In Jerusalem and some parts of Israel I suppose. Christians, Jews and Muslims fight for territorial right and access to pilgrimage. In the past decades (and today) it has escalated into a bloodshed. Is this sort of “Holy War” supported by the Vatican? is it necessary to kill just for pilgrimage? i know the crusades were fought mostly because of Muslim encroachment on Christian lands, but how about today? are these “Fighting Christians” fighting a Just war?
Pax Domini,
Fidei
My brother visited the Holy Land a few years ago. The only evidence that he saw that violence was an actual threat was when he was in a McDonald’s (yes, in Israel) and a group of Israeli police stopped by for lunch (the cops in the group were very young, and included a couple of very young women). There’s nothing unusual about seeing cops stopping for lunch in a McDonald’s, except these particular cops had assault rifles strapped to their backs. My brother’s group was somewhat taken aback by this (most of them had probably never actually *seen *a military assault rifle except on TV, and did not expect to see 19-ish year-old girls packing such heat) but none of the locals seemed to notice.
Actually they were members of the Israeli border patrol (i.e., military, not cops), and the squad was entirely made up of young Jewish women, with the exception of one of the officers. For me, coming from the the U.S., it was a strange sight to walk into a fast food restaurant and see about a dozen young women standing in line with huge assault rifles strapped to their backs. I thought I had just walked onto the set of a Quintin Tarantino movie. And they had extra ammo magazines taped to the rifles, indicating that they were not only prepared for a firefight, but a big one. And yes, aside from my fellow pilgrims, no one else seemed to think anything of it. But in hindsight this was really not all that unusual, simply being a military patrol near the country’s border. It was certainly nothing indicative of what the Watchtower Magazine was saying about violent clashes at pilgrimage sights.
I was there in summer of 2000 when masses of Christian pilgrims flooded Jerusalem. It was a blessed time for such a trip because not only was it a Jubilee Year, it was also a relatively peaceful time between the Jews and Palestinians, and the Christians certainly weren’t causing any trouble. It seems the Watchtower Society forgot to tell us that we were supposed to be “fighting Christians” and go over there with grenades and machine-guns.
And for what it’s worth, Israel, and especially Jerusalem, is filled with Jews, Palestinians and Arabs, and they all are quite happy to accommodate Christian pilgrims, because pilgrims spend money! Tourism is an essential source of income for all these people, and a large number of tourists who go to Israel are Christians pilgrims. The notion presented in the Watchtower of modern day Christians having to wage war to secure access to pilgrimage locations is absurd. When I was there everyone was overjoyed to see bus loads of Christian pilgrims show up with pockets laden with shekels. The only “warfare” I personally engaged in was haggling with merchants over the cost of bottled water.
