Most of the Golan is fenced with these signs
Where the Syrians were defeated
We went to one First Century site today: Caesarea Philippi. This place is known best as the location where Simon Peter confessed “you are the Christ, the son of the living God.” The ride from the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee to the Caesarea Philippi took us 40 minutes by bus and must have been a very difficult two day walk for Jesus. The Sea is 700 feet below sea level and Caesarea Philippi is over 3000 above sea level. It is located in what is known today as the Golan Heights.
The balance of day was an engagement in modern day Israel’s struggles with security. A former colonel in the Israeli army gave us a tour of a former Syrian stronghold that was the location of a major battle in the 1967 war. If my pictures downloaded, there is one of me in front of a former barracks. The Golan Heights is very high and strategic ground from which the upper Hula valley in Israel is an easy target.
We saw two Israeli memorials to soldiers lost in the first and second war with Lebanon, the last of which was just in 2006. We traveled to the Lebanese border at the very Northwest corner of Israel where we say a Hezbollah stronghold (now vacated) within one mile of an Israeli town called Metulla. Many thousands of Israeli citizens are within rocket range of southern Lebanon where Hezbollah is strong in number.
The more I hear about the story of the Jewish State, the more I understand why peace has not been achieved. Most of us would not live in such conditions of chronic threat.
On a lighter note, do you know where Golan Burgers come from? From cows that get loose in the minefields. Yum!
Tomorrow night….JERUSALEM!
