Playing the Victim

Last updated on: March 6, 2013 at 6:35 pm by Daniel Harrell

Playing the Victim 2013-03-06T18:35:16-04:00 Daniel Harrell

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

While in Jerusalem last week, with plans to go to Bethlehem, the US State Department issued a travel warning against US citizens entering the West Bank. There had been violence protests on one street over ongoing Palestinian prisoner treatment in Israel. Disappointed, we canceled our Nativity visit, only to be persuaded to change our mind by the Israeli Arab Director of the Jerusalem YMCA. “The American State Department and news media tends to overreact,” he said. The reason in this instance probably had to do with President Obama’s pending visit to Israel and the West Bank this month. Steeled now to resist our government, we loaded up the tour bus and crossed the checkpoints bounded by the imposing wall, exchanging our Jewish Israeli guide for a Palestinian one. Turns out that Jesus was born in a cave.

Coincidentally, we’d spent the morning at Yad Vashem (Israel’s Holocaust Museum). Walled afterwards in what felt like a Bethlehem ghetto, one of our traveling company remarked: “Israel is doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews.” Gas-chambers excepted.

Israel claims the wall to be for security’s sake. Given Hezbullah and a collapsing Syria to the north, an increasingly Islamic Egypt to the South, a belligerent Iran just over Jordan and so many Arabs who reject Israel’s right to exist (Israel doesn’t even appear on Palestinian maps), security makes sense. And then there’s the Holocaust. Israel knows how the world feels about Jews.

For the Palestinians’ part, their strategy seems to be to out-suffer Israel. With heavy unemployment, high poverty, denied statehood, encroaching settlements, walled territory and restricted movement, theirs is not a hard case to make. One conservative, pro-Israel Republican on our trip admitted to moving more toward the middle. Nobody wins here. It’s a race to the bottom.

The Biblical animosities fester with no end in sight. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness, meaning, I guess, there is no hope for mideast peace.

Daniel Harrell

Previous Post

March 5, 2013

The Poetry of an Erased de Kooning

Next Post

March 8, 2013 Relax, People: "The World is Not Ours to Save"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Alex Blondeau Authors Daniel Harrell Daniel Siedell Dawn Duncan Harrell Kyle Roberts Uncategorized Wyndy Corbin

Select a Month November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the Roman centurion first baptized into the Christian faith?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Felix Gallio Cornelius Festus