This post is Day 4, Part 1
At no point on this trip did we enter Syria, and this post is not about Saul's/Paul's conversion. This post is for people who always WANTED to go to the Holy Land, but were AFRAID to go because it might not be safe.
After returning from the trip, I decided to go to the part of the site that shows the news related to Israel/Palestine. Keep in mind that not every news item is about violence. They use a variety of icons when they plot them on the map. When you look at the image I captured that contains the entirety of Israel and Palestine, you'll notice that almost all of the news dots appear along the Mediterranean coast along the southern-most part of the country that touches that sea. That is the Gaza Strip. The other two dots are not violence-related incidents. It's clear from one of the icons that one is construction-related, and the other is a non-violent announcement of some sort (I don't recall the detail).
I don't know ANY tour group that goes to the Gaza Strip, and it makes sense for many reasons. For one, it makes practical sense to avoid the more dangerous areas, and that would be the most dangerous area. But when people are looking to visit the sites recorded in the Bible, you should also consider that in Biblical times, this same region was occupied by the Philistines. It was a problem area for the Israelites back then just as it is today. Because of this, very few things happened there, and even fewer of them are things that people want to dwell on.
The blue shaded zone in the upper part of the country is the Golan Heights. That's the other region with more chance of conflict. But there isn't much up there. It's a mountain range with a demilitarized zone (DMZ) occupying a large section of that region. The only site people tend to visit that's any real distance into the Golan Heights is Caesarea Philippi, which some tour groups avoid due to time since it's a more distant point compared to the many places in Galilee. Groups usually don't avoid it due to dangers.
The Jews don't want to hurt tourism. So if they sought to cause troubles, it would be in less touristy areas, or areas where they believe they would only affect residents.
Of the many people I've known who visited Israel on pilgrimage, I don't know any of them who witnessed the kinds of clashes we hear about in the news.
The ONLY other act of violence I was anywhere near was during our free time. We had just entered a gate to the Old City section and soon after saw armed police jogging toward the gate. We were eventually able to find out that they were responding to a reported stabbing. Again, that's not common, but it's also a major city and some acts of violence happen in any city. Again, I don't know anyone else who experienced that, and no one we know was affected. A few of us just happened to be within a few blocks of the incident.
So those are the two most dangerous things I experienced: being near a one-on-one violent city crime and being at a great hotel that happened to be within earshot of the path some outbound jets and/or missiles would take in the rare event Israel felt it necessary to fire on Syria.
And we headed into the Golan Heights to visit Caesarea Philippi later that day. If there was a real danger, we wouldn't have done that. So the testimony of my trip has two more incidents than any I've heard people give, and nothing bad happened to us and I felt safe the whole time. The average traveler will experience none of that and you'll have a relatively dull time as measured by the danger scale.
About half of the trip was spent in the area of Jerusalem. Considering that the Old City section has various religious districts for various faiths, and with holy sites that don't perfectly align with those districts, it's hard to imagine causing too serious of damage to a target without affecting one's own people in a serious way. So you don't tend to hear about terror attacks in Jerusalem.
And if nothing else, their security is very significant. So they can stop most things before anything bad happens. So they would catch most problems before they happen; most people trying to cause trouble on behalf of their religion won't want to mess with tourist sites or anything near them; most people won't want to harm their own people; and the violence tends to happen in the Gaza Strip where tourists are highly unlikely to visit. And people don't tend to come back with stories of danger--the come back with stories about how their experience will change their perspective on the Biblical accounts.
At no point on this trip did we enter Syria, and this post is not about Saul's/Paul's conversion. This post is for people who always WANTED to go to the Holy Land, but were AFRAID to go because it might not be safe.
Violence? Maybe in Gaza, where tourists don't go
We've all heard about the attacks that happen in the Holy Land over the years. But most people don't consider where those attacks take place. For quite a while now, I've appreciated a website that plots the points of various news stories. The site is: https://liveuamap.com/After returning from the trip, I decided to go to the part of the site that shows the news related to Israel/Palestine. Keep in mind that not every news item is about violence. They use a variety of icons when they plot them on the map. When you look at the image I captured that contains the entirety of Israel and Palestine, you'll notice that almost all of the news dots appear along the Mediterranean coast along the southern-most part of the country that touches that sea. That is the Gaza Strip. The other two dots are not violence-related incidents. It's clear from one of the icons that one is construction-related, and the other is a non-violent announcement of some sort (I don't recall the detail).
I don't know ANY tour group that goes to the Gaza Strip, and it makes sense for many reasons. For one, it makes practical sense to avoid the more dangerous areas, and that would be the most dangerous area. But when people are looking to visit the sites recorded in the Bible, you should also consider that in Biblical times, this same region was occupied by the Philistines. It was a problem area for the Israelites back then just as it is today. Because of this, very few things happened there, and even fewer of them are things that people want to dwell on.
The blue shaded zone in the upper part of the country is the Golan Heights. That's the other region with more chance of conflict. But there isn't much up there. It's a mountain range with a demilitarized zone (DMZ) occupying a large section of that region. The only site people tend to visit that's any real distance into the Golan Heights is Caesarea Philippi, which some tour groups avoid due to time since it's a more distant point compared to the many places in Galilee. Groups usually don't avoid it due to dangers.
Jesus Sites Are Safe
Most of the life of Jesus was up in Galilee, and in particular, the region that is just west of the lower half of the blue shaded region. Most of the other areas Jesus went are near the northern tip of the Dead Sea and extending about halfway toward the Mediterranian Sea. At least that's where Jerusalem is. There are a variety of towns in the vicinity of interest.Don't Hurt Tourism
As the map shows, not much happens in these areas. And it makes sense that the tourist/pilgrimage sites are very safe. Just imagine in the days before Disney had theme parks in other countries. If some nation fired rockets against one of Disney's theme parks, they would look bad internationally. They drew in so many tourists from around the world that many major nations would be angry that their citizens were harmed. If you've been to Israel, you'll realize that it's loaded with tour busses. If anyone attacked the places that tourists visit, it would just increase support for their opponents.The Jews don't want to hurt tourism. So if they sought to cause troubles, it would be in less touristy areas, or areas where they believe they would only affect residents.
Don't Hurt Allies/Self
Also, the perception of Christians that Muslims are the greatest threat there is a bit nuanced. Christians and Muslims combined constitute Palestine. Together, they face persecution. There are various holy sites where the Status Quo principle has led to Muslims holding the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, officially opening and locking the building each day for hundreds of years. Various other sites require cooperation between them. So there isn't much desire to cause harm that would also diminish business for the Palestinian areas or most areas in the areas in or near Jerusalem.Of the many people I've known who visited Israel on pilgrimage, I don't know any of them who witnessed the kinds of clashes we hear about in the news.
My Closest Encounters Were Safe
With that said, there are two incidents that stand out from my trip that I think I should mention. The first occurred in the early morning of February 6th. I heard a sound in the sky a little before 2 AM. It was clearly not a civil airliner. This was something military. At first, I thought it might be a jet. I looked out the hotel window to see if a fighter jet might be flying a night run over the Sea of Galilee, but I would mostly see to the east and southeast, and I saw nothing. The sound drew closer, but was clearly not "incoming". The sound changed a little as one could tell it was now heading away from where we were. So something was flying over us or perhaps a bit to the north of us where I couldn't see it. The pitch of the sound was a bit high for a jet, so I started to consider that it might be the sound of a missile. Two more of the same sounds occurred, one after the next with a little bit of time between them. It seemed like the sounds were headed north and/or east. I knew we weren't in a target area, and these sounded like airborne things heading outbound from Israel. If anything came back, the Iron Dome Missile Defense System would surely stop most incoming projectiles. And since we weren't in a target area, nothing should hit us anyway. But nothing was inbound. Later that morning, the news would inform us that missiles were fired from Israel to Damascus, where Iranians were allegedly encamped. Nothing was fired back. I don't know anyone who went on the trip before who experienced anything close to this, and yet I felt so safe I fell asleep within minutes of hearing the missiles.The ONLY other act of violence I was anywhere near was during our free time. We had just entered a gate to the Old City section and soon after saw armed police jogging toward the gate. We were eventually able to find out that they were responding to a reported stabbing. Again, that's not common, but it's also a major city and some acts of violence happen in any city. Again, I don't know anyone else who experienced that, and no one we know was affected. A few of us just happened to be within a few blocks of the incident.
So those are the two most dangerous things I experienced: being near a one-on-one violent city crime and being at a great hotel that happened to be within earshot of the path some outbound jets and/or missiles would take in the rare event Israel felt it necessary to fire on Syria.
And we headed into the Golan Heights to visit Caesarea Philippi later that day. If there was a real danger, we wouldn't have done that. So the testimony of my trip has two more incidents than any I've heard people give, and nothing bad happened to us and I felt safe the whole time. The average traveler will experience none of that and you'll have a relatively dull time as measured by the danger scale.
About half of the trip was spent in the area of Jerusalem. Considering that the Old City section has various religious districts for various faiths, and with holy sites that don't perfectly align with those districts, it's hard to imagine causing too serious of damage to a target without affecting one's own people in a serious way. So you don't tend to hear about terror attacks in Jerusalem.
And if nothing else, their security is very significant. So they can stop most things before anything bad happens. So they would catch most problems before they happen; most people trying to cause trouble on behalf of their religion won't want to mess with tourist sites or anything near them; most people won't want to harm their own people; and the violence tends to happen in the Gaza Strip where tourists are highly unlikely to visit. And people don't tend to come back with stories of danger--the come back with stories about how their experience will change their perspective on the Biblical accounts.
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