Traveling
through the Middle East
Land of history and tenuous hope
By Father Gregory J. Fairbanks
Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Part I, Israel
Recently I have had the opportunity to make two trips to the Middle
East.
From Jan. 29 to Feb. 5, I traveled with the Jewish Community Relations
Council (JCRC) as part of an interfaith contingent to Israel.
In addition to me, the group consisted of three rabbis, several Protestant
ministers, a few lay Catholics and Protestants, and the lay director
of the JCRC, Burt Siegel.
It was my third trip to Israel. In each of my trips, I was there with
groups and itineraries that shaped the experience.
The Connelly Foundation funded a two-semester course in Jewish Studies
for Catholic Educators, which was cosponsored by Villanova University
and Gratz College from 1996-1999. I took part in the third year of that
program, which included a three-week educational trip to Israel in January
1999.
I returned to Israel as part of a Catholic Pilgrimage group of priests
and seminarians for Easter 2001. The interfaith trip this year was more
focused on dialogue and interfaith understanding.
My 1999 trip was focused on learning about Judaism and the land of Israel
in the Jewish tradition. That trip included stays in several kibbutzim
as well as meetings with educators and religious leaders of the Jewish,
Christian and Muslim faiths. It included a home stay with a Palestinian
Christian family in Beit Sahour in the West Bank, a home visit to a
Jewish family in the Golan Heights region, and a home visit to an Israeli
Arab-Muslim family in Israel proper.
When I was on religious Pilgrimage in 2001, the Intifada was at its
peak. There was hardly a tourist in sight, and the mood of the country
was palpably downtrodden.
This year, as our group prepared to depart for Israel, a representative
of the Israeli Consulate in Philadelphia explained that if we spent
a day in Israel we would understand it — but spend a week, and
we would be confused. Spend a year, and we would find ourselves unable
to fathom the situation there.
We were there a week, and we were confused.
What were the main differences I experienced this time in Israel? The
most pleasant difference was snow. I had not seen snow before in Israel,
yet we landed during several days of snow. Seeing snow in Galilee and
Bethlehem was a memorable sight.
Traveling with persons of varied faith traditions was a real treat.
Our group was religiously diverse, especially among the Christians.
As committed religious, most of us clergy, we had an opportunity to
share and experience not only the sociopolitical realities of the Holy
Land but also to share our religious experiences together in the birthplace
of our faith traditions. An oft heard comment on the trip was that it
took the Jewish community to bring about an ecumenical dialogue among
Christians.
On the negative side, I saw the infamous “wall” dividing
Israel from the Palestinian territories. It is not a wall everywhere
— in many places it is a fence. But it is a powerful visual image.
Traversing to Bethlehem this time was quite different than my two previous
trips. In both of those trips we merely changed buses as we entered
the Palestinian areas. This time we went through the wall to change
buses, going through border controls.
The difference in appearance between the two sides was striking. The
Palestinian side looked like we were entering into a poor inner city
neighborhood, literally “on the other side of the tracks.”
On the other hand, there is relative peace now. Israel experienced its
first suicide bombing in a year while I was there this February. In
2001 there were several suicide bombings per month.
Another striking difference was the new Pope Pius XII exhibit at Yad
Vashem, the National Holocaust Memorial in Israel. Part of a larger
section on the lack of response by the world to the holocaust, or Shoah,
as it unfolded, the display panel on Pope Pius XII is controversial.
It has been a cause of concern between the Vatican and the state of
Israel since its recent opening. Without going into all the details
about the display, it is quite inaccurate, or at the least misleading.
It emphasized the need for continued dialogue even among our communities
which, fortunately, have good relations.
During a meeting with the director of the Department for Religious Affairs,
Bahig Mansour, I brought up the problem of Catholic priests ministering
in Israel, or in the Palestinian areas, and having difficulty traversing
between their homeland and their missions (the issue is mostly with
Arab priests from predominately Muslim countries, including Jordan,
which has diplomatic relations with Israel). Mansour is a Druz, one
of the many religious minorities in Israel. He assured me the problem
was real, and that it was being addressed, and pointed out a recent
policy change to aid the foreign priests. He quickly gave me a written
copy of the new policy. I was impressed at his willingness to discuss
the issue, and found hope in the progress being made toward resolving
the difficulty.
On the positive side, there were many good and hopeful signs. One thing
I have been impressed with in both of my trips under Jewish auspices
is the real attempt to allow each side to present its own views to the
participants in the program. Although our trip this year was short,
we did hear from Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Muslims and Israeli
Jews from the wide range of political factions concerning negotiation
with Palestinians. The mood I felt in my sliver of experience there
this year was a mix of hope in the peace of the moment with a fatalism
that lasting peace may never be realized.
I did sense that Israelis want peace, and are willing to negotiate for
it. They want security and freedom from having to live in fear of terror.
While I had less contact with Palestinians, the few with whom I did
have encounters gave the same general feelings. The “right of
return” (of Palestinians who were forced from their homes by fear
or war in Israel) remains a difficult sticking point.
Next week I will offer my reflections on my second trip this year to
the Middle East, this time to Jordan and Egypt.
Father Gregory J. Fairbanks is the director of the Office for Ecumenical
and Interreligious Affairs of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In June,
he becomes an official in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity in Rome.