Is it really week four, you guys? How did
we get to almost a month in so quickly?
Reading through the Armstrong chapters for
this week there were a couple things that instantly stuck out to me, the first
and foremost being that she seems against Christianity in some way. She says
things like, “The Christians of Aelia did not seem to have got off to a good
start here: it did not seem as though the experience of living in the city
where Christ had died and risen again had inspired them to live up to their noblest
ideals,” (p 47), and “Yet Christians had thought that they were above this type
of piety. They had proudly proclaimed that theirs was a purely spiritual faith
that was not dependent upon shrines and holy places,” (p189/16). I mean, I’m
not an expert in this field or this time period or anything, nor am I
particularly religious, but it seemed as though she was putting down
Christianity (at least during this period) more than commenting on the history.
Oddly enough though she also seemed to have something against the word
synagogue too, referring to it only once (that I found) and mentioning it as
“synagogue” – quotation marks and all (p189/16 for those interested), or
calling it “their church.” I mean, I don’t see a connection here but I just
thought it was interesting that she seemed a little biased against Christianity
but still preferred to call synagogues ‘churches.’
There were so many interesting new facts in
these chapters though – I kind of loved it. I had no idea that earlier Jews
practiced praying in the direction of Jerusalem if they were travelling (like
Islam and Mecca!) – does anyone know if that’s still in practice? Let’s be
honest, I know next to nothing about Judaism but I thought that was a really
cool link between Judaism and Islam, even if the cities in question are/were
different.
Another fun new fact was that she
repeatedly said that Christians were not interested in the physical city of
Jerusalem, but more in the heavenly Jerusalem, and that not many Christians
came to the city as tourists. Eusebius could only name four pilgrims, and one
of them, Melito, only came for scholarly reasons. “Thus Jerusalem had no
special status on the Christian map.” P46 She also showed how that evolved over
the chapters, and how it became an important city. And then there was the whole
“Jesus was Logos in the flesh” / Paganism combining with Christianity concept
fascinating. I’ve never given much thought about how the religions clashed
during that time period – I mean, I knew in theory that Christianity had Pagan
elements in it, and I knew that they had to mix them to make it better
accepted, but I’ve never sat down and actually thought about the people during
the time period who were experiencing it and who believed it or anything.
I’m going to have to admit though, the
whole “great balls of fire erupting from the earth and a giant cross appearing
in the sky” thing was weird. As was the practice of licking the holy places -
Kissing religious places and stones in Jerusalem is a common thing, but I cringed
when I read that people licked the stones! I’ve kissed the star in the Church
of Nativity and the tomb in the Resurrection Church, but licking them?! No, no,
no. Nope.
In regards to the Pressman article, I have
a lot to say.
I like that he mentions that the slogan “a
land without a people for a people without a land” was false as Arabs lived
there, and that he mentioned the rising Arab nationalism as a response to
Zionism. He also mentions that Arab literacy was comparatively low and as a
result the spreading nationalist ideologies were limited, but he doesn’t
mention the oral component of Arab culture at all. Arab traditions were spread
orally through songs and plays and coffee shops – socialising is an important
part – it would have been interesting if he found some sources that mentioned
how nationalism was affected by that (though obviously understandable that he
couldn’t find sources).
I did find it interesting that he did not
mention that a country in South America (I forget which one) was also a possible
location for a Zionist/Jewish state when they were looking for one.
Palestine/Israel was chosen for political reasons, though some people pushed
for it because of religious reasons (Herzl being one of them). I thought he
skimmed over a lot of the initial conflicts. He doesn’t mention that initially,
Arabs and Jews got along fairly well and were not in direct opposition to each
other. It was the British officers and the Jewish settlers who initially began
to disagree, and that around the time the British military left the area that
the Arabs and Jews were in conflict. He also doesn’t mention the reasoning
behind the rejection of the resolution – I used to know why it was, but it was
something about being perceived as unfair and Jerusalem itself. I’ll have to
look it up properly. I wish he would have mentioned it more specifically
because I feel like that was a very important point in the conflict that could
have impacted everything following it!
I liked that Jeremy outlined the history so
we have a timeline, but I didn’t like that he skimmed over a lot of important
points and didn’t mention others. “Arabs and Israelis did not fight again until
1967” implies that there was little or no conflict at the time, and that’s not
true. Sure, no major fighting/wars broke out, but there were daily struggles
and miniature fights as would appear between any two people trying to occupy
the same land. I like that he tries to remain unbiased, but I think he could
have improved upon his article by elaborating on why the conflict started and
going into the history of each people more. I mean, sure, it would have been a
lot longer, but skimming over their history and saying things like “Arabs and
Israelis did not fight again until 1967” seems to me like it was a bit
oversimplifying a very complicated period/conflict.
I really liked Slater’s article compared to
Pressman’s. Yes, it condemned Israel’s methodology, but only in the way that it
was against the war crimes. It was shocking to read that the then chief of
staff of the IDF Gur actually believed that civilians deserved to be bombarded.
I’d heard about people saying that Israel had militants who believed that (and
obviously there are Palestinians/Arabs who believe the same of Israeli
civilians) but to actually see it written out is kind of shocking.
Slater’s article was an easy read, and I
liked that he elaborates on war moral philosophy – something that I would never
seek out or know anything about. There was a lot of history in his article and
sometimes it got a bit dense, but for the most part it was an interesting read.
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