Foreshadowings

Sunday, October 9

Yesterday we landed in Iznajar, in the southern province between Cordoba and Granada, staying at a place we found on the home-away website. There are three other couples here, and we were delighted to discover that one of the couples lives in Israel, our next destination after Spain. I introduced myself to "R" and told her that we were going to visit Israel & Palestine after we left Spain. She was taken aback. "You mean you are visiting Israel," she said. "There is no Palestine." She made it clear in our brief exchange that by mentioning Palestine in the same sentence as Israel was making a political assumption that she did not want to acknowledge.

Similarly, when I went to buy a hijab from a store in Cleveland, I told the Muslim woman behind the counter I was planning to visit Israel & Palestine. She essentially said the same thing, only from the perspective of a Palestinian: "you mean you will be visiting Palestine. There is no Israel...". No Israel??? I was completely taken by surprise. It never occurred to me that someone would not recognize the state of Israel. Both women wanted to correct me; both women's perspectives were, in their minds, "right."

These two encounters, occurring on two different lands, is a sobering reminder to me of what we will be encountering next month when we land in the Holy Land for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. It also reminded me of the long reach of these historic conflicts-- all the way to a small shop in Cleveland, Ohio; all the way to a sunny patio on a Sunday afternoon in Iznajar.