I love the Israelis! But how can I love my enemy? This question rattled around in my mind after coming to faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

As a Palestinian, when you hear the word “enemy” you instantly think of Israelis or, more accurately, the Jews. I had this ugly image in my head of Jews killing Palestinians in order to take our land. How could I love people like this? Still, hard as it was, I wanted to obey every word of the Bible.

I started to pray: “Look, Lord, I love the Jews, not because they are good, but because I want to obey Your Word.” I repeated this prayer often. I opposed their actions, but I loved them. Still, I justified any aggression by Palestinians against Jews, whilst blaming Israel for everything that happened to us.

Living in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), you must constantly pass checkpoints, resulting in anger. I explained this anger by reminding myself of the injustice of the occupation, that the soldiers ought not to be here in the...