Like this:

I am so sorry for not updating this sooner.  I know that it is a lot to leave people with… we’re going into a foreign land and we don’t know what will happen and then never revisit the blog- poor blog etiquette at the very least.

If you’d prefer not to get enlightened on some tough realities at this point, you can simply check out the rest of my photos from the remainder of our trip here.

While in Israel we met some AMAZING people and I think that has been the purpose of this trip while really getting a pulse on what is going on in Israel.  I can assure you that it wasn’t the kind of eye opening that I had wanted.  Some things were worse than I had thought and others were better.  In the end, there are more questions in my head having been over there and thoughts of blind allegiance to a country who doesn’t follow God began to have me reconsider my support for Israel.  Rather, it’s the Zionism that is quite dangerous here in the states and over there.   The idea that Israel can do no harm something that many Israeli’s have given up on including those most religious and committed to God.

The military occupation is bad.  Not only is it illegal based on the UN resolutions from 30 years ago, but it has been painted to us in the United States as defense mechanism.  Palestinians attack, Israel builds walls to protect itself.  If you are the party with all the land, all the ammunition and control every gate, entrance, and border… are you really just protecting yourself or are you occupying an area as a military dictatorship would?  These are legitimate questions and ones that I believe the church will need to answer as we come in contact with an oppressed people who are not allowed to leave their walled camp for medical attention, a livelyhood, or anything else for that matter.

In Bethlehem along, we entered the gates that civilians cross.  Note, the tour busses on the way into Bethlehem take a different route that does not have a wall that Westerners can see.  After we saw the church of the Nativity we were asked to enter a large room with about 50 other Palestinians and a couple travelers.  The Israeli guards stood above us with their huge automatic rifles and paced above on a catwalk.  We stood there for 30 minutes and waited.  We were one of the last groups who came up to the line so it’s tough to tell how long people were there.  Perhaps the process was super intense with full body frisks?  As we experienced what many Palestinians, who still have Israeli citizenship, did… we started thinking what if you had to wait in a room everyday for work, perhaps an hour both ways, not  to mention a commute.  Somedays they wouldn’t let you through.  Then they started letting people in and everyone rushed to the front and got uncomfortably close.  I Palestinian woman fainted but didn’t want to leave the line for fear it could be another hour before they let her in.  She was revived and moved through.  We were somehow pushed further back and the guards began letting about 4 in at a time, but sometimes the one way, full body revolving gate would just close and jerk people in.  We finally got through an airport security like setup and a lady simply looked at our passport.  That was it?  It was all a flexing of the muscle and a way to show dominance over someone else.  They could have moved us through in 5 minutes!

Someone explained it this way…the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestine, are like big houses.  The Palestinians may live in their own rooms in these areas of the West Bank/ Gaza.  Although,  if they want to leave their room and go to another room, they have to check with people to ‘use the hallway.’  No matter how close or how regular you might be.

This was my experience and I saw the walls and the real people inside these walls and I could help but wonder, ‘what would Jesus do?’ It seems that His Kingdom was for the meek and the lowly, the downtrodden and those looking for answers and a home.  I am completely for Israel, their people, their right to this land… but I am completely for these Palestinians who are living in an Apartheid that we are unknowingly endorsing- not because we are evil, but because we aren’t getting the facts.  I am for Palestinians and their right to the land.  The promise of Abraham and Issac was not at the exclusion of Ishmael.  The lineage of both these two sons is still there today and that is who has controlled the land since then.  Could it be that God would have them share this land?

I tend to take a Biblical and religious stance to this, but if you have the time and would be willing to see what the rest of the world sees when Israel and Gaza are in the news.  I can not encourage you more to view this documentary on what we have been missing since 1967.  There are a few who are taking a stand and educating others, but they are a minority and are being silenced systematically- many of them Jews.  Take this as you will, but I was changed after watching this.  Peace, Propaganda, and the Promise Land. Viewer Discretion is advised.

I understand that this is one of the things you don’t talk about and I understand that you may not agree.  All I can say is that this is what lined up most with my experience and it’s worth telling and getting some people informed about why much of the world disagrees with our foreign policy.  Not as much about Iraq and Afghanistan, but our blind allegiance to what is happening in the West Bank and Gaza.  In the end, it’s much bigger than foreign policies and could hold the keys a much bigger Kingdom coming and much bigger walls falling because of His reign.

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