Jordan and Israel: Awkward Bedfellows

By Samantha Sisskind AMMAN, JORDAN - Two groups met at the banks of one of the world’s most meandering and politically significant rivers in the world. Standing in a rickety wooden hut framed by thick brush on the east bank of the Jordan River was a group of American students, and directly across on the west bank of the river was an equally sized group of American tourists, waiting upon steps leading to a mammoth stone Israeli military outpost. Not twenty feet separated the two groups, yet each pretended that the other wasn’t there.  The tension between the two groups, viewing the same site from opposite perspectives, was palpable. They wondered, “do we acknowledge each other, or do we just continue to ignore each other, take a picture of the river and go?” Finally, a student...

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The De-Militarized Zone: Politics and Religion in the Middle East

By Samantha Sisskind AMMAN, JORDAN – The swastika and anti-Israel graffiti spray-painted on the wall of a church parking lot I pass on the way to my school in central Amman reminds me daily of the blurred line between religious and political beliefs, particularly here in the Middle East. In fact, while referring to it as a “line” is familiar terminology, it's woefully insufficient to suitably explain the relationship between these two facets of human identity. The inevitable overlap between politics and religion more aptly resembles a mine-laden de-militarized zone: a volatile and uncertain area separating two realms that have more in common than either is willing to admit. In a presentation given to foreign students at Jordan University, Father Nabil Haddad, a Greek Melkite Catholic Priest and Executive Director of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center, advocated that...

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