What should have an easy trip from Nablus to Nazareth via modern highway was marred by a one-hour delay at a sizable checkpoint and an unexpected detour.
Sebastia
Sebastia, now a sleepy rural town in the hills above Nablus, traces six cultures spanning some 10,000 years: Canaanite, Israelite, Hellenistic, Herodian, Roman and Byzantine plus "modern." It was destroyed and rebuilt several times. Herod the Great -- a great builder but a cruel and blood-thirsty ruler in other respects -- created the city of Sebaste on the site. On the outskirts are drive-to ruins of a grand public building with a shuttered cafe next to it. So many ancient sites are understandably roped off to protect them from crowds, visitors can roam freely among the remnants of walls and columns. A short loop trail leads up a hill past a Roman amphitheater, a small Crusader chapel and other ruins.
In the small village itself are the remains of a Crusader church , where John the Baptist was supposedly beheaded. The grotto is currently being stabilized.
A deep excavation shows an ancient Roman cemetery (below). The wooden frame remains from a pulley system used to hoist up artifacts that now reside in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. We did not have time to descend the stairs to see the cemetery more closely.
Checkpoint Hassles
As we were heading to Nazareth in Galilee, we were held up for an hour at a highway barrier checkpoint near the settlement of Ari'el, one of the hundreds of Israeli checkpoints that erupt from the Palestinian landscape like festering wounds. I often have been critical of the US Transportation Security Agency, but TSA screeners are amateur hasslers compared with the Israeli Army.,Often young, always armed soldiers are empowered to make arbitrary decisions about who may pass and who may not, who is searched and who is not. At small checkpoints, there are often only two soldiers, immediately answerable to no one. At larger checkpoints, there may be more soldiers and some kind of chain of command.
At the checkpoint near Air'el, our bus -- 14 American visitors, one Canadian, three Israeli Palestinians (including the driver) and one West Bank Palestinian with a permit to enter -- was diverted to a special screening area. We were asked to get off the bus and bring all our luggage -- the bigger pieces under the bus and all of our carryons -- to be X-rayed. Laptops were checked twice. We had to open our suitcases, and one of the guards poked around every one, riffling through the pages of books and generally wasting time by looking for things that were not there. We had to walk through a metal detector. In the end, our West Bank friend, who I repeat has a permit to enter enter Israel, was denied admittance through that checkpoint. We were ordered around politely. I suspect that Palestinians are not treated politely at all.
Our friend waited at the checkpoint while the driver continued to the next exit, turned around to pick him up and then took a long detour to another smaller checkpoint where the soldiers glanced at our assorted passports and IDs and let us through. The detour through stark and arid Bedouin country reminded me of Navajo Nation land. It was interesting to see, but it was not because the Army wanted us visitors to go sightseeing in an area we would have missed. It was simply to harass the Palestinians.
Nazareth
When we finally arrived in Nazareth in time for a late lunch and truncated tour at the Nazareth Village, an excellent living-history recreation of life in the this area at the time of Christ. It is the brainchild of the Herschend family, key developers in Branson, Missouri, and therefore is done very well. We sat on rough benches and ate food from that time brought by servers in period dress. There was soft round, chewy unleavened bread similar to a tortilla, delicious, lentil soup, chicken and vegetables all served rough pottery vessels.
The interpretive tour was guided by a young theology student from California, who was not in period garb. He took us through the recreated home, meeting house that served as a community gathering place and synagogue, workshop and showed how olives were pressed back then. We were so late that we didn't have time to visit the agricultural area.
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