Marhaba!

Marhaba!  (Hello in Arabic)

I was posed these questions as a message on Facebook, so I wanted to answer them here.  PLEASE, if you ever have any questions for clarification, just post it as a comment.  I would love to respond so that others can learn.  Anywho, here are the questions:

Are all Isreali's Christian or Jews and are all Palastinianes Muslim or is there a mix of every religion in each side? Have you asked any of the Isrealies what the history is on their side?

Answer: There is a mix of all three religions on both sides. Palestinians are predominantly Muslim. Israelis are primarily Jews, but there are all three religions represented.  Muslims speak Arabic and Jews speak Hebrew here.  So, we're taking Arabic lessons, because Muslims are predominant.  In fact, the Old City in Jerusalem is divided into four quarters and used to house a different religion/culture in each: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Armenian.  The Christian section is pretty much dying down.  The population here is less than 2% Christian.  The issue that is happening in Palestine is that there are Jewish settlements that are forming.  These settlements are intentional Jewish communities filtering into the Muslim communities.  

The only Israeli I've actually talked to is an Israeli who was born in the United States and moved here for college and remained here.  She is a tour guide with the Alternative Tours program; we did a political tour of the region with her, which is much different than your standard, 'follow the umbrella' tour.  Anyway, her perspective was still biased towards Palestinians.  The Israeli perspective is important. They see the wall as security. It, in theory, keeps the "terrorists" out, who bomb their buses and such.  This is difficult though, because there are still points where people can cross without anyone stopping them, but they're way out of the way.  This means, the checkpoints really just inconvenience everyday travel for people.  It can take two hours to get to work in the morning, for a site 15 minutes away.  If someone wants to bomb Israeli buses, they're going to take the time and effort to travel much further out of the way to go cross the Green Line (the line where the Wall is being built to divide West Bank from Israel).  I'm not really sure. I haven't heard many solid arguments for the Israeli side, seeing as there is so much oppression on the Palestinian side. The Palestinians can take up to two hours getting somewhere that should take 15 minutes, in their OWN "territory", since they're not seen as a country. Like, that's not even crossing to Israel.  The big issue with the Wall is also that there is a long disputed history over whose territory is whose.  Check the Wikipedia article for a better explanation, but basically, Israel is taking over more than 50% of the land, which was originally discussed in the 1948 plan (I think).  Palestine was originally supposed to consist of half of the land, including the West Bank (of the Jordan River) and Gaza Strip.  

Does that help at all?  I hope so.

Some other random notes for the day...
We stopped at the Palestinian Authority Compound (their center of government, basically) to visit Yasser Arafat's tomb.  This progressed into one of the Palestinian soldiers to get in our van to show us where the entrance to the tomb was.  Crazy.  He must of been rather high-ranking too, because EVERYONE saluted him.  We had to stop at this gate and he told us that we had to wait to enter the compound, because the president was coming.  So, we ended up being about 25 yards from the President of the Palestinian National Authority.  Sweet.  All in a day.  

We had some really negative interactions today though.  For instance, today was the first day of Ramadan, which, if you don't know, is a major religious holiday for Muslims.  It includes fasting from sun-up to sun-down.  Fasting means no food or drink...at all.  We were in Ramallah for a meeting with a NGO called MIFTA, and we went looking for lunch.  This was difficult, because many of the restaurants and shops close for Ramadan observance.  They re-open later at night, when Muslims can eat.  We were recommended to go to this one place.  We walked in, were seated, given menus, and watched an order of hamburgers and Cokes go to the booth back in the corner.  We were the only people there besides said hamburger booth people.  We looked at the menus for awhile, only to have the guy who seated us come over and tell us that they weren't serving food today in observance of Ramadan.  He seemed to feel bad and offered to call around and find another place for us.  He called and found nothing.  This really struck me as odd.  Something didn't line up.  I really felt like we were being discriminated against.  I wasn't really offended, I suppose, but more just surprised. 

The second distressing part of the afternoon was the checkpoint.  I don't really know how long it took us to get through the checkpoint, because I was asleep until the point Martin asked us for our passports to get ready.  We were easily there for 40 minutes only about 6 cars from the booth at that point.  While sitting there, we had a man approach the van and start cleaning the windows.  Martin yelled for him to stop and 'No, thank you' in Arabic, but he continued.  After he finished, we did give him 2 sheckels, which isn't much, but it's all we could find...and it was actually unwelcomed.  This was fine.  Then, another man started wiping all of the first man's streaks off the glass.  He came around the window and asked for more money.  We knew they were together.  Martin told him that we didn't have any money and that he had paid the first guy.  He persisted.  Martin actually put the window down to explain this and the guy put his hand in the window, so Martin couldn't put it up (without hurting him).  This scared me, I'm not going to lie.  He eventually took his hand out, walked around the entire van and stared at each of us.  We all looked straight ahead.  We were trying not to acknowledge him, which was difficult to ignore another human being.  This was especially so, when we learned today that the unemployment rate in Palestine is 50%.  He kept walking though and was eventually so frustrated that he punched the van.  This was pretty intense.  

Alright, I think that's all I have to say for now.  It's been a rough day.  It's the first time I've actually felt out of my comfort zone, which is good.  God needs to rock me and shake me.

Here I am, Lord.  Is it I, Lord?  I have heard you calling in the night.  I will go, Lord, if you lead me.  I will hold your people in my heart.