From Beirut to Jerusalem
Chapter One
Prelude: From Minneapolis to Beirut
In June 1979, my wife, Ann, and I boarded a red-and-white Middle
East Airlines 707 in Geneva for the four-hour flight to Beirut. It
was the start of the nearly ten-year journey through the Middle East
that is the subject of this book. It began, as it ended, with a
bang.
When we got in line to walk through the metal detector at our
boarding gate, we found ourselves standing behind three
broad-shouldered, mustachioed Lebanese men. As each stepped through
the metal detector, it would erupt with a buzz and a flashing red
light, like a pinball machine about to tilt. The Swiss police
immediately swooped in to inspect our fellow passengers, who turned
out not to be hijackers bearing guns and knives, although they were
carrying plenty of metal; they were an Armenian family of jewelers
bringing bricks of gold back to Beirut. Each of the boys in the
family had a specially fitted money belt containing six gold bars
strapped around his stomach, and one of them also had a shoe box
filled with the precious metal. They sat nex ... read full excerpt from: From Beirut to Jerusalem ebook
