O little town of Bethlehem

A powerful video of Palestinians telling of the birth of Jesus from Bethlehem.

 

h/t Graham Tomlin

Visitation

I meant to post these photographs yesterday in celebration of the Visit of Mary to Elizabeth.



The sculpture is from the Church of the Visitation at Ein Karem. The courtyard wall is covered with the words of The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-56) in 42 different languages.



The pictures were taken during my sabbatical in 2008.

Doug Chaplin has posted an interesting comment about Joseph in Luke’s infancy narrative.

Bishop Suheil

One of my most memorable Advent Sunday’s was spent in St George’s Cathedral Jerusalem while on sabbatical in 2008. The service was led by the Bishop of Jerusalem Suheil Dawani and the sermon was preached by Rt Revd Michael Jackson, recently elected Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough. It was a moving service, the highlight being the singing and praying in Arabic and English at the same time. I had the opportunity to chat to Bishops Suheil and Michael after the service while we enjoyed an excellent cup of coffee and macaroons.

Yesterday I read with sadness Stephen Bates’ report that Bishop Suheil has had to take legal action against the Israeli authorities who have refused to renew his residency visa for Jerusalem and required that he and his family leave the country. The authorities have accused the bishop of ‘acting with the Palestinian authority in transferring lands owned by the Jewish people to the Palestinians and also [helping] to register lands of the Jewish people in the name of the church’. As yet, Bishop Suheil has received no details about the accusations nor who has made them. This type of accusation is not uncommon and it is rather ironic that at the same time Israel continues in its failure to stop the illegal building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.

Bishop Suheil is not the only church leader to have faced visa problems, the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Israel has in the past faced a similar problem and this indicates something of the context in which the Christian churches minister in the land of the Holy One.

In December 2010 the Jerusalem Post published figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics that show Christian citizens of Israel make up roughly two percent of the country's population or 153,000 people out of the 7.5 million population. According to the report, 80.4% of the Christians in Israel are Arabs and the rest are immigrants that arrived in the country together with Jewish relatives under the Law of Return, including children who were born in the country. The majority of those under the second category of Christians reportedly arrived in Israel during the large waves of aliya from the former Soviet Union.

I continue to give thanks for my time in Jerusalem and the land of the Holy One and pray particularly for Bishop Suheil and those whom he shepherds during these challenging times.

Outside in

We got round to purchasing, transporting, installing and decorating the Christmas tree at the weekend. Went for something a bit smaller this year and, after the usual nightmare of sorting out which set of lights work, everything was up and running just as darkness fell. My favourite decorations are some carved wooden pendants that I brought back from Bethlehem after my visit there in Advent 2008; the kids prefer something a little less subtle and a little more bling and Kate is of course taste personified.

While looking at our tree I was reminded of something I read in Jane Williams’ imaginative little book Approaching Christmas.

Part of the charm of the Christmas tree is exactly that power to evoke the strange and wonderful. Simply by being a tree, yet indoors, it speaks of the fact that ordinary rules do not apply during Christmas. The outside world is brought inside, or perhaps the inside world is shared with the outside – who knows which is the right description? Either way, as we deck the tree, we are celebrating a time when barriers are dissolved, when we can see magic in the ordinary… 

The evergreen Christmas tree, which keeps its colour all through the seasons, is a reminder of the never-changing love of God, as is the blurring of the inside world and the outside world. At Christmas I believe that God, who made the whole world, comes to live in just one small part of it, as a tiny human baby. The whole, huge, mysterious ‘outsideness’ of God, so much more than we can imagine or domesticate, comes ‘inside’, into our ordinary human lives. We build our houses to keep the outside world at bay, to make safe, warm places where we can live in comfort. It is our way of managing the great world that might otherwise overwhelm us. But at Christmas we bring a tree indoors, a piece of wild nature, and we decorate it beautifully and give it a place of honour in our homes…

As we bring the wild tree into our homes, and cover it with beautiful decorations, we are commemorating a God who came from the glorious, divine world to share our lives, so that we can share the life of God. And that ‘we’ is not just a few of us: it is a promise for everyone.

I like the idea of bringing something wild and undomesticated into the heart of the home. Our dog regards the idea of a tree inside the house as a convenience.

still broken

About 11:30am on Monday I glanced out of my diocesan office window and wondered what was going on as I watched various cassocked men heading for Chelmsford Cathedral. Then I remembered that on Monday of Holy Week the cathedral hosts the ‘alternative’ Chrism service. Each Maundy Thursday a Chrism service is held in the cathedral and all the clergy of the diocese are invited to attend. It is an opportunity to gather together; to renew ordination vows; to bless oils which will be used in parishes throughout the year and to celebrate the meal Jesus gave us. However, as I said, an alternative service took place on Monday.

When the Church of England decided to ordain women as priests in the 1990s arrangements were put in place for those who could not support the move. These arrangements were set out in Appendix B to Ordination of Women to the Priesthood: Pastoral Arrangements and provide sacramental care as well as oversight for opponents of the ordination of women to the priesthood. Basically, provision is made in each diocese for a Provincial Episcopal Visitor, sometimes known as a ‘flying bishop’, who offers oversight to those who cannot accept the ministry of the diocesan bishop because of his acceptance of and participation in the ordination of women. It was these clergy who I saw going to the cathedral on Monday for their alternative Chrism service in Holy Week.

I thought back to another view through a window during Advent 2008. I was looking through the window of the small Franciscan church called Dominus Flevit on the Mount of Olives. The church is constructed in the shape of a tear and the view looks out over Temple Mount and the Old City of Jerusalem. This is traditionally remembered as the site where Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41).

So there you have it: Holy Week, when we remember what God has done for all of us through his Son the Lord Jesus Christ and we have two separate services because we can’t agree on what Jesus calls us to be and do in his name. We can’t even share together around the Lord’s table.

Jesus wept and we should hang our heads in shame.

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17:20-22

arks and churches

Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of going to St Andrew’s Westcliff-on-Sea, but things didn’t go quite according to plan. The purpose of my visit was to hand out certificates to church members who had completed Getting to Know the Bible; an introductory course on how to read the Bible which we have developed for use in the diocese. I had also been asked to preach. Just before the service started the vicar’s wife Gill, who is a Reader at the church, fell over and dislocated her elbow and appeared to have broken her arm. An ambulance was called and Gill and Stuart, her husband, went off to hospital and I took over leading the service. Gill was released from hospital later in the day after having her arm put in plaster.

Members of the St Andrew's Getting to Know the Bible Course

It was great to meet a group of people who were excited about reading the Bible and discovering how it can nurture and enrich their Christian discipleship. This is the second group at St Andrew’s to take the course and more are planned for the future. The passage I was given to preach on was the Old Testament reading set for yesterday from 2 Samuel 6, the story of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant from Abinadab’s house to Jerusalem. It’s a tricky passage because as events unfold Uzzah, who touches the Ark during the journey, is struck down dead. During my time in the Holy Land last Advent I visited the site which Jewish and Christian tradition believes to be Abinadab’s house. There is a convent on top of a hill overlooking the Muslim town of Abu Gosh and the church is called The Shrine of Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant. Incidentally, this is also believed to be one of the possible locations of the town of Emmaus.

Icon from The Shrine of Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant

During my sermon I handed out copies of an icon from the church. The picture portrays the priests carrying the Ark using poles in the prescribed manner (unlike David who put the Ark on a cart) and above this are the figures of Mary and Jesus. Mary is portrayed as the new Ark of the Covenant; bearing the very presence of God in the person of Christ. I reflected on the contrast between the old Ark that no one could touch and Jesus, who spent his life touching and being touched by others.


Anyway, it was very encouraging to see a church willing to study the Old Testament in their main service of worship and prepared to wrestle with one of the more challenging passages. I really liked the way the people at St Andrew’s have developed the church plant, with a comfortable coffee area at the back of the church, and there are plans for a bigger community café to be built. The church, under Stuart and Gill’s leadership, is also developing their work amongst people with learning difficulties in the area.

raja shehadeh

A few days ago I blogged about the book Palestinian Walks by Raja Shehadeh. The Guardian has just published Echoing Lands an article by Raja in which he writes about his annual holiday in the Highlands of Scotland. Raja draws parallels between his beloved Palestinian homeland and the Highlands in a powerful manner:

A year later we came back to Glen Orchy for another walking holiday. This time the weather was kinder to us. We started on the Old Military Road. Walking by the cultivated forest, the river Kinglass ran to our left. It was wider here and flowed slowly. Its shallow bed was full of shiny round stones. I stopped to take in the view. What superb country this is. The river flowed in an open expansive glen with hills to the right, and along our path as far as the eye could see lay more lochs with a track that would take days to walk.

I thought of Palestine's main river, the Jordan, and how it was impossible to take such a walk along its banks, for the river is caged in barbed wire from the point where it leaves Lake Tiberius until it flows into the Dead Sea. The smooth contours of the green hills here reminded me of the Galilee hills in spring. Not long ago I walked in them searching for the villages that a great-great-uncle of mine used as hiding places when he was on the run to escape arrest by Ottoman forces during the first world war. Those villages were all destroyed in 1948 when Israel was established. Cleared of its former inhabitants, the land is now used to plant barley and wheat. I had tried to imagine what it must have been like over 60 years ago when it was alive with the labour of simple farmers, their lowing animals and active village life. Now the land lay silent except for the whisper of the wind among the wheat stalks. A silence not unlike the quiet pervading these Highlands which, as I now know, had been inhabited until the early 19th century when greedy landlords decided it was more profitable to raise sheep and forced the tenants out of the land.

The Hills are Alive is another interview given to The Guardian by Raja in 2007, including an extract from Palestinian Walks. Raja's latest book Strangers in the House is published this week and is reviewed in The Independent.

Palestinian walks – notes on a vanishing landscape

I was thoroughly depressed last Friday to read Garth Hewitt’s account of the ongoing Israeli settlement programme and the annexation of Palestinian land (Church Times 3rd July). Particularly upsetting was the news of the changes occurring on Shepherds' Fields. I had the privilege of visiting Shepherds' Fields last Advent but it looks like any future visit will be a very different experience.

Since my visit to the Holy Land I’ve been dipping into a book by Raja Shehadeh called Palestinian Walks; Notes on a Vanishing Landscape which won the Orwell Prize in 2008. Raja is a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah. He is founder of the non-partisan human rights organistion Al-Haq, an affiliate of the international Commission of Jurists and the author of books about international law, human rights and the Middle East. In the book Raja recounts seven walks taken in Palestine spanning a period of twenty seven years. Each walk is placed in a particular stage of modern Palestinian history, linking his walks with particular characters and reflecting on the wider social, political and economic situation.

Palestinian Walks is beautifully written as a love story between a man and the land of his birth; packed with incisive observations and haunting descriptions of a rapidly changing or disappearing landscape and people. I was rather suspicious when I was lent the book that it would be little more than propaganda; I’d had enough of that on my visit last year and the subsequent reporting of the conflict in the Gaza strip. However, there is a balance in Raja’s writing which displays a generosity at times towards those Israelis who could be regarded as the enemy and criticism of fellow Palestinians when it is deserved. In his introduction Raja writes:

The penultimate journey led to a confrontation with a young Jewish settler who had grown up and spent his twenty-five years of life in the very same hills. I knew that a large part of his life is based on lies. He must have been brought up on the fundamental untruth that his home was built on land that belonged exclusively to his people, even though it lay in the vicinity of Ramallah. He would not have been told that it was expropriated from those Palestinians living a few kilometres away. Yet, despite the myths that make up his world-view, how could I claim that my love of these hills cancels out his? And what would this recognition mean to both our future and that of our respective countries?

One chastening reminder in the book is the way in which Western visitors to Palestine have helped shape a view of the place that gives the impression of an uncivilised wasteland before the British Mandate and subsequent establishment of the State of Israel. For example Thackeray described the hills Raja loves as:

Parched mountains, with a grey bleak olive tree trembling here and there; savage ravines and valleys paved with tombstones – a landscape unspeakably ghastly and desolate, meet the eye wherever you wander round about the city. The place seems quite adapted to the events which are recorded in the Hebrew histories. It and they, as it seems to me, can never be regarded without terror.

Notes of a journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo

Raja observes that it is as though visitors were disappointed not to find the Palestine of their imagination and took a strong dislike to what they encountered. Here are some of Mark Twain’s comments:

Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes

Palestine is desolate and unlovely

Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition – it is a dream-land

The Innocents Abroad

A cruel paradox is highlighted in this quote from Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman, two Israeli architects:

the very thing that renders the landscape ‘biblical’, its traditional inhabitation and cultivation in terraces, olive orchards, stone building and the presence of livestock, is produced by the Palestinians, whom the Jewish settlers came to replace.And yet the very people who cultivate the ‘green olive orchards’ and render the landscape biblical are themselves excluded from the panorama. The Palestinians are there to produce the scenery and then disappear.

A Civilian Occupation, The Politics of Israeli Architecture

In the first chapter of Palestinian Walks, The Pale God of the Hills, Raja describes how his grandfather’s cousin Abu Ameen built a qasr, a stone structure where farmers keep their produce and sleep on the roof, and cultivated olive tree terraces. Raja discovered the long abandoned plot on a walk between Ramallah to Harrasha and reflected on the effort put in by so many Palestinians to create these plots and landscapes. Raja marvels at what was created:

I felt I could sit all day next to this qasr and feast my eyes on this wonderful creation. What fortunate people once lived in this veritable paradise.

His delight in the landscape contrasts with the description of Herman Melville:

Whitish mildew pervading whole tracts of landscape – bleached-leprosy-encrustations of curse-old cheese-bones of rocks, – crunched, knawed, and mumbled – mere refuse and rubbish of creation – like that laying outside of Jaffa Gate – all Judea seems to have been accumulations of this rubbish.

Journals of a Visit to Europe and the Levant

Raja has devoted his legal practice to defending Palestinians whose land has been taken by the Israeli authorities or settlers. He movingly records the way in which much loved land has been deemed abandoned and forfeit by the state. The Kafkaesque system that covers land law in the Holy Land and the implications and impact of its application are carefully explained. Raja’s patience, discipline and dedication are remarkable as is his passion for justice. He represents both Palestinian Muslims and Christians who face the loss of land to the settlers and this is a stark reminder that many Palestinian Arabs are Christians, though their numbers have fallen drastically in recent years.

The ever expanding Separation Wall or Barrier is a recurring presence in the narrative and Raja describes the impact of the wall on Palestinian towns, farms and businesses. In one short but powerful passage he reflects on the impact of the wall/barrier on Palestinian school children.

The mighty wall stretched from the top of the hill down to the road, leaving the southern slope, outside its borders, where some villagers had their homes. The government school serving several villages, including the two Beit ‘Urs, stood at the bottom of the hill – sandwiched between the wall and the new highway. The school and houses were reached by a steep, narrow, asphalted road bordering the wall. We could see some twelve-year-old boys returning from school, carrying their heavy bags up the hill. Adel pointed out that twice a day they pass along this ugly, prohibitive structure when in the past they had a panoramic view of the entire valley to the east. ‘What will they grow up thinking?’ he wondered aloud.

There is one very powerful image from the book that sticks in my mind and seems to encapsulate the tragedy of the Holy Land. There is a common thistle called natsch (Poterium Thorn) and tradition suggests it may have been used to make the crown of thorns worn by Christ. Natsch is plentiful and tenacious with strong roots. However, in Israeli military courts the presence of natsch is often cited as evidence that the land is uncultivated and therefore public land that the Israeli settlers could use as their own. The thistle is used as evidence against Palestinian claims to land ownership and an indication that the land has been abandoned. It is as if this humble thorn is being used to humiliate and punish inhabitants of the land.

If you want to discover more about the Holy Land, the beauty of its landscape, the nobility of its people and the terrible price being paid by its inhabitants in the present turmoil, I can’t think of a better place to start than Palestinian Walks.

Blog posts on my trip to the Holy Land can be found in my archive entries for November and December 2008.

john the baptiser

Today we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. The picture on the left is The Church of St John the Baptist in Ein Karem. I had the privilege of visiting Ein Karem, where tradition says John was born, last Advent and an account of my visit can be found here.

On the walls of the grounds surrounding the church are plaques with the words of The Benedictus in many different languages. This is the prophecy spoken by Zechariah when his wife Elisabeth gave birth to his son John Luke 1:68-79.

holy land reflections (5) - dark fog

An excellent piece in The Guardian this morning written by Paul Kaye: A dark fog has enveloped us. 'When a rocket killed his mother-in-law in Israel, actor Paul Kaye was appalled by the celebrations in Gaza. Six months on, he feels a different kind of despair'.

Kaye powerfully conveys something of the complexity of the situation in the Holy Land and the conflicting responses evoked by the Hamas' shelling of Israel and Israel's military response. He concludes the article with the following:

'At Shuli's funeral last May, her son Jonathon, my brother-in-law, gave a speech. "Where are the doves?" he asked. "What is this land worth without someone with a vision? Nothing. Without doves it wasn't worth the struggle." Jonny is 34. He's an army reservist who is studying to be a neurologist and has a two-year-old son called Boaz. He didn't scream for blood at his mother's graveside, he screamed for peace.

In our house we have our own thinking to do. My eldest son, Jordy, has Israeli citizenship and in two years he will have to choose either to relinquish that citizenship or to fight in the Israeli army. It can be only his choice. But, unlike the Palestinians in Gaza, at least he has one.'

holy land reflections (4) - collective punishment

One of the issues at the heart of the present situation in Gaza is the question of collective punishment. The Israeli government justifies its attack on Gaza as a defensive reaction to the continual shelling of Israeli communities by Hamas. However, Israel’s action in Gaza has been criticised because it seems to be disproportionate and indiscriminate, with a high level of deaths and casualties amongst the general population including many children. Some have argued that Israel’s actions have amounted to war crimes for which she should be held accountable. There is a perpetual cycle of accusation and counter accusation, justification and counter justification from those supporting both sides in the conflict.

I was reading Genesis 18 yesterday, which describes the appearance of the Lord to Abraham at Mamre. There is a well known icon by Rublev (left) depicting the incident which always comes to mind as I read this passage. But yesterday the focus of my attention was not on this incident but on what follows in vs. 16-33. The three angels having visited with Abraham set out for Sodom and the Lord reveals to Abraham what he is about to do; destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because ‘their sin is very grave’. Abraham pleads with the Lord asking whether he will destroy the righteous with the wicked in the city and eventually the Lord promises that he will not destroy it for the sake of ten righteous. In the end the city is destroyed but not before Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and his family have escaped. As I read and reflected on this passage the image that kept coming into my thoughts was of Gaza under a cloud of smoke.

I also watched a brief interview of Richard Dreyfuss and Kevin Spacey conducted by Andrew Marr for the BBC. The interview was about a new play at The Old Vic called Complicit. At the end of the interview Marr asked Dreyfuss about his thoughts on the situation in Gaza:

ANDREW MARR: You have spoken in the past about being so proud of your Jewish-ness and you've taken a very nuanced view of what's happened in Israel in the past. And we're going through this great crisis at the moment, people on the streets of every major city including this one, on both sides, and I just wonder the good citizen - your answer is educate yourself.

RICHARD DREYFUSS: Yes. And also the good citizen has to have commonsense. It's a problem that is so complex that there is only one word that works, it's God's test, and that is "forgive". You must forgive them and you must forgive yourself because there is no original sin there. Neither of the parties involved committed an original sin. I forgive.

KEVIN SPACEY: I think you know forgiveness is a fantastic place to begin.

ANDREW MARR: And it's a good place to end.

KEVIN SPACEY: And thank you as well for making your debut on the Old Vic stage. We're very delighted to have you.

RICHARD DREYFUSS: Thank you very much. (laughter).

holy land pictures - advent 2008

I've finally managed to put online some roughly edited photographs from my trip to the Holy Land during Advent 2008; they can be viewed on my Picasa Web Album site here. Thank you to all those who commented on my postings from the Holy Land, it was very encouraging, and I hope to post some final reflections over the next couple of weeks as my sabbatical draws to an end.

holy land reflections (3) - conflict

New Jewish Settlement under construction outside Bethlehem

This Christmas period has been a miserable time for the land of Christ’s birth and like many others I have been watching the unfolding tragedy of recent events with a sense of helplessness and despair. So far I have been reluctant to blog about the political situation in the Holy Land (this seems to me to be the least emotive title to describe the area) because the situation is so complex and so much that I have read fails to do justice to the people on all sides who are caught up in the conflict. These are just a few observations drawing on my experience of the place and the people.

Firstly I want to say how fortunate I was to visit the Holy Land when I did. Had I been there a few days later it would have been impossible to travel around as we did both in Jerusalem and in places like the West Bank. St. George’s College, Jerusalem has a full programme of courses for 2009 but if the present crisis continues it is inevitable that their programmes will be greatly curtailed and the opportunities for course members to encounter the land and people will be heavily restricted. So my thoughts and prayers are with Stephen and Jill Need and the rest of the staff at the college and particularly I pray for Andrew Mayes, the new Course Director at the college, who is due to lead a Palestine of Jesus course in the next couple of days.

One of the reasons I find it difficult to tease out my reflections on the political situation is that I was struck by the number of perfectly reasonable people on all sides of the conflict who have a real desire for peace but also fear that the chance of securing that peace is diminishing as extremists set the agenda.

On the Jewish side there is a genuine fear that they must do whatever it takes to secure their safety and that includes the construction of the separation barrier/wall and military intervention. In recent years Jewish communities in Israel have had to endure a steady stream of missiles raining down on them from across the Lebanese border and from Gaza. Many of these devices may be crude and poorly directed but that does not diminish the fear that this constant bombardment has created and the demand that the authorities do something about it. One of the most pathetic comments I heard came from a Palestinian with his explanation that 90% of these missiles fall on open agricultural land and so the threat is greatly exaggerated by the western media. Well I’m sorry but the fact that people aren’t very skilled at targeting their missiles isn’t very comforting.

You only have to spend a few minutes in the holocaust museum to understand the Jewish determination that they will never let this happen again. That determination is reinforced by the pronouncements of some Palestinian and Arab leaders who continue to deny Israel’s right to exist (Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for example). It is not good enough to argue that these pronouncements are simply for internal consumption and that they won’t actually act on these sentiments – Jewish people have been there before. By the way, I thought Channel 4’s decision to invite Ahmadinejab to give the alternative Queen’s speech on Christmas Day was an example of the worst sort of publicity seeking act of stupidity by a supposedly responsible media organisation. Peter Tatchell’s comment piece in The Guardian very effectively exposed that mendacious nonsense.

The problem is that the measures taken by the Israeli authorities seem to be exacerbating the situation. The security wall has been effective in preventing the incursion of suicide bombers but it has also been effective in increasing the searing resentment in the West Bank as has the blockade of Gaza following the election there of Hamas. The wall doesn’t follow the boundaries of the Palestinian territories as internationally agreed and in many places has effectively annexed some of the best agricultural land and crucial water supplies. The wall has had a major impact on the economic, social, religious, mental and physical wellbeing of Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians.

Israeli settlements continue to be built in the West Bank despite Israel’s commitment to stop them and they often secure the best land and facilities at the expense of the Palestinians; I saw this at Bethlehem. Seeing the infrastructure being put in place I cannot see how these settlements will ever be abandoned and this makes the likelihood of a two state solution less realistic by the day. It will not be long before there is no area that could form a Palestinian State as it is reduced to little more than a series of rump communities cut off from each other. This was a fear I heard expressed by both Israeli and Palestinian representatives who came to speak to us.

The new road systems being built across the Holy Land made our movement around the country swift and comfortable. However, I was disturbed to learn that cars with Palestinian number plates are effectively banned from these roads and many of the roads they are allowed to use are falling into disrepair; in some cases they suddenly come to a stop as they have been blocked off by the security forces. I just don’t see how these policies are going to lead to anything other than greater resentment as they concretise a structure of apartheid.

The same could be argued about the present military action by Israel in Gaza. I have yet to read one politician or commentator who can explain how the policy being pursued by Israel is going to bring about her stated desire for peace and security. It is a short term response to the understandable demand that something be done about the shelling of Israeli communities from Gaza, against the backdrop of the general elections taking place in the next couple of months. However, the action seems doomed to the same failure as the War in Lebanon of 2006.

One of the writers who has best summarised the present situation in my view is David Aaronovitch writing in The Times. He comments:

The historian Tom Segev, writing in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, yesterday reminded readers that “all of Israel's wars have been based on yet another assumption that has been with us from the start: that we are only defending ourselves”, but that “no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians”. He wasn't saying that Israel hadn't the right to stop the rockets from being fired from Gaza, but that it would get the larger process precisely nowhere.

Adamant though I am about the need to combat Islamist violence, it is hard not to see Western and Israeli policy towards Gaza since Israel's unilateral withdrawal in 2005 as one huge strategic error. There was the refusal to deal with the Hamas Government elected in January 2006, the siding with Fatah in the subsequent internal dispute, the imposition of an effective blockade on Gaza that amounted to collective punishment.

My personal opinion is that the best way forward is a two state solution but that the longer implementation is delayed the less likely that solution will be possible given some of the factors I have mentioned above. President elect Obama and his new administration in the U.S.A. will have a crucial part to play and George W. Bush’s failure to invest any effort into the peace process until the last moment is one more indictment against his bankrupt (in every sense) presidency. The Israeli elections in February will also be critical and one can only hope that the extreme religious and political forces which have so often dictated policy can be marginalised. On the Palestinian side one can also hope that those who only see resolution to the issue through the missile, suicide bomb and eradication of the State of Israel are rejected by the people, though the present crisis makes that less likely. I am convinced that the vast majority of Palestinians and Jews want peace but it has to be based on a just and equitable settlement.

One is tempted to despair that any peaceful way forward is possible and then I remember the words of a member of the P.L.O. Negotiations Affairs Department who spoke to us while in Jerusalem. He urged us not to give up hope, to become better informed and above all to pray for the situation. Seems pretty good advice to me so that is what I plan to do.

Israeli soldier checking our passports at a Bethlehem border crossing.

holy land reflections (2) - little donkey

Aleem Maqbool with donkey number three.

I've just been reading an account by the BBC journalist Aleem Maqbool of his journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem with a donkey. Actually, there were several donkeys as he had to change them for various reasons during his sojourn. Maqbool has now reached Bethlehem and was interviewed this morning on Radio 5 Live, from where he described the preparations for this evenings celebrations of the birth of Jesus. It is well worth reading Maqbool's account of his journey and I particularly appreciated his description of places I was not able to visit during my recent trip to the Holy Land. Here is a section from Maqbool's diary and his description of the situation faced by many Palestinians echoes some of the stories I heard durng my time there.


The morning began with a beautiful walk, but ended with a stark reminder that this trail takes us through what remains a conflict zone that impacts on people's lives every day.
The final few kilometres to the checkpoint took us past small communities, again, divided into those which were predominantly Jewish, and those that had a mix of Christians and Muslims, like the village of Mokeble, the last stop before the barrier that separates Israel from the West Bank. There, I got talking to Adala, a teacher, who was keen to show off the Christmas tree in her school hall. She said that since the barrier had been put up, her husband had been separated from his brothers and sisters who were in a village a few hundred metres on the Palestinian side. She said they could no longer come to visit him, but that her and her husband, as Israeli ID card holders, could sometimes cross the other way into the West Bank if the checkpoint was open.

After a wait at the checkpoint, I was happy to be told that I would be allowed to pass. However, the Israeli authorities informed us that our donkey did not have the correct paperwork. Donkey number two would have to be left behind. I would like to think her stubborn resistance to getting into the animal trailer was because she wanted to stay with me. However, I have a feeling it was more the prospect of a bumpy ride home.

For those Palestinian farmers in the West Bank who have land on the "wrong side" of the barrier (in many places it runs well inside West Bank, leaving Palestinian land outside), such bureaucracy can really impact on working life. Many farmers have given up tending their land in these circumstances. Two donkeys down, I crossed into the West Bank alone.
Tuesday 16th December: Mokeble. Aleem Maqbool.


This brief account reminded me of my own experience of crossing the barrier as we left Bethlehem (West Bank) to enter Israel. What at the time was for me a minor inconvenience comprising a delay of about half an hour is an everyday occurrence (of much longer than half an hour) for those living on one side and working on the other side of the wall. There are many Palestinian Christians who will be unable to attend worship in their own churches over the Christmas period because of the separation barrier. I will be thinking of them as I take my family to church on Christmas Day.

The wall at the entrance to Bethlehem.

'For He is our peace: in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.' Ephesians 2:14.

holy land reflections (1) - layers

Excavations at southern wall of Temple Mount

In the film Shrek there is a scene where Shrek, the ogre, and his faithful sidekick Donkey are discussing Shrek’s personality. Shrek explains that he is more complex than might at first appear, he has layers. One of the most striking features of the Holy Land and in particular Jerusalem is that it is a place of many layers. These layers are most obviously visible in the archaeological excavations where one can see the stratification laid bare. A good example of this layering is the dig at Jericho where in the first part of the C20th various archaeologists, most notably Garstang and then Kenyon, investigated the city walls and explored the relationship between the finds and the Biblical record. I commented on the site at Jericho on a previous post and there is a good summary of the site here.

Excavation at Jericho revealing stratification and base of a watch tower.

Another sense of layering can be seen at the religious sites which over time have been regarded as holy by various faiths. At these sites one can see different holy places built one upon another. In some cases as one faith replaced another so religious buildings were destroyed and the rubble used in the construction of another holy place on top. The best example of this I saw was at the Temple Mount where excavations have now revealed the street level of the Second Temple (538 B.C. – 70 A.D.) and Roman (70 - 325 A.D.) periods. At this site are also remains from the Byzantine (325 – 634 A.D.), Umayyad (660 – 1073 A.D.), Crusader (1099 – 1187 A.D.), Ayyubid (1187 – 1229 A.D.), Mamluk (1250 – 1516 A.D.) and Ottoman (1516 – 1917 A.D.) periods. Another example is at the Cenacle, traditionally considered the site of the Upper Room where the Last Supper was celebrated. This site is now the remains of a Crusader church which became a mosque and then synagogue. It is an important site for Jews as it is considered to be the site of the Tomb of David.

As a result of this layering of holy places a great amount of sensitivity and restraint needs to be exercised by the various communities. I was particularly impressed at the church of Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant in Abu-Ghosh to see the way in which the church was modestly decorated out of respect to Judaism. Judaism regards it as an important religious site; Abinadab’s house where the Ark resided for twenty years before David moved it to Jerusalem. This sensitivity has not always been evident and on occasions the consequences have been explosive. One of the most infamous examples was Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Dome of the Rock as part of an election campaign in September 2000; the consequences were a battle between Palestinians and the Israeli security forces. Inevitably there are conflicting accounts of this incident and the motives of those caught up in it but it serves to highlight the way in which a site, regarded as central to Judaism and Islam and as special to Christians, carries many layers of history and significance.

My personal impression of the situation is that each of the religious communities is on the whole sensitive to the others and seeks to live with an uneasy accommodation. Where else in the world can one see so many sites of religious significance literally on top of each other? One of the most amusing stories I heard was that when the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem they thought the Dome of the Rock was actually Herod’s Temple and so didn’t destroy it but placed an altar there and converted it into a church! Had they realised it was a mosque it probably would have been reduced to rubble nearly a millennium ago.

Chapel of the Finding of the Cross: Church of the Resurrection.

A third type of layering is evident at Christian sites where over time different churches have been constructed, reflecting successive periods of the Holy Land’s Christian past. At the Pool of Bethesda the excavations reveal evidence of a large Byzantine church and then a Crusader church built on its foundations. However, the best example is the Church of the Resurrection constructed on the traditional site of Golgotha and the Tomb of Jesus. The site, a quarry outside the city walls, was initially covered as part of Hadrian’s reconstruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Venus was built there. Following his conversion, Constantine ordered the clearing of the area and the construction of a church, though his mother Helena gets the credit for the work. Three interconnecting churches were built and completed towards the end of C4th.

The church was damaged and rebuilt in C7th and was a protected Christian site under Moslem rule until C10th when it was badly damaged by fire during a riot and then in 1009 A.D. its destruction was ordered by Al-Hakim. All that was left were those parts of the building that could not be easily destroyed or removed. An expensive rebuilding project took place in the C11th and was completed in 1048 A.D. by Constantine IX. It comprised a large open court with five small chapels and the original basilica remained in ruins. In the mid C12th the Crusaders began to refurbish the church site and brought it together under one roof. Franciscan Friars renovated the church in C16th but it was badly damaged in another fire at the beginning of C19th. Further renovations have taken place since then and include the restoration of the dome in the mid 1990’s. As I have mentioned in a previous post, some of the church, including the Edicule, are desperately in need of restoration but it seems that the controlling denominations can’t agree on what to do.

Cultic shrines at Caesarea Philippi.

There is one more sense of layering that I was aware of during my time in the Holy Land. It was a real privilege to read the scriptures while visiting sites traditionally associated with those passages. The geography and history of these places gave me a fresh appreciation for, and understanding of, the text. Whether it was standing on the shore at Galilee, looking at the cultic shrines at Caesarea Philippi, walking on the Street of the Cheesemakers beside the Temple Mount, looking across at the Old City from the Mount of Olives or sitting quietly under an olive tree in Capernaum, it was as if I began to experience passages of scripture in 3D. Moving about these places grounded my reading of the Bible and at times challenged the images I had previously formed in my mind; it helped me to discover new layers in very familiar stories and incidents.

One of the tasks pursued by Biblical scholars for many decades has been the attempt to strip back the layers of the Bible to get to the real or historical Jesus and to uncover the writers and communities behind the scriptures. Personally, the rich experiences of visiting the Holy Land and reading the Bible while there have underlined the need to accept, appreciate and enjoy the many layers of the land, the places, the traditions and the Bible; to embrace the complexity and diversity and to dig deep rather than be content with the superficial.

jerusalem (15) - 10 commandments for visiting the holy land

Brother David: a view from Dominus Flevit.

Here are my ten commandments for visiting the Holy Land.

1. Don't shave before floating in the Dead Sea.
2. Don't make eye contact with a trader. If you do he's already made a sale.
3. Try and meet as many local people as possible (but avoid 2 & 6).
4. Don't cross your legs in a Syriac Orthodox church. It's very rude.
5. Be flexible. The situation is very fluid.
6. Don't pull out a map in the old city of Jerusalem. It is amazing how many 'friends' you suddenly make.
7. Don't ask for a cheeseburger in a kosher McDonalds.
8. Respect the sites and traditions of other faiths (see 7 & 9).
9. Don't try to take a Bible onto Temple Mount.
10. If 2 happens, haggle.
    

Dead Sea Beach

U2: With A Shout (Jerusalem) - October

Oh, and where do we go
Where do we go from here
Where to go
To the side of a hill
Blood was spilt
We were still looking
At each other

Oh, we're goin' back there
Jerusalem Jerusalem

Shout, shout
With a shout, shout it out
Shout...shout it out...

I wanna go
To the foot of the Messiah
To the foot of he who made me see
To the side of a hill
Where we were still
We were filled
With our love

We're gonna be there again
Jerusalem Jerusalem

Shout, shout
With a shout
Shout...
With a shout