I asked one of the Egyptian Army guards there who spoke English where the pictures were from. He said "Here" and pointed out the windows to barren sand, trash, and clutter. I asked him what happened and he said "The Jews left."
I was lucky enough to pass the applicant process and flew at my own expense from Europe to Wash DC to interview for the Foreign Service, and three months later was a member of the 15,000 diplomatic corps. My first assignment was AmEmb Tel Aviv and I took my family over much dissuasion by senior mentors. My wife had already spent 9 years overseas with me.
I took part in a German funded UN project to put radio repeaters throughout Gaza and the West Bank. I’ve been all other Israel.
I was given a trip to Bethlehem on 22 December 2005. There three vans of people, there were twelve of us considered tourists, and eighteen “security/infantrymen” with us as oversight. As we went from the Church to the Cave and then to a lunch — Pali’s with AK47s and rocket launchers were on the rooftops and jumping across buildings rooftops shadowing our “Christian Visitors”. Our security acted just as I had been trained in the 82d Abn Div to cover and move, they keep nearly have of our security keep close to the buildings ready to fire if fired upon; of course they were not going to shoot at us, but the Pali’s did show that they were the law and that the people there live in the grip of organized terrorists with weapons. There can be no peace when the law enforcement and political rulers do so by gun point.