Religion says it all: a quarter is Christian, a quarter is Jewish, a quarter is Muslim and a quarter Armenian. Enormous differences - but one God. The Christian quarter belongs to the Latin, Coptic and Greek Orthodox patriarchates. Jerusalem is everybody's and the Jews believe it should be theirs. And the city has been for thousands of years the centre that absurdly generates war and hate in humanity instead of peace and love. This hatred seems to spread all over the globe and contaminate relationships with huge ripples that threatened, and still threaten millions of people; and annihilated, and will still annihilate millions of other people, whole civilisations in the future. It brings to mind not only brilliant bankers and brilliant scientists and a great people, but also miserable ghettoes, legendary greedy usurers wanting their pound of flesh - as well as suffering, evil ovens horrible gas chambers and ghastly prisons, detestable death camps, horrendous, beastly. And now more suffering in modern ghettoes.

Jerusalem has been central to Christianity ever since the time of Jesus Christ who was himself a Jew, a revolutionary man who preached peace and love. Jerusalem was that important even before Jesus proclaimed himself the Son of the true God. The fighting that goes on, the internal strife between factions of the same quarter, the unabating wars because of what goes on there, the shedding of blood - it still goes on and on. No sign of respite.

Troubling questions

But why should it be so?

For ages now the Near East has been a great concern for people all over the world. What is that something that sustains all this turmoil? What is that human characteristic that makes mankind realise the presence of this problem, yet spurs people to get at each other's throat notwithstanding? I visited the place recently and kept wondering, what is the root of all this evil in such a holy place? What is that virus that keeps feeding this malady over so many centuries? Was it English colonialism that foolishly set the ball of division rolling after World War 2? Is it simply a similar brain-wave that prompted Cyril Radcliffe in 1946 sitting comfortably at his colonial desk in London to carve India into Hindu India flanked by Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh, a bizarre solution that killed, still kills and will kill millions? Was it divine vengeance to curse those people who murdered the Son of God? I went only to some parts of the Holy Land, yet during my brief stay I kept asking myself the same questions, I could not help it, why do you have to breathe war in the air, feel suppression, bombings, bullying, intimidation, intolerance, oppression, harassment, division, terror, blood - instead of perpetual happiness, fraternity, harmony, peace, pardon, mercy, love, understanding, coexistence? I kept looking for answers seeking to explain what it was that kept triggering hate and blood, difference and intolerance, fanaticism and injustice?

Little did I imagine what I would eventually discover.

Stubborn humanity

When on top of Mt Tabor you see the whole land spread around you, you hear the wind still hissing by and you could almost hear the words somehow reverberating, you do not know whether it's inside you or around you, This is my beloved Son, this is the Promised Land you see unfolded down there, the barren hills and the great ancient battles fought in those plains over the ages appear to be still going on. The peace you feel is a strange one, you realise that it is a volatile place, but why should this desolate, austere scenery be so? What is it that feeds the tension in this sun-drenched countryside?

The Redemption project, the cleansing of humanity's sins is somehow there, every step you take. You behold the huge blocks that King Herod himself had built for the old City, the actual building blocks of the Wailing Wall that must have themselves seen this God Jesus passing by, and they seem to reflect the mystery of the persistence of the same goings-on, and they seem to tell you that since man has remained man, man will continue to act like a man. He cannot help not killing, just like a savage hyena cannot help not killing an innocent lamb. The archaeological remains at Capharnaum repeat the same message. You hear it also while you gaze at the tiny place where Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and you see it clearly on the calm waves of the Sea of Galilee as the boat takes the group of pilgrims around the coast.

I was aware I was looking at things from an unexpected, yet so common perspective: endeavouring to get answers to problems that concern every one on the globe. War, blood, expansionism, intolerance, hatred. Who was at the bottom of all this? It was strange: these were the same topics every Christian seems to be bombarded with in all sermons, in all holy readings, in all churches. You hear a lot about them but you keep guesssing what keeps kick-starting the process. So you persist, asking yourself whether this crucified God was actually aware of this devilish characteristic you are seeking to identify in mankind He himself had created. He had actually had to come around to modify things and update them for our own benefits. I thought, who better than a Jew himself to know where to find the source of inherent human wickedness and try to eradicate it? Who better than another Jew to try to set things straight by forcing himself upon a stubborn humanity that believes to be the chosen slice of humanity? 

More questions

Jerusalem is a walled city where religions meet. Yet a meeting place that has been razed to the ground before because of arrogance and hatred. This is another place where Palestinians and Jews face each other, coexisted in peace for so many centuries before Radcliffe, and now coexist and kill each other. This also happens to be the dearest place of the Jews and the dearest place of Chrsitians. But I keep getting this confusion probably because I do not know the real (complex) history of all the Holy Land as I should: was Jesus Christ not a Jew himself? Who was there first? Was it not the Jews who were chosen by God to live in their chosen God-given land? Or was it some other tribe? Did not many Jews themselves become Christians? Who are the Palestinians? Don't they have a right to their land? Is it their land? Are they Jews themselves? Are there not Christian Jews and Chrsitian Palestinians?

And why did they have to cut Jerusalem into four? Why cannot they peacefully coexist any longer? What is it that does not allow them to do so? Who is the shrewd source of trouble? How does he do it?

And why do the Jews have to build villas and houses on top of hills so as to mark their ownership or territory? Are they right? Are they wrong? And why do the Pestinians live in ghettoes and dirty streets whilst the Jews occupy their land? Is it true that this is the source of all trouble? Is it not true that it is because of their intransigence? Are the Jews bullies? Or do they have a right to defend themselves from every body, and every bully, after all? Was it not the Jews whom the Nazi gassed mercilessly in their millions? Was it not the Jews who were hated and had to suffer centuries of hatred and oppression in what their Bible - or is it our Bible - calls wilderness? They believe they are the chosen people, it is their promised land after all, can anyone blame them for acting the way they do? Can anyone blame them for refusing to be besieged once again and for believing so firmly and so justifiably in a "never, never, again"?

I had vaguely hoped I would understand things better whilst on my visit to the Holy Land, but little did I expect that somehow, I would manage to get a hint, a glimpse, a tiny clue of a possible root of such evil. Little did I expect the environment would unravel to me an unexpected disclosure I will presently describe. It is but a dim light of a reason that I am not sure of myself, a hazy answer I am afraid to accept because it seems so cruelly realistic, so sadly possible, so likely the root of all evil bloodshed. It may be a revolting truth I refuse to believe in even as its veracity glares before me, and I am aware that as it still frightens me as I need better understanding of a complex matter, more internal convincing. This is because it appears to be just the miniscule top of a huge, hideous iceberg, a centuries old iceberg. It was only at the end of my trip when I got this strange flash lighting the mysterious reality I had been seeking. It was a little incident, an incredibly, very nasty incident actually. It was not at all what I had expected, a little incident others would not have attached so much weight to.

But it jolted me into incredulous astonishment, the shocking significance of the truth upsetting me terribly.

To becontinued