Tag Archives: Jerusalem

Autumn

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Here in Jerusalem, summers are hard to bear. Some 2,200 feet above sea level, the sunlight is harsh. The more so because it is reflected by the ubiquitous rocks and walls. Standing on Mount Scopus at mid-day and facing west towards the city below, one urgently needs sunglasses to prevent one’s eyes from being dazzled. At other times it is hard to keep one’s eyes open.

Autumn tends to be a welcome relief from that. And from the heat, of course. To be sure, there may still take place the occasional hamsin, an Arabic word that stands for days on which a hot, dry wind blows from the deserts to the east, filling the air with dust and sometimes making it hard to breath. Thank God, though, temperatures are falling. If, like me, you are fortunate enough to have a garden, using it during the evenings you may well want to put on some kind of light sweater.

Come autumn and people return to work or school, causing traffic to become much heavier and the ubiquitous traffic jams, much worse. However, autumn is also the season of the Jewish High Holidays. First comes the New Year, a two—in practice, since in Jewish law each day starts in the evening preceding it, two and a half—day festival of more or less incessant prayer, mutual visits, eating and drinking. And carousing because, by Jewish law, men are obliged to make their wives happy on feast days of this kind; the opposite, incidentally, does not apply. Either at home, or away from it in one of the countless hotels and suits-for-rent or beaches or parks or nature reservations.

“Head (Rosh) of the Year,” as it is called, is followed by ten days in which those who believe in those things repent of all the bad things they have done during the year that has just passed. Next comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The one day on which all synagogues are absolutely certain to be overcrowded. And on which a great many people, and by no means only orthodox ones either, “torment their souls” as the Pentateuch puts it, by fasting. My ex-wife, bless her, used to say that the reason she fasted was in order to atone for my sins. Which always made me wonder whether she did not have any of her own.

Famously, all work comes to an end—the religious injunction against it is observed more strictly than on an ordinary Shabbat—broadcasting services fall silent, and both public and private traffic comes to a halt. The system has the advantage that the roads empty themselves. Not only does blessed silence prevail, but droves of children of non-orthodox families in non-orthodox neighborhoods emerge from their homes, take out their bicycles, and ride them wherever they like. Year in year out, I and many other people find their happiness a joy to watch. So much so that I sometimes think we should have not one Yom Kippur but two, or three, or four. And why not?

Four days later, at the time of the full moon, it is time for the Feast of Tabernacles which lasts an entire week. For orthodox people it is time spent living and eating in a more or less makeshift structure erected in a garden or on a balcony constructed especially for the purpose. For unorthodox ones like myself, to operate in low gear, so to speak. The entire season lasts almost a month during which all activity is more or less muted. Trying to get anything done, especially but not exclusively where the public services are involved, the response one is most likely to get is, “after the Holidays.”
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But this is the Middle East. Year in- year out, celebration is tinged with more than a hint of fear. And not only because, as I just said, these are the days when God is supposed to decide one’s fate for the coming year. But because of the rains which may or may not come. And because, to recall a World War-II guide issued by His Majesty’s Army for visiting British soldiers I once saw, “the first thing you’ll notice is how arid the country is.” As the book of Genesis testifies, throughout the centuries famine was never far away.

It was famine which drove the patriarch Jacob and his sons to migrate to Egypt, where they were later enslaved and from where it took God fully four centuries to liberate them. That is why people prayed for rain to fall—and why, as they wrap up Tabernacles, they continue to do so ever year.

Today Israel is world champion in the kind of technology needed to distribute, recycle and desalinate water. That is why actual famine is all but inconceivable. Drought, however, is doing bad things to Israeli agriculture whose allocated supply of water—in Israel, all water is allocated by the state—has been decreasing for years. And also to Israeli customers who are being made to pay through the nose. The possibility that one may have to stop watering one’s garden and cut down on one’s laundering is always in the air.

Above all, people listen to the news and shudder. Going down again, the level of water in the Sea of Galilee has reached the “upper red line.” It has reached “the lower red line.” It has reached “the black line” So shallow has the sea become that an “island” has appeared in it. The island is linking up with the shore, creating a “peninsula.” And the water is getting saltier.

Relief on one hand, fear on the other. What will the coming year bring?

Ouch, Jerusalem

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On 13 May 2018 Israel will be celebrating Jerusalem Day. The idea was raised for the first time in June 1967, just a few days after Israeli troops had occupied the eastern half of the city as part of the so-called Six Days’ War of that month. Various rabbis were consulted, pros and cons weighed. Pressing hard in favor of the idea was the religious Right. Up to the outbreak of the war MAFDAL, as the party was known, had been a bourgeois, middle of the road, fairly moderate party. Apart from emphasizing the need for kashrut and opposing summer time (so that practicing people could pray in the morning), it made few waves. Now it was transformed; in particular, its younger members felt themselves filled by a divine command to stick to every inch of occupied territory and settling it as soon as possible with as many Jews as possible.

The details do not really matter. Suffice it to say that the police, the mayor of Jerusalem, and the Government of Israel all opposed the idea of celebrating “united Jerusalem, the City that has been joined together, Israel’s eternal capital,” as the phraseology went and still goes. Partly they did so because they feared unrest among the Palestinians. And partly because they worried about the negative international reaction that might follow. A court battle had to be fought before the authorities allowed the first ceremonies, prayers, marches, dances, etc. to be organized. Even so they were private, not official. This private character they retained until 1998 when the Knesset finally adopted the Day.

I myself lived in Jerusalem for twenty-one years (1964-85). Having decided to leave, I chose, as my new place of residence, Mevasseret (Herald, in Hebrew), Zion, a bedroom community just five miles or so to the west. I did, however continue to work in Jerusalem where the Hebrew University is located. I can therefore fairly say that Jerusalem has helped shape my life. Preparing for Jerusalem Day, and with a mind to those of my readers who, not being Israelis, may be misled by the Niagara of hype by which the city is surrounded, I want to point out a few elementary facts.

First, Jerusalem is the poorest of Israel’s major cities. Located in the hills, about 2,000 feet above sea level, during most of its history it was pretty isolated. So much so that, when Mark Twain visited in 1869, a road capable of carrying wheeled traffic to and from it did not yet exist. Even during my own early years as a student (1964-67) they used to say that the best thing about Jerusalem was the road to Tel Aviv. All this was part cause, part consequence, of the fact that the city never became a major commercial center. Another reason why it is poor is because over two thirds of the population are either Palestinians or Jewish-orthodox. The former are less educated and discriminated against in numerous ways. As a result, their standard of living tends to be very low. Among the latter, a great many prefer praying and begging to doing any kind of work. Between them they drive out the secular Jews. Precisely the highly educated, relatively tolerant, and productive part of the population any modern city needs most if it is to prosper.

Second, the quality of life is low. Housing prices are sky-high, but municipal taxes rates per square foot of building are the highest in the country. Many streets are dirty (the more so because, to protest against every kind of insult, real or imagined, some Jewish orthodox men have made it their specialty to overturn garbage bins and empty their contents into them) and in a poor shape. Traffic is a nightmare; getting from where I live to town, or the other way around, can easily take an hour. For twenty years now a modern railway to link Jerusalem with Tel Aviv, just forty or so miles away has been under construction; however, the day on which it will be completed keeps being postponed. A single-line modern tram system exists, but it does not work on the Shabbat and on (Jewish) religious feast days. Terrorism in the form of bombings, deliberately engineered road accidents, and stabbings is not rare; but for the heavy presence, of police and guards, not only in the streets but at every entrance to every public building, surely there would be more of it.

There is SRT (Sex Reassignment Therapy) which is also called gender viagra sales in india devensec.com reassignment. Impotency can be levitra properien cured if help is sought. If a woman is not sexually active, menopause cause thinning of hair follicles that may ultimately lead to total baldness devensec.com cialis side effects in men. Also, they were associated with other intimate problems such as low sexual drive, poor erection, early http://www.devensec.com/sustain/eidis-updates/IndustrialSymbiosisupdateApril_June2011.pdf viagra online from india ejaculation, low sexual drive or stress. Third, to live in Jerusalem means to be an expert on comparative fanaticism (as the Israeli writer Amos Oz once put it). The three major religions apart, there are dozens upon dozens of sub-religions and sects. Each day at noon, standing on Mount Scopus and listening to the various bells being rung is quite an experience. Again though, don’t be misled. Many members of many religions and sects hate each other’s guts. Nowhere is this fact more in evidence than at the Holy Sepulcher; there, every inch is divided between the four major Christian denominations (Greek-Orthodox, Catholic, Armenians and Copts) and jealously guarded, sometimes with edged weapon in hand. Countless people are utterly convinced that his (or, let’s not forget, her) God is the only true one and that the rest are, in reality, little better than devils. Each feels that he personally is one of God’s soldiers specially appointed to carry out His will. All this makes Jerusalem a rather unpleasant place to live in. For example, occupants of vehicles who enter some Jewish orthodox neighborhoods, even by mistake, risk being bombarded with rocks.

Fourth, contrary to Israeli propaganda the city has never been united. During the half century since 1967 the population has trebled, more or less, increasing from about 300,000 to almost a million. Many new neighborhoods have been built, and the Old City has been surrounded by new ones populated exclusively by Jews. In addition, quite some Arab villages which were never part of Jerusalem have been annexed to it without anyone consulting the population. They pay taxes but hardly get any municipal services at all. Wherever one goes, it is the Palestinians who occupy the lowest positions. As in construction, schlepping products in the marketplace, cleaning buildings, and so on. To be sure, the residents of East Jerusalem have the right to vote in the municipal elections. However, it is one which very few of them, worried that participation would be interpreted as consent and might be dangerous to boot, have ever exercised. Briefly, social interaction among equals is minimal.

No wonder that the percentage of residents who are happy with their city is among the lowest in the country. And no wonder proportionally more of them leave. I do not want to be misunderstood: parts of Jerusalem are very beautiful indeed. The view of the City from Mount Scopus is breathtaking. The streets bustle with people, both residents and tourists, representing every culture on earth. The number of holy places, packed closely together and surrounded by fascinating Biblical and historical legends, is overwhelming. So much so, in fact, that some tourists are seized by “Jerusalem Syndrome.” It is defined as “a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously-themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem.” Many modern facilities—with the Israel Museum at its head—neighborhoods and buildings are also of interest.

On the whole, however, so bad are the problems, ethnic, religious, legal, economic, social, and technical, that I sometimes think it would be best for Jerusalem if all the holy places were demolished, blown up, wiped off the face of the earth. Unfortunately that won’t work either. The one thing one achieves by destroying a holy place is to make it holier still.

As for me, I stay away as much as I can.

“Holy Places”

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In “the holy city” of Jerusalem “the holy places,” meaning chiefly the Wailing Wall and the Temple Mount, are going up in flames. Instead of prayer, all one hears are the yells of Palestinian demonstrators on one hand and the equally raucous calls of Israeli policemen on the other. Not to mention the occasional sound of tear gas, firecrackers, rubber bullets, and live bullets that, so far in the present round of riots, has left two dead. Accompanying the hellish scene are the shrieks of police sirens, ambulance sirens, firefighter sirens, and God knows what other sirens. To say nothing about the occasional injured and death.

If this is holiness, I want no part of it In fact I have not been there for years.

Nor is the Temple Mount the only “holy place” that, in reality, is little different from hell. Take Tabcha, on the north western shore of Mount Galilee. Traditionally this is the place where Jesus turned five small fish and two loaves of bread into enough food for a multitude of his followers. Today three separate churches, belonging to three separate Christian denominations, grace the area. Last time I visited it, it was full of thousands of people milling around. Very few seemed to be aware of , or took the slightest interest in, what had, or what is supposed to have had, happened, there. Instead they spent their time buying cheap souvenirs and taking selfies. Worst of all, the drivers of the busses that brought all these people there did not turn off the air conditioning systems but left them to run. The outcome was noise and polluted air of the kind that, normally, you only get in the center of large cities.

If this is holiness, I want no part of it.

Or take Hong Kong. Perhaps the greatest single tourist attraction is a giant statue of Buddha. Constructed in 1993, it symbolizes the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and faith. Or so Wikipedia says. So famous is it that it is almost obscured by the madding crowd of people milling about. There is, however a difference; aside from taking selfies and buying souvenirs, they also get to taste the less than mediocre food foisted on them by the local monks as part of the entry ticket.

Thank you very much.

And now a short, very short, list of some of things I do consider holy and cannot have enough of.

A baby laughing, or a litte child just learning to walk.

A dog that welcomes its master.

A field of flowers.

A well-tended garden, however small.

A silent lake in the midst of a silent forest where one can bath nude if that is what one likes, without too much interference from others and without a lifeguard.
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The woods as seen, say, from the tree walk at Beelitz, Germany, which stretch as far as the eye can see.

The American prairie as experienced, say, from the parking lot at Mount Cheyenne, Colorado.

Really good music, or a really beautiful painting, or sculpture, or building. All to be enjoyed at leisure.

A calm discussion with friends accompanied, perhaps, by a a glass of wine and a light meal.

Sex of the kind only two people who love each other deeply can have.

The moment when the rainclouds part and the sun breaks through “with all its might,” as the Jewish prayer has it.

Quiet prayer to the god in whom one believes.

Most of these can be enjoyed by anyone, at any place, at any time. Without priests, rabbis, imams, or other self-appointed guardians to tell you what their various god’s commands are. Without politicians to quarrel over them and soldiers to watch over them. Compared with them, the abovementioned “holy places,” both in Jerusalem and elsewhere, are not just profane. They are gross. And often dripping with the blood that has been shed over them. By right they should be demolished, razed, blown up. Or have a nuclear warhead dropped on them, if that is what it takes to make people stop fighting over them.

However, there is a problem. Nothing, not even the pyramids, is more persistent than human memory. The Temple Mount was destroyed at least twice. Jerusalem itself at one point was renamed Aelia Capitolina and put out of bounds for Jews. To no avail, as we now know.

So all I suggest is that people avoided the so-called “holy” places. Both the handful which have been mentioned in this essay and the many that have not. Not only on bad days like those currently passing over Jerusalem, but on “good” ones as well.

A plague on them and on their quarrelsome visitors.

Fifty Years Have Passed

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The coming Monday, June 5th, will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. The one, let me remind you, which led to the Israeli occupation of the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank (East Jerusalem included). That is why I thought the time had come to take a second look at it. In doing so, my starting point will be a book, Defending Israel: A Controversial Plan towards Peace, which I published in 2004. What did I get right, and where did I go wrong? Does the central thesis, namely that, seen from a security point of view Israel could easily afford to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank, still hold?

The background to the book was formed by the Second Palestinian Uprising, or Intifada. Starting in October 2000 and lasting until 2005, the Uprising was carried out mainly by suicide bombings, claiming the lives of 1,137 Israelis as well as 6,371 Palestinians before it was finally quashed, with considerable brutality it must be said, by then Prime Minister Ariel. Sharon. The number of injured is unknown, but must have been much larger still. In addition, tens of thousands of Palestinians saw the inside of Israeli jails where some of them still remain. The economic damage to Israel was estimated at about 15 percent of GDP; that inflicted on the Palestinians, at perhaps 40 percent. Going abroad during that time, I could not help noticing how, at Israel’s only international airport, there were often more security personnel than passengers.

The way I saw it in 2004, and still see it now, the advent of ballistic missiles has greatly reduced the relevance of territory and, with it, the value of the “strategic depth” long seen by Israel as the main reason for holding on to the occupied territories. In any case, the age of large-scale Arab-Israeli conventional warfare was clearly over. Not only because the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan held; but because, as both the 1956 and 1967 wars had shown, should Egypt’s military try to confront Israel in the Sinai then all they would be doing would be to put their necks into a noose. Should Egypt lose a war in the Sinai, then it would lose. Should it win, then it might face nuclear retaliation. Israel is believed to have as many as 100 warheads and delivery vehicles to match. By targeting the Aswan Dam, the people in Jerusalem have it within their power to turn Egypt into a radioactive lake within rather less than an hour of the decision being made.

Having been heavily defeated in the first Gulf War, Iraq was out of the picture and remains so today. This left Syria which, however, was much too weak to take on Israel on its own and has become even weaker since. At that time as now very few Arabs lived on the Golan Heights, explaining why its occupation by Israel never met strong resistance or drew much international attention. Consequently holding on to it was, and remains, relatively easy and need not preoccupy us here.

In what was surely the most daring move in a remarkable career, Sharon, against howls of opposition, built a fence around the Gaza Strip, demolished the Israeli settlements there, and pulled out. It cost him his life, but he effectively put an end to attempts by suicide bombers to enter Israel proper. To be sure terrorism, now in the form of underground tunnels and rockets, did not come to a sudden end. As if to prove the fact that the role of territory was declining, the rockets in particular gained in range and power, causing much trouble. This kind of terrorism was only brought to an end during the second half of 2014 when a massive Israeli military operation (“Protective Edge”) inflicted many casualties and enormous destruction. Since then an equilibrium, albeit an uneasy one, has prevailed in southern Israel. As is shown, among other things, by a tremendous real estate boom in that part of the world.

This in turn suggests that, had Israel launched the operation in question a few years earlier, it might have spared both itself and the other side considerable grief and trouble. Looking on the withdrawal from Gaza from the perspective of 2017, it appears to have been a great success. It rid Israel of some two million unwilling Palestinians, leaving them to govern themselves as best they can and forcing their leadership into what, in practice, is some sort of accommodation.

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Whether, had Sharon not died in harness and Olmert not been forced to resign, they would have been able to dominate Israeli politics to the point of carrying out such a withdrawal will never be known. At present any attempt to proceed in this direction is certain to be stopped by Israel’s right-wing government and public. Still the example set by Gaza refuses to go away. Hovering in the background, it is a constant reminder that an alternative to present-day policies does exist.

As Defending Israel argued, and as events since then have clearly shown, the most important problem the West Bank poses to Israel is neither “strategic depth” nor terrorism. The former is rendered all but irrelevant by the advent of ballistic missiles, peace with Jordan, the demise of Iraq, and the Bank’s topography which makes an attack from east to west almost impossible. The latter could be solved by the construction of a wall and a withdrawal. The real threat is demographic. Six and a half million Jewish Israelis cannot go on forever governing an Arab-Palestinian population now numbering some two and a half million and growing fast. In this day and age, indeed, the very idea of an occupation that has now lasted for fifty years is simply crazy. Either pull out, unilaterally if necessary, or risk Israel becoming an apartheid state—which, I hate to say, in many ways it already is.

Finally, East Jerusalem. A story, probably apocryphal, dating to the first months after the June 1967 War illustrates the problem very well. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol is touring East Jerusalem. All around him people are beaming with happiness, but he alone keeps a gloomy face. Mr. Eshkol, they ask him, why all these sighs? In response he says that getting in was easy (as indeed it was). But getting out!

And so, indeed, it has proved. There is no way in the world Israel can be persuaded to give up the Old City and its immediate surroundings, the place which, whatever UNESCO may say, gave birth to the Jewish people well over 3,000 years ago. Nor, given the historical record, is there any reason why it should. But Israel should be able, and willing, to let go of many East Jerusalem neighborhoods that were recently joined to the city and have absolutely nothing to do with holiness. Such as Sheik Jarach, Dir al Balach, Ras al Amud, and quite a few others. All are inhabited exclusively by Palestinians and all are poor and underdeveloped. As in the case of Gaza, a withdrawal from them, even if it has to be carried out unilaterally and even if it only leads to a modus vivendi rather than peace, would be a blessing, not a curse.

With the 1967 war’s fiftieth anniversary coming soon, what is the point in waiting?