FROM SULEIMAN'S WALL

2000
It is the last day of my stay in the Holy Land. The late spring sun is already hot. As I sit in a shady niche on the Wall that surrounds the Old City, I am thinking of the three monotheistic faiths that claim Jerusalem as holy, their common ancestor Abraham, the prophets whom all three acknowledge, and Jesus of Nazareth – Messiah to Christians, Teacher to Jews, and Prophet to Muslims. Yes, I reassure myself, the teachings of Jesus about the common humanity of all people under One God have the power, even now, to form a basis for peace.

I use the time on the Wall to try to bring together and make sense of what I have experienced. I have benefited from a comprehensive itinerary that has let me trace the events of the Hebrew Bible, the interlude between Nehemiah and Matthew, the account in the Gospels of Jesus’ life, the Jewish Revolt and the Diaspora, the coming and waning of the Byzantines, Islam’s stamp on the Holy Land, the Crusaders’ quixotic mission, Ottoman Rule, the impossible task of the British Mandate, the modern state of Israel and the impact it has made on the land, and, finally, the tragic conflict between Jew and Arab, between Israeli and Palestinian.

2002
Today, two years later, as I recall my time on the Wall, it seems as if it were long ago: before the breakdown of peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians, before the renewal of the Intifadeh and the daily wailing over caskets carried in disorderly procession through streets of angry mourners, before the concrete barricades and the terror and fear, before 9/11 and the International War on Terrorism with its everpresent

side-bar in the Holy Land. Peace seemed near on that spring day in Jerusalem two years ago. But now, as so often in the past, peace in the Holy Land is once again elusive.

2004
I began writing this account while on the Wall and continued it over the ensuing months. Two years later it became a book, and now – an additional two years later – that book has been revised and updated. There have been additional happenings, and I have gained new insights, so that there are small or large changes on most pages. But one thing has not changed, indeed has been magnified: the urgency for peace in the Holy Land, a peace that both sides can live with.

Dorothy Weitz Drummond