In 2004, still amid the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, I visited Israel on military business. In Haifa, to the north, we met with our counterparts of the Israeli Defense Force regarding several issues.
After the meetings, I took military leave and traveled throughout Israel and Palestine. Certainly, I wanted to visit the iconic sites. But I also wanted to understand for myself the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic, without the filter of media.
After several days in Jerusalem’s Old City, I hopped aboard a Palestinian bus bound for Bethlehem and Beit Sahur in the West Bank. As the bus left Jerusalem, an Israeli police car, lights flashing, pulled up behind us. The bus driver turned sharply at the next intersection and, while slowing the bus, opened the door. A passenger got up and jumped out. The bus then picked up speed and turned again at another intersection, before pulling over. The police boarded the bus and reviewed everyone’s ID, including my passport. As they debarked, the bus started moving again, turned at the next intersection, opened the door while slowing, and the gentleman who had fled the bus jumped back on.
We were on our way to the West Bank.
Once there, I discovered that I was the only Westerner in Bethlehem, not counting the nuns at the local convent. The next day I toured the Basilica of the Nativity - the place of Christ’s birth. In non-conflict years, an admissions line at least a quarter-mile long would snake through the town. That day, I was the only tourist in the church.
In addition to historical sites, I toured a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, observed a demolished, still-smoldering building, the product of a recent IDF airstrike, and watched as packages of food were being transferred from one commercial truck to another across a berm of dirt, used as a road block, for delivery in Bethlehem.
(In hindsight, a road block is a way to inflict economic stress on a people. That is, when two trucks are needed, instead of one, to deliver goods, the price to consumers must rise.)
We also visited the border wall that separates Israel from the West Bank. My guide pointed out a hole in the wall through which people apparently pass.
Over the next several days, I traveled to Jericho, Dead Sea, Masada, Negev, and Eilat, Israel’s southern-most city. After visiting Jordan, next door, I returned to Eilat and caught a flight to Tel Aviv. I’d never had my bags searched so thoroughly, the price of safe travel in Israel.
In those days, the American Embassy to Israel was in Tel Aviv. People used to hang out at Mike’s, a popular pub beside the embassy. Today it is in Jerusalem, a gift from President Trump to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Fortunately, no third intifada occurred when the embassy was relocated to Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their own, as well. Perhaps decades of struggle, oppression, and conflict have people tired.
Israel and Palestine need a two-state solution that would allow Israel to remain a Jewish state without renouncing its democracy (on the other hand, a one-state solution would force Israel to institutionalize mass voter suppression in order to retain its Jewish nature), end the Israeli occupation of West Bank and Gaza, and liberate the Palestinians while marginalizing radicalized groups like Hamas.
“Are you CIA?” my West Bank guide asked me, over tea. “No,” I replied, “I’m just an ordinary American from the state of Montana. But if I can help you some day, I surely will.”
John Mues is a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. An honors graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and London Business School, Mues is a fourth generation Montanan, four-times deployed naval officer, senior engineer in the business sector, and Montana teacher and rancher.