More than Tolerance but Respect for Religious Differences

I was not alive when the modern state of Israel was established in 1948 by David Ben-Gurion and others. I arrived in this world some six years later. However, some of my remembrances relate to Israel and its relationship to its neighbors. In 1967, I was enamored with the game of golf. At our local, small town, public course Kids were allowed to play starting at age ten. By 1967, my father had a family membership so I often would go to the course a mile or mile and half away in the morning when the course was not crowded. On June 5, 1967, I rode my bicycle to the course pulling my golf clubs and bag on their cart behind me. A few blocks away from the course, I fell off the bike. The apparent cause was that the bolt holding the golf cart handle in place had fallen out and the golf bag and clubs spilled on the sidewalk. Fortunately, it was outside of some sort of repair shop. The owner of the shop heard the racket from the clubs spilling and my falling. So, he came out to the sidewalk helped me up, skinned knees and all. He took me and my clubs back into his shop and came up with a repair to the pull golf cart somehow replacing the bolt that held its handle to the rest of the cart. As he was doing that, the radio in his shop was on. June 5, 1967 was the start of the Six Day War. He told me about that war In Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had started as the radio news was full of coverage of same. Not sure how well I played golf that day, but I clearly remember that instance of the falling golf cart and the news of the start of war in the Middle East. In the fall of 1973, I had transferred from Aquinas College to Grand Valley State. The tuition was much lower at the public university (and I blamed Richard Nixon for the reduction in federal grants which helped me at Aquinas. Whether that was true or not, hey I was 19 years old.) Two of my college apartment mates at Grand Valley were Mitch and Lucian. Both had just spent a semester abroad studying and living on the Kibbutz where David Ben-Gurion had retired. They had indeed met the man. In early October 1973, two friends of Mitch and Lucian came to visit and stay with us in our college apartment. The two young men lived on Ben-Gurion's kibbutz and had become friends with my apartment mates. October 6 was the start of what the Israelis label the Yom Kippur War. The two young men were in the Israeli national guard and were immdediately called back to Israel to serve in the military. They hurriedly arranges flights back to Israel. My time at Grand Valley lasted only one semester. For financial reasons, I left school in December to move back to my home town. In February 1974, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy for four years of active duty as a U.S. Navy Journalist. Journalist was a popular position in the Navy, so I had to wait until August 1974 to enter active duty at Great Lakes Nval station and my boot camp. I had enlisted because I wanted to be the first in my family to obtain a college degree. I hoped to study English literature. The G.I. Bill would allow me to have financial support. And men were no longer being drafted to serve in Vietnam. I returned to Grand Valley in the fall of 1978 after my enlistment. One of my first apartment mates was Ali. Ali was an exchange student from Lebanon. During that first semester back in school, Ali made friends with several Saudi exchange students also on campus. At times, they woudl visit our college apartment. I like to say that I heard the "other side" of the Aab-Israeli dispute that semester from Ali. I wich I knew the answer to the ongoing bitterness. I don't. I was glad to read this morning Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed apologize for an inapprpriate he had made concerning the terror attack on a Michigan synagogue earlier this year as reported by a Lansing TV station: https://www.wlns.com/news/politics/el-sayed-apologizes-synagogue-attack/ In my estimation, both Israelis and Palestinians (and other neighbors) have a right to live peacefully side-by-side. We need leaders on all sides to encourage that.