The Middle East conflict has deep roots and hard-to-find answers
The following reflections on the Middle East conflict are from a laypersons perspective and certainly not that of a government diplomat or academic student of the Middle East.
The following reflections on the Middle East conflict are
from a laypersons perspective and certainly not that of a government diplomat
or academic student of the Middle East.
There is absolutely no claim of any kind as an authority. I
write simply as someone who has talked to people on both sides of the Jordan
River – leaders of government and people on the street – during five
trips to the Middle East, two of which were as a guest of the Israeli and Jordanian
governments.
With the unrest in Israel growing more and more violent, the
following is presented in the hope that it will help readers gain some informal
understanding of the conflict raging in the area that Jews and Christians call
the Holy Land.
Jordan and Israel 23 years ago
My first trip to the Middle East was 23 years ago. Technically,
Jordan and Israel were still at war, although the actual fighting had stopped,
except for some border skirmishes, small guerilla raids and retaliatory strikes.
Incredibly, several editors of Baptist state papers were invited
jointly as guests of the Jordanian and Israeli governments. We visited both
countries and received a substantial amount of government propaganda from each.
My impressions then were that Jordan was very much a Middle
East, Arab, Moslem, third-world country. Most of the buildings in Amman were
older. It was like going back into the 1930s. The people were struggling to
enter the modern age, but Jordan has no oil and no real national export except
potash, and that is nothing upon which to build a national economy.
The dominant religion – and perhaps social force –
in Jordan is Islam or the Muslim religion. However, there are about 8 percent
of the people who say they are Christian, whether that means socially or by
belief and practice.
One of our stops in Jordan was one of the three large refugee
camps to which tens of thousands of Arab refugees from the west side of the
Jordan River had fled, mostly during the Six Day War of 1967.
The refugees were an enormous burden on a Jordan that could
barely care for its own. Without the help of the United Nations and some other
countries, they could not have done so.
One can imagine the bitterness in the camp toward Israel and
the world for allowing the Jews to take and keep their land. Still, the people
were incredibly hospitable as they struggled to go about their daily lives.
We saw medical workers doing their best to care for their patients in makeshift
facilities and teachers teaching in almost lean-to buildings. But that is the
way the entire camp was.
As we crossed the Allenby Bridge on the border between Jordan
and Israel, which then was the only connecting road between the two countries,
I remember vividly the gun towers on each end, one manned by heavily-armed Jordanians
and the other by heavily-armed Israelis. They were about 100 yards apart. The
tank traps and concrete bunkers in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere also reminded
us that the war was a strong and still-present danger.
My impression of Israel in those days was that it was struggling.
The cost of the wars had been enormous, and the Jewish population still was
relatively small. One of the countrys main concerns was that many young
people were fleeing the hardships of life in Israel with its high taxes and
mandatory military service and real possibility of war. Some of the brightest
Jewish young adults were moving to Europe and the United States, ironically,
the places their parents and grandparents had left to establish the nation of
Israel.
In some parts of Israel, bullet holes still were visible in
many of the buildings, reminders of the wars that erupted again and again in
that country.
We spent one night in a kibbutz in northern Israel on the Sea
of Galilee. Every person of teenage years and older carried an army rifle at
all times. About every 30 minutes, a truck carrying a tank moved north on the
highway. They were preparing for another skirmish with Syria. The residents
of the kibbutz did not seem to notice the tanks, or at least, they did not stop
to watch them pass.
I remember our guide showing us bomb shelters – a frequent
sight – which she said cost a then-quarter of a million dollars. Certainly,
that reflected the value Israel placed on one Israeli life, she said.
While located in the Middle East, Israel was – and is
– very Western. The leaders of the then-20-year-old nation primarily were
from Europe and the United States. Money flowed from the west to help Israel
establish itself. For instance, the United States government has supported Israel
for years to the tune of about $3.5 billion a year currently.
The Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews were very visible, although
a large percentage of Jews in the country were religiously non-practicing –
but Jewish by birth.
One could see many Arabs in certain areas, but the greater
populations of the cities definitely were Western Jews.
I left that trip unable to shut out or disregard completely
what either side had said and what I had seen. I could not forget the conversations
with the Israelis who said they had to act with force against Arabs committed
to destroy them. They emphasized the fact that the United Nations had given
Israel the right to land in Palestine, their ancient homeland, but had refused
to protect them there militarily.
I also could not forget the older Palestinian man who had lived
on the same land his ancestors had farmed for generations, but who now was in
the refugee camp, unable to return home to the West Bank of the Jordan, now
controlled by Israel.
Conflict dates back to Genesis 25
I came home with my studies in biblical history vivid in my
memory. The Middle East conflict actually started thousands of years ago with
the conflict between the twin, but very different, sons of Isaac – Jacob
and Esau.
Jacob stole Esaus birthright, and Esau became an East
of the Jordan figure, and Jacob became a West of the Jordan figure. Jacob became
the father of Israel, and Esau became the father of the Edomites – or Arabs.
The conflict between the two always was strong, building frequently to hatred
and resentment and war.
By the time of Christ, Israel had been under Roman rule from
around 63 B.C. The Jews kept rebelling, and the Romans did not take kindly to
rebellion. Finally, Jerusalem was destroyed in 72 A.D. after a rebellion –
and the Jews were scattered across the known world, especially Europe.
The number of Jews living in the land of Palestine remained
small after the destruction of Jerusalem in 72 A.D. In the early 20th century,
there were about 12,000 living in Palestine. The number increased from 12,000
in 1845 to nearly 85,000 by 1914. Anti-Semitism in Europe fueled the Zionist
movement and a migration of Jews back to Palestine.
Establishment of modern Israel
The state of Israel is the culmination of nearly a century
of activity in Zionism – or the movement to establish a modern nation of
Israel in its ancient homeland of Palestine.
In 1922, following World War I, Great Britain received Palestine
as a mandate from the League of Nations. Meanwhile, the struggle by Jews for
a Jewish state in Palestine – which had begun in the late 19th century
– increased, growing quite active by the 1930s and 1940s.
The militant opposition of the Arabs to such a state and the
inability of the British to solve the problem led to the establishment of the
United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in 1947. This committee devised
a plan to divide Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with a small
internationally-administered zone that included Jerusalem. The Jews accepted
the plan; the Arabs rejected it. Thus, as the British began to withdraw in 1948,
Arabs and Jews prepared for war.
On May 14, 1948, when the British pulled out of the country,
the state of Israel was proclaimed at Tel Aviv. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt,
and Iraq invaded Israel, as most Palestinian Arabs fled from Jewish territory.
By the time armistice agreements were reached in January 1949, Israel had increased
its land holdings by about one-half.
Jordan then annexed the Arab-held area adjoining its territory
west of the Jordan,which included West Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Egypt occupied
a coastal strip in the southwest, which included Gaza.
Later in 1949, Israel moved the capital of the nation from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to strengthen its claim to that city. It also allowed
the return of 150,000 Arab refugees, mostly to reunite families. However, a
major aim of the government was to gather in Jews who wished to immigrate to
Israel. Israel desperately needed more Jews as permanent residents.
Border clashes between Israel and its neighbors never stopped.
Every square inch of soil was contested, especially through increased Syrian
guerilla intrusions and shell attacks.
On June 5, 1967, Israel struck against Egypt and Syria. Jordan
subsequently attacked Israel. In six days, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and
the Sinai peninsula of Egypt, the Golan Heights of Syria and the land of Jordan
on the West Bank of the Jordan River, including the Arab sector of East Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was unified under Israeli control for the first time in modern history,
and Arab guerillas stepped up their incursions into Israel, operating largely
from Jordan.
When I was in the Middle East for the first time in the 1979,
the borders between Israel and her neighbors were guarded with the utmost care.
Our vehicle stopped at one point, and I walked over to the high, razorwire-topped
fence for a closer examination. We got back into our vehicle and continued our
journey, but in a matter of minutes, a truckload of heavily-armed soldiers stopped
us. What I did not realize is that I had left footprints on a plowed security
area near the fence that lined the border between Israel and Jordan. Footprints
could have meant a guerilla on a terrorist mission.
More war
On October 6, 1973, on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Egypt
and Syria attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Other
Arab states sent contingents of soldiers to aid in the attack on Israel.
After losing much of its air force, Israel initially was driven
back in the Sinai and from much of the Golan Heights. But they were able to
reverse the momentum, clearing a path to Cairo and driving the Syrians even
further back before a United Nations cease-fire went into effect on October
22-23.
During its short modern history, Israel has experienced three
major wars: The War of Independence, the Six Day War, and the Yom Kippur War.
And even after the official wars, there always has been armed conflict of various
scales.
Since the Yom Kippur War, a number of efforts to bring peace
to the region have been spasmodically successful and unsuccessful – but
peace never has had much of a chance.
Instead, one is left with a nation filled with animosity, hate,
distrust, the memory of bitter wars and violence and a yearning for land claimed
by at least two different groups of people.
The primary tensions in Israel are caused by the occupied Golan
Heights that Syria claims, the Gaza Strip that Egypt claims and the West Bank
– including Jerusalem (especially East Jerusalem) – that Jordan once
claimed but which has been given, in theory, to the Palestinians.
Almost all of the residents of these areas are Arabs, most
of whom are Moslems, but they are under the control of Israelis. The partial
exceptions are parts of the West Bank and Gaza, that are under the protection
of the Palestinian Security Force, established as part of the Camp David accord
and currently dominated by invading Israel troops and war equipment.
Most of the Palestinians living in the area say the West Bank
and East Jerusalem should be returned to them as an independent state. This
is where Yasir Arafat comes into play. He is the head of the Palestinians living
in the West Bank area. He leads a very diverse people who call themselves a
nation but who have no land to claim and no other real state powers.
This group insists that every time the Jews build a settlement
or town or village or housing addition in the disputed region, it lessens the
chances of the Palestinians ever getting the area back. Every time the Jews
build a settlement in the West Bank, the settlers there become targets of Arab
protests and even bombings, and the residents grow more opposed than ever to
turning the land over to a Palestinian state.
Let me say that not all Arabs or Palestinians agree with Arafat
and his views, and not all Israelis agree with their governments policies.
Unity is rare, even among nationalities
Perhaps there is not a clearer symbol of the conflict between
the Jews and the Arabs than what is called the Temple Mount. The temple mount
is where Solomon built the first temple for Yahweh worship in what is now Jerusalem.
That temple was destroyed by Babylonians in 587 B.C.
In 520 BC, reconstruction of the temple began and was completed
around 516 B.C. It was extensively renovated and remodeled around 20 BC. This
was the temple that stood at the time of Jesus, the one destroyed by the Romans
in 72 A.D.
Later, while in control of Jerusalem, Moslems claimed the temple
mount as their third holiest site. There are two very important Moslem buildings
on that site now. The Moslem Al Aksa Mosque is on one end of the mount, and
the Dome of the Rock, where Moslems believe Mohammad departed for a trip to
heaven and back, is on the other end. This is the gold-domed building seen in
panoramic photos of Jerusalem.
Many, if not most, Jews want the temple rebuilt on this site.
Some Jews say the messiah will not come to earth until the temple is rebuilt
there. Some Christians also believe the temple must be rebuilt before Jesus
will return.
However, the only way the temple can be rebuilt on its original
site is to destroy one or both of the two Moslem holy buildings. If that were
done, every Moslem on earth would march against Israel.
Thus, it comes down to one site in Jerusalem, vital to major
segments of three world religions. How can the issue be settled? Unfortunately,
Solomon built the temple and died before he could give us an answer.
I do not know if there is much of a way for those of us not
directly involved to understand the thoughts and feelings of the Arabs in Israel.
While the Arabs theoretically have all the opportunities Jews enjoy, they really
are much like a minority race in the United States. This means it is not that
simple.
Also, it would be something like Mexico and the United State
having a war and Mexico taking the city of New Orleans and Louisiana territory
from the gulf to I-10. The rest of Louisiana would want that land back, and
the residents in that occupied land would want to be reunited with the rest
of Louisiana. Everytime Mexico would establish communities of Mexicans in that
area, we would resent it, and we would accept that as meaning that Mexico probably
had designs on the area other than just giving it back to Louisiana. That Mexico
held the land and took it in war and could enforce their control over it would
not make it easier for Louisianians to accept, nor would it ease our resentment
against Mexico.
On the other hand, the Jews are determined to reside in their
ancient homeland and to maintain their military strength and natural borders
to ensure their safe existence. One can understand their feelings toward Arabs
as a whole, because Arabs as a whole have pledged to do away with the nation
of Israel. The Arabs constantly harass the Jews and instigate violence against
them, and the Jews react with terrific force. In this kind of action, both groups
grow more determined to resist and, yea, even defeat the other.
Return reflections
When I went back to the Middle East two years ago, I was struck
by the tremendous progress Jordan has made. Amman has taken giant steps economically,
educationally and technically. Unfortunately, King Hussein took the side of
Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, and Jordans oil-rich Arab brothers have
turned their backs on her. Jordan receives about $400-million annually in aid
for the U.S., but much of their aid from Arab countries has slowed or stopped.
Nevertheless, the people there have freedom of religion, and
they have a genuine respect for other peoples beliefs. In addition, Israel
has signed a peace treaty with Jordan.
Israel also has made remarkable progress. They no longer encourage
immigration by paying the way for people to settle in the country. They struggle
with traffic jams, rapid growth and a diverse population. Their next threat
surely will be urban sprawl. They are increasingly well educated, industrialized,
high tech, and they grow almost all of their own food, amazing for a tiny country
that has significant arid areas.
Unfortunately, many Christians living in highly-contested areas
of Israel are caught in the middle of the conflict, such as the Arab Christian
owners of Kondos Holy Land Antiquities and Gifts. During my most recent
visit, the owners showed me the Israeli gun tower just across the street, as
well as a partially-constructed hotel a block or so away. They said gunfire
had been exchanged between the two places the previous day.
The next day, my traveling partners and I heard what sounded
like thunder. We discovered later it was explosions. The Israelis had sent helicopter
gun ships in and demolished the hotel from which Arabs had been shooting at
the Israelis. The Kondos suffered some $70,000 in damages to their store.
They just shrugged and said, “We are caught in the middle,”
which I think probably speaks for a lot of people in Israel.
Arabs in Israel
The role and place of Arabs living in Israel is not easy to
understand. After all, Israel was created for Jews, and the Arabs certainly
are not Jews. Some have adapted to living in a Jewish state. To this casual
observer, they seem to work in most levels of the Israeli economy. But it also
seems they hold most of the laboring jobs in Israel. Our guide said something
interesting. A man was cleaning the street, and something came up about his
race. The guide said simply: “That is an Arab. A Jew would not be cleaning
the street.”
A friend familiar with the Middle East once asked, “If
you could snap your fingers and have happen anything you wanted to settle this
conflict and let people live happily and peacefully together, what would it
be?”
I thought for almost an hour and then told him, “I cannot
think of a way to bring peace and make everyone happy.”
He said, “Thats the problem, no one can.”
In recent years, the Israeli government apparently offered
Arafat some 95 percent of what he had asked for a peaceful settlement. He refused
the offer. Even the leaders of most Arab nations were aggravated with him for
his stubbornness.
But when I asked some Arabs why Arafat rejected the offer,
they said simply: “Trust. There is no trust that what the Jews say, they
mean. And the Jews do not trust the Arabs. Without trust, there is no peace,
and there will be no peace.”
Incredibly, in a land where people greet one another with “Shalom,”
which means peace, there is no peace. In the homeland of the Prince of Peace,
there is no peace.
Many signs and symbols in Jerusalem say, “Pray for Peace in Jerusalem.”
That is the most important action anyone can take. Prayer often seeks miracles,
and if peace comes to the Middle East, it will be a miracle that no one can
deny.