Craig's Holy Land Experiences, April 2002

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Megiddo Peace Project

[Peace Table] (before shipping from Ann Arbor to Israel)

[Alan Haber] (creator of the Peace Table, with one of the many varied lions of Jerusalem)

[Sight from Hill of Megiddo] (Har Megiddo = Armageddon, ancient crossroads of Egypt, Europe, and Persia, a hoped-for location of the Peace Table)

[the Twenty Strata of Megiddo] [archeological excavation]

Some of the holiest structures in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity,
within a stone's throw of each other: (which unfortunately has happened)
[Dome of the Rock] (that's 24-karat gold) [Al-Aqsa Mosque]

[Western Wall] (of Solomon's 2nd Temple)

[The Dome & The Wall]

[The Wall & The Mosque] (women on the right, men on the left)

[Church of the Holy Sepulchre] (built on site of the crucifixion)
[Holy Sepulchre] (wider view)

At the Bethlehem Checkpoint

This was during a peace vigil on Saturday April 20, with singing, bells, and tanks. We had heard a rumor that Israel was preparing to storm the Church of the Nativity the following day. Before taking most of these images, I sat for about an hour on the side of the road, meditating for peace, with armed Israeli soldiers milling all around me.

[The gathering for peace]

Faces of War:

[men in tank] [close-up #1]

[super close-up] [silhouette]

[a just cause?] [more grown-up boys with deadly toys]

[close-up #2] [Tank gunner with shades]

Jenin

This was on Tues April 23, the day after Israeli troops left Jenin. The main road in was still closed by an Israeli checkpoint, so our busload of internationals hiked in a back way. Estimates of the rubble area within the Jenin refugee camp were 200-300 homes destroyed, which had housed 5,000 - 9,000 people. Palestinians often live as extended families, adding more levels to their home as needed (building up instead of out, since in this case there was no room to build outwards). Yes, certain areas smelled really bad. One old man just sat dejectedly on the rubble of his home, and an interpreter told us that the man's wife was dead somewhere underneath it all.

[World Bank sign on road into Jenin]

our "tourguides" from the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees:
[the vest] [tourguide & youth]

[bullet holes in buildings surrounding the rubble area]

[one of semi-buildings surrounding the rubble area]

[searching rubble for personal belongings] [recovering belongings]

[more rubble, with grave marker] [grave-marker]

[local youth talking to the interpreter of our group] (a social-worker/trauma counselor)

[woman who showed us inside her home]

[some of our crew] (Odile in green hat, Alan, Julie with camera, and Bill Thompson)

Some Other Faces

[Danielle] (a French-speaking Palestinian who picked us up when we hitch-hiked home from the Bethlehem demonstration. She and her husband and children had lived a little while in the U.S. We all had a laugh when we learned that she had lived in Nebraska in the winter -- no wonder she craved to return to her home, Jerusalem!)

[Danielle laughing]