are these things that make for peace?

It has been several days since I last posted here--Partly because the sheer overwhelm of travel finally caught up with me, and partly because my brain is full. It will likely take a long time to filter out some wisdom from all of the things we have seen and talked about.

A quick rundown of the past few days' activities:

Sunday: We worshipped with the 9:30am congregation at St. George's Cathedral. The service at 9:30 is almost entirely in Arabic. They were very hospitable to us, and at coffee hour afterward, I got to speak briefly with the Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek. Dr. Ateek, formerly on staff there at the Cathedral, now runs the Sabeel Center, a place for study and advocacy for Palestinian liberation theology. (Click here for a link to his book).

In the afternoon, I hopped on a bus into the West Bank and went to visit Jenna, a friend of a friend who is living and working in Ramallah. We got ice cream, and then sat in a lovely outdoor cafe and drank Taybeh beer and talked about what she has experienced in her time in Palestine. You can read her blog here.

Ramallah itself is remarkable--especially compared with the desolation and economic devastation of the smaller West Bank cities we've visited. In contrast, Ramallah is full of people and life; stores and cafes look new and prosperous. Birzeit University makes it a cultural center as well as an economic one. It's the center of government for the Palestinian Authority.

The bus on the way back was a bit more interesting. The Israelis don't stop cars going into the West Bank, but they definitely stop everyone heading back into Israel proper. Those with ID cards and foreign nationals like myself stayed on the bus to be examined by a young member of the military...everyone else has to get off the bus, walk through the checkpoint, and then pick up a bus on the other side. Here, some photos from the window of the bus at the checkpoint.

Monday: This was our 'Palm Sunday' day. We took the bus to Bethphage, the town near Jerusalem where Jesus began his Palm Sunday journey on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem. At the Mount of Olives, we began the walk down the hill toward the Garden of Gethsemane and the Kidron Valley. Coming into Jerusalem before he is killed, Jesus stops on the Mount of Olives and weeps, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!" His next action, in the text, is to stride into the Temple and turn over the tables of the money changers. Jesus pulls on the Old Testament traditions of the prophets to accuse his people of using their religion as a cover for greed, injustice, and violence. It's profoundly striking, in the midst of the current political situation, in which Jerusalem itself (even parts of the Old City) is occupied territory, and the military presence is so strong--it's profoundly striking to look out at the view from the Mount of Olives and be looking straight at the Haram al-Sharif, which in Jesus' day would have been the Temple Mount. What are these things that make for peace? 

In the afternoon, we again got on our tour bus and went to Bethany (or El Azariyya), a town just 2 miles away where Martha, Mary, and Lazarus lived. It now takes 30 minutes to get there, due to the consruction of the wall and checkpoint access. On the way home, we drove through Ma'ale Adummim,  one of the largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Needless to say, the contrast was striking--Ma'ale Adummim looks like an exurban planned community in the West End of Richmond. Beautiful homes, coordinated landscaping, green grass (in the desert...settlements are often derided for diverting water that would otherwise have gone to Palestinian villages), beautiful schools and daycares and other facilities. It takes the phrase 'gated community' to a whole new level. The Israeli government incentivizes moving to these settlements through mortgage subsidies, among other things. According to our guide, many of the settlers who come here are not religious Zionists (though there is a percentage that would match that description). Many secular and politically moderate Israelis move to these settlements because the financial incentives constitute a significant improvement in their quality of life. Thus, he said, they would likely accept the closing of a settlement if they were given financial compensation and a similar place to live inside the 1967 borders. It's the hardline minority of settlers that have made headlines by facing off against the Israeli military when the state has insisted on closing a settlement.
For more on this, check out the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition...

Tuesday (today): We got up early to walk the Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem, praying through Jesus' walk from Pilate's condemnation to his burial in the tomb. As we prayed and sang and walked, the city was coming to life around us--shop keepers opening their doors, students headed to school, stray cats howling, trucks roaring past on the narrow streets. The rest of life goes on when you're on your way to crucifixion, apparently.

The walk ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but we stopped for breakfast and several cups of coffee at Papa Andreas before tackling that site. The church comprises the ruins of the 4-th century building built by Constantine over the site of the Crucifixion as well as the tomb of Christ. It's a big holy mess, with each chapel 'owned' by a different church for centuries, each in some degree of competition with the other for space and time in this holy site.  And parts of it, if you can find a corner not full of photo-snapping pilgrims, are beautiful and meaningful. Fellow travelers have advised that the best time to be there is 5:30am, when the crowds are much thinner. We got there at 9am, and the crowd to get into the Edicule was already overwhelming. (The line to get into the tiny gift shop on the back side of the Edicule was just as long). I opted to take a walk through the morning-quiet streets of the Old City.
It was a beautiful morning, and I appreciated the afternoon off to rest and think and walk.

I spent some time with this book, Windows in the Wall (the web has some of the photos available) in a bookstore.

If you've read all the way to the bottom of this episode of the blog, you can see that it's been a busy few days, full of visual, political, and theological content (not to mention being briefed on the best answers to the questions at airport security). There is just one more day left, in which we will talk about Jesus' resurrection appearances. I would like very much for someone to explain to me what he meant by 'the things that make for peace.' What did he mean? Perhaps there are many answers to that question, just as many as there are NGOs and charities and religious institutions here in this torn-up city.