Getting Home from the Holy Land
They don’t call it the “muddle-east” for nothing. At least that is how it feels waking up in Toronto having lost a day somewhere getting back from Jerusalem and having lost one’s dignity to every form of custom inspection known to humankind. Judging by a quick glance at the morning paper there does not seem to have been a sudden parting of the fog of war on the home front while I was away. If anything the news from the usual sources only matches the addled and rattled condition of my brain. Having flown 12,000 miles and spent two weeks exposed to the lure and the haunts of the people who call the Holy Land home, I seem no closer to any sense of resolution, solution or dilution of my own fears for the future of the region that is a spiritual home for millions. If I come away with a clear sense of the complexity of the issues and a deeper appreciation for those who have struggled to make it a homeland for all human aspirations, I also have a idea of the bases that need to be touched before people get to a home plate that will serve up enough to nurture the hopes of the world: ten things to remember when thinking of the Palestine.
1. This is a land in which it seems everyone says, “the Bible says it, Grandfather said it, I don’t know who said it but it has always been said.” If the God who is larger than these claims is not worshiped then the world is going to be a long way from home for a long time.
2. Those who claim that it is the beginning of the kingdom of God or the end of the world if their way is or is not followed will not be the source of the answer. It will come from those who share the region’s rich traditions of hospitality shared by all faith groups.
3. The media does an exceedingly bad job of conveying the sense that just about once a day someone is killed, usually a Palestinian, as a result of the “Troubles,” or capturing the feeling of having a tour bus a bit behind you fired on because they are mistaken for Christian Zionists touring Jewish settlements. All will have some of the truth and none will have all the truth. Unless we come to terms with that truth we will see none of the truth.
4. The primary axis of evil in the world is the combination of arrogance and ignorance. Can we really get home on only clips and bits from Radio and TV?
5. How long can the State of Israel be in a state of war? How long can they continue to put Machine guns in the hands of what look like children as they threaten, demean and debase and claim that this is a homeland for anybody? It is chilling to see a youthful soldier drop the safety on his machine gun and menace folks just trying to get to work and get on with life. And even get to the hospital: the blood runs cold watching an ambulance with flashing lights dutifully waiting in line at a check point for the soldiers to sort things out.
6. Building a wall as the Israeli’s are doing to separate themselves from their Palestinian brothers and sisters assumes that that fundamental human task is to protect us from each other rather than connect with each other. It is not the way home.
7. There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
8. If you believe that you are not on the frontlines of all this because you are on the home front, think again. More than 911, the fact that American tax dollars have paid for the wall that divides Palestinians and Israelis, and the highway system that get them around really seeing each other assures our complicity in establishing the unholy land.
9. Yes, the Ghosts of the Holocaust do haunt. However there is no place in the world where a Jew is more likely to be killed for being Jewish that in the land of failed promises that is the State of Israel.
10. “Palestinians” don’t hate us: at least most of the time. They do expect a lot of us. We got ourselves into this jam when we said that all are endowed with certain inalienable rights including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is not a happy thing to be living in a refugee camp since 1948 or to be able to point to the place where you used to live before your parents were driven out, or to see your farm destroyed and your centuries old olive trees uprooted to make way for others. This is not the way home. As many of us do, the Palestinians that I met rage at the distance between what we say we are and what we have become as the financial source of the weapons that has left them prisoners in their own land. They and we should expect more of us.
11. Count on things almost never being, as they appear to be. Almost immediately after announcing their withdrawal from Gaza the Israelis invaded Gaza.
Now none of this amounts to anything near another plan for Peace. However, if we keep these things in mind we might be part of the larger plan of God for us all to grow up. If that plan kicks in we just might touch enough of the bases to get home. At any rate it is enough of what my addled brain can handle right now. Home at last.
Craig
6:59:25 AM 
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