Oh well, I have already finished blogging about the entire Holy Land journey. Why then do I dedicate another post to the Holy Land visit? This is all about my personal feelings and reflections and not representative of what Israelis speak about or what my role as an educator should be.
The story about Palestine and Israel. If one were to take a good look at history, it would not be difficult to see that for most of Israel's history, the Moslems had been there. The Dome of the Rock has been there since 600AD and though it was converted to a church by the crusaders, subsequent Moslem reign ensued its continuity as a religious site for the Moslems. We asked the guide about why the Jews had allowed the site to be under Palestinian rule despite them having the authority over the land and the old city. It is most likely that they do not want to wage another religious war which will hamper their rebuilding efforts. After all, they are a race that has undergone extermination and preserving their culture and population should be their utmost priority. I feel upset because if indeed, Abraham and his followers were the intended recipients of the State of Israel, why is it that they are not able to have their holy site back? That should have been where the Temple Mount would be, if not for the Romans and Moslems. I do not know if I am biased in determining my stand but I sometimes feel that the Moslems should just return Temple Mount to the Israelis. After all, Jerusalem was never mentioned in the Koran unlike Mecca or Medina. They had identified Jerusalem as the edge where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to Heaven but this was all based on rumors and hearsay. But Jerusalem was clearly recorded in the Torah for the Jews and the site means so much to them. If you take away something that does not belong to you, sooner or later you will have to return it. Why not return it out of goodwill in a nice gesture, rather than hold on to it and suffer the consequences later? However, I am in no position to judge what is right or wrong. Maybe it is not about where the holy site is but it is about do you actually hold on to faith in your heart. If you believe in the Holy Master, He lives in your heart forever and you abide by His teachings regardless of where the Holy Temple is. However, I feel that history and belief seem to speak otherwise. It seems like having Him in your heart is insufficient. You have to be aware of His presence and this divinity has His own demands that He require of His followers, perhaps to teach them a lesson in life, or to make right the wrongdoings.
Nevertheless, this episode has also taught me something about life; that imperfections are inevitable and we have to deal with them by living with them rather than constantly trying to perfect it. In the process of perfecting it, lives will be lost, people will be hurt and even if you eventually attain it, the grief that you cause will most likely outweigh any joy of becoming perfect.
For those who might not understand the meaning of Palestine and why the name, I got my information from various internet sources and understood that the Palestinians are Arabs who were refugees from the various Arab-Israeli wars. From the Israelis' perspective, they feel that such refugees should have been allowed to return to their native home i.e. various Arab nations because from their names, you can tell that they are of Arab descent either Jordanian, Syrian, Saudi Arabian, etc. However, they were denied entry or return. The Israelis are unwilling to grant them citizenship perhaps because they do not belong to Israel in the first place and it would be unfair to take in these citizens who do not belong there in the first place. From the Arabs' perspective, these refugees had left the Arab countries during the war and they should have been assimilated into the nations who had taken them in, in this case Israel. In most countries, the descendants of refugees are often granted citizenship in the country in which they seek refuge from but what about the Palestinians? They have been known as and maybe will always be known as refugees. Those in Jordan have already been assimilated into Jordan, taking on Jordanian citizenship.
This leads us to one critical question, "For whom does the State of Israel exist for?" Is it a home for only Jewish people (with Jewish blood or that their mother is a Jew because the latter is how they used to determine if someone is a Jew in olden times) or for anyone who considers themselves as a Jew or an Israeli regardless of faith? Where do Arabs or their descendants who have been living in Israel for centuries ever since the first Moslem rule stand? What about the minority groups like Druz or Christians (brought there by the Byzantines or Crusaders)?
It makes me wonder if uniformity is really of importance and is it even possible in a world today that is increasingly globalised and geographically mobile? I myself am divided over this issue. I grew up in a multi-racial society whereby Chinese, Malays, Indians and other minority races live together and call themselves as One Singapore, One Nation. I am accepting of our history as an immigrant society and find it palatable partly because I come from a majority racial group and has never experienced any sort of discrimination or inconvenience, since the majority inevitably has an advantage. However, in recent years, as immigration becomes imminent, I too experience some kind of discomfort and had wished for the status quo that we had enjoyed in the last forty years. If one is unable to adapt and wishes for uniformity, then we perhaps would slowly be hypnotized by Hilter's idea of an uniform society with a superior race.
I doubt we can ever return to ancient times when China was a place for Chinese, Europe a place for the Whites, Africa a place for blacks, Middle East a place for the Arabs, India a place for Indians, and Israel a place for the Jews. This is simply because inter-racial marriages are increasingly common, distances between nations are smaller and love transcends boundaries. Who is to say that uniformity presides over a multi-racial society or the reverse? Perhaps it is what Israel has and undergoes that makes me interested to learn more about their nation. I would want to continue to live to witness how history will be written on this Arab-Israeli conflict in the next few decades, but I do pray for it to be resolved in a peaceful manner.
If Jerusalem is the centre of Israel and Israel being the centre of the world, let it continue to enjoy peace for those living within it. #prayforthepeaceofjerusalem.
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