Palestinians
A few statistics. Israel has about 9,000 square miles (about the size of New Jersey, our fifth smallest state) and a population of 7 million Jews, 2 million Arabs, and 500,000 “others”. Of the Palestinian territories, the West Bank has 2,262 square miles and a population of 2.7 million Arabs and 400,000 Jewish settlers, and Gaza has 139 square miles and a population of 1.8 million Arabs.
Relations between the Palestinians and Jews are extremely tense. We spent a portion of our time in the West Bank, saw the walls, saw the Jewish settlements that are illegal under international law, went through the vehicle checkpoints tightly controlled by the Israeli military, and saw the difference in economic development between Israel proper and the West bank. It’s hard not to conclude that the Palestinians are facing a fate similar to that of our native Americans—marginalized exiles in their own land.
One can certainly argue that the Palestinians should have accepted one of the two-state agreements brokered in the past by American presidents. That opportunity has passed for now. Still, to me, it is sad to watch a powerful, wealthy and largely hostile society relentlessly squeezing the Palestinians into ever diminishing portions of the land that, for centuries, had belonged to them and their ancestors.
One of the West Bank cities we visited was Jericho. The night we spent there was on the last day of Ramadan. Our waitstaff of young Palestinian men were eager for us to finish eating dinner so they could break their fast.
Jericho has been settled for thousands of years. I presume the water supply is the Jordan River. The city is amazingly green for such a desert climate.
Agriculture and tourism are the city’s two main industries.
The lowest and oldest—not sure that’s such a great chamber of commerce slogan.
Archeologists have found no evidence supporting the Biblical account of Joshua’s destruction of the walls of Jericho.
A mountain overlooking Jericho. I have been unsuccessful at identifying the structures built on the mountain. The one in the upper left seems to be a school or monastery, and the one in the center is a cable car terminal. The one on the right may be a home or a small hotel.
A beautiful sunset in Jericho.
Bethlehem is in the West Bank. This is its main mosque.
Bethlehem is a town of about 25,000 residents.
The city’s main industry is tourism, especially at Christmas.
Mother of pearl jewelry and wood carvings are locally produced and popular with tourists.
For Christians the main attraction in Bethlehem is the Church of the Nativity.
To see the purported birthplace of Jesus, one must que up and wait in a slowly moving line leading into a basement area.
And here it is—the fourteen point star marks the exact spot that is believed by many to be the birth place of Jesus.
Unfortunately, Bethlehem is also a symbol of the racial and religious strife in the Middle East. We ate lunch at a restaurant that overlooked this “separation wall” built by the Israelis to restrict access by Palestinians to other areas of the West Bank. Graffiti by Palestinians.
The Israelis decided to build the wall to reduce the incidence of suicide bombings during the Second Intifada in 2002, but they built it well inside the West Bank They say it has been effective in reducing bombings.
Palestinians point out that the wall deprives them of access to the most fertile part of the West Bank and fear that Israel will annex the walled-off land. The U.N. General Assembly has declared that the wall violates international law.
Nazareth is in Israel rather than the West Bank, but the majority of its population is Palestinian.
And Muslim.
The religious attraction for Christians in Nazareth is the Church of the Annunciation.
This is said to be the place where the Archangel Gabriel told Mary about her future.