Last few days in Israel

The other day, my sisters and I went into Tel Aviv, to the Diaspora Museum on the Tel Aviv University campus and the Azrieli Towers mall.

Interesting architecture on the TAU campus

The "Column of Light" in the Diaspora Museum

Model of the Elkins Park, PA synagogue designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Village model in the museum

Azrieli Towers

Very cool split-level cafe

Flying home

Jetstream from a passing plane:

Middle East Perspective

This afternoon, I attended a lecture in Jerusalem by the historian Michael Oren on U.S.-Israel relations, intended for foreign journalists on the eve of President Bush's visit here this week. He covered a whole gamut of issues - the historical roots of U.S. support for Israel, the politics of Annapolis and this visit in Israel and the U.S., the war in Iraq, the threat of Iran. Amidst the useful background information, he had many insightful points, and I will add a few thoughts, that are worth noting.

The second Winograd Report on the 2006 Lebanon War is to be released soon, after many politically-motivated delays, and the power brokers and media in Israel are all gearing up for the expected pressure on Olmert to resign. Oren reminded the audience of the historical precedents: Golda Meir and Menachem Begin both resigned after commissions found fault in their handling of the Yom Kippur and Lebanon Wars, respectively, even though the two leaders were not personally implicated for responsibility. Olmert, on the other hand, is expected to be personally implicated, but his skills at political maneuvering, and his stable coalition - currently held up by the right but able to shift easily to the left if necessary - make his departure far from a sure bet. (Former PM Netanyahu, recently returned to leadership of the Likud party, has been quietly biding his time in the opposition, waiting for Winograd to seize the role of inevitable heir. Contrary to the usual protocol, Bush will not be meeting with the opposition on this trip.)

Regarding the Palestinians, the perspective Oren presented is obvious in terms of the facts but ambiguous in terms of what should be done about it. The PA (i.e. Fatah) has done very little to crack down seriously on terror. Contrary to its claims, Fatah's own terrorist wings continue to operate. (While 2007 was the best year since Israel's founding in 1948 in terms of the number of Israelis killed by terrorism, the number of attempted attacks has not diminished; rather the success of thwarting them has increased.) Fatah recently arrested some 250 Hamas members, made a big show for the press, then released them all. Hamas continues to fire rockets from Gaza to Sderot. Most importantly, both Hamas and Fatah view Palestinian statehood - the "two-state solution" - as only a means to the ultimate end of the "one-state solution," and not a Jewish one at that. They make no bones about it in their statements, either. Where Israeli policy analysts differ is how to respond: refuse to negotiate until Fatah accepts the legitimacy of a permanent, sovereign Jewish state, or treat the fundamentalist Fatah objective the same as that of far-right Israelis - unattainable and therefore irrelevant? I think the consensus Ariel Sharon sealed in the country was around the demographic urgency of separation: there needs to be a separate, sovereign Palestinian entity simply to preserve the democratic and Jewish principles of Israel's existence. But this plays into the hands of the Palestinians no matter how Israel handles it - because negotiations can lead to an [interim] two-state arrangement but non-negotiation will lead to a call for Palestinian voting rights - so this is a thorny problem that isn't going away and deserves a lot more attention.

Oren spoke a great deal about Iran. Regarding its nuclear program, he opined in the Q&A after the lecture that the momentum of the program makes it ultimately unstoppable, even if it is currently suspended, and that Israel will never let Iran become a nuclear power - meaning war, sooner or later, is almost inevitable. (Which confirms to me that the only strategy with any reasonable probability of deterring Iranian nuclear development - namely, legitimacy for Iran through a normalization of ties with the U.S. - needs to be pursued urgently and earnestly by the next president if not the current one.)

Today in the papers we read about the Revolutionary Guards testing the anti-swarming defenses of the U.S. Navy, apparently dumping white boxes in the paths of the ships and threatening over the radio to blow them up. The fast boats turned away just before they were fired upon, the ships dodged the boxes, the Iranians gained some tactical intel, and we are reminded that U.S.-Iran tensions are a powder keg that could explode at any moment.

The Israeli (and Saudi) position on the NIE was that it is irrelevant: even if Iran did stop its weapons program, it already has the missile delivery systems and will soon have the fissile material for which a restarted weapons program would quickly complete the puzzle. It does seem that the press latched too obsessively on the single point of suspension, at the expense of all other strategically important implications. For example, the NIE claimed that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, presumably because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This means that the U.S. was building up to invade Iraq - a country with no active nuclear weapons program - all the while Iran had an active program. The historical absurdity of this should not be forgotten. In the present, the Israeli and Saudi reactions to the NIE were very different: Israel called it a betrayal and revived (in its national discussion) the possibility of unilateral action; Saudi Arabia decided the U.S. wasn't going to save the day and placated Iran with a visit by Ahmedinejad.

Contrary to the images of threat and fundamentalism, NBC's Richard Engel has a video report showing another side of Iran. If you mind your own business (i.e. don't get involved in politics), you can live a very good life there, probably better than in many other countries in the region. (I'd take living in Iran over Saudi Arabia any day.) Its degree of political tyranny is probably comparable to China and dozens of other countries the U.S. has normal relations with. If there is any chance for a more moderate government rising in Iran, starting a war now would surely kill it.

Finally, two notes about Egypt. First, Oren pointed out the unenviable strategic position the Egyptian government is in: domestically challenged by a strong extremist opposition, no longer a dominant regional player, playing a double game with Israel and Hamas, under pressure from the U.S. Egypt recently lashed out at Israel diplomatically for presenting evidence to Congress that Egyptian troops were involved in arms smuggling into Gaza. This brings me to the second point: an IDF soldier serving on the Israeli-Egyptian border told me something very interesting recently: the troops Egypt sends to that border (considered a distant outpost with little danger of war and a political nuisance) are ex-cons who get paroled early in exchange for service there. They're often not even armed. It's no wonder, then, that some of them help Hamas smuggle arms into Gaza.

Interestingly, whether the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza was good or bad remains an open question. That it has strengthened Hamas and made Israel look weak to its enemies is undisputed, and the Right considers the consequences of withdrawal a disaster and a vindication of its fierce opposition at the time. But for the IDF troops who would be inside Gaza being attacked daily if Israel still occupied the territory, not being directly in the fire anymore is a blessing. It might not last long, however: at some point one of the Kassam rockets will kill people, or will hit a more central location, and then the IDF will have to re-invade Gaza - now fortified with Hezbollah-style bunkers and armed to the teeth with new, more advanced weapons - and the casualties will be tremendous on both sides.

Beggars

Begging seems to be a respectable profession in Israel. Last night four beggars showed up at the door in the evening. My mother asks them for a letter from the town rabbi certifying that their need is genuine - how that is verified, I have no idea - and then she (and everyone else in the neighborhood, presumably) gives the beggar (called shnurer from the Yiddish) a few shekels. A few hours of such labor each night comes out to quite a lucrative income.
On Ben Yehuda Street the other day, sitting with my laptop at an outdoor table, a woman came up to me and started whining about her husband with cancer, her kids with something else...I asked why she came to me - because of the laptop? - and she got angry.
My friend has a different tactic for beggars complaining about their kids - he asks them why they had to have so many kids.
Sitting in the Coffee Bean right now, a kid, maybe 14, walked in a few minutes ago and started waving his hand up and down, cupped for money, in front of an employee that was sitting down to eat. He brushed the kid off, so the kid went to a patron at the next table - at which point the employee took the kid by the back of the shirt and guided him firmly out the door. But the fact that a kid is able, seemingly with no shame, to walk around the center of town and beg for money, says a lot, I think.
Unemployment is at a record low in Israel these days, so there's no reason why these people (the adults at least) can't get jobs. It's more about social norms than economic hardship, apparently.

Bookstores and Bakeries

Brunch this morning was a mozzarella-tomato-olive oil sandwich at Aroma in the Jerusalem central bus station, where I met a friend. That and their lox sandwich used to be my favorites. They also have wifi - definitely new since my last visit - and a flat HDTV on the wall that was playing music videos, not the same as the music playing on the speakers. The black and white photographs on the back wall have always been there. On the floor above that is a bakery I used to frequent on the way to and from buses; I got one of everything sweet, eating a cream-filled pastry and saving the rest for later. On the floor above that is Cafe Net, which used to be my favorite shop in the station, before wifi. From there to Ben Yehuda again, to look for books, but they're very expensive for some reason ($30+ for new, domestically published paperbacks), so I didn't get all the ones I wanted. I did get a little cookbook with a recipe for falafel, however, and a bilingual collection of Yehuda Amichai poems. Someone recommended Amos Oz's new book, A Tale of Love and Darkness, but I'll just get it from the library.
Then a slice of pizza at the timeless Big Apple Pizza, and finally a mocha at the Coffee Bean, a cafe on Jaffa St with its own wifi, where I sit now. A few tables away, a man stands next to his laptop and coffee saying the afternoon prayers.

(Back at home, I see that Obama is leading in the Iowa caucuses, with Clinton in 3rd. It's all about the momentum...)

Cafes

Tmol Shilshom

Jerusalem is full of amazing cafes. One thing that's easy to find here is a fantastic cup of coffee. (And while I'll drink most coffees, I am picky with what I consider excellent coffee.) I'm at Cafe Hillel now in the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem. A little while ago I was at a cafe downtown called Tmol Shilshom ("the day before yesterday"), where a neighbor from my old block was celebrating his annual birthday custom: sitting in a restaurant for twelve hours, inviting all his friends to stop by whenever they wish, to talk, eat, drink coffee, play guitar, shoot the breeze. The walls are old Jerusalem stone, with books scattered on shelves, excellent coffee and food.

Cafe Hillel

Pizza Sababa, a favorite hangout in high school

Jerusalem

I arrived in Israel's Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday night, and by now I'm mostly recovered from the combined jet lag and Paris hiking fatigue. I sit at the moment in Ben Yehuda Street, the cobblestoned shopping plaza in the center of Jerusalem. I am connected to Unwire Jerusalem, the city's free public Wifi network. The smell of falafel is making me very hungry, but I'm waiting for my next stop to eat.
Last night I went bowling with my sisters, followed by a humus plate for dinner, billiards and ice cream. A good way to celebrate New Years even if I was in bed at midnight.
The ride into Jerusalem followed a route I took almost every day for the last two years of high school. Bus from Beit Shemesh (where my family lives) to the Jerusalem central bus station; through the airport-like security into the station, where everything is as I remember it except one burger shop that used to be falafel; out of the station, onto a city bus to the center of town. Everything along the route was exactly the same. At the security line one guy tried to get through the soldiers-only line, then tried to cut his way into the main line right ahead of me; I told him politely that there was a line and blocked his way. Israelis will always be Israelis.

On the last bus, I looked from the window across the aisle for a moment, and sitting there is a good friend from high school! We have since lost touch but we recognized each other immediately. What a small world.

Reading the Jerusalem Post in the mornings is an interesting experience. The bus security guards that operated for years since the 2nd Intifada, trying to stop suicide bombers from boarding buses, shut down operations this week, their work no longer deemed necessary. The walls separating Palestinians from Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza seem to have stopped suicide bombings, and the conflict is back to a "low-intensity" mode, with soldiers taking the brunt of the sporadic violence (the exception being the southern towns bordering Gaza, where frequent rockets and mortars continue). The front page on Sunday carried photos of two off-duty soldiers who had come under fire in the West Bank while hiking; they had their rifles with them (as is common for hiking there) and engaged the attackers; they killed one of the four attackers and wounded another (if I remember correctly) and were then fatally wounded themselves. Also in the paper were reports of Egypt lashing out diplomatically for Israel's handing to some Congressmen videos showing Egyptian troops aiding weapons smuggling into Gaza, which I had heard nothing about in the US.

The family dog, Fudgie, recognized me as soon as I arrived, and has been sleeping in my room every night, the result being that my clothes are now covered in fur. She's still spoiled as always, but cute.

I think I will get a falafel after all. But first I'll change some more dollars to shekels. The exchange rate - 4.7 when I left but now 3.3 - is another reminder of the declining dollar. And the rising shekel: today's paper reported a 5-point-something GDP increase over last year, not too shabby.