The Difference Between Two Guidebooks to the Holy Land

By J. David Pleins

I am a Bible scholar. By training and interest I deal with the history of ancient Israel and the early Near East. On a quarterly basis I lead students—via slides, charts, and maps—back in time to years that are often difficult for them to comprehend visually and intellectually. It's my job to make that world come alive" for students.

Such are the interests that have led me to participate in several archaeological digs and surveys in Jordan. It was those interests that took me across the Allenby Bridge in the summer of 1987 to explore the venerated and antiquity-laden sites of ancient Israel. I wanted to see the land for myself and speak about it from my own experience.

My "bible" for that trip was Carta's Israel Road and Touring Guide, published by the Israel Map and Publishing Co., Ltd., Jerusalem. With guide in hand, I saw the old walls of Jerusalem and Beit She'an. I joined ancient armies at the fortifications of Hazor and Megiddo. The Hebrew resistance holdouts at Qumran and Masada came to life.

Like thousands of tourist-pilgrims, I felt I was coming to know the region, and yet there was something unsettling about that trip. The many military checkpoints and separate license plates for Israel and the West Bank hinted that something was amiss. But in the summer of 1987 my agenda kept me on the track to ancient Samaria/Sebastiya, not the road to strife-laden Nablus.

When a Palestinian acquaintance offered to take me to see Gaza, I was not interested. After all, hadn't I exhausted the Philistine realm with my trip to Ashkelon? What could be the point in going to the coast again?

My acquaintance was patient. He took me to see an Israeli settlement outside Jerusalem. Here was a very large housing development, complete with swimming pools, built on confiscated Arab lands. I realized it was misleading to call these places "settlements," as the tent-camp picture this word conjures up does not fit the reality.

My time was limited on that trip, however. I sensed the tenseness of the Palestinian situation, but I failed to acquaint myself with the places that would become household names in December 1987, with the outbreak of the intifada. So much for my intimate tour.

A year ago I had the chance to return for another tour, this time focused on the modern conflict. I was eager to return, but I knew from my reading at home that this time I would have to deal with some disturbing realities of the kind that Carta's guide omitted or distorted in the telling.

The reality of current Palestinian suffering sits uneasily side-by-side with the ancient ruins. To meet the Palestinian victims is to destroy forever the glamorous image of the archaeological landscape. Rubber bullets, overstressed doctors and distraught parents, stone-throwing Palestinian children, Israeli soldiers who will no longer fight in the occupied territories—these were the things I encountered on my 1990 trip. The torn world I toured in 1990 had little to do with the ancient world in which I immersed myself in the summer of 1987.

Consider, for example, the guidebook's treatment of the village of Bar'am, located near the Lebanese border. Carta's guide tells us that a kibbutz was established there in 1949 "on abandoned Arab village lands." It adds that this was an "Arab army base during Israel's War of Independence."

During my 1987 trip, a Palestinian pastor had urged me to read Father Elias Chacour's book, Blood Brothers, published in 1984. The pastor said this book by a Palestinian Malkite Catholic priest was a good way to begin to understand the modern situation. After my return to the US, I read through the book in an afternoon. I couldn't put down the story of Chacour's suffering as a refugee Palestinian child. His discussion of the history of Bar'arn shocked me.

Bar'am was not simply "abandoned" in 1948 as Carta's guide would have us believe. No, my tour book had misled me. During the 1948 war, the villagers of Bar'arn were tricked by soldiers of the Israeli army. An attack was imminent, the Israelis said. The villagers had to clear out immediately. When the villagers sought to return from the olive groves in which they had hidden, the military barred them from re-entering the village. Although they appealed to the Israeli authorities, they lost their homes and farmlands.

Mute Ruins, Absent Palestinians

Where the worlds of ruins, Palestinians, and kibbutzim meet, the Israeli guide clearly wanted to gloss over the unseemly realities. The unsuspecting tourist can't be repelled if he doesn't see the injustice. The ruins stand mute. The kibbutz looks like an innocent social experiment. The Palestinians are absent.

My tour last March led me to Ibillin, where Father Chacour now lives, works, and writes. His message, as a Palestinian Christian leader, remains as forceful and as vibrant as his earlier writing. After seeing the actual daily oppression of the Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza, I was ready to listen to this bearded sage on the situation of Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

This time I would have to deal with some disturbing realities.

Father Chacour raised the difficult question of whether "church and synagogue can survive together. " He asked us to consider whether Zionism, i.e., the notion of a Jewish state, can be "viable in a pluralist society, " when the reality is that Zionist Israel took Palestinian land "by conquest, not by rights. " From Chacour's experience of Zionism, the "Jewish state has nothing to offer the Palestinians except death. " A society like Israel's that is driven by conquest, an endless quest for military security, and by fear inevitably turns its victims into new enemies.

Chacour reminds us of the amazing restraint of the intifada in this context. Palestinians who have lost their homes, water resources, prime agricultural lands, and many lives have waged an essentially nonviolent struggle for well over three years.

"The little rocks of kids are more powerful than all the armies of the Arab world," Chacour tells us. He refuses to justify violence. He condemns "those who force people to violence. " Palestinians are " shaking off the dust and burden," which is what the Arabic word "intifada" really means.

Palestinians know what it will take to build their own state next door to Israel: Empowerment and security achieved by their own hands. As Chacour explains, the Palestinians "have recognized the existence of Israel. Now justice must be implemented for the Palestinians."

My familiarity with the Holy Land is a bit more complete now. I am no longer content to stay on the ancient paths. Following the tour books to ancient ruins does not give us a real feel for the "Holy Land." That comes from getting to know its people and their tragic story.

J. David Pleins is an assistant professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA. The book described in this article, Blood Brothers by Father Elias Chacour, is available from the AET Book Club catalog.