There is something special when preconceptions dissolve on your first encounter with a new person or place.He goes on to briefly describe what he saw.
As I disembarked a flight at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, I felt some apprehension arriving in Israel so soon after the Gaza flotilla episode, and forebodings of more troubles ahead.
But the warmth with which I was greeted and waved through passport control immediately made me feel at home in the country where I had come on a personal journey.
Beholding Jerusalem for the first time nestled in the folds of the Judean Mountains was a stunning experience.
I felt entirely disarmed of everything I had read, thought and anticipated about the city by the sheer majesty of its grandeur before me.
Mansur concludes:
The ease with which I moved — alone and without restrictions — from the inner sanctum of the Muslim sanctuary to Judaism’s holiest site, embracing both, is a testimony to the openness of Israel as a Jewish state and democracy.Read the whole thing.
Palestinian, Arab and Muslim narratives of Jerusalem’s recent history, however, is a denial of what my experience affirms, and the larger denial of Jewish rights that is the source of conflict here.
Yet peace, I believe, shall descend in the Holy Land when Muslims take to heart the original sacred purpose of Muhammad’s journey to Jerusalem.[emphasis added]
Technorati Tag: Israel and Jerusalem.
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