pride & prejudice

Growing up in the South, I thought I knew all about prejudice. The town I grew up in was actually quite well known for its inhospitable spirit towards people of color, though we did have quite a population of Cherokee in our county. I think I was about five years old before I ever even saw my first black person, and I thought he was the darkest Indian I had ever seen.

My dad's brother was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, and because of it my dad spent the rest of his life hating the Japanese. And because it was hard for him to distinguish the Japanese from the rest of the Asian peoples, he had a wariness of them as well. He did come to love my cousin John's Korean wife and their two daughters, so I guess I have to give him credit for that.

And probably one of the worst things was that my mom's sister was married to one of the meanest, most hate-full, proud, white-hood-wearing members of the KKK that I have ever had the displeasure to meet (okay, to my knowledge, he's the ONLY one I ever met). He died when I was young, and I was not sad. But he did leave a legacy of hatred and anger to his sons that I am very sad about.

Unfortunately, growing up with prejudice as a part of your life, you don't really know just how wrong it is until somehow you learn otherwise. My lessons started when I was in college and worked as a recruiting hostess with our football program. There were, as you can imagine, a lot of black football players. My education was even more solidified when I became roommates with a Jamaican girl named Karen. She was one of the most amazing people I had ever met, and I count myself blessed to have shared a part of my life with her. I didn't see her skin color; I saw a wonderfully funny, brilliant, dedicated Christian girl that I loved to be around.

One Thanksgiving, I took Karen home with me. She was welcomed at my house and I'm thankful to both my mom and dad for that. And then I took her to meet my brother and his wife and their new little baby girl. My sister-in-law has hated me ever since. I was so naive about it that for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I had done to make her hate me so. Years later, my dad finally told me what I had done. I couldn't believe it; I still have a hard time believing it.

That was just a bit of my background to show how much I thought I knew about the subject of prejudice. But the thing is, I really didn't have a clue about racism until I came to Israel. I guess with the Civil Rights Movement and Affirmative Action in America, at least now it's pretty much recognized as wrong (even though it's still pretty rampant there) and there are consequences when racism is displayed and acted upon.

Not here. Here, there are so many groups that simply hate each other, and you can actually see it in their faces as you walk down the street. Not only is it allowed; it's somewhat expected. And it's not just Jews and Arabs...

• The secular Jews hate the religious Jews, especially the Ultra Orthodox (hasidim).
• The religious Jews don't like the secular Jews, and sometimes they don't like the Ultra Orthodox.
• The Sephardic (Spanish descent) Jews have issues with the Ashkenazi (European descent) Jews and vise-versa.
• Most all of the Jews hate the Russian immigrants (they tend to eat a lot of pork) and the Ethiopian immigrants.
• A whole lot of Jews hate Arabs.
• And the Ultra Orthodox hate pretty much everybody that isn't Ultra Orthodox--the worst of which are secular Jews, Messianic Jews (who are no longer Jews in their eyes), and of course, Gentile Christians are the absolute worst enemy.

Then there are the Arabs...
• Palestinian Arabs are pretty much not wanted anywhere, in Israel or other Arab countries like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, etc.
• There's Hamas and Fatah all hating each other.
• There's the Palestinian Arabs hating the Christian Arabs, Christian Arabs hating the Jewish people, and Arabs in general hating Christians and Jews.

And much to my dismay, there are the "Christians" that hate the Arabs as well. I have to confess that I have definitely had a hard time loving them; a problem that I am daily praying that God will rectify in my heart. Thankfully, it is happening, bit by bit.

All this to say that you can seriously see and feel the hatred here. I could probably list out some of the reasons, but that would be pointless dribble adding fuel to the flames. And the amazing part is that it seems that everybody outside of Israel has some kind of scheme for "peace in the Middle East". Most people vilify one group or the other and think that peace can be bought with land or other concessions.

And it's all crap. Don't they know that you can't have peace where every group has some other group(s) that they hate? Giving land away will not facilitate peace; the ones who receive it will not then open their arms to the ones who gave it to them; but the ones who gave it up will be bitter because they had to give it up. As King Solomon once said, "Meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless."

The only, and I mean ONLY way there will ever be peace here is when people start loving their neighbors as themselves. And the only way that they can do that is to have the Holy Spirit of God to dwell fully in them. I think that Jesus will come back before that happens, and I for one, say, "Come, Lord Jesus. We are desperate for your loving kindness..."