A long but interesting day in Jerusalem

So I am digesting a great dinner made by Kirstin (pork roast... surely the best pork roast served in Israel tonight!) as I type this.  It was a long but incredibly interesting day... I apologize in advance for the length of this post, and I'm sure I will forget some things, but away we go...

Starting off with the last picture of the day is Jeana and I with our guide Joel from Haifa:

So Joel is from Haifa (hence the name), a city up the coast (and home to Israel's best soccer team, Maccabi Haifa).  He is incredibly knowledgeable, apparently knows everybody in the country, is extraordinarily opinionated, and a hoot to be around.  He probably could have led us around for 3 days instead of one, had we given him the opportunity.

Joel is (well, like everybody else in the country) retired IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and has been a tour guide for many, many years.  As I try to share with you all of the knowledge he imparted on me today, try to keep in mind (as I did) that this all came from a person with a strong Israeli and Hebrew point of view...

Our first stop was the birthplace of John the Baptist, Abijah.  The biblical story goes that the archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would bear the next king of Israel, and she didn't believe him, so Gabriel told her to journey to Abijah and witness her cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the priest Zachariah' child after being previously assumed to be barren.

The picture above is from the grotto where John was born.  Joel gave us a very long-winded review of Old Testament archaeology that convincingly suggests this grotto would be the room in which John was born. Essentially, all town priests like Zachariah would have had a house with caves dug out for specific purposes, and this one would have been used to birth a child.  Seeing as Zachariah and Elizabeth are the undisputed parents of John, and because a tomb on the site clearly was labeled for Zachariah, this room would have been John's birthplace.

This is the altar from the church at Abijah.  The main reason I included it is that this is a Catholic church, but notice that there is no crucifix behind the altar. Obviously, it was a place of worship for Jews, meaning a crucifix would not be present.  I just found it interesting, having never been in a Catholic church without a crucifix before.

From here we went to the Church of the Visitation, which is on the opposite side of the valley from Abijah. This is the spot where Mary met Elizabeth, looked upon her, and realized that Gabriel had told her the truth, and that she would be the mother of Jesus.

This sign is from the outside of the Church of the Visitation. This church was restored by an Italian Franciscan monk during late 1800's after being acquired during the Crusades, and is a tribute to the two mothers. The purpose of the picture is to show the Franciscan symbol, the five crosses that was adopted by the Crusaders.  This symbol shows up all over Jerusalem.

From here we took a brief detour from the religious tour of Jerusalem and took in some important sites that pertain to modern Israeli-Palestinian issues.

So this stop here was multi-purposed.  First, you see the wall in this image behind the bus.  To the right of the picture is a daycare. This concrete wall was put up several years ago because this hill we are on sits across from Bethlehem, which lies in the West Bank... Palestinian territory.  The wall was to portect the day care children from snipers.

From this hill we look out over Bethlehem itself.  You can see the fence that was set up to restrict movement of Palestinians into Jerusalem. All of the Palestinians working in Jerusalem must enter and return each day through a heavily guarded checkpoint, where they are screened for explosives and weapons.  Looking at the end of the light fixture in front of the picture are a pair of apparent towers; these are part of the Church of Nativity, where Jesus was born.

Finally, we have a closeup of the wall near the checkpoint:

It has been many years since the Israelis have had major concerns about violence emanating from the West Bank.  Most of this is due to the construction of this wall.

Now, for years I have had a somewhat pro-Palestinian view of this area of the world.  The media constantly reports on how the Palestinians are "penned up", treated like something sub-human, and denied rights to land they used to occupy.  After today, I have to admit that, while we were clearly being shown a fair amount of pro-Israeli propaganda, I was swayed to a more neutral position.  I gotta be honest... if lived someplace that the world recognized (thru the UN charter of 1947) as legitimate, and the response of other people living in that area was to try to snipe my day-care aged kids and blow up buses of my countrymen, I could sort of see reacting this way.  I would certainly like to hear a Palestinian viewpoint as well, but I'm not sure I see how anything that the Israelis have done, sanctioned or not, is deserving of attacks on their children and civilians.

There's a ton more to this story, according to Joel.  One of the interesting points he brought up is that way back when, the Ottoman Empire opened a deed system in which citizens purchased deeds on land.  These deeds are over 1000 years old and are kept meticulously in Istanbul.  Well, the Jewish people, Christians, and Armenians utilized this system to buy land.  What became the Palestinians did not.  Their predecessors were nomads, and their concept of land ownership was based on the idea that, basically, I let my goats pasture here 5 years ago, so it's mine.  Joel explained that the modern-day Palestinians never followed or understood the modern transformation of land ownership concepts, and now are essentially, well, kinda screwed.

Obviously, this is a cultural difference and issue that will not be easily resolved.  I'll explain more in the next post with more pictures, but think about it... how do you tell people who have always essentially used squatting as their property rights for thousands or years that they can't squat on land that they have always assumed they had a right to?  Clearly, the Hebrews adopted the Ottoman Empire's land management program, and have followed the laws set down by the territory's rulers for thousands of years.  Palestinians not only did not adopt to these laws... according to Joel, many of them still haven't.  I'll explain more, with pictures, in the next post...