After spending 40 years celebrating Christmas -- even if it was only tangentially -- it was surprising how quickly I forgot all about it the first year we lived in Israel. I remember the day very clearly. We were sitting in the kitchen having dinner and I had to check the calendar for some other reason. As I scanned December looking for the date I needed, I noticed that it was Christmas Day.
At that moment I just couldn't believe that Christmas had crept up on me completely unnoticed. Considering that in Canada everyone shifts into Christmas mode right after Halloween, I was amazed that it was dinner time on Christmas Day before I even realized it. And considering I live a hop, skip and a jump from both Bethlehem and Nazareth, it was rather ironic.
So here I am, eight years later, on the verge of my eighth Christmas in the Holy Land, and all I can think about it what is going on in my Holy Land (yes, as I said ... within a 90 minute drive to either of the two key locations in the Christmas story.)
First is the complex matter of Gilad Shalit. For those of you who don't know his name, he is an Israeli tank solider who was ambushed and captured by our good friends Hamas 1278 days ago. Normally Hamas and their likes prefer to leave us squirming in our lack of knowledge as to whether our captured soldiers are still alive or not. Usually, after we have released several hundred of their killers back into the world, they like to send us back our ONE or maybe TWO soldiers in pine boxes. So far, it hasn't happened like that this time, but I am not going into the details of why I think that is.
What I will address is the fact that, once again, on this regular December day, Israel is torn apart by what the best course of action is in the Shalit situation. What is best for all of Israel? Not an easy question to answer.
We have a chance to get Gilad back alive -- which is what every Israeli parent with an army-aged child wants. But the price of his release is so very high -- it requires Israel to free hundreds and hundreds of terrorists with blood on their hands. And we know full well that, with very few exceptions, these prisoners were not rehabilitated in Israeli jails and that, once they are back on the streets, they will inevitably kill more Israelis. Needless to say, all of those families who have lost members at the hands of terrorists are against the deal. They are already victims of previous attempts to get some of our soldiers back.
Each side has a legitimate argument and I do not envy the people who will have to make the final decision. Our enemies are not men of integrity. They do not value life. They are scumbags. (This does not include all the innocent people living under their rule.)
However, my second story for the day involves the Israeli scumbags. Yes, we have them too. Unfortunately.
In the midst of the holiday season I hate to discuss upsetting things but today, after reading the newspaper, I feel like I have no choice.
Yesterday's Jerusalem Post reported the most upsetting story I have read in a long time. A Florida family that recently came to live in Israel has just been through one of those ordeals that keep parents up at night worrying.
Their teenage son was arrested for some minor mischief and ended up in Youth Detention. While there he was physically and sexually abused by both the staff and other teenage inmates. When his father came to visit him he had just been through a beating and he begged his father to get him help.
The father tried everything that any normal panic-stricken parent would try to do to protect his or her child. He was ignored by the authorities and dismissed out-of-hand. He hired a lawyer who was so shaken and upset upon meeting the teenager that he could barely discuss it on record.
Together they have worked around the clock trying to get this kid out of juvvie. Needless to say, the family says they are leaving Israel as soon as they possibly can.
At the heart of problem is the fact that the parents are new immigrants and totally out of their element trying to maneuver through the Israeli Justice System. The details of the case appear tenuous although it is difficult to say for sure because the source of all my information is the Post. And heaven help anyone who relies on newspapers for accurate information.
I am an immigrant and although I have not had such a nightmarish experience (thank God) I do understand the helplessness an immigrant feels. A new system (that in some ways is inferior to the system you left behind). A different language. A different mentality. A different culture.
Israel is a wonderful country on many levels, however, at the end of the day, the one thing that North Americans naively expect is that it is a democracy similar to the one they come from. It is not. As I have said before on the odd occasion, Israel is a third-world country dressed up to look a first-world country.
So, as the Christian world enters a special time of their year, it is very easy to see why Christmas doesn't cross my mind anymore.
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