|
| |
|
| | Foreword
The idea that grew into this book seemed simple enough on first resolve. It was late March of the millennial year. I was sitting on Suleiman's Wall, overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, on the last day of my most recent visit to the Holy Land. As I was churning over in my mind how to condense my experience so that I could both retain it and share it, I realized that this was not going to be an easy task. I would first have to dig into the past to make sense of the Holy Land as it is today. I resolved to do so. Soon after, the urgency of the Intifadeh and the collapse of the peace process placed an added layer on my resolve. On the Wall I was idly musing, "How did it happen that the land holy to three faiths can be kept secure only at gunpoint?" Today this question is irrelevant, for soldiers and firepower no longer guarantee peace. They only serve, as guns always do, to inflame. Why is the Holy Land--today again, as so often in the past--a cauldron of conflict? Seeking answers, I have had to delve deeply. What started as a simple account of my travels has become far longer and more complicated than I had originally intended. The Holy Land has a complex story, played out in a varied landscape, where the past is continually intruding into the present. Piecing it together has taken me more time than I had anticipated. Many lights have gone on in the process, leading my research continually in new directions. But the story of the Holy Land has not yielded easily to generalization. This account is no longer centered on my travels. It is the story of the Holy Land, with my own experiences interspersed in italic. I offer it now to anyone who may be contemplating a journey to the Holy Land or who may simply want to understand the complicated story--both sacred and profane--of this unique, beautiful, and tortured land.
|
| | January 22, 2002 FOREWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION This second edition extends the Present to early 2004. In revising I can record some change, in direction if not in substance. There has been periodic escalation of violence, but little or no progress in negotiation. The United States and European countries, with a Roadmap, continue to be involved in diplomacy to nudge the Israelis and Palestinians toward a peaceful solution. But Israelis and Palestinians continue to contend, without a clear path out of the dilemma. Sharon and Arafat are two years older, both past 75, but the vitriol is still in their bellies, and they continue to distrust and cancel out each other’s overtures. Palestinian terrorists continue to infiltrate Israel, followed by Israeli military retribution. Seeing no end to terrorism, nothing to be gained by retribution, and no progress in negotiation, Israel is now embarked on a unilateral solution: it is building a security barrier, part wall, part barbed-wire-and-berm, that snakes into Palestinian territory to encompass all West Bank settlements near the Green Line. Israel is also beginning to talk about abandoning settlements, in the Gaza Strip and those beyond the barrier. As a deterrence, the barrier is beginning to work (two-thirds of it remains to be completed), but disruption to daily life has only worsened for Palestinians. Most of the world views the barrier as another roadblock to peace. In the larger world, to which the Holy Land dilemma is inextricably connected, Sadaam Hussein has been captured, Osama bin Laden remains at large, and international terrorism remains a threat. But a new generation of non-government peacemakers reflects the longing of people on both sides of the Green Line for peace, and some see hope on the horizon. Dorothy Weitz Drummond
Terre Haute, Indiana
May 20, 2004 |
|
