In 2018, I ventured across Historic Palestine to experience first-hand one of the most influential places in religion, ancient history, and modern geopolitics. I worked my way across the Holy sites, spoke with Jewish and Palestinian community members, and saw up close some of history’s most indelible backdrops. When I first embarked on the journey, I had little aim other than pure adventure—booking a last minute flight because of a good deal—but I quickly realized that this small sliver of the Near East’s map is one of the most complex and deeply impactful regions of the world. Israel & Palestine are steeped in intricate history, social conflict, and rich culture extending to the very earliest of all human civilization. It is no exaggeration to call this place the center of the world.
My travels took me as far north as Cesarea Philippi—near the border with Lebanon—and as far south as the Dead Sea—the boundary between Israel and Jordan. The journey was roughly split into three sections: Central Israel (including Tev Aviv and Jaffa), Northern Israel (from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee), and the West Bank (across Jerusalem to the Dead Sea). Each region presented its own piece of ancient history and sense of modern conflict. I stood atop the contested land of the Golan Heights as distant bombs thundered in Syria. I surveyed the ruins of Cesarea Maritima, the 2000-year-old capital of King Herod’s Roman Judea under Caesar Augustus. And I walked the Southern Steps of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the very steps that Jesus once taught crowds from in his time of ministry. The Levant proved to be a land of contrasts—desert and sea, history and modernity, peace and war—and I only explored a small piece of it.
As I traced the footsteps of empires that had risen and fallen—the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Ottomans—it became apparent that this land in itself was not particularly remarkable, but the things that happened here were. The humble reality of the dusty, rocky landscape paled in comparison to the stories of Alexander the Great, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, and the Siege of Masada. The sand covered horizon failed to capture the dynamic reality of Arab revolts, Christian persecution, Jewish settlement, continuous war, and rise of the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is the duality of the Levant—its place in our history is not marked for beauty or resources, but by the extraordinary clash of civilizations and ideals who meet at this juncture. Yet behind the battles of both present and past ages are people that seek only to live their lives in peace. The truth is that this land does not belong to any one victor, but to the stories that permeate its soil and the people whose lifetimes create texture in the sand. It belongs to those who live earnestly in the chaos, putting war in their periphery, to add yet another humble story to this otherwise unremarkable place.