Worcester Telegram, MA
Sunday, September 16, 2007
A visit to Israel, Jordan and Lebanon in 1967
[ On the one hand, the Israelis were exuberant about the recent war,
which had left them in possession of all of Jerusalem. On the other,
there was an undercurrent of anxiety for the future.]
`God’s Warriors,’ the perceptive CNN documentary by Christiane
Amanpour on the religious fundamentalists of the Middle East, brought
to mind my own visit to that region 40 years ago.
I landed in Beirut on Sept. 16, 1967, with a group of American
journalists traveling, courtesy of the U.S. State Department, to
report on the fractious situation in the Middle East. In the past four
decades, some things have changed not at all, others markedly.
Only three months before we arrived, in what was called the Six-Day
War, Israel had resoundingly repulsed the invading armies of Egypt,
Syria and Jordan and had seized crucial parts of the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem. That part of the city had been under Arab
control for more than 1,000 years. Before that, Jerusalem had long
been linked to Jewish history, even in the days when the Romans,
Syrians, Babylonians and others held sway there.
The city was, and remains, a cauldron of ethnic and religious
passions, a focal point for Jews, Christians and Muslims.
I have to give a little background to younger readers who may have
little knowledge of how the disclosures of Nazi atrocities in World
War II affected a whole generation of people in the West, including
Americans. For more than half a century, people have been trying to
understand how a modern state, even one driven by a fiendish ideology,
could set up a huge, enormously expensive industrial complex aimed at
physically eliminating a whole people from the earth. More than 5
million Jews were murdered by SS death squads and in death camps like
Auschwitz, where their remains were burned in monstrous
crematoriums. In the long, bloody history of massacres and atrocities,
the Holocaust remains uniquely horrible.
That was the background of the founding of Israel in 1949, when it was
immediately attacked by Arab armies from five different
nations. Israel repulsed that attack, and another one in 1956, and
then again in June 1967. Our visit in September was confined to
Israel, Jordan and Lebanon because diplomatic relations with Egypt and
Syria had been broken off.
We were royally wined and dined everywhere. In Lebanon we were served
an elegant dinner al fresco, under palm trees with brooks running
underneath. We were taken by boat into the great grotto, with its
spectacular views and dripping walls. We visited the massive Roman
ruins in Baalbek. On the way to swank government offices in Beirut, we
passed by the dismal camps of Palestine refugees from the war. We
talked to Lebanese Christians, Muslims and members of the Armenian
Church. They all had different takes on what had happened and what the
future would bring. The Muslims, in particular, were grappling with
the reality that Israel was in the region to stay. It would not be
driven into the sea.
But, according to many we spoke to, Israel would be accepted only
under conditions – the same conditions that Israel has rejected from
the start – giving up the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
restoring refugee Palestinians to their property, etc. We heard
versions of the same argument in Amman, the capital of Jordan, which
we visited in the days following. This was long before we had even
heard of Hezbollah, Fatah, Hamas and the other radical Arab and
Palestinian groups. We did not know that Islam was divided between two
bitter rivals, the Shia and the Sunnis. Al-Qaida was far in the
future. We were really uninformed about the Middle East and the
Arabs. Our questions must have seemed naïve.
We arrived in Israel on Sept. 21, the first non-refugees to use the
Allenby Bridge across the Jordan River since the end of the war in
June. Our last stop before crossing the boundary was at the refugee
camps of Shuneh and Numrin, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian
refugees were packed into tents in the searing heat of the Jordan
Valley, hundreds of feet below sea level.
Israel was one surprise after another. On the one hand, the Israelis
were exuberant about the recent war, which had left them in possession
of all of Jerusalem. On the other, there was an undercurrent of
anxiety for the future. The biblical dream had been achieved but there
was hatred on all sides. We began to see the complexity of things when
we visited the Western Wall where the Temple once stood many centuries
ago. Jews in skullcaps prayed rhythmically at this ancient Jewish
shrine. But above, on the flat terrace, we visited the Dome of the
Rock, with its splendid mosque. That is a place revered by Muslims,
for it was from here, according to Islamic belief, that Mohammed
ascended physically into heaven and met Allah face to face.
And if we needed any further instruction in the complexities of the
Middle East, we found it at the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre, a famed
Christian shrine since the 4th century. Some Christians believe it to
be located on the spot where Jesus was crucified and buried. But it is
hardly a model of Christian charity and understanding. It is
controlled mainly by three Christian groups, Roman Catholic, Greek
Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic who have sometimes resorted to fist
fights to maintain their special status. Jerusalem does not always
bring out the best in people, whether they be Muslim, Christian or
Jewish.
The Israelis were model hosts. We visited battlefields, littered with
smashed tanks, cartridge shells and other debris. We had an audience
with Prime Minister Eshkol, who seemed devious about the issue of
Jewish settlements on the West Bank. We visited a kibbutz, one of
those communes so important in the early history of Israel. We visited
former Prime Minister David Ben Gurion at his retirement home in the
Negev desert. Mr. Ben Gurion, a spry 81, said that his country’s
future depended on the addition of 3 million Jews over the next 20
years. Even then Israeli leaders were concerned about the
demographical problem posed by the high Arab birthrate.
I will never forget my visit to the Holy Land. It was thrilling to be
in those fabled places that I learned about in my Sunday school days –
Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Jordan River and all the rest. And there is
no question that Israel has performed a miracle – several miracles, in
fact, in building a vibrant, modern, democratic society in a place of
limited resources and surrounding hostility.
But it has been done at a price. And much of that price has been paid
by the Palestinians who once lived there. They have been pawns in the
Middle East power game, and, with many of them still confined in
squalid refugee camps, they still seek justice.
But the Middle East, despite its noble and holy traditions, its
martyrs, saints and warriors, has often found justice in short
supply. That was the case in 1967 and remains so today.
Albert B. Southwick’s column appears regularly in the Sunday Telegram.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
