A test of faith in Ramallah.
In January 2013, I led Senator Rand Paul on his first trip to Israel. It rained so hard that many Israelis told us they had never seen anything like it in the Holy Land. Bridges washed out. Roads closed. The Sea of Galilee rose nearly three feet in a single week, and Israeli officials called it the storm of the decade.
Senator Paul, never short on wit, gave our journey a name: “The Plague Tour.” [see below]
The Senator and a few guests arrived two days before the four journalists and the pastors from Iowa and South Carolina who would join us. On Monday, January 7—his fiftieth birthday—he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Peres in Jerusalem. The next day, we crossed into Jordan for his meeting with King Abdullah II in Amman.
Getting back the following day to meet the pastors and journalists in the Galilee was another matter. The storm had washed out the northern crossings, so we crossed at the Allenby Bridge in the south and worked our way up the country's eastern side. A drive that should have taken two hours took seven or eight.
Journalists and pastors were waiting for us. Among them was my friend Ralph Hallow, who had served for thirty years as chief political writer for The Washington Times.
When we came down from the Galilee and checked into the Mamilla Hotel in Jerusalem, our tour operator, Tisha Michele, pulled me aside.
“Ralph Hallow has a scheduled interview with President Abbas tomorrow at PLO headquarters,” she said, “and I can’t get a bulletproof van to take him there. Someone needs to go with him. I think you should go.”
I told her the truth: “I don’t really want to do that. But let me talk to Ralph.”
Ralph was excited. “You have to go,” he said.
On the morning of Thursday, January 10, a Jewish cab driver picked us up at the hotel. We drove about thirty minutes to the checkpoint, where Ralph and I climbed out and got into a Palestinian car for the ride into Ramallah—to the Muqata’a, the compound where Yasser Arafat once ruled and where he is buried.
A man named Qais met us at the car and walked us to his first-floor office. A Christmas tree stood in the corner. I asked him about it.
“I’m a Christian,” he said.
He poured each of us a small cup of Turkish coffee and then led us upstairs. Along the way, he told me we would first meet with a spokesman for the Palestinian leadership.
“He’s a Christian too,” Qais said.
The office was small, with two desks and two chairs in front. Ralph and I sat down while the spokesman and a second man made small talk. Ralph told a joke I didn’t quite follow, then turned and said, “This is David Lane. He’s an Evangelical leader in America.”
A man in a suit in the far back corner spoke up.
“Why do the Evangelicals back the Jews over the Palestinians?”
A spirit of fear hit that room like you couldn’t believe.
I chose my words carefully and took him to the Book. In Genesis 12, I said, God called Abram out of Ur and made him a promise: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse” [Genesis 12:3]. A few verses later, He added, “To your descendants I will give this land to your descendants” [Genesis 12:7].
The man pressed back. “So, you’re saying that I’m not a son of Abraham?”
“You are a son of Abraham,” I said. “And you came through Ishmael.”
I didn’t mean it as a personal slight or a rude affront. I was pointing to Scripture. God heard Ishmael’s cry in the wilderness and promised to make him a great nation [Genesis 21:17–18]. But He was equally plain about the covenant: “My covenant I will establish with Isaac” [Genesis 17:21].
Then the spokesman—whom Qais had also described as a Christian—jumped in. “My brother and I have never had this discussion.”
So I asked him directly: “Do you believe Jesus was God?”
He thought for a moment. “Of course I don’t believe Jesus was God,” he said. “How do you crucify God?”
The room was thick with tension, division, and fear.
Shortly afterward, Qais came back upstairs and handed Ralph his card. “I’m sorry,” he said. “President Abbas has been called to a meeting with President Morsi in Egypt. We’re going to have to reschedule.”
But Ralph was not having it. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I came six thousand miles to see President Abbas, and I’m going nowhere until I do!”
After much back-and-forth, Qais walked us down to the foyer and called for the car. Palestinian troops stood around us with machine guns slung across their backs. It felt like an hour, but it was probably only two or three minutes before the car pulled up ... I just wanted to take off and run.
They put us in the back seat. As we drove off, Ralph turned on me.
“I can’t believe you ruined my interview with President Abbas!”
With the Palestinian driver listening, I responded, “Ralph, I have no interest in having this discussion.” I turned and looked out the window.
Ten minutes later, we were back at the checkpoint and climbed into a Jewish cab. As we pulled away, I saw IDF troops. I turned to Ralph.
“You have no idea how close we came to getting killed.”
Qais had not told us the whole story. Abbas had indeed been in Cairo the day before, meeting with Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. But he was back in Ramallah that afternoon. A few hours after Ralph and I were shown the door, President Abbas received Senator Rand Paul.
Ralph Hallow went home to the Lord in October 2020. I had the honor of speaking at his funeral. [1] He never got his interview with Mahmoud Abbas.
Thirteen years later, Abbas is 90, still ruling by decree, and has once again postponed Palestinian elections this week.
But I will never forget that small room on the second floor of Arafat’s former headquarters in Ramallah. Three lessons have stayed with me.
First, the struggle over land and resources is real. The question of whose land it is has consequences for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Second, the battle over truth runs deeper. A spokesman in Ramallah who identified himself as a Christian could not accept that God would go to a Cross. At the heart of our faith stands the question Jesus Himself asked: “But whom say ye that I am?” [Matthew 16:15].
Third, someone in your own community may one day ask, “Why do you stand with the Jews and Israel?” When that moment comes, open your Bible and answer without fear.
Thankfully, Gideons and Rahabs have begun to stand. May their tribe increase.
David Lane
American Renewal Project
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