ZioNation - Progressive Zionism and Israel Web Log

Jewish peaceniks, Christian visitors, and the Israel-Palestine problem

The cabdriver tells me he hasn't set foot in Jerusalem's Old City in 18 years. Before the first intifada, he used to eat there three times a week, he says, but now he is afraid.

"It's too bad," he says, adding that when he was growing up, between the Yom Kippur war and the first Lebanon war, Arab friends used to visit his parents on the Jewish side of Jerusalem, and they would cook lamb over a fire. Later, as an adult, he used to drive to Ramallah or Tulkarem to shop or repair his car. Israelis were kidnapped and murdered in both places early in the second intifada, and Israel now forbids its citizens to visit there.

It's too bad, we agree.

The driver wants to know what business brings me to the Old City this evening. It's not business, I tell him. I am going there as a volunteer of MidEastWeb for Coexistence, to make a brief presentation to some foreign activists who have come here under the auspices of the World Council of Churches. They have invited speakers from some peace organizations working in Israel.

Continued...

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Joseph M Hochstein on 11.22.06 @ 06:29 PM CST [link]