A new week

Life seems to have returned to normal, at least on the surface. I've stopped checking Haaretz every couple of hours to see the live blog of Operation Pillar of Defence on exchange of rockets and the performance of Iron Dome. I went to campus today, on the bus. Things seemed much as they were in the weeks prior to the Gaza conflict. But, will they stay quiet? Apparently only the immediate cease fire details have been worked out. The parties continue to negotiate for the "lasting peace". So, we wait and hope.

A new terror, a diversion, and a new hope

My bus this morning was stopped on King David before Agron Street (near the Mamilla Shopping Mall) as police held back traffic in all directions for a huge diplomatic convey to drive through clear streets.  It must have been Hillary. Most diplomats stay at the King David Hotel (on King David Street) just on the west side of the Old City.  Hillary was meant to meet with Abbas in Ramallah this morning before heading to Cairo.

Just after noon a colleague arrived at my office to tell me a bus in Tel Aviv had been bombed; many assumed it had been done by a suicide bomber.  It's one thing to have air raid sirens going off and running to the shelter, it is quite another to be concerned that restaurants, buses, and bars could be bombed. This is, quite frankly, terrifying. I've heard enough stories from the Second Intifada to know that the quality of life under such threat is unlike anything I've ever known.

The rest of the afternoon I was pretty distracted. I wasn't alone. My Canadian-Israeli friend Elka said, "I'm here, physically, but I'm not in my body."

Another friend, Theresa, and I closed our books early, walked to the tram and rode down to City Hall to look at a very cool public art installation. A friend had taken me there one evening earlier this week and I wanted to see it in the light of day. The artist is Smadar Carmeli and the installation is a series of cushions made out of concrete. They are so "real" looking it is almost unbelievable. You have to walk up to them, sit down and then run your hands along them to feel the texture. There are some that look like leather and feel like it - there's even stitching. So cool. An excellent diversion.

Don't jump, they are made of concrete!

Theresa

Surprisingly comfy

Then, hope again this evening as Hillary announced from Cairo that a ceasefire had been reached. It goes into effect in two and a half hours [ed note: actually the ceasefire went into effect at 2100 local time, not at 2300, but anyway, Hamas fired a few rockets after 2100 anyway]. May it hold and may the killing stop. And, may it be a first step toward, as they say, "lasting peace in the region."  But, I have learned that you never know, so I'll continue to take this one day at a time.

Siren No. 2

I was just heading back to the office after a leisurely lunch in the cafeteria -- the meals are huge -- snaking my way through the labyrinthine hallways of Hebrew University's Mt Scopus campus when the air raid siren went off again; it was a quarter after 2. Everyone huddled in the stairwells of middle floors and waited.

Then, early this evening there was a hopeful announcement that we could expect a ceasefire to go in effect at midnight tonight.

Since life goes on, I went to the mall with some friends in search of a new pair of jeans. After three hours of wandering the mall and trying on a few things, I can tell you the highlight was sharing a pistachio-cream filled donut (like a jelly donut, but with pistachio cream) -- an early Hanukkah treat.

Once home I checked the news to find...the ceasefire has been postponed.

Hillary has arrived in town. I'm about to go watch her press conference with Bibi.

No new info in the press conference. Here's hoping Hillary can broker a ceasefire.

Waiting and hoping

The air strikes continue, IDF troops continue to amass on the Gaza border, the IAF has killed more political officials in Gaza.  Are these tactics to encourage a cease-fire or will Israel launch a ground invasion? After 6 days of Operation Pillar of Defence the answers aren't getting any clearer.

If you haven't seen it, I would recommend reading Nahlah Ayed's article at cbc.ca. I think she gives a good overview of the regional politics...it's always about more than just Israelis and Palestinians.

If I could boil down what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about, and I can't really because the layers of this conflict are many (and many are incomprehensible to an outsider like me), but if I were to try I would start here: I would say most folks, Arab or Jewish, Muslim or Christian, Palestinian or Israeli, want the conflict to end. Most folks want to get on with their lives, raise their kids, go to the beach on a nice day, visit a museum on a rainy day, make enough money to send their kids to good schools, not have to worry about their kids being hit by rockets, not have to worry about their kids serving in the military.  To get there, they each need a few things. This is totally reductionist, but it goes something like this: Palestinians want a state, they want their standard of living to improve, and they want to talk about 1948. Israelis want their state to be secure in the region and not under constant threat and they want to talk about 1967.  So far, neither side is getting much of what it wants.

In the meantime, life here can be punctuated by tremendous instability (third big one in six years). Those who've lived their lives in Israel seem to maintain a sort of indifference when a war or crisis starts. They care of course, but in an abstract way; you have to get on with your life. Here in Jerusalem, as long as the air raid siren isn't sounding, you "Keep Calm and Carry On". I think it's a technique worth honing...while hoping for a ceasefire very soon.

P.S. For a useful discussion on boundaries in the Israeli-Palestinian context see Frank Jacobs in the New York Times from August 2012. 

Shabbat...and life on hold

Last night I shared Shabbat dinner with the family I live with, as is our usual routine when everyone is in town. The conversation was, for sometime, focused on the siren we'd heard and the threat of war. Their cousin had been drafted; the joke was that those in the reserves should turn off their phones so the army cannot find them straightaway. There is fatigue amongst the thirtysomethings. They've served their time and now are in the reserves -- this is the third call in six years. In 2006 it was Lebanon (Hezbollah), in 2008 Gaza (Hamas), and 2012 Gaza again.  There is a sense that something needs to change. They mused, "Has Israel become too arrogant?"

If you are called up you get a slip of paper...you may have to attend every other day for duty. You show the slip to your employer who continues to pay you as an employee and the government reimburses the employer at the daily reserve rate. There is an element of real fear for those called up. If you are on reserve you typically spend a month a year in service, usually spread across the seasons -- this is not the same as being fit for duty from daily training. And, it's tremendously disruptive to life.  You can say no, but it needs to be for a reason. (I don't know much more about this.)

And for what? What is the point of another war in Gaza? Operation Cast Lead in 2008 resulted in the death of some 1400 Gazan Palestinians; only 13 Israelis died. If Operation Pillar of Defence has a ground operation many expect similar ratios of casualties. And, that is appalling. But, it is difficult to suggest that Israel should tolerate daily barrages of indiscriminate rocket launches into its territory. But, then Hamas doesn't have an airforce with precision tactics and life in Gaza is pretty crap, so if you wanna make a point, well, sending rockets in does get people's attention. Okay, we're back at the complicated part.

The big question tonight is, will Israel launch a ground operation? And if so, when? The 2008 operation lasted three weeks. Tonight troops are amassing on the Gaza border, but it may just be a show of force to encourage a ceasefire. Others think it may be an election campaign tactic by Bibi. I have no idea. If it is, Bibi has certainly chosen to ignore the part of the population that just wants to get on with life...as has Hamas.

Please, a ceasefire, quickly. Until then, life has a sense of being on hold...

Sirens and sadness

Thanks to everyone who has called, sent texts, or emailed.

Yes, what you are seeing on the news is happening. The dispute in Gaza has reached into the north of Israel. Late this afternoon I was having tea and cakes with my friend, Christina (my first friend also called Christina) at the Inbal Hotel, around the corner from my house and just southwest of the Old City.

We had settled into the cozy and mostly empty (as is the usual on Shabbat evening) Sofia cafe. The waitress had just delivered our tea and cakes. Christina and her husband are heading to the States early next week for Thanksgiving. She was telling me about their itinerary when we heard the air raid siren. It was about quarter to 5.

We looked at each other, heads cocked quizzically and said, "was that an air siren?"

"Yes," said the hotel security manager. "Please stay put for the next ten minutes and I'll try to find out more."

The first 90 seconds are the scariest and most surreal -- that's the amount of time between the air siren and the expected hit.  In theory, you have about 90 seconds to find shelter -- an inside room, a staircase. We stayed on the sofa in the cafe. I thought about what it might have been like to live through the Blitz in London -- I have heard stories from older friends who were kids in London in the early 1940s. Then, the remaining 510 seconds (of the 10 minutes) were filled with nervous chatter about what this means for our lives in Israel. (We both arrived in September and expect to be here for about a year.) What does it mean? We spent the next hour discussing that and I still don't know.

Well, first it is a shock of sorts to everyone because Jerusalem is usually considered to be safely beyond the reach of rocket attacks from Gaza. (We're close to Jordan, but Israel has a long standing peace agreement with Jordan. And, incidentally, does with Egypt, too, but now that Mubarak is no longer around it may be more fragile). But, as we saw with the hit near Tel Aviv yesterday, Hamas has upgraded its rockets. How close the rocket landed to Jerusalem is a bit unclear right now,  an Israeli radio station has (apparently, for I do not comprehend Hebrew) reported that the rocket that activated the Jerusalem air siren hit just south of Bethelem. The air raid sirens respond to hits within a 50km radius.  Second, Jerusalem is not only a Jewish city. At least one third of the population is Palestinian. That Jerusalem is vulnerable to rocket attacks from Gaza is not insignificant, but it may be more a case of posturing rather than the start of a sustained attack. The stakes are so high in Jerusalem, any damage to the Old City would be catastrophic.

Next, my frame of mind. This week, while things in Gaza were heating up, I was at a workshop called "Open City Jerusalem". It was attended by Israelis and Palestinians who were there to talk about the future of Jerusalem. Both Israelis and Palestinians want Jerusalem as the capital of their state -- the workshop was exploring if there is a way to make it happen. The conversations were often heated and the groups talked past each other and clearly had (and have) different factual starting points. I thought the conflict was complicated, but now I understand just how understated it is to say that the conflict is complicated. But, people still talk to each other, and that, I think, counts for something and gives some hope. On Wednesday, we, the non-Israeli workshop attendees, visited the site of Rawabi in the West Bank. This is a fascinating project -- the Qatari government is a major investor, and much of the architecture feels like the Gulf -- of a new planned Palestinian city, halfway between Ramallah and Nablus, high on a mountain from which you can see Tel Aviv and the ships in the Mediterranean. Later that night we had an end of workshop dinner in East Jerusalem where Israelis and Palestinians shared a meal and talked about how the workshop had gone and the future of an Open City project in Jerusalem. I found the workshop concomitantly sad and hopeful, and I tasted the profound frustration that comes with attempts to resolve this conflict.

Thursday morning I had a couple of emails from friends and family asking about the situation: Hamas' military chief had been assassinated.  Be'er Sheva and cities in the south were facing rocket attacks.  Then Tel Aviv was hit yesterday.  Last night I was out with friends for pizza. The waiter came to take our order and he said, "How are you?" I said, "Good, glad to be here." He pointed to the TV screen and said, "Better than Tel Aviv." Um, yeah, last night we were definitely feeling that. And, I think many folks, like me, really figured we could remain untouched by the events in the South.  All that changed at 445 this afternoon.  We, too, are in the war zone. What does it mean?

I have no idea. I have two Israeli friends, one a combat soldier on reserve, the other an IDF pilot. Both have been in touch to see that I'm okay and to give advice about shelters and what to do. I feel lucky to live with an Israeli family and not to be alone. We live in an old Templar home with thick walls and we have an inside room that can be a shelter.  If the air raid siren goes again, we go to the shelter room. I have, out of an abundance of caution, packed a small emergency bag. (Me, who never kept an earthquake kit at home in Vancouver! I'm positive the odds of an earthquake in Vancouver are higher than the odds of our house in Jerusalem being hit by a rocket.) I'm walking the middle road -- I know some expats that chose to leave town tonight and I know Israelis who insist there is little to no risk. Since I have no experience of war, I'm going with cautiously optimistic and slightly prepared.

What does it mean to my stay in Israel? I don't know yet. I've an invitation to go stay at the kibbutz in the Beit Sh'ean if I start to feel unsafe or uncomfortable in Jerusalem. I am just feeling settled into life and work here. I'm learning so much. We'll see how the week goes and hope that diplomacy intervenes before a ground attack is launched and more lives are lost.

Eilat and the Red Sea

Earlier this month I went to Eilat with my friend Theresa. We wanted a weekend out of Jerusalem and November is a great time to go to Eilat, so we were told. And, we were told it's very touristic. Indeed, it is -- if you are looking for a Hedonistic escape, Eilat will not disappoint.

Eilat Cruise Ship Hotel

Eilat -- with the airport in the middle of town

The Mountains of Jordan

Eilat -- looking northeast to Jordan

Our morning started with the nearly five hour bus ride down and east to the Dead Sea and then south along the Dead Sea to Eilat at the Gulf of Aqaba.  I look forward to visiting Masada and Ein Gedi, but much of the rest of the stuff along the way doesn't invite further exploration. There are patches of hotel developments along the Israeli coast of the Dead Sea. And then there's not much of anything until the edge of Eilat. (Except for the grimy rest area-restaurant-gas station complex we were obliged to stop at in both directions. Note to self: pack a picnic lunch next time!) Not much of anything but increasingly fantastic scenery. I was sitting at the east facing window so I had a great view of the mountains of Jordan.  In my Kibbutz post I mentioned the Great Rift Valley that extends through the Jordan Valley, Dead Sea, and down to the Gulf of Aqaba (Red Sea). Basically, the bus follows the Valley; you have to gain some elevation to get back to sea level. (Aqaba is the name of the Jordanian town that is about a 20 minute walk and a border away.)

Eilat -- looking at main beach, and beyond to Aqaba and the mountains of Jordan

So Eilat, as promised it is totally touristic.  Not much town and a super-developed beach front that has a carnival atmosphere -- people selling kitschy stuff, music blaring, food stands everywhere, and fair-skinned northern tourists burned flaming red by their enthusiasm for sitting all day on the beach at >30C at 30 degrees N latitude. It's a sight.

Highlights

• The Underwater Oceanarium -- a pleasant mix of aquarium and theme park. Sorta goofy, but sorta cool. And, sorta sad. We had a glass bottom boat tour of the coral reefs which was super cool - they are fabulous and so is the tremendous variety of fish. But, the amount of garbage in the water is appalling. Not surprising, but appalling. So, use fabric bags and carefully dispose of your plastics, try to recycle them! As for the corals themselves, they are under threat from increasing development pressure, both tourism and land-use decisions.

The Oceanarium has its own sugar packs!

And themed garbage cans!

It was hot!

Red Sea coral reefs

Red Sea coral reefs

• Swimming in the Red Sea. Last time I was at the Red Sea it was at Sharm el-Sheik (on the Sinai in Egypt) in March (not this year!). The water was freezing: I ran into the Red Sea, dunked my head and ran out. The next three days in Sharm I didn't go near the water. Really, it is not warm like the Mediterranean. I'm not sure why. The Red Sea is an extension of the Great Rift Valley, and some 2 km deep in part. That means the volume of water is huge, maybe this makes it cooler and means it takes time to warm up. Or it's something about the amount of wind that you can get at the seashore. I don't know, but all the Israelis I've asked say, no, it's not warm enough to enjoy swimming until late in the summer. I am happy to report that in November, the water is magnificent. Swimming at Eilat felt much like swimming in a lake in BC in August, when the water has warmed -- slightly refreshing at first, and once you are in, you could stay all day. It's also super salty, not like the Dead Sea, but enough so that you don't have to work very hard to enjoy a long swim. Highly recommended. 

It was overcast, but about 30C

Just out of the sea

And with that...it was winter

Today the gortex, boots, umbrellas, and even toques (not me! seen on the bus) came out. This weekend heralded the arrival of winter and the end of summer. A true Mediterranean two-season climate.  Rain, so much rain and wind. I had to plug the holes in the my office wall with bunched up bits of newspaper. At some point somebody did some reno to stick some pipe (for what I don't know) into my office and never filled in around the pipe. I have two "portholes" at about ankle height in my office. I guess this makes for extra ventilation in the summer, but it's not so good in the winter. The wind howls up on Mt Scopus in the winter.  It is especially cold and loud in my office because the single pane window doesn't fit so well in its frame. Fortunately, near the end of the day I learned how to make my air conditioner produce heat. And, I bought a blanket at the campus stationery store. They also sell hairdryers, blenders, notebooks, lingerie, and snacks. A real emporium!

What's in a name?

(Correction: I just noticed that I flipped the directions of things in my last blog post - it has now been corrected. Israel is west of Jordan! The editor apologizes for any inconvenience or chin scratching this may have provoked.)

So, what's in a name? Often quite a lot. And, in a part of the world where many different peoples have walked and settled on the land over many years, even more.  In Israel (where the state territory (borders fuzzy as they are) was most recently part of Mandatory Palestine), many places have two names, one Hebrew and the other Arabic -- towns, neighbourhoods, and streets. Sometimes you really need to know both names if you hope to find what you are looking for.

Almost all signs in Israel are trilingual -- Hebrew, Arabic, and English -- a rule I wish extended to the grocery store!

In Jerusalem (Yerushalayim (Hebrew) or Al Quds (Arabic)) the three neighbourhoods next to where I live are known by their Arabic names.  On the sign below you can easily see this -- in all three languages the two names are given. It's easiest for those of you literate only in English (like me) to see this in the Latin script with brackets. The one in brackets is the Arabic name.

Wayfinding in three languages in Jerusalem

If you use the Hebrew name Ge'ulim for the neighbourhood Bak'a you're likely to get blank stares. You may think that's because your Hebrew is poor, but really, it's because no one uses the Hebrew name.  Nobody calls Bak'a anything else but Bak'a, same for Katamon, and for Talbiya. (Of course, this is not the only place in the world where the "recommended" name is slow to catch on.)

But, there are other places in the city where there is no de facto consensus on the name in use. For example, on the east side of the city, if you were looking for the Jerusalem Hotel you might get directions from Damascus Gate  (at the old City) to walk up the Nablus Road (a main shopping street).  But, your map might have Sha'ar Shkhem or Bab al-Amud at the foot of Derech Shekhem that you walk up to get to the hotel.

Even when the street usually only goes by one name, the English spelling can be different enough to throw you off the trail. After all, transliteration is pretty subjective. So for example, I wanted to go to the Educational Bookstore. On its website the address is  19 Salah Eddin Street, but I couldn't find Salah Eddin anywhere on Google on my map, in my guidebook. But I did find Salah ad Din, it's one street east of Nablus Road. The obvious way to approach this problem is to sound out the name and look for anything that seems to phonetically approach it...next time!

Fun fact: Salah ad Din was a Kurdish Muslim who, among other major military successes, in 1187 captured Palestine from the Egyptians (who had booted the Crusaders out some 80 years earlier).

Kibbutzing

Last week I journeyed to Kibbutz Neve Ur in the Beit She'an -- this is just north of the boundary of the West Bank and south of the Jordan Valley, divided from Jordan by the Jordan River. Hopping off the bus on the highway at Neve Ur was glorious - warm breezes, trees, and gorgeous topography. To the west are hills, directly to the east are the kibbutz fields and east beyond the Jordan River are the mountains of the country, Jordan. (ed note: the original of this had the directions reversed. I shouldn't write blog posts late at night! Israel is west of Jordan, it hasn't moved!!)

At the highway

Walking to the kibbutz

Looking across the fields to Jordan

I went to the kibbutz, not to apprentice as a kibbutznik, but to visit my friends Marla and Raviv and their kids. Raviv grew up here and they were home to visit his parents. The first thing I did after I arrived was eat fresh, organic dates. Amazing. Then before long we were off to tour the region. Our first stop was a neighbouring kibbutz where we ate hummous at the cafe. Hummous in Israel -- when you go to a restaurant for it, it is a meal -- is quite different from what you get in North America when you order hummous. It's still made of chickpeas and tahini, but it's usually served warm and topped with roasted eggplant or stewed chickpeas or even sausage. And, it's served with amazing slippers of bread. Yum. Hummous can be a serious bone of contention among Israelis. Don't ask more than one person at a time where to get the best hummous -- the discussion will never end. Seriously.

After lunch it was on to a tour of the Kinneret (aka Lake Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee). Jesus is meant to have done much of his work in and around the Kinneret...and perhaps even walked on it?!

The hills that rise on the east side of the Kinneret are the Golan Heights and Israel's border with Jordan and Syria. Beyond the north end of the Kinneret is Lebanon. This is another part of the country where not everyone agrees with the present borders. In the meantime Golan Height's wineries are creating award-winning wine.

The Kinneret

In the spring, the view is apparently all green. Right now it's mostly brown after a long dry summer.

The Kinneret beyond the fields

 Water trivia time:

The Kinneret is Israel's largest freshwater lake and it's below sea level! Running from the north to south of the Holy Land through the Dead Sea and on to the Red Sea is an extension of the Great Rift Valley that starts in Kenya. Much of it is below sea level.

The Jordan River flows out of the Kinneret; the Kinneret is the country's largest surface reservoir (there are two large aquifers (groundwater reservoirs) - the Coastal and the Mountain). It's such a big deal, the government updates daily a webpage that reports the level of the water in the Kinneret. Apparently, you can have water cooler conversations about the level of the Kinneret...hasn't happened to me yet. I don't have any close up pictures of the shoreline, but the locals have observed recession of the waters of the Kinneret -- what was once underwater is now treed shoreline.  

The south end of the Kinneret

The first kibbutz was established on the south shores of the Kinneret in the early 20th century. Later, kibbutzim would dot much of the Jordan Valley and the Beit She'an.

Looking south of the Kinneret in the Jordan Valley - more cultivated land

 On the way back to Neve Ur, we drove up a local large hill (I hesitate to say mountain), called Star of the Jordan, to see the remains of a crusader castle (called "Belvoir") and enjoy the view. The castle construction started in 1168. It is thought to have been one of the most important crusader fortresses with its commanding view of the valley through which anyone travelling south to Jerusalem would have passed. The Muslims took the fortress in 1189 and later dismantled it.

Looking northeast from Belvoir

 While up on the hill we had the chance to see, amongst the lowing cattle, a Thompson's gazelle! Apparently, some of the animals who hang out in the southern end of the Great Rift Valley have ranges that extend to the Holy Land. (Maybe they heard how good the food is up here?)

Thanks Wikipedia!

 And, we had the chance to drink Arabic coffee. Up to this point on this blog I haven't said much about politics. This isn't actually all that easy since in everyday life in Israel the politics are pretty much in your face. We went up to Belvoir to see the view, and not to see the castle (because we were travelling with two kids under 5) and because Marla and Raviv got married under a beautiful tree up on the hill. Since I missed their wedding, I wanted to see the spot where it all happened. We ended up with a cultural exchange.

The tree

 The tree happens to be in a national park. And it was Eid al-Adha. Unsurprisingly, we found an Arab-Israeli/Palestinian (what an Arab Muslim living in Israel calls herself is not uncomplicated) family having a picnic up at the lookout. Arab hospitality is pretty legendary, and it was no different this day. We were served cold drinks and they tried to feed us dinner; we had to beg off having eaten bowls full of hummous and bread only hours earlier. Then we were hanging out, drinking Arabic coffee, which is, well, as Marla said, "like medicine [of the best kind]". If you like coffee with cardamon it's hard to beat a well made Arabic coffee.  I've been in this situation (the beneficiary of Arabic hospitality) before, but not in Israel where everything is...just so different. The older men, Raviv and Raviv's mom were conversing in Hebrew, mostly (I was told) discussing how the valley had changed over the years and children, in between scoping the hill with binoculars looking for gazelle. Marla was making sure we didn't end up with plates full of food to eat. Anyway, it was one of those moments where us and them seemed to fade and just a for a little bit we were people sharing a lovely afternoon in October.

Looking south east, drinking Arabic coffee

Crusader castle ruins beyond the fence

The next day I had a tour of the main kibbutz operations -- fish ponds and dairy cows. Along the way we stopped to climb an old tractor and visit the petting zoo (all kibbutzim have a petting zoo?!) that included a very showy rooster.

An old tractor

The kibbutz rooster

 And, then it was back on the bus to Jerusalem...Yerushalayim in Hebrew...it actually sounds way better.