TELLING STORIES

As I begin this series of postings I have thought long and hard how to present our trip to our friends.  Allie and I traveled to Palestine and Israel and were there November 18 - 27.  I am going to try to adopt the thought of Father Ibrahim Nairouz, our host and friend.  He says , "Come and feel and see.  I do not want to persuade you or convince you to think as I do.  Once you see and feel Palestine and Israel, then you can make up your own mind"
In this blog, I will only present the facts that I have seen with my own eyes and heard from first hand accounts.  Once you have read....then it is up to you to decide where you stand on issues of the Middle East.  So.... here we go. 
The photo above is of the predominantly Muslim city of Nablus, Palestine on the West Bank.  It is from here that our Palestinian workcampers have come for the past two years. There are only 700 Christians in the entire city and it's villages.  There are 4 Christian churches...two Anglican, a Catholic and a Greek Orthodox.  Father Ibrahim Nairouz is the priest of St Philip's Episcopal Church in the old city of Nablus and also Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Rafedia.  We were invited to stay in their home. 
Allie is finishing up her Master's degree at Columbia Theological and is writing her thesis on the Palestinian issues.  She interview many people and we both photographed many things.  Allie also took some videos that I will try to display here. 

 We were told when we flew into Tel Aviv not to mention Nablus or any of the Palestinian cities we were going to when we went through security and customs.  Above is a photo of Sami & Rula.  Sami is not permitted to be in the Tel Aviv airport because his paperwork is Arab/Palestinian.  Rula, his wife is an Arab, but was born in the Israel city of Haifa, so her paperwork and license plate have Israeli documentation.  We expected Rula to be picking us up because Sami could be placed under arrest if stopped at the checkpoint or airport. 
Our flight from Paris to Tel Aviv was filled with Hasidic Jews dressed for prayers, a smattering of French tourists and at least one Zionist.  I know that to be true because I sat beside her for four hours on the plane.  No one spoke to each other.  It was a very solemn flight.  Before the plane took off, the lady next to me and I struck up a conversation.  She told me of her "chicken" business and how she traveled to many cities throughout Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.  I felt comfortable saying to her that we were staying most of the time with friends in Nablus.  Her demeanor changed.  She turned to me and asked if they were Palestinian.  I said yes.  She asked me if they knew they were on "God's peoples' land" and immediately I knew I had made a wrong decision to talk with her.  She began to tell me how dangerous it was where I was going, not to go to visit the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem because the Arabs had caused some troubles there in the past few days.  She said to hold tight to Allie's hand because she would go for a "pretty price" in this area where we were with our friends.  She said to not be surprised by the smell in West Bank because Palestinian like to burn things, especially their trash. She asked is she was being too personal, and I said yes.  She offered me cough drops and we didn't speak again until landing.  It was then as she departed the plane she said," Well, you two can be our little spies and maybe our little spies will bring back a good report from the other side of the wall."
Above is a picture of Sami & Rula.  There is no denying he is a tall Arab man that stands out in the crowd.  During our customs questioning we said only that we were visiting Jerusalem and visiting holy sites and Christmas shopping.  As we rounded the corner, the airport was solemn and quiet except  (I do not exaggerate or embellish) for Rula & SAMI jumping up and down and waving a welcome sign made by their children.  They hugged us, scooped us up and said we needed to get out of there quickly, that Sami was there illegally.  It was the beginning of my new appreciation of the word "freedom". 
We left the beautiful architecture and lights of Tel Aviv and drove through the night to Nablus.  As we rounded the dark Harwarwa checkpoint, I was thankful there were no soldiers on duty.  We were told 7 people had died at this checkpoint.  Three of them were pregnant women begging to be allowed to go to a hospital in Israel to give birth.  They were shot by Israeli soldiers. 

This is the sign we were greeted with as we entered Nablus.  As we drove through the night passing a fire alongside the road , burned out cars and the refugee camp, we got closer and closer to the old city and the church.  Above also is a photo of the ever present black water tanks atop all Palestinian homes .  They because a familiar site. and also a way to identify Palestinian homes from occupied homes.  Nablus' water and electricity are regulated by Israeli control.  Our friends in Nablus only get water flowing into their homes twice a week, so everyone runs as much as they can and collects it in the large black containers on their roofs to ration for daily use. 
We turned up the narrow driveway to the school, church and rectory of St Philip's Episcopal with Sami honking the car horn loudly.  Inside the church were about 30 families with about a buffet of about 23 dishes  spread out for a feast and our welcome.  After our long journey, we were finally among loving and hugging friends.  It felt so good....