The Holy Land

In August this year Dr Brian Walker travelled to Israel/Palestine to learn more about the present situation on the ground and to further develop the centre’s partnerships with organisations in this troubled area.   

For so many Christians, Jews and Muslims the land of Palestine and Israel really is the Holy Land (The Jewish Bible Numbers 13:27; 14:7), a land that ‘does indeed flow with milk and honey’; ‘an exceedingly good land (.The Holy Bible 2 Thessalonians 2:3).

However, you cannot travel far from the airport before you reach a checkpoint. An armed Israeli soldier questions Haseem, our Palestinian driver, walks through the coach, and then we drive on. Not a problem. The only concern is that, while he is talking, another soldier covers him with a loaded rifle pointed directly us. 

In Bethlehem, we visit the Bethlehem University and find delightful Christian and Muslim students full of fun and laughter together. We see the infamous 30 foot high concrete Israeli Security Wall, with its many watchtowers and the floor-to-ceiling steel turnstile checkpoints; at which some 10,000 Palestinian’s have to queue every day, from 4 a.m, to reach their work in Jerusalem on time, or lose their work permit. Oh, and the workers have to queue all over again to get back to their Bethlehem homes every evening.

Entering the city of Jerusalem, we visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, which commemorates the 6,000,000 Jews murdered by Hitler and the Nazis, in Christian Europe. The murders began in Poland during May 1942. The Auschwitz gassing did not stop until November 1944. These Jewish families, including many young children were not ‘the lawless ones’. They were not the ones ‘destined for destruction’ (The Holy Bible 2 Thessalonians 2:3); but they were destroyed nevertheless. ‘Yad Vashem’ (The Jewish Bible Isaiah 56:5) means ‘a monument and a name’, given here forever to recognize those who were so brutally murdered. Little wonder the Jewish people, whose annihilation was so efficiently planned and executed, feel the need for an excess of security, particularly as there is still a national leader, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, reportedly calling for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’ only this year. 

Dr Brian Walker


  

Going up to Galilee, we see where Jesus taught ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God’ (The Holy Bible Matthew 5:9).  There we see Christians, Jews and Muslims working together for peace; individual Israelis and Palestinians risking their reputations, their homes, even their lives for greater justice, shared security and peace. We me the Schawamreh family and shared a delicious meal. They have welcomed us into their Palestinian home that has already been demolished three times

Now, it is rebuilt as a Peace Centre; but could be demolished again at any time. We share with Jewish members of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition, who risk being ostracized by their communities. We meet the Archbishop of Galilee, Elias Chacour. Born in the poverty of Bar-am village, he and his family were driven from their home when he was just eight, by the Israeli settlers. Today, as a Christian and an Israeli citizen, he is a living symbol of hope amid the fear and conflict, and he embodies the deep desire of the majority of the Israeli and Palestinian people to live at peace with one another. He says, ‘We are not the Jew’s enemies. We want to be their friends’.