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ISRAEL
Violence affects Jubilee
Fighting threatens prospects for peace
The death toll from fighting between Israeli security forces and Palestinian rioters rose to over one hundred in mid-October as leaders of the two sides and the US gathered for a summit to find a solution to the problem.
Violence erupted after Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the al-Aqsa mosque compound at the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims.
The explosion of trouble in the Holy Land is also affecting tourism, including religious tourism, causing pilgrimages by groups of Italians, Americans, and other nationalities to be interrupted and cancelled.
All pilgrimages were cancelled until there was some opening for peace, which many thought highly improbable. There was skepticism in both Israeli and Palestinian circles, and the peace process has come to a standstill. Some speculate that if hardliner Sharon joins the National Unity government there will be no hope. Sharon is supported by the ultra-religious Orthodox Jews who want to rebuild the Temple and rid the Temple Mount area of Muslims and mosques.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem tension was high. Many Jews did not go to work, staying at home to protect their families, if necessary. The authorities advised people not to go out in the evenings. Many Christians and Muslims were also staying at home. “This morning,” one city office-worker said, “there were only six people on the bus. Usually it is crowded.”
“The situation in the Holy Land, in Jerusalem is a mystery,” said Father Frederic Manns, director of the Franciscan Bible Center in Jerusalem. “There have never been so many pilgrims from all over the world as in this Jubilee year. It has been a real explosion of pilgrims, as if to confirm the words of the prophet Isaiah: ‘All the peoples will come to Jerusalem.’ The hotels and holy places have been filled up; people have waited for hours to pay their visit to Calvary or the stable at Bethlehem . . . but where there is goodness, also evil sets to work: now everything is at a standstill.”
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