I was here to report on jewish settlers, the 600,000 citizens of Israel living beyond its pre-1967 borders. My main concern was whether the normally guarded and cautious settler community would open up and talk to me: a brown-skinned, practicing Muslim from the United States.
Should I lie to an Israeli soldier in order to be allowed to pray? This was a theological dilemma I never studied in Sunday school, one I never thought I would have to confront.
Anxious and on edge, the soldier was standing in front of me, rifle in hand, blocking my way, and all I had to do was tell him I was 50 years old, and then I could pray at one of Islam's holiest sites. One minor problem: I'm 37. Typically, when violence happens in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israeli authorities ban men younger than 50 from entering Haram al-Sharif, the compound known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount. And there had just been a small—by Middle Eastern standards anyway—spasm of violence. Three Palestinians had shot and killed two Israeli police officers near al-Aqsa Mosque inside Haram al-Sharif, which led to Israeli retaliations, which led to mass Palestinian protests, which led to yet another predictable round of stories datelined Jerusalem about the legendary Middle Eastern “cycle of violence.”
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