Israel Part 1

Having just returned from my thirty-third trip to Israel I found the situation as complicated as ever. This is not an attempt to take sides-just to report an experience.
I said to an Arab-Christian friend in Bethlehem, “I  understand some of the extremist holdouts from the stand-off at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem are trying to get back in the country.”
Calmly but confidently he said, “Those were not extremists.” I wanted to interrupt and assure him they were because I heard it on the news in America. He went on to say he was supposed to be one of them. Just before the most recent invasion of Bethlehem that precipitated the stand-off word got out there was going to be a raid by Israeli Security forces to arrest a few known extremists and in the process a number of other innocent persons in order to intimidate them to keep the terrorists from gaining popularity.
My friend’s influential father in America, knowing of the pending arrests, called his son and told him to go to the church as a sanctuary against arrest as an innocent person. As he was leaving to go to the church a nun from a convent called and told him to come there for safety. He elected to do so and therefore wasn’t in the Church of the Nativity.
As the siege continued and interest in his whereabout waned, he returned home. His wife picked up the story at this point saying that during the shelling of their neighborhood she kept the children in a basement room. There she played loud music and played games with them to try to prevent them from understanding the gravity of what was going on as debris from exploding shells crashed through their home.
Against that background he shared that the people with all differences can get along with each other. It is the political leaders who cause the problems. He related how Israeli friends called their home several times during the bombing to enquire about their welfare, asked if they had food, and offered to bring them food.
After the conflict ended, business in Bethlehem was very bad. He owed several Jewish business men elsewhere in Israel significant money. Each called and urged him not to worry about the debt, that they knew things would get better and when they did he would repay them. Things have improved significantly and he has repaid them.
Several things about that conversation stand out. Our news represented those in the church as all being extreme terrorists. They were not. A few were but others were simply seeking sanctuary against being made an example of. That slant was never in the news.
Next, the citizens with different religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds can co-exist and in general do.
The courage of the populace is amazing. Israelis live with the threat of terrorist bombings and Arabs of further incursions into their neighborhoods.