Yesterday we visited Yad Vachem to start off the day with a bang. If you’ve ever been to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. you will understand the severity in which I say that such an experience moves the depths of your soul. More questions than answers usually result- they did for me. Why? Why would human beings conduct such savage havoc on other human beings? How? How could a society allow something so evil to take place? Walking through the story of the Genocide of the Jews in Europe, I was filled at times with hurt, anger, and sorrow. Although the message of the museum was to leave visitors with hope as we exited to a sunny, breezy vista of Jerusalem, I was left thinking- we can never let something like this happen again (no
t to say that it hasn’t or isn’t in other parts of the world).
t to say that it hasn’t or isn’t in other parts of the world). Israel Fact # 17: Many people in the world are beginning to deny the occurrence of the Holocaust. Namely Mahmoud Ahmadinejad- you know, the crazy dude in Iran. The Holocaust is bar-none the most well documented genocide in history. Hundreds of thousand of documents, pictures, and human testimonies attest to it. We all know that. Here’s the punch line- the sad truth that: a lie told over and over again becomes seen as the truth. Many men in the world today repeat lies and repeat lies and repeat lies until
(Memorial Children murdered in the Holocaust) the truth becomes hard to see or remember clearly.
In the afternoon, we visited the Mt. Herzl Cemetery and Museum. Theodore Herzl is Israel’s equivalent of George Washington to a degree. Imagine G.W. mixed with the pilgrims mixed with Martin Luther King. Legit dude. Check out the story of Zionism; its incredible- its still being written daily.
This morning we began the day with a surreal tour of the world famous Security Fence, which borders the West Bank. We were guided by none other than the commanding officer of the construction of the fence, Colonel Danny Tirtza. I saw everything we are shown on the news and more. Observation #1- the world media puts ridiculous spin on this thing. Danny took us to 3 locations along the fence. 1) an Israeli neighborhood where many of the first wave of suicide bombers walked across to blow up buses in Jerusalem back in 2000. Before the fence was built, murderers could literally walk from their houses, up a hill of olive trees, and onto an Israeli road to load morning buses filled with school children- kaboom. 2) one of the boarder crossing terminals where any and all Palestinian workers are allowed to easily cross into Jerusalem on the way to work each morning. 3) an overlook of Bethlehem, which is currently inhabited almost exclusively by Muslim Arabs.
Literally, we stood next to houses that were being shot at by terrorists just 5 years ago. We heard directly from the man who planned and constructed the fence. We listened to his story of struggle to construct a security barrier while working his tail off to respect and appease all of the individual residents along the fence- whether Jewish or Arab.
Israel Fact #18: The security fence is only 5% concrete wall (although the media would have you think otherwise). 95% of the barrier is a chain link fence- no electric shock, no automatic machine guns, no punitive action taken if you touch it. The only stretches where concrete walls exist are in areas where there is not enough room to implement the entire fence unit- includes two fences and a road, which are all layers of a system to stop terrorists without having to shoot them on the spot. In the concrete wall areas, bombers could set off a bomb on the outside of the fence and still blow up civilians on the inside- walls = mandatory here. http://www.securityfence.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG/default.htm
Israel Fact #19: Arabs and Jews live on the outside of the fence. Arabs and Jews live on the inside of the fence. Arabs living in East Jerusalem are still given voting rights in Jerusalem’s municipal elections. Arabs living on the west side of the fence are full Israeli citizens. They live, work, raise children, play sports, enjoy the parks, and attend religious services with equal freedoms as any other Israelis. They are not oppressed- I saw this, I drove through the neighborhoods. People are people. This political issue, as any other, is clearly a human issue. Our guide, Danny continually referred to many of his close friends, who are Palestinians living across the fence in East Jerusalem.
At the end of the tour, the man, who himself designed and conducted the construction of the fence, left us with this plea in a heartfelt air of sincerity: “I want to be the one to take the first stone down from the wall…I hope that this day will come as soon as possible!”
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