Tensions Flaring

Things are getting worse in Jerusalem...

I had a great time with my mother and brother during their visit here. We traveled around a lot and kept a pretty busy schedule, filled with holy sites, historical sites, and (most importantly) interactions with people on the ground here who could tell us about their experiences midst the ongoing conflict and occupation. We kept up with the news everyday, usually multiple times a day, so as to know what areas to avoid while touring around. Tensions here are like a pot kept at a slow simmer: you never know when things will heat up enough to turn it into a roiling boil.

These last few weeks have seen an increasing number of attacks within the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as surrounding cities. If you've been keeping up with the news, you've likely heard of the numerous stabbings of Israelis by Palestinians. You may or may not have heard about the attacks on Palestinians being carried out by settlers living in the West Bank. Or about the adolescents being killed near the wall in Bethlehem and Gaza, hurled stones being met with live ammunition.

It's a complicated situation. Wrongs are being done on both sides, and innocent people are dying - also on both sides. Most recently today there was an attack on an Israeli bus by a Palestinian, wounding 16 and killing two. There was also an instance of a Palestinian driving his car into a crowd of people, wounding several and then getting out of his car and stabbing those injured. Whether or not individuals are labeled as "terrorists," terror abounds.

I spoke to my landlord's sister-in-law yesterday afternoon. As I've said before, the apartment I live in is owned by a Muslim Palestinian family, and is comprised of several different apartments within the same building, in which their family owns and lives in. This woman is the mother of the four children who I interact with on occasion (they love that I now have a puppy, by the way).

She wears a hijab (a scarf covering her hair), and so is easily identified as a Muslim when out and about. She told me how she has not left the apartment for several days now, out of fear.

"I am worried," she said, in perfect English, "that someone will see me at the grocery store and believe me to be a terrorist and shoot me. Then they will claim that I had a knife."

Her fear is not unprecedented, as reports of an 18-year-old Palestinian girl who allegedly stabbed an Israeli man have come out, questioning whether it really was a knife she was pulling from her pocket, or a pair of sunglasses. There is no real way to know, however, as eye-witnesses on the scene offer opposite accounts, depending on which side they fall on.

It is just so unfortunate. Fear has roots so deep, and people on both sides are concerned about the safety of themselves, as well as their children. Both Israeli and Palestinian schools have been striking, parents refusing to send their children to areas where they might be in danger.


Yesterday I woke up with a severe pain in my neck caused from tight muscles, perhaps from sleeping on it wrong. It got worse throughout the day, and so I made an appointment with a massage therapist for the evening. It was a Jewish woman living in Jerusalem, who has a small massage room in her house where she treats only female clients, being of a more conservative faith.

She called me an hour before my appointment to confirm that I was in fact coming. Evidently she had several other cancellations that evening because of the unrest sweeping the city. I confirmed that I would be there, and two bus rides later, I knocked on her door. I discussed a little bit with her about the current situation, asking why people would be cancelling, since her neighborhood was solely Jewish, and thus not a "flashpoint" area.

She said people everywhere are just afraid. And even with her neighborhood being only Jewish, Arabs work at the grocery store down the road, and so that makes her wary. She asked me about my living situation (I had told her I lived near the Jewish town of Gilo, since I have learned that telling people the name of the real village where I live gets reactions of shock and disbelief).


"There are Arabs living near you, aren't there? Near Gilo?"

I weighed my reply. "Yes. There are Arab villages and Jewish villages both."

"That is very scary. I hope there are none in your building, at least?"

Again, I must choose my words carefully. "My neighborhood is very safe. It has been very quiet, even with all that is going on in town."


I wonder what she would have said if I had told her the truth: that I live in an Arab village, down the street from a mosque. That the family who owns my building are Muslim. That the night before I spent three hours having tea and cake with my landlord and one of his friends, discussing the Qur'an and Jesus, joking with them when they would have to use their phones to translate an Arabic word into English during conversation.

What would she say if I told her that both of them are music teachers in an elementary school here? That one of them went to school to specialize in teaching children with special needs? That the other traveled the world as a professional musician before settling back here to help take care of his family? What would she say if I told her that both of them believe in a God who wants peace, not violence, that they pray for an end to all of the terror, the same as she does? The same as we all do?

I know I live in a land of dichotomy; a land of constant juxtapositions: between the holy and the profane, between peace and violence, between Muslim and Jew, between Palestinian and Israeli, between hope and despair. But it is still challenging to comprehend a day where I have two parallel conversations with two parallel women - both faithful, both mothers, both afraid, and both blinded by the societal divisions that seem to be tearing this land apart.

I pray that the violence ends. That peace can somehow be restored. But I don't know what that will look like. I worry that the past injustices and injuries on both sides simply run too deep for authentic reconciliation to occur. I worry that the God of all three faiths present here is being co-opted and misquoted by those who have only their own interests at heart. I worry that the suffering will continue.

I hope my worries are proven wrong.