Jerusalem 5/27/1996 A Holy Site for Three of World's Religions

Election Posters Dominate Israeli Landscape
By Bob Van Leer

(ASHDOD, Israel, May 27, 1996) - Israel is having an election in two days and the countryside is blooming with election posters and plastic campaign banners. No surface is safe. Banners are strung from trees in the forests. The battle of the signs is so intense that one Israeli is charged with shooting another Israeli in the leg for putting his candidate's posters over the other fellow's posters.

  We arrived at this port city a little north of the Gaza Strip at 8:00 a.m. Buses took us on a 35-40 mile journey to Jerusalem. Israel is not a large country. It is about 400 miles north and south and about 90 east and west at the widest point. U. S. maps show the West Bank as not a part of Israel, but there is no such thought here. The West Bank is part of Israel on Israeli maps. The maps do show most of the Gaza Strip and an area around Jericho as "1994 Palestinian Authority". Present day population is about 5.6 million, of whom about 800,000 are Palestinian. Our guide said Jews numbered 600,000 at the time of independence in 1948 and now number 4.8 million. Most of the difference is immigration. Russian Jews now make up 10% of the population, moving from Russia in the last five years. The countryside is lush and green only because of irrigation. No rain falls for eight months of the year.

  Both going and coming we stopped for a rest break at a place with the unlikely name of "Elvis Inn" complete with a 10 feet high statue of Elvis Presley and his posters over every flat surface. In Jerusalem, a city of 600,000, we toured Christian and Jewish religious shrines, but no Muslim ones. Three of the great religions of the world, Christianity, Judaism and Islam all claim this city as a shrine for their religion.

  We visited the Church of Gethsemane where Christ is said to have spent his last hours as a free man. From there, we went to the Monument of the Tomb where Christ's body was kept in a tomb before the Resurrection. The final Christian shrine was the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem. Here is where Joseph and Mary stayed and where Jesus was born. Part of it is fourth century and our guide said this is the only church of this age that survived intact.

  We were taken to the Wailing Wall which our guide, a Jew, said is the holiest of all places for Jews. It is the only remaining part of King Solomon's Temple destroyed in 70 B.C. Not far from the Wailing Wall is the Muslim Dome of the Rock, a golden dome covering the rock from which Mohammed ascended. Israeli troops are present around the city, but I had expected to see more. It seems strange to see men in civilian dress carrying an AK 47 automatic rifle.

  We had a short visit to Bethlehem before returning to our ship. Bethlehem is an area under Palestinian authority. There was no obvious difference in administration other than the Muzein's call to prayer made it seem more an Arab city. We returned to the ship about 6:30 p.m. after having been gone since 9:00 a.m. Today's excursion and the one yesterday to Cairo are the longest of the cruise. The next three stops feature only local tours. Tonight we are sailing for Limassol, Cyprus, 186 nautical miles north of Ashdod.