Today is Epiphany, the day where we remember the wise men visiting Jesus in Bethlehem, a commonly held tradition is that one of the wise men was Ethiopian - partly as Frankincense is obtained from trees in Ethiopia - it therefore occurs to me that this wise man would have journeyed through Gaza...a few years ago I reflected on the journey of the wise men through Iraq when the war was raging there and now we have a wise man journeying through Gaza. Gaza, one of the most heavily populated places on the earth currently under attack by the Israeli Army.
So what would a wise man say if he were journeying through Gaza today? Well, a not so wise man thinks that he'd say...
The Israeli response is totally disproportionate to the aggression that there has been against them,
The Israeli's have not exhausted all diplomatic methods of seeking a resolution,
The Israelis and Palestinians need to find a way of living together in peace,
The wall needs to go,
But I also think that there is something political going on here too, it can be no coincidence that the Israelis are doing this at the end of a pro-Israel Bush administration, they know that they will no be condemned by the current US administration for this, However, and here is where there is a sting in the tale, my feeling is that a lot of the anti-Israel, pro-palestinian political activity that there is at the moment is simply another way to attack US foreign policy. There are global atrocities going on at the moment, think Zimbadwae for example, and there is not the same level of protest or anguish at this, so why is this? Is it because Mugabe's regime is not supported by the US in the same way that the Israeli's are? I don't know but it's a thought.
So the wise man arrives at Herod's Palace, the representative of the global super power in the heart of Jerusalem and he leaves Jerusalem and travels to Palestine. Where he spends time with the family who are soon to become a refugees in Egypt. There he has a dream, a dream that tells him not to go back to the global super power, because the global super power is threatened by a small baby, but to return home by another route.
