in the middle east

Well, our year in Jerusalem has drawn to a close. We leave tonight around midnight for the airport to begin the long journy back to the States. Before heading back to Madison, however, we're going to spend some time with our families. For those of you who are interested, here's our next couple weeks in outline:
June 23: Tel Aviv > Zurich > Chicago > Seattle
June 24-27: with Jessica's family in Bellingham, WA
June 27-July 2: with Tim's family in Portland, OR
July 2: Seattle > Madison

This year has been a very rich experience for us. We've learned alot about ourselves, the Middle East, and our world. We've been happy to share all of this with you on our blog over the year; thanks for your many comments. I hope the blog has been as interesting for you to read as it was for me to write. For those of you in Madison, we'll see you soon!

I have a friend who has worked for many years here in Jerusalem with World Vision's peace-making efforts. He once told me that every single decision one makes in Jerusalem has political implications: the stores at which you choose to shop, the busses you choose to ride (there are separate bus systems for Palestinians and Israelis), even the gum you chew forces you into a choice between whose economy you will support.
As you can imagine, then, an Israeli state-sponsored holiday celebrating the 40 year anniversary of the Six Day War of June 1967 cannot escape this complex mingling of ethnic and political tensions. From mid-May up until this week, there has been a city-wide commemoration of the crucial war of early June 1967, when Israel succeeded in fending off Syria in the North (seizing the Golan Heights), Jordan to the East (seizing East Jerusalem and the Old City), and Egypt to the South (seizing Gaza and the Sinai peninsula). This war also led Israel to impose a military occupation over Gaza and the West Bank, the lands assigned to the emerging Palestinian state by the UN resolutions of 1948 and 1967. These four decades of military occupation have shattered the Palestinian people, their culture, economy, and any aspirations they had of becoming a unified state. Such effects of this occupation have been the subject a number of my blogs in previous months.
Thus, this "holiday season" has been a very controversial one in Jerusalem to say the least, and has seen a tennis match between Israeli state-sponsored events, and anti-occupation demonstrations put together by many international peace organizations. Such a time brings to the surface the tension and anger felt by so many, but which usually boils just below the surface. Fortunately, there have not been any large outbreaks of violence amidst any of these demonstrations; but this is not to say that people do not hold their opinions with passion. We've captured a few pictures from things we've seen and been involved in over last couple weeks; to see them Click Here.

Some dear friends from our Portland days, Brian and Gelayol Haddon, came to visit us last week. It was essentially nine straight days of conversation, with some sight-seeing attached. It gave Jessica and I a chance for one last trip to our favorite places in the country before we head back to the States in 3 weeks, and we also got to see some new places. Brian (aka Buddy) and Gelayol live in Bakersfield, CA, so the weather was essentially the same for them. It was definitely one of the highlights of our year here, and so, of course, we have to share some photos with you. To see Buddy's rocker hair-do travelling all over Israel-Palestine, Click Here.