My trip to the Holy Land

There is a great irony that when I posted this blog originally I had hoped and prayed that the situation in Gaza and the people of Palestine might have got better. And when I wrote this after my trip to the Holy land in 2013 I wanted to tell others what I had seen. But with the original blog below I want to make it quite clear that things have not got any better as I sit here in 2017 in fact for many things have got progressively worse. I have just been watching a you tube clip about the plight of the Palestinian people to see that in Gaza now 50% of people are out of work. There is no freedom of movement for these people. Hebron is a ghost town. All for the sake of security. People have to be made aware of the injustice that is happening there so I am putting the links on this blog with my original blog. 

I think that as you can see these situations and their lives have not changed. To truly understand the plight of these people our brothers and Sisters who cannot live in freedom. 




I thought that I would write a little about my thoughts and feelings about my trip to the Holy Land this year. Above you get the iconic view of what we think of the Holy Land. This of course is the city of Jerusalem. But the Holy Land is more than this. It is a mix of people, customs , traditions and religions. When I last went to Israel in 2011 I went as a tourist not looking I suspect for too much. I had a great time and stayed in Jerusalem. We never saw the wall and never really spoke to the people who live there and the issues and problems that they go through.

This time was very different. We not only saw the Holy Places of both Israel, Jordan and Palestine. We  met the living stones of the Holy Land. There basic message was " Tell others what you have seen."

I had the perception probably with the rest of the western world that Israel was right to want a land of their own. And so I started my Pilgrimage with feeling close to God and to the real man of Jesus. As we celebrated the first mass it was really emotional as I read the Gospel where Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep on the lake of Galilee. It was comfortable.

This comfort was short lived. As we journeyed closer into the Holy Land and started to meet the people who lived there we got a very different story. This different story was made visible in a very real way when we were on the way to Nablus. This place steeped in history was shut of from the rest of the world for 10 years. We had a struggle ourselves to get in a check point on the way into the town showed for the first time the underlining tension between the people of Palestine and Israel. The people of Nablus told us that the Christian community had srunk to almost next to nothing in those then years.There is also very little opportunity for work and the rent for young families who want to stay is well above the wages they get.The tension you can feel in the streets although the people there seemed very pleased to see us.  This map shows you how many check points there are in the West bank. It was bad enough for us let alone for a Palestinian wanting to get anywhere in a hurry.  There is one road that they are allowed affectionately called the "fire road." Traveling down this road one can see why it is called it. It is a very twisty and very often dangerous corners. It is called the fire road because there have been many accidents down that road.

One of the major places that we stayed in is Bethlehem. We used this as a base for Jerusalem. This meant going through the check points at the wall both on the way in and way out. 

 
The reality  of this does not immediately concern the average pilgrim.  But, when you start talking to the people who have to live with this reality it is a different story.

We met those who live in and around the wall we all came painfully aware of the impact of a structure. For those who live on the Palestinian  side of the wall does not have freedom of travel. They have to get a permit to go back wards and forwards. One person was telling me that his Mother had died in Jerusalem and naturally he had wanted to go with his family. They gave him permission to go but not the rest of the family. 

This lack of freedom has a knock on affect on jobs and wealth in the area. One of the parishioners in Bethlehem told me that he had not left there for 15 years. Imagine not being able to get out of say Bognor Regis without great difficulty for that amount of time. 

These people that we met are the living stones of the Holy Land. They are the people for whom we are trying our best to help. The people and the places have had a lasting effect on me. I will never forget the people I met. There are many other experiences that I have had in the Holy Land but they are for another time. These are my own views and I feel that there are some that would disagree. But, I am only doing what a wise old priest said to me " tell others what you see with your own eyes." And that is all I have done.