I was in Israel in the early part of December, 2017. It was a Catholic tour, a group of 208 people. Most were Filipino Catholics from Los Angeles - some were part of a Filipino-American choir who had been invited to perform at the Christmas tree lighting at Manger Square in Bethlehem. The tree lighting was a wonderful chance for Palestine to to show off a bit, to show what a civilized and credible nation it has become.
Our tour company is owned by an Arab Israeli who lives in Los Angeles. We stayed in Arab-owned hotels in Bethlehem (Palestinian State), Nazareth (Israel, but a totally Arab city), and East Jerusalem. Our tour guide was an Armenian Christian citizen of Israel. He said that both Christians and Muslims feel like second-class citizens in Israel, and generally both Christians and Muslims have the same perspective.
I had been in Israel in 1999, and I loved it. Our tour guide was Jewish, wife of the #2 man in Customs in Israel. We stayed in Jewish-owned hotels and saw things mostly from a Jewish perspective (although we were a Catholic pilgrimage group). We were supposed to have our last day free in Jerusalem, but our guide offered us a tour of Jericho, the Dead Sea, and Qumran for $30, and I couldn't pass it up. But I had wanted to walk the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, and I missed that chance. I signed up for three tours of Israel after that, but two were cancelled because of the poor economy and unrest in Israel, and the third was overbooked. I finally got my chance last month.
It was a very nice tour, but my main goal was to spend a day by myself, walking the walls of the Old City. The day that worked for me was Thursday, December 7, and it looked like it would work very well. But then, Trump annnounced on Wednesday that he was going to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. All hell broke loose, and the U.S. Department of State issued travelers' advisories. Our tour guide advised me that it was unwise for me to go to the Old City alone. But I decided that since I had been in Egypt in hotter times, I'd go anyway. So, I went. I got hopelessly lost, but I kinda didn't mind. I finally found the Old City, and spent the day there. I wasn't able to walk the walls around the whole Old City, but I did have time to walk the northern portion. I got to the Damascus Gate, and there was an orderly demonstration there. The demonstration was mostly young women chanting anti-Trump slogans, and there were a few young men being carried away by Israeli security. I wished I had been with those women chanting against Trump, but I don't know if they would have been able to understand. I'm glad I went on Thursday, because there were rubber bullets and tear gas at Damascus Gate on Friday. The Israeli soldiers were all young and seemed very intent on asserting their authority. That's a recipe for problems.
If you'd like to take a look here are my photographs:
So, anyhow, after I got home, I found a small article in my favorite Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter. The article said that Israel is building a high-speed rail system that will carry passengers from Tel Aviv to Israel in 20 minutes, and now they are planning to extend the line under the old city of Jerusalem to an underground station that will be named "Trump Station." I was aghast. The railroad line, slated to open in 2019, sounds like a good idea. But why would they tunnel through an area with four millennia of achaeological treasures to build a railroad stations? And fer crissake, why name it Trump Station?
I can't find the brief National Catholic Reporter article, but tthey did have a link to a longer Associate Press article that may have been the source of the article I read. Here's a good article on the topic in the New York Times, replete with a really weird photo of Trump in a yarmulke at the Western Wall.
-Joe-
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