I’ll take a second to respond to Mahmud’s post before continuing with day eight. Mahmud is right to say that the Golan’s strategic importance is no longer what it used to be. When it was first captured in 1967, the Golan was a very important strategic asset, especially because it seemed as though Syria was still bent on destroying Israel. In such a case, the Golan would an important staging ground for an invasion of Israel. Today, however, a full scale invasion of Israel does not seem to be in the cards for Syria because of its military inferiority. Thus Israel would not have to worry about the degraded soviet artillery in the Heights that would be easily dealt with today. The Scud Cs don’t really factor in so much because Israel has pretty good anti-ballistic missile systems. Even so, a militarized Golan would still be somewhat of a security threat no matter what intentions are, which is why any agreement would necessarily entail de-militariziation stipulations. In 1994 the two sides agreed on proportionally sized demilitarized zones on both sides of the border. Now, today that situation might be a little bit different considering the threat that Hezbollah would still pose to the Northern Israel regardless of a peace deal, so it might be a little less reasonable to expect Israel to agree to the same sort of demilitarization.
Now while it’s true that there is less parity now than there was in 73 between the Syrian and Israeli armies, it doesn’t mean that Assad can’t engineer a war to his advantage. Assad has a weapon today that didn’t exist in 73…Hamas and Hezbollah. Again, these two groups are very powerful tools as they pose a huge threat to Israel when you consider the sort of response needed to deal with them. They really do have the capacity to thin the Israeli army to the extent that Syria could make some gains and hold them in the Golan, at least for a short time. Of course this would still be extremely difficult considering the lack of air defense on the Syrian side. Nonetheless, Assad would wait until the international conditions are such that a military defeat would still yield political gains. This would only be possible if Syria really does make a sincere effort at peace and exposes Israel as unwilling to negotiate the Heights. Only then would the U.S.A. and Europe be able to exert the necessary pressure.
Finally, I don’t see much of a paradox…if I took something from you and you put up no fuss, I wouldn’t even consider giving it back. But if you cried and made me feel bad about it, maybe I would think about giving it back. It’s less costly for Israel to hold on to the Golan simply because they never have any problems there, why should they give it back? Rationally, you would want to be rid of something if it gives you more grief than benefits. All the Israelis have ever gotten from the Golan is benefits (wine, nice views, good camping) and no grief.
Challenges
Today was the long awaited day when we might have gotten to see a bit of the other side, and get a more balanced look at Israel. It was only half satisfying to me.
The first stop was a mosque in an Arab village along the Jerusalem quarter. We were to meet with the Imam of a mosque and some of his congregation. The village had been inside Israel since 1948 and all the town’s residents were Israeli Citizens. We got to the mosque, went inside, took our shoes off and sat in the prayer hall. The imam gave us a quick lecture about the basics of Islam (a brief history of Mohammed and the 5 pillars). I could tell pretty quickly that they were very moderate and very pacifist. I asked what his views were on living in a state that was built for a different religion. The Imam said that it was a Muslim’s duty to live with what God gives him until God changes it himself. He went on to say that unless it can be absolutely identified as divinely ordained, human agency in changing something like the Jewish character of the state was not allowed. The Imam even said that they would absolutely support a two state solution. The Imam also used language that indicated he was speaking for the whole of Islam. He refused to even acknowledge that any disagreement could even be considered Islamic. Now of course this comforted most of the people in my group… “oh how nice, finally someone who knows what Islam truly is! if only the rest of those pretenders could be so enlightened!” I was pretty disappointed because I had hoped to at least hear a more informed explanation of the thinking of some other Muslim groups on Palestine like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al Qaeda, Iran etc etc. Instead of giving any explanation at all the Imam only said that those people weren’t really Muslims at all and that it was all politics. Again, everyone liked hearing that, but it’s bullshit. Nasrallah is Muslim because he says he is. His followers are Muslims and their thinking is Islamic. Of course it’s all politics, but those politics are inexorably tied to Islamic thought in every single one of the cases I mentioned. So this incident was a little disappointing because I thought that the theme of the day would be challenges and instead we were brought to a lecture by people who obviously don’t pose a challenge at all.
But there was still more to come and I at least hoped that we would get to hear some more contentious opinions. We walked up into the hills around the town and we eventually came to a clearing where a Muslim woman and an Arab man were waiting for us. We all settled and they started to speak about some of their experiences. They started out by saying that it is a constant struggle to keep their culture and their way of life alive. Arabs, they said, were proportionally much worse off than Jews in Israel, and everything in the state revolves around Judaism; holidays, state symbols, the teaching of history is all Jewish centered. In such an environment, they said, it is extremely difficult to maintain an Arab or Muslim identity. The woman was translating for the man, who was speaking in Arabic. His Arabic was very difficult to understand and I realized that he was using a lot of Hebrew words and some Hebrew affected pronunciations. One of the things that I liked so much about Israel up to this point was how diverse and dynamic it had allowed Jewish life to become. Now, hearing this man speak Arabic I was seeing some of its side affects.
The next topic they spoke about was the de facto discrimination built into the Israeli system. It was good to hear this considering Jesse’s rant the other day to a bunch of us that arabs were “completely equal, full citizens of Israel entitled to anything and everything that any Israeli is entitled to.” On paper he is correct, but in reality, that’s not how it works. The man told us about how so much of one’s success in Israel is contingent on serving in the IDF. Technically, Arab citizens are allowed to join, but they are nearly always rejected for “security concerns.” Now the man didn’t mention this, but polls have shown that between 7 and 10 percent of Israeli Arabs support attacks against Israel and Israeli citizens. So as far as I am concerned, these security concerns are completely legitimate. Nonetheless, it does not mean that Arab citizens should be systematically denied opportunities for success, especially with the level of education many have gotten…it’s just a waste otherwise. So the man mentioned, like I expected him to, the position that there should be some other sort of national service that Israeli Arabs can perform, that does not affect security, and by which they can still accrue the same benefits as any other Israeli who has served in the military. If Arab citizens were allowed to participate in the state, then maybe the percentages in the aforementioned survey would eventually go down.
Now much to my dismay, some in the group reacted to the man’s speech by scoffing and saying “well you live in Jewish state.” I couldn’t believe it. These people were Americans! We live in a country for all of its citizens and I’m very proud of that. Sure there are problems and yes they need to be addressed, of course racism is still alive and well and the lasting affects of slavery have not yet even come close being ameliorated, but nonetheless, we live in a country that is for everyone. I cannot imagine scoffing at anyone and saying, pff well you live in a Christian state, deal with it.
Our next stop was the security barrier. We met up with Rabbi Michael Schwartz at a lookout over east Jerusalem. We could see the wall very well, including an abrupt loop that leaves an Arab village completely encased by concrete save for a 25 meter opening on its eastern edge. The rabbi gave us run down of the problems that the wall has caused. He told us that Arabs who used to come to work everyday in Jerusalem are now unsure every day if they will be let. For the ones that get in, they now have to make a trip of several hours every morning to get to the right checkpoint instead of walking or taking a 10 or 20 minute bus like before. Thus, many workers have lost their livelihood and so now their families are suffering. The Rabbi also told us about an interesting phenomenon caused by the wall. Today, many west bank Arabs without Israeli citizenship would prefer to be included inside the wall so that they can continue to work while many Israelis are lobbying to exclude more land from the state.
After he talked about the Palestinian perspective for a while, we went to a bus stop where a suicide bomber had blown up a bus in 2002. The bus stop had become a sort of roadside memorial of the people who were killed, with pictures and collages and flowers that someone always replaces. The bus stop was also covered with a lot of different kinds of signs and slogans including the infamous "No Arabs, No Terror" bumper sticker. The Rabbi then talked about Israel's right to defend itself and about how The Hague acknowledged the legality of the wall, if not its specific course. He also told us that the wall has undoubtedly put a near complete stop to suicide attacks within Israel in general and especially in Jerusalem. There is testimony from members of the PFLP and Hamas that confirms this. What he didn’t point out, which I thought would have been a good point, is that the barrier also saves Palestinian civilians the grief of becoming collateral damage when Israel retaliates for a suicide attack. So basically I thought it was a pretty good, balanced review of the issues with which I mostly agreed.
Afterwards, we visited Har Herzl. Har Herzl is the Arlington National Cemetery of Israel, so this trip was going to be very serious. We started at some of the Graves of the Heroes of the Jewish Underground who fought during the 1948 war. After that we visited the graves of some Israeli paratroopers who were captured and killed during the same war. Throughout the tour Ronnie stressed the point that these men and women (there were women who fought) died not just for Israel, but for all Jews, past present and future. Next we visited the grave of the 22 year old American who made aliyah when he was 18 and died last summer in southern Lebanon. While Ronnie was telling us about him three of the soldiers in our group walked off to another grave 15 meters off and took of their hats. One of their friends had also died last summer in Lebanon. We also visited a memorial for all those who died in terrorist attacks. Ronnie read us the letter that one 12 year old American girl wrote to her mother as she was being held hostage in nineteen seventy something. She knew very well that was going to die and expressed a desperate willingness to accept it. Ronnie showed us a picture of the original letter, and you could tell that much of it was blurred by tear drops. Then he pointed to her name on the wall.
After that we went to the grave of a soldier who died in 1982. His mother wrote a children's book and named it after him: Guni. Ronnie read us the book. The book starts in Guni's childhood. He was an active child, and had decided from a very young age that he wanted to be an officer in the military. Guni eventually becomes an officer, serves and goes and is relieved of duty a few weeks before the start of the 82 war. Once the war starts, Guni is not required to go, but he does because he feels an obligation to his men. He died in the very early stages of the invasion at Beaufort Castle. The book concludes with an explanation for Guni's death: he died for the Jewish people, he died for his country that he loved so much, he died because he had to to protect his country and his people. All I could think was "my god, it was Lebanon…fucking Lebanon for Christ's sake. No one dies for anything in Lebanon." That war was a complete disaster and caused nothing but 15 years of unchecked and pointless misery for anyone involved. Today and yesterday, France can sit back and be indignant at Israel for its 82 mishaps completely forgetting that such a war was only a result of its own greed. Today Israelis look at the war and find heroes in what was only a shameless attempt to exploit the unjust system that the French had forsaken. And now Americans can rant and rave about Hezbollah the terrorist organization, the fucking crazy Palestinians in those disgusting refugee camps they live like animals after all. They're all heroes, Gameyal, Nasrallah, Guni, Habash, fuck it. They're dying for their people, dying for Lebanon, for shiism, for palestine, for the watan. Everyone has a flag. People were crying after Ronnie read the story, including Ronnie and some left rocks on Guni's grave.
So I calmed down a bit and finally we made it to the top of the hill where Theodore Herzl is buried. It's interesting, these graves, because they are really treated different than in the U.S. We can go to Washington's grave in the U.S., or Hamilton's or Franklin's and we acknowledge their greatness and the significance of their personalities in the birth of our country. We can talk about them a great length and list off all of their great achievements, respectable humility or general brilliance. But we always emphasis the ideas that drove them, that the ideas were always the most important thing. These men worked their entire lives for principles that went beyond race, religion or sect. That is what we are told. In Israel these men a revered for what they did for the Jewish people and not necessarily the ideas for which they struggled. So there is a sort of air of ancestor worship around Herzl's tomb which is, for me, different and a little strange.
So it was a pretty heavy day, everyone was exhausted and the Guni story was still thoroughly screwing with me. Yad Vashem tomorrow. It's designed by Moshe Safir, so it should be interesting. Time to get some sleep.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Digression and Day 8
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Day 7
Dilemmas
Today we went to the Golan Heights. Technically, Israel annexed the heights after the Six Day War. Nonetheless, the Heights are commonly understood to be negotiable territory in any future talks with Syria.
Our first stop was Debanyas. After 1948, this part of the heights was neutral territory, but Syria eventually extended its own sovereignty over the area. In 1994 when Rabin indicated that the entire heights were on the table, Asad made him confirm that he meant all Syrian territory that was occupied during the war. Rabin gave Warren Christopher the go ahead to inform Asad that the June 4th 1967 lines were on the table, thus including Debanyas in the negotiations. It's hard to say weather or not Rabin was being sincere. Some think was only saying the entire Heights were negotiable so that the Syrians and Palestinians would rush to sign a deal with Israel because the first one to sign would gain more. Thus Israel would minimize the concessions it would have to make to both as the rush would significantly shorten both the Syrian and Palestinian time horizons, weakening their bargaining power.
After we talked about the strategic importance of the Heights at Debanyas, a lot of people wanted to go to the Golan Heights winery. Ronnie had told me last night that Diane wanted to visit the winery, but that he didn’t see what the point was. I agreed and said that we should go the lookout over the UN compound and Syria instead. Today I mentioned it again and Ronnie decided to abandon the winery visit, much to Diane's dismay. Everyone else seemed pretty indifferent, but man I was pretty excited to see Syria.
So we go up to the lookout, and it's a bit more odd than I expected. There are all these metal silhouette things of soldiers everywhere, plus barbed wire metal animal sculptures lining the road to the top of the lookout. There is also a dinosaur made out of scrap metal. It's about 3 meters tall and I have no idea why the hell it's there. I asked Ronnie and he really didn’t know either. We looked down into Syria and said something like.. "yup there's Syria." Damascus was about 60km away.
On the way back I started talking with Dotan and Liron. They are both convinced that there will be a war with Syria this summer. I read an article about this possibility in the Jpost the other day. Basically the belief is that Syria feels that negotiations are not possible, and that the best course of action would be to launch a limited war against Israel in the Heights to force them to the bargaining table again. The strategy is similar to Egypt's strategy during the 1973 war. The difference this time is that Syria will have a harder time relying on international forces putting the necessary pressure on Israel to stop the war, and then go to the bargaining table. In 1973, both the Russians and the Americans desperately wanted to avoid confrontation, and so both were willing to do more to end hostilities in the region. Now, the Cold War is over and so Syria can't expect a similar post conflict situation, especially with Bush in office. So that's why I think a war won't happen this summer. However, I think that Asad will try negotiations again based on the promises Rabin made in 1994. Israeli politics will be too fragmented to offer what Rabin offered, and so the talks will fail. That is when Asad will launch another war. He will wait until Bush is out and the new American administration will be more likely to pressure Israel and work with Syria. I expect that the attack will come right after another Hezbollah attack and probably a major Hamas rocket offensive from the Gaza Strip so that the Syrians will face a diluted and weakened IDF.
Speaking of which, Ronnie told me and Casey that there was in fact a huge Hamas rocket attack coming from the Gaza Strip today. The southern town of Sderot is being pummeled hard, and a lot of people are being injured. They are considering evacuating it. The attack is mean to provoke Israel to respond, which will then unite the Fatah and Hamas factions that have been slaughtering each other against a common enemy.
Later that night we went back to the hotel and I met this Orthodox Jew who spoke Arabic. So we chatted a bit in the hotel lobby and I'm sure it was an odd sight. He had worked in Arabic media analysis in the states for 5 years before realizing that he needed to become an Orthodox Jew and a religious Zionist. He said that he used to be a moderate peacenik, but then after reading a lot of vile stuff about Jews in the Arabic media, decided that it was worthless. Now he's living in Israel and studying, looking to marry a Sephardi Jewish woman soon. His sister is on the birthright trip, and she's a nice girl, but I think she's a little puzzled as to how her brother all of a sudden became so religious.
Jesse gathered us around to talk a little abut Yad Vashem and Har Herzl. Yad Vashem is the holocaust museum and Har Herzl is the Arlington national cemetery of Israel. Both are very serious, very important places. We talked a bit about the holocaust and were asked to share our thoughts. Liron said that it's important because it proves that the whole world, or at least a significant proportion of it, has hated and will continue to hate the Jews until they are all gone. Jesse then talked a bit about how there has been a move in Europe teaching to include the holocaust within a general section on genocide instead of teaching it as a special section of its own. He "wasn't saying anything" but he pointed out that this move has gained momentum as the Arab population of Europe has increased.
So basically today was a little slow, but tomorrow I expect will be a big day. Also I'm tired as hell, so I need to get out of here. Laila tov.
Today we went to the Golan Heights. Technically, Israel annexed the heights after the Six Day War. Nonetheless, the Heights are commonly understood to be negotiable territory in any future talks with Syria.
Our first stop was Debanyas. After 1948, this part of the heights was neutral territory, but Syria eventually extended its own sovereignty over the area. In 1994 when Rabin indicated that the entire heights were on the table, Asad made him confirm that he meant all Syrian territory that was occupied during the war. Rabin gave Warren Christopher the go ahead to inform Asad that the June 4th 1967 lines were on the table, thus including Debanyas in the negotiations. It's hard to say weather or not Rabin was being sincere. Some think was only saying the entire Heights were negotiable so that the Syrians and Palestinians would rush to sign a deal with Israel because the first one to sign would gain more. Thus Israel would minimize the concessions it would have to make to both as the rush would significantly shorten both the Syrian and Palestinian time horizons, weakening their bargaining power.
After we talked about the strategic importance of the Heights at Debanyas, a lot of people wanted to go to the Golan Heights winery. Ronnie had told me last night that Diane wanted to visit the winery, but that he didn’t see what the point was. I agreed and said that we should go the lookout over the UN compound and Syria instead. Today I mentioned it again and Ronnie decided to abandon the winery visit, much to Diane's dismay. Everyone else seemed pretty indifferent, but man I was pretty excited to see Syria.
So we go up to the lookout, and it's a bit more odd than I expected. There are all these metal silhouette things of soldiers everywhere, plus barbed wire metal animal sculptures lining the road to the top of the lookout. There is also a dinosaur made out of scrap metal. It's about 3 meters tall and I have no idea why the hell it's there. I asked Ronnie and he really didn’t know either. We looked down into Syria and said something like.. "yup there's Syria." Damascus was about 60km away.
On the way back I started talking with Dotan and Liron. They are both convinced that there will be a war with Syria this summer. I read an article about this possibility in the Jpost the other day. Basically the belief is that Syria feels that negotiations are not possible, and that the best course of action would be to launch a limited war against Israel in the Heights to force them to the bargaining table again. The strategy is similar to Egypt's strategy during the 1973 war. The difference this time is that Syria will have a harder time relying on international forces putting the necessary pressure on Israel to stop the war, and then go to the bargaining table. In 1973, both the Russians and the Americans desperately wanted to avoid confrontation, and so both were willing to do more to end hostilities in the region. Now, the Cold War is over and so Syria can't expect a similar post conflict situation, especially with Bush in office. So that's why I think a war won't happen this summer. However, I think that Asad will try negotiations again based on the promises Rabin made in 1994. Israeli politics will be too fragmented to offer what Rabin offered, and so the talks will fail. That is when Asad will launch another war. He will wait until Bush is out and the new American administration will be more likely to pressure Israel and work with Syria. I expect that the attack will come right after another Hezbollah attack and probably a major Hamas rocket offensive from the Gaza Strip so that the Syrians will face a diluted and weakened IDF.
Speaking of which, Ronnie told me and Casey that there was in fact a huge Hamas rocket attack coming from the Gaza Strip today. The southern town of Sderot is being pummeled hard, and a lot of people are being injured. They are considering evacuating it. The attack is mean to provoke Israel to respond, which will then unite the Fatah and Hamas factions that have been slaughtering each other against a common enemy.
Later that night we went back to the hotel and I met this Orthodox Jew who spoke Arabic. So we chatted a bit in the hotel lobby and I'm sure it was an odd sight. He had worked in Arabic media analysis in the states for 5 years before realizing that he needed to become an Orthodox Jew and a religious Zionist. He said that he used to be a moderate peacenik, but then after reading a lot of vile stuff about Jews in the Arabic media, decided that it was worthless. Now he's living in Israel and studying, looking to marry a Sephardi Jewish woman soon. His sister is on the birthright trip, and she's a nice girl, but I think she's a little puzzled as to how her brother all of a sudden became so religious.
Jesse gathered us around to talk a little abut Yad Vashem and Har Herzl. Yad Vashem is the holocaust museum and Har Herzl is the Arlington national cemetery of Israel. Both are very serious, very important places. We talked a bit about the holocaust and were asked to share our thoughts. Liron said that it's important because it proves that the whole world, or at least a significant proportion of it, has hated and will continue to hate the Jews until they are all gone. Jesse then talked a bit about how there has been a move in Europe teaching to include the holocaust within a general section on genocide instead of teaching it as a special section of its own. He "wasn't saying anything" but he pointed out that this move has gained momentum as the Arab population of Europe has increased.
So basically today was a little slow, but tomorrow I expect will be a big day. Also I'm tired as hell, so I need to get out of here. Laila tov.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Day 6
Connections
This morning we woke up and headed for Safed. It is relatively secluded in the north among the hills and forests and very close to Lake Tiberias. The air was cool this and some of the slopes leading to the town reminded me of the California hills around San Francisco. From some of the hillsides, we could see down the coastal plain that leads toward the Mediterranean and Tiberias. Everything was a very bright, lush green and imagine that this part of Israel about matches the description of Lebanon given to me by my good friend Ariana when she studied there a few semesters ago.
Safed is one of the parts of Palestine that has had a significant population of Jews ever since Roman era. By the end of the 16th century, there were about 20,000 Jews living in the city. The population had grown significantly after all the Jews were expelled from Spain, and the city became a center for Kabbalah study. Its seclusion and temperate climate made it an ideal place for mystics. In the 19th century a series of plagues, earthquakes and attacks from surrounding Arab populations had reduced the Jewish population to about 2,000. in 1947 the UN included Safed in the Jewish state as part of the Tiberias enclave (the proposed Jewish state was non-contiguous).
Ronnie gave us a great tour of Safed. We first visited a synagogue that was built sometime during the middle ages. Afterward we went to some famous candle shop and I got some sweet Shabbat candles, although they can function for any occasion really. I was also tempted buy a really nice talid and matching kippa, but it was very expensive so I settled for just the Kippa. Appearently it is very characteristic of mystical Jews to wear the type of Kippa I bought, which is just fine with me. A lot of the mystical Jews we met were very friendly. One Cabadnik wanted to wrap me in tfellin and say a prayer right next to a bomb shelter, but I had to decline. It was weird looking at the bomb shelter knowing that less than a year ago is was packed with frightened orthodox Jews rockets flew overhead.
After Safed we picked up the Israeli soldiers and stopped at a park for lunch and some ice breakers. The guys are named Tal, Shai, Dan, and Dotan and the girls are named Danya, Khan, Marit and Yael. Tal and Dan are in K9 units, Shai is a sniper instructor and Dotan is a scout. All the girls are air force I think. Our ice breaker was an Israel trivia game. There were 8 groups each with a soldier. My group won. Booya.
After lunch we went to Tel Kadesh. We hiked through the woods for a while until we came to the ruins of a Roman Temple. Ronnie talked a bit about its history and what it was for but didn’t tell us why we had gone there.
Next we drove up north and I saw a fence along the road. Ronnie got on the Bus microphone and told us that we were driving along the Lebanon border and that the land 20 feet to our right was a Lebanese orchard. I was really mesmerized, this border was legendary. Ronnie started talking a bit about Hezbollah and said that they were very respectable fighters, well equipped and well trained. They had given the IDF a very hard time last summer and it doesn't seem like the war significantly weakened them at all. We rounded a curve and up on a hill in front of us was some sort of dug in structure with barbed wire and guns around it. A big Israeli flag flew from a large flagpole standing in the center. Twenty meters away was another smaller structure with another flagpole in the center, but a Hezbollah flag flew from this one.
We pulled into another public park a few minutes later and into the ruins of an old village. Ronnie asked us what we thought it was. I saw the cross on one of the buildings and guessed that it was used to be a Maronite town. It was. Ronnie talked a bit about the complicated time that was the 1948 war. There is an ongoing debate over who was expelled from Palestine and who fled and why. Most cases are ambiguous with no real way of knowing weather a not a town was empty before the Haganah got to it, weather or not a rogue commander demanded the expulsion of town residents or weather or not that expulsion was warranted because of security concerns. Ronnie told us that there was no doubt about this town. It was expelled after its residents had acquiesced to Jewish forces. Fortunately for these residents, they were granted citizenship in Lebanon because of the religion. An overwhelming majority of Palestinians who wound up in Lebanon did not have this luxury. They wound up in squalid refugee camps.
We walked over to a building that was identical to the roman temple at Tel Kadesh. Most of us guessed that it was just another Roman temple, they seemed to be plentiful in this part of the country. Ronnie told us that it was actually a synagogue. A synagogue? Now I understood. Adaptation, assimilation, living in a non-Jewish country…these were the topics at hand. How much assimilation was too much? How much adaptation could there be while still preserving one's essential Jewishness. The contrast between the actions taken by the Sicarii at Masada and the striking Romanness of the synagogue in the field reminded us that this debate had been going on for nearly 2,000 years.
Diane read a poem called about the last Canadian Jew. The poem talks about the eventual disappearance of Jews from the West after succumbing to the pressures of living in a basically Christian society and eventually being lost to assimilation. They started eating pork, milk with meat, stopped keeping the Sabbath, stopped going to synagogue, and eventually stopped celebrating the holidays. Now Judaism was only a relic, no longer kept alive by anyone but a few museum curators.
It was time to discuss. We split up into groups of four, each with an Israeli. It was me, Casey, Dotan and Alana. The first topic was something like "talk about what it means to be Jewish." Dotan said that he doesn’t really think about it, and that he feels more Israeli than anything else. He said that feels more Jewish outside of Israel, especially in the U.S. This contrasted with Casey and Alana's take, as they said they felt much more Jewish in Israel than in the U.S. or Canada. The next topic was about the land, and the Jewish relationship to it. Casey asked Dotan if he felt like it was the promised land. Dotan replied that he thought the U.S. was the promised land, not Israel. I asked Dotan if he thinks he would like to see a state that was for all Israelis, considering he felt me Israeli than Jewish. I expected him to say yes, but instead he told me that he still preferred a state that was for Jews, and not all its citizens.
On the bus back to Degania I sat next to Shai. He asked me what I thought of Israel ad I told him that it was an extremely beautiful country. He wondered if I would ever think about moving there. I sort of danced around the question. He then went on to tell us that we weren’t really seeing Israel, that there is a lot of culture and a lot of the real stuff that we weren’t getting. I agreed but I said that they are doing that on purpose, because if they got us to into the real Israel we would feel alienated from the place, not more connected to it. This of course would undermine the entire point of the trip. He thought that that might be true, but he had faith that the holiness of Israel would still prevail and that we would come out feeling even more of connection.
When we got back to Degania, everyone started drinking. Me, Casey, Josh, Dotan, Shai, Brittany, Alana and Aaron decided to take it easy with a few beers around the hammocks as everyone else got thrashed. We talked a bit about the Palestinians. Shai didn't have a lot of nice words. I realized that I should have expected this, he's a sniper. You have to tell yourself certain things if you want to do such a job right. Casey and I responded to some of the things he was saying, but then Casey turned to me and said that we were experiencing raw emotion right then, and that we weren’t going to change any minds. I agreed and we dropped the topic.
We walked back to the kibbutz apartments and everyone had left for the bar. Jesse and Diane looked stressed. It was 1:30 am, we were going hiking in the Golan tomorrow at 7am and people were just getting to the bar. Casey and me calmed them down a bit, Ronnie was pretty cool headed too. Those people will have to deal with their hangovers tomorrow. They'll understand that it's their own fault.
I talked to Ronnie a bit about the Golan trip tomorrow. We looked at a map and he pointed out where we would be going. He also said that he would point out a certain village on the way. The village was in Lebanon, but had expanded southwards during the Israeli occupation. Once Israel withdrew in 2000, the border was redrawn right through the center of the town, cutting off its residents from each other.
During the day I was thinking a lot about the particular narrative we were getting which was telling us only about the Jewish claims to the land. We were getting nothing about the hundreds of years of Arab habitation of the same places we were told belonged to the Jews. We were told that the Jews bought the land, fair and square from the Ottomans or from Arab landowners. We weren’t, however, told about the different legal regulations under the Ottomans placed land under the ownership of absentee landlords while the Arabs on the land had a hereditary right to live on the land and secure an income from farming it. Surely a lot of those Arabs were allowed to stay once the land passed into Jewish hands; they were after all a good source of cheap labor. But when it came down to it, under western law, the new Jewish landlords had no problem expelling them, declaring them squatters, when it was most convenient. We are told plenty about the various attacks, ambushes and other offenses committed by the Arabs against the Jewish community in Palestine during the early part of the 20th century. We would like to believe that the land belongs to both people. Both people surely have an indubitable and very tangible connection to the place. It's tough, if not impossible to reconcile this, especially with the wrongdoings committed by both sides, time and time again on both sides. The fact is that right now, the land belongs to the Jews. They are here, they have built cities, roads, and lives on the ruins of Arab cities, roads, and lives which were in turn built on the ruins of Jewish cities, roads, and lives before them, all on top of countless other peoples' cities and roads long lost to history. Right now, though, the Jews won the war, a defensive war, several of them and they are not leaving. The law of return makes it so, and there is no refuting it, the land belongs to the Jews and no one else, not now.
Another brief observation is that I am amazed at how easily people become very comfortable with pure racism, even me. There are some people on this trip who are just racists, no question about it. Nonetheless, I like them. They are cool people, and fun to be around. It made me realize that I know plenty of people in Canada who are basically anti-Semitic or racist in other ways that I still associate with, that I still hang out with. I usually try to disassociate myself from racism of any sort, because I reject it and think it's disgusting. I am frequently dismayed by those who think that racism in the U.S. and Canada is no longer a problem, or that it will never be a problem in Europe ever again. People let their guard down very easily and when that happens, racism always comes back. I am letting my guard down here, but it's tough not to.
This morning we woke up and headed for Safed. It is relatively secluded in the north among the hills and forests and very close to Lake Tiberias. The air was cool this and some of the slopes leading to the town reminded me of the California hills around San Francisco. From some of the hillsides, we could see down the coastal plain that leads toward the Mediterranean and Tiberias. Everything was a very bright, lush green and imagine that this part of Israel about matches the description of Lebanon given to me by my good friend Ariana when she studied there a few semesters ago.
Safed is one of the parts of Palestine that has had a significant population of Jews ever since Roman era. By the end of the 16th century, there were about 20,000 Jews living in the city. The population had grown significantly after all the Jews were expelled from Spain, and the city became a center for Kabbalah study. Its seclusion and temperate climate made it an ideal place for mystics. In the 19th century a series of plagues, earthquakes and attacks from surrounding Arab populations had reduced the Jewish population to about 2,000. in 1947 the UN included Safed in the Jewish state as part of the Tiberias enclave (the proposed Jewish state was non-contiguous).
Ronnie gave us a great tour of Safed. We first visited a synagogue that was built sometime during the middle ages. Afterward we went to some famous candle shop and I got some sweet Shabbat candles, although they can function for any occasion really. I was also tempted buy a really nice talid and matching kippa, but it was very expensive so I settled for just the Kippa. Appearently it is very characteristic of mystical Jews to wear the type of Kippa I bought, which is just fine with me. A lot of the mystical Jews we met were very friendly. One Cabadnik wanted to wrap me in tfellin and say a prayer right next to a bomb shelter, but I had to decline. It was weird looking at the bomb shelter knowing that less than a year ago is was packed with frightened orthodox Jews rockets flew overhead.
After Safed we picked up the Israeli soldiers and stopped at a park for lunch and some ice breakers. The guys are named Tal, Shai, Dan, and Dotan and the girls are named Danya, Khan, Marit and Yael. Tal and Dan are in K9 units, Shai is a sniper instructor and Dotan is a scout. All the girls are air force I think. Our ice breaker was an Israel trivia game. There were 8 groups each with a soldier. My group won. Booya.
After lunch we went to Tel Kadesh. We hiked through the woods for a while until we came to the ruins of a Roman Temple. Ronnie talked a bit about its history and what it was for but didn’t tell us why we had gone there.
Next we drove up north and I saw a fence along the road. Ronnie got on the Bus microphone and told us that we were driving along the Lebanon border and that the land 20 feet to our right was a Lebanese orchard. I was really mesmerized, this border was legendary. Ronnie started talking a bit about Hezbollah and said that they were very respectable fighters, well equipped and well trained. They had given the IDF a very hard time last summer and it doesn't seem like the war significantly weakened them at all. We rounded a curve and up on a hill in front of us was some sort of dug in structure with barbed wire and guns around it. A big Israeli flag flew from a large flagpole standing in the center. Twenty meters away was another smaller structure with another flagpole in the center, but a Hezbollah flag flew from this one.
We pulled into another public park a few minutes later and into the ruins of an old village. Ronnie asked us what we thought it was. I saw the cross on one of the buildings and guessed that it was used to be a Maronite town. It was. Ronnie talked a bit about the complicated time that was the 1948 war. There is an ongoing debate over who was expelled from Palestine and who fled and why. Most cases are ambiguous with no real way of knowing weather a not a town was empty before the Haganah got to it, weather or not a rogue commander demanded the expulsion of town residents or weather or not that expulsion was warranted because of security concerns. Ronnie told us that there was no doubt about this town. It was expelled after its residents had acquiesced to Jewish forces. Fortunately for these residents, they were granted citizenship in Lebanon because of the religion. An overwhelming majority of Palestinians who wound up in Lebanon did not have this luxury. They wound up in squalid refugee camps.
We walked over to a building that was identical to the roman temple at Tel Kadesh. Most of us guessed that it was just another Roman temple, they seemed to be plentiful in this part of the country. Ronnie told us that it was actually a synagogue. A synagogue? Now I understood. Adaptation, assimilation, living in a non-Jewish country…these were the topics at hand. How much assimilation was too much? How much adaptation could there be while still preserving one's essential Jewishness. The contrast between the actions taken by the Sicarii at Masada and the striking Romanness of the synagogue in the field reminded us that this debate had been going on for nearly 2,000 years.
Diane read a poem called about the last Canadian Jew. The poem talks about the eventual disappearance of Jews from the West after succumbing to the pressures of living in a basically Christian society and eventually being lost to assimilation. They started eating pork, milk with meat, stopped keeping the Sabbath, stopped going to synagogue, and eventually stopped celebrating the holidays. Now Judaism was only a relic, no longer kept alive by anyone but a few museum curators.
It was time to discuss. We split up into groups of four, each with an Israeli. It was me, Casey, Dotan and Alana. The first topic was something like "talk about what it means to be Jewish." Dotan said that he doesn’t really think about it, and that he feels more Israeli than anything else. He said that feels more Jewish outside of Israel, especially in the U.S. This contrasted with Casey and Alana's take, as they said they felt much more Jewish in Israel than in the U.S. or Canada. The next topic was about the land, and the Jewish relationship to it. Casey asked Dotan if he felt like it was the promised land. Dotan replied that he thought the U.S. was the promised land, not Israel. I asked Dotan if he thinks he would like to see a state that was for all Israelis, considering he felt me Israeli than Jewish. I expected him to say yes, but instead he told me that he still preferred a state that was for Jews, and not all its citizens.
On the bus back to Degania I sat next to Shai. He asked me what I thought of Israel ad I told him that it was an extremely beautiful country. He wondered if I would ever think about moving there. I sort of danced around the question. He then went on to tell us that we weren’t really seeing Israel, that there is a lot of culture and a lot of the real stuff that we weren’t getting. I agreed but I said that they are doing that on purpose, because if they got us to into the real Israel we would feel alienated from the place, not more connected to it. This of course would undermine the entire point of the trip. He thought that that might be true, but he had faith that the holiness of Israel would still prevail and that we would come out feeling even more of connection.
When we got back to Degania, everyone started drinking. Me, Casey, Josh, Dotan, Shai, Brittany, Alana and Aaron decided to take it easy with a few beers around the hammocks as everyone else got thrashed. We talked a bit about the Palestinians. Shai didn't have a lot of nice words. I realized that I should have expected this, he's a sniper. You have to tell yourself certain things if you want to do such a job right. Casey and I responded to some of the things he was saying, but then Casey turned to me and said that we were experiencing raw emotion right then, and that we weren’t going to change any minds. I agreed and we dropped the topic.
We walked back to the kibbutz apartments and everyone had left for the bar. Jesse and Diane looked stressed. It was 1:30 am, we were going hiking in the Golan tomorrow at 7am and people were just getting to the bar. Casey and me calmed them down a bit, Ronnie was pretty cool headed too. Those people will have to deal with their hangovers tomorrow. They'll understand that it's their own fault.
I talked to Ronnie a bit about the Golan trip tomorrow. We looked at a map and he pointed out where we would be going. He also said that he would point out a certain village on the way. The village was in Lebanon, but had expanded southwards during the Israeli occupation. Once Israel withdrew in 2000, the border was redrawn right through the center of the town, cutting off its residents from each other.
During the day I was thinking a lot about the particular narrative we were getting which was telling us only about the Jewish claims to the land. We were getting nothing about the hundreds of years of Arab habitation of the same places we were told belonged to the Jews. We were told that the Jews bought the land, fair and square from the Ottomans or from Arab landowners. We weren’t, however, told about the different legal regulations under the Ottomans placed land under the ownership of absentee landlords while the Arabs on the land had a hereditary right to live on the land and secure an income from farming it. Surely a lot of those Arabs were allowed to stay once the land passed into Jewish hands; they were after all a good source of cheap labor. But when it came down to it, under western law, the new Jewish landlords had no problem expelling them, declaring them squatters, when it was most convenient. We are told plenty about the various attacks, ambushes and other offenses committed by the Arabs against the Jewish community in Palestine during the early part of the 20th century. We would like to believe that the land belongs to both people. Both people surely have an indubitable and very tangible connection to the place. It's tough, if not impossible to reconcile this, especially with the wrongdoings committed by both sides, time and time again on both sides. The fact is that right now, the land belongs to the Jews. They are here, they have built cities, roads, and lives on the ruins of Arab cities, roads, and lives which were in turn built on the ruins of Jewish cities, roads, and lives before them, all on top of countless other peoples' cities and roads long lost to history. Right now, though, the Jews won the war, a defensive war, several of them and they are not leaving. The law of return makes it so, and there is no refuting it, the land belongs to the Jews and no one else, not now.
Another brief observation is that I am amazed at how easily people become very comfortable with pure racism, even me. There are some people on this trip who are just racists, no question about it. Nonetheless, I like them. They are cool people, and fun to be around. It made me realize that I know plenty of people in Canada who are basically anti-Semitic or racist in other ways that I still associate with, that I still hang out with. I usually try to disassociate myself from racism of any sort, because I reject it and think it's disgusting. I am frequently dismayed by those who think that racism in the U.S. and Canada is no longer a problem, or that it will never be a problem in Europe ever again. People let their guard down very easily and when that happens, racism always comes back. I am letting my guard down here, but it's tough not to.
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