Stupid Terrorists

I, for one, am glad that the terrorists we have at the moment seem to be a spectacularly stupid and incompetent bunch. OK, they probably won't stop short of world domination, but I'd rather have incompetent terrorists than the IRA any day.

I've taught a lot of bright Muslim kids. I'm glad they don't go in for terrorism.

I don't agree with Scott Adams that the (considerably more competent) terror attacks on Israel are necessarily stupid. Their purpose seems to be to a) to get the 72 raisins they are expecting if they die as martyrs. b) to keep reminding the Muslim world that they should attack Israel. Of course, they'd be much more sensible to try non-violent resistance if they genuinely think they're being oppressed by the Israelis.

Israel 10 - Archaeology

Without passing any comment whatsoever on the politics of the area...

One thing I found really striking was that at almost every archaeological site we visited (rather than churches which had been there for 1700 years), the archaeology started shortly after the modern state of Israel took control of the area. So lots started in the late 1940s and early 50s. In the West Bank, which Israel only got control of in 1967, the archaeology all started in the late 60s. And in Jerusalem, the archaeology was being done almost entirely by Jews and opposed by Arabs. Certainly interesting...

In other news, I'm far too busy at the moment.

Israel 9 - Politics and Propaganda

Being a somewhat tense area of the world, there is an awful lot of propaganda doing the rounds in Israel and Palestine. And sadly, there seem to be very very few people who seem to have fully understood both sides of the argument. We did find one Christian Palestinian guy who was nearly there and was doing excellent work with trying to get reconciliation between individual Palestinian Christians and individual Jewish Christians.

The best single bit of propaganda we came across had to be at Masada. Basically, it was a pretty much invincible fortress. It's a small mountain, a few hundred metres high (though the top is only like 50m above sea level because the bottom is near to the Dead Sea). The top 50m or so all round is essentially cliff face, and they'd built a fortress into it.

(Some of the view from the top, showing bits of the fortress and one of Herod's palaces up there. Note also how far away the background looks.)

In AD66 or so, the Jews revolted against the Roman occupation, so the Romans eventually sent an army to crush them. Masada was the last place held against the Romans, in AD73/74. The Romans, being clever, captured it by forcing expendable slaves to build a huge ramp up one side, therefore making the fortress pregnable.

The Romans brought up battering rams, broke a hole in the wall, but all the Jews committed suicide rather than fighting or being captured. (Incidentally, in a similar situation at Gamla few years earlier, one Jewish guy had been part of the suicide pact, rigged it so he was the last one to die, then handed himself over to the Romans and ended up commanding one of their armies against his own people. Nice.)

Anyhow, at the visitors' centre at the bottom of Masada, there was a video presentation about it. And given that it's kind of hard to spin "Our last few soldiers committed suicide rather than fight" in a good light, they managed to do an exceptionally good job. They had an archaeologist telling the story, but with the decision being between death and slavery. It ended up with the archaeologist saying to another guy something like "I'm really impressed that they chose death over slavery. What would you do?"

Anyway, quick outline of both sides' views, as I understand them.

Neither side (Israeli / Palestinian) really considers the other lot to be human.

Israel was set up in 1948 with stupid and indefensible borders (like having a 10m strip round one side of Lake Galilee, but there's lots of examples). Their experience suggests that they aren't going to get on well enough with their neighbours to be able to trust them with borders like that, so in 1967 they conquered big chunks of land to give them more sensible borders. Hard-line Israelis want control of all the area, but there aren't many of them. Most of them just seem to want security, which includes not having Palestinians (or anyone else) blow themselves up in wedding parties. They therefore do whatever it takes to stop those things happening. And if that means having roads that Palestinian-registered cars can't drive on and having a great big concrete wall around some Palestinian towns with checkpoints, that is what it means. It doesn't actually seem to be apartheid - Palestinians living in Israeli areas (e.g. central Jerusalem) seem to have much the same rights as other Israelis, but it's not an ideal situation.

Palestinians aren't happy about Israel controlling as much land as they do. They see themselves as owning all the lands which were conquered by Israel in 1967. So if Israel decides to build some more houses on land which the Palestinians think they own, even if they don't have deeds to the land, they get very unhappy. They are also very unhappy that when Israel built the big concrete wall, they often built it right round the edge of Palestinian areas, sometimes even through Palestinian-owned land. The hard-liners, of whom there aren't very many, want Israel wiped off the face of the Earth. The moderates want all of what they see as their land back and don't seem to see the treaty signed by Yasser Arafat which gave up some of the West Bank in return for autonomous government in the rest as binding. Though they quite like having their own government.

It gets even more complicated when it comes to Jerusalem. Both sides want to control the Temple Mount, and neither side is going to give in.

Some of my, probably very controversial thoughts:

• Politically, conquest is a legitimate method of getting to own land. If it isn't, it would be well-nigh impossible to establish ownership of any bit of land anywhere in the world, because it's pretty much all been conquered by someone at some stage. Part of the purpose of taxes is to pay for protection for your ownership of land and property. That seems to go completely against a lot of modern assumptions, but I just don't see how taking any other position holds together, unless you want to deny that it is possible to own land at all.
• On the other hand, tyranny is also wrong. If lots of people live somewhere, and they all want independence, it's generally right to let them have their own government. And yes, I know there's a lot of tension between these first two points, and they lead to all kinds of questions about squatters and stuff.
• It's better to solve problems by looking at the current situation and thinking about the best way forwards than by dwelling on the past too much.
• If Palestinians feel oppressed, violent resistance is likely to get there precisely nowhere. Non-violent resistance, on the other hand, might well get them somewhere if they are feeling aggrieved, especially with the importance of world media. Where is the Gandhi of the Palestinians?
• If Palestine is independent of Israel, then both sides can do pretty much what they want with border checkpoints and enforcing the border, if there is an agreed border. But if they are independent, Israel shouldn't have checkpoints inside Palestine (and Palestine shouldn't inside Israel).
• Both sides have been hugely at fault in this conflict, and are unlikely to be able to move forwards unless they both recognise that.

Israel 8 - Silly Signs

Well, it had to be done...

In this church, you weren't allowed to wear underwear or carry guns, but it was essential to eat Pepperami.

This one banned legs and eating cocktail glasses. Dogs were not allowed to look up.

One wonders how much English-speaking custom they got. Or maybe it was a brothel.

This one was almost certainly intentional, but worth showing coz it's kind of cool.

Israel 7 - In the Desert

It was really quite surprising how close the desert is to Jerusalem. Seems to be popular with monks and other people wanting quiet or to be on their own. Lovely pictures, but I'm not sure I'd like to live there...

Monks lived in these caves...

One of the caves they stored scrolls in at Qumeran.

View from near the top of Masada.

Sunset over the Wedi Qelt (and my current computer desktop background).

Israel 6 - Fake and Genuine

We had two guides on the trip to Israel. One was a local Christian of Armenian ancestry. The other was a lecturer here. One of the things I really appreciated about our non-local guide was that he made it a lot easier to tell what was genuine and what wasn't. There does seem to be a strong tendancy for not-quite-genuine things in Israel and Palestine. The worst culprit was quite possibly "the tree Zacchaeus climbed".

(Note the way it doesn't look anywhere near 2000 years old. I guess that's miraculous preservation or something.)

It was an interesting choice of our driver to stop by that tree in Jericho, but not to stop at the Tell (archaeological hill) containing the ruins of one of the oldest cities on Earth.

If we'd just had someone telling us "this is the tree Zacchaeus climbed", "this is the place where Jesus was crucified", we'd have had a heard time telling which ones were genuine and which ones weren't. But the honesty about the implausibility of some sites made the genuine sites more impressive.

Though another interesting take on it was which sites seemed genuine. Although the Church of the Resurrection quite probably was the original site of the crucifixion and resurrection, the Garden Tomb site was much more genuine in the sense of bearing a closer resemblence to what the original was like. Oh, and the garden was nice, even if it was a modified version of the later English gardening movement, which I read the other day was a product of the Reformation.

The tomb has been left in the rock-face, you can go into the ante-room and see into the burial chamber. And there's a lovely sign on the entrance saying "He is not here. He has risen."

I think the Garden Tomb was probably the best venue we visited, and one of the very few to make an effort to explain the significance of what went on.

Israel 5 - The Church of the Resurrection

The Church of the Resurrection (the Orthodox name for it) or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (RC name for it) is built on what we're pretty sure is the site of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It was great to be in the same place that Jesus died for me and then rose from the dead all those years ago.

One of the ways that Christians celebrate being united in Jesus' death and resurrection there is by acting like small children. For example, inside Jesus' tomb (you can't actually see the original rock - people were too keen on souveniers and the Christians were too keen on ecclesiastical bling so it's all covered up - there is a ledge for candles. The ledge is split into three sections - one for the Greek Orthodox, one for the Roman Catholics and one for the Armenian Orthodox. That's really mature, guys.

Inside the church itself, there are areas run by the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenians. The Syrian Orthodox and the Egyptian Orthodox also use little bits of the church. After a nasty argument (or running out of money or something), the Ethiopian Orthodox were "lovingly" expelled to the roof, so they have some monks living on the roof of the church. Apparently, the Egyptians also claim the roof, and a few years ago a riot broke out after the Egyptian monk sitting on the roof (to assert ownership) moved his chair from its usual place because he wanted to sit in the shade.

The Christians there also exhibit their great maturity in other ways. For example, there is a ladder on a window ledge. It has been there for over 100 years, because they can't agree whose job it is to move it.

The same kind of idea applies to the building - "the edicule" round Jesus' tomb. It has seriosuly needed repairing for getting on for 100 years, but they haven't got round to it yet. Apparently, while Jerusalem was under British rule, the Brits got so fed up with the arguing that they put some big girders round the outside to hold it together. They're still there.

There was also quite a lot of damage done to the building in a big fire in the early 1800s. Bits of it still haven't been repaired, because they can't agree whose responsibility it is!

I guess one good thing about all of this silliness is that it shows us that we are still stupid sinful human beings, and we still need Jesus' death for us just as much as we did 2000 years ago.

Israel 4 - Mad Caliphs

Jerusalem has of course been under the rule of lots of different groups over the years, and for most of the last 1500 years it has been under Muslim control. And many of the Muslim rulers have no doubt been very good and competent. But as with any selection of rulers, some of them have been completely potty...

For example, one of the gates in the city wall is known as the Golden Gate, and is in the East side of the city wall, opening directly into the temple mount area. Or it would do if it hadn't been bricked up by Sultan Suleiman I in 1541.

Allegedly, his reasoning went something as follows:

In Ezekiel 43:4, in a passage about the permanent restoration of the nation of Israel, God's glory returns to the temple through the East gate of the temple. This had become strongly associated with the idea of the Messiah coming (coz the Jews acted like they didn't notice that Jesus was the Messiah). So in order to stop the Messiah coming and God's glory returning to a rebuilt temple, he bricked up the gate. Because God and the Messiah are really going to be stopped by a few bricks. They also then put a Muslim cemetary just outside the gate, because that would make it a ceremonially unclean place, so good Jews (including Elijah, if he came in front of the Messiah) couldn't use it anyway).

But I think the prize for maddest ruler of Jerusalem probably goes to Caliph Tariqu "The Mad Caliph" al-Hakim who reigned from 996 until 1021. Among other things, he allegedly banned:

• eating grapes
• women's shoes
• watercress
• chess
• working in Cairo during the daytime
• dogs - he actually ordered the killing of all dogs in Egypt because their backing annoyed him
• Christians from riding horses, unless the saddles were wooden

He was also a big fan of killing people, sometimes killing them himself. I've read somewhere that one of his hobbies was paying young men to climb up a tower in his palace, then jump into his pool. The problem was that the pool wasn't directly underneath the tower, and the results were sometimes a little messy. But perhaps that's why he liked it.

But his most spectacularly stupid act was ordering the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre / Church of the Resurrection, built around the site of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. In doing so, he caused a huge rise in concern for Christian access to sites in Jerusalem which was one of the factors leading to the Crusades. I'm aiming my next Israel blog to be about that church.

It's probably worth adding that the Druze religion holds that Caliph al-Hakim was the incarnation of God. That probably started from one of his courtiers trying to keep his head for significantly longer than the average, but it seemed to stick and al-Hakim encouraged them, even if he didn't explicitly claim to be God himself... Odd - C.S. Lewis's famous mad, bad or God argument seems relevant here, especially as al-Hakim was so plainly both mad and bad.

Unsurprisingly, he died in suspicious circumstances. It's thought his sister hired assassins to kill him before he killed her.

This is an equal opportunities blog. I'm willing to lay into anyone.

Israel 3 - The Greek Orthodox Church

One of my strong impressions during my time in Israel was to do with observing different denominations and how they ran the establishments they were looking after. Especially noticeable in this was the contrast between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholics. Put simply, the difference was that while the Romans sometimes had wonky theology (like building a church with chapels for Moses and Elijah on the mountain where they claimed Jesus had told Peter not to build shelters for Moses or Elijah), they usually did it with moderately good taste, and in some cases very good taste. The Greeks seemed to have not only severely wonky theology, but also appallingly bad taste.

Here are some of their particular howlers...

Are they in the least bit trying to be incarnational? Are they recognising that Christianity started in Jerusalem or that it is possible to be non-Greek and Christian? Are they seeking in any way to reach the local community? No, they're flying Greek national flags on all of their buildings. In Israel.

(picture from Wikimedia as mine weren't as good). This might look like an overdone year 9 project where the kids have discovered how to use shiny stuff but not how to do faces (notice the faces are flat and painted) or that sometimes there can be too much shiny stuff. This with about 17 bazillion dirty gold-ish coloured lamps is the Greek Orthodox chapel on top of the rock of Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. And it looks like an overdone stage-mock up of a cross between Aladdin's cave and a junk shop.

This is from the Church of the Nativity, marking the site of Jesus' birth. Note the incredibly tacky and cheap-looking Christmas tree bauble.

Again from the Church of the Nativity. Note the massively over-huge dirty chandeliers and the general atmosphere of decay. Note also the rope stopping people from going there. Yes, they let you into the cave where Jesus was born (which is under the bit pictured), but they don't let you at the front of their church because that bit is too holy.

Just for comparison, here are a few pics of Roman Catholic churches...

St Peter's Gallicantu, remembering Peter's denial of Jesus.

The Basilica of the Annunciation, built around Mary's house in Nazareth.

Church built over (yes, on stilts so you can see the original site of) Simon Peter's house in Capernaum.

And through the gap under that church, it is possible to catch a glimpse of the Church of the Pink Blancmange (Greek Orthodox, probably not its real name).

Israel 2 - The Dome of the Rock

Lots of potential to offend here... In fact, the Dome of the Rock and surrounding area is just about the most politically sensitive area in the world. In fact, an old fat politician just visiting the area managed somehow to trigger the Second Intifada. I'm neither aiming to offend or not offend here - I'm simply aiming to describe the world the way I see it. On the right is a picture of me not seeing the Dome of the Rock.

It's pretty certain that the area was the area used for the Jewish Second Temple (as built in Ezra and Nehemiah, as enlarged by Herod and as visited by Jesus. Jews claim (with pretty good evidence) that it was also the site of the First Temple (destroyed in 587/586 BC), and before that the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite which was bought by David in 2 Samuel 24. Muslims deny at least some of that, mostly because it would mean that the Jews were probably the legal owners of the site, which they claim was where Muhammad ascended into heaven from (that's at one end of the site, covered by the Al Aqsa mosque).

The Dome of the Rock is built over a rocky outcrop on the site, thought to have been the actual threshing floor of Araunah. A later tradition also identifies it with the rock where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac in Genesis 22. The Muslims, of course, claim that it was Ishmael who was nearly sacrificed (though that claim doesn't seem to appear in the first 2000 years or so of the story being told, but that sort of thing never really seems to worry Muslims much).

It is a very noticeable and beautiful building when seen from a long way away.

It is even more amazing from a hundred metres or so away.

But close up, it becomes very apparent that it is in fact the most prominent and famous building in the world to be built almost entirely out of horrible 1970s B&Q-style tiles.

The Dome of the Rock is meant to be one of the key early examples of Islamic art. It is therefore interesting that it actually seems to have been commissioned by Muslims, but designed and built for them by a group of Syrian Christians....

Israel 1 - Big Impressions

I've recently got back from a trip to Israel / Palestine, hence the lack of blogging recently. I've got lots and lots of things to say, but it's a good idea to start with my biggest impressions of the place.

It was awesomely amazing to be able to walk where Jesus walked. We were following the book In the Steps of Jesus, largely because the author was our tour guide. The book is well worth a look if you're into that sort of thing. One of the things that I hope will really stay with me is a knowledge that I've been where Jesus was born, where he grew up, where he preached, where he died, where he was buried, where he rose again and where he left the earth to go into heaven (well, pretty near that last one).

On the other hand, it was really sad to see so much of the rubbish. The way that the Jews and Palestinians treat each other. The way that although there are great Christians on both sides and indeed working to bridge that divide, that is not always obvious from the way they go about things. The way that all too often the historic "Christian" communities in the land seem to be merely societies for the preservation of their own history in opposition to others. The way that the Greek Orthodox churches all fly Greek national flags. The fact that of all the sites we visited, only a handful actually made any effort either to explain what was going on or to tell people about Jesus.

Here's an example of that last one, from just outside the church at Gethsemane:

(The picture at the top was taken through the window of the chapel of Dominus Flevit, which commemorates Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. By the time I left I could understand more clearly both the rejoicing in Jerusalem and the weeping over Jerusalem that are found in the Bible.)