Where Have All The Flags Gone?

Israel's 62nd Independence Day
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My 85-year old father in law runs his own trucking company in the Haifa area. He spent World War II in a labor camp in Romania. After surviving the camp he returned to his village only to discover that the new Communist regime had confiscated his family's property – the local mill, the electric plant, and a myriad of shops and houses. Taking his sister and father who had survived Auschwitz, with him, he made his way to Israel, where he built a transport company in the north. He has stood up to corrupt officials all his life, "but today the situation is much worse", he told me the other day "the graft takers have lost their shame". In Romania, he said, everybody was on the take; it was part of the system. Salaries were low, and income was supplemented by bribes. Everything was in the open: you knew exactly how much to pay and to whom, it was part of the costs of doing business.

Israel was meant to be different. It was a new state, a new society, proud, ideologically motivated. Corruption was around even in the beginning, but it was rare, and kept to a minimum. Somewhere along the line, maybe in the 1970s or 1980s, we lost our shame. The latest corruption scandal, The Holy Land Hotel Project in Jerusalem, is just the tip of the iceberg. The media is focusing on Ehud Olmert's involvement, was he or wasn't he on the take? But this is trivia, thwarting attention from what is beginning to emerge from the testimony of the key state witness: everyone was on the take. Official land assayers, income tax officials, municipal planners, banks, supervisors. The Holy Land Hotel scandal is not about a hill overlooking the city that instead of the couple of hotels and a small housing estate that was planned and approved for its, suddenly sprouted a monstrous 1,000 apartments. It is about the blatant rejection of the thousands of objections tendered by environmental groups and concerned citizens. It is about a road that was built in different place than the one it was planned to be in, about a 250 meter two-lane highway bridge that ended up as a 90 meter one-lane bridge leading nowhere. It is about the kindergartens and schools that were never built, about the underground parking lot that ended up on the surface, in an area that should have been landscaped public land. The Holy Land scandal is not about one person taking a bribe; there are dozens and dozens of people involved. They knew, they authorized, and they kept their mouths shut.

Bribery and corruption in Israel have reached dangerous proportions. In order to get something done that needs official sanction you need a "makher", Yiddish for "facilitator". Originally, in the Old Country, this was someone who came between the Jew and the Gentile authorities. And how exactly does the makher work his magic? You give him money, and he makes things happen. Permits are given, documents are signed, and your project is approved.

Makherism has become the norm. After 62 years of trying to create a Jewish State, we have recreated the Diaspora. The economy is ruled by an oligarchy made up of a handful of families who have become rich because of government sanctioned monopolies, in the financial sector, communications, transport, cars, food, grain, fuel, every sector of the economy. These monopolies are called the "private sector" of the economy. They are filled with former government officials, politicians and retired army officers, who after making sure that the monopolies are kept up, retire, usually early, to work in this competition free market, where they are rewarded with a nice well paying job.

Makherism ensures legislation that funnels more money into the hands of the monopolies. It makes sure that laws trying to legislate a cooling off period for public employees or a salary ceiling for companies that make their money from monopolies will not pass. Makherism makes sure that the Israel Land Authority, who owns most of the land in Israel, will not make land available to the public, keeping prices of real estate high. Makherism make sure that public transportation will not be built, and by that reduce the expenditure on cars and gas. Makherism thwarts attempts to create new economic centers that might enable new forces to enter the market. And Makherism makes sure that when corruption does surface, and a public outcry develops, a line of well connected lawyers, will make sure that by the time the case comes to trial, the public will have forgotten what it was all about.

Israel's economy is booming, but the wealth generated by the economy is funneled into a very thin layer of society. There are 450,000 families in Israel (1,700,000 people including 900,000 children), nearly a quarter of the entire population, living under the poverty line. The gap between middle income and high income is widening every year. The ability of young people, without well off parents, to afford a home, is shrinking. While private retirement estates are booming, more and more elderly are living in poverty, including many of holocaust survivors that the government of Israel received special funding from Germany in order to take care of them, and has kept the money.

Every year, on the eve of Independence Day, Israelis show their pride in their country by flying a flag from their apartment. Every family owned a large Israeli flag. Flat owners in a building used to take pride in the decoration that they had managed to put up for the whole building. This year most of the buildings did not show a flag. The number of cars carrying a flag is also significantly less. A recent poll among Israelis, between the ages of twenty to thirty, showed that 60% were ready to leave Israel if they were given the chance.

2010-04-20

The Exodus of April 2010

700 thousand Israelis went abroad this Passover - 19% more than last year, and a new all-time record
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This year the Passover craze started late. The holiday itself was relatively early, but Israelis were concerned with the rising stock market and the crisis with the United States. By the time officialdom realized what was happening, it was too late to stop the fun.

It wasn't a good holiday this year. Passover was on Tuesday and the second holiday was on the following Monday - actually affording only two days off from work, as Fridays and Saturdays don't count as extra holidays. But, without official Israel realizing it, the declining Euro had suddenly made a trip abroad very affordable. The Finance Ministry had no time to add a tax, slap on VAT on overseas travel, and the Workers Union had no pre-planned excuse to organize an airport strike. And thus, in the two long weekends of the holiday, after quietly buying flight tickets and accommodations abroad, 700 thousand Israelis, 10% of the population, managed to slip out of the country - mainly to Europe and North America.

Even the long lines of security checks at the airport (god forbid additional personnel), could not stop the Exodus. Germany, Italy, France and Turkey were the preferred destinations. "These countries don't like us – have offended our national feelings," steamed the ideologues, who had just returned from these very same countries, after a long fact finding mission on tax payers money. But a 50 Euro a night Bed and Breakfast room in Germany or Italy – as opposed to the 200 Euros you would have to shell out for the same kind of room in Israel was an argument few Zionist ideologies could combat.

The streets of the country emptied out, traffic jams disappeared overnight and the atmosphere became much more relaxed and easy. Eventually the Passover-trippers will return - but Shavuot is just around the corner, in May - falling this year on a Tuesday and Wednesday - nicely placed for a full ten-day holiday - if the Pharaoh that is, doesn't do something about it.

The moral of course is clear: High taxes, to finance an ever growing public sector, in addition growing costs for public services, municipal services, social services, and a bunch of wealthy families that own the banks, telecommunications and other economic services, stifle the economy and make travel abroad much cheaper than spending the holidays in Israel.

2010-04-01

Winter Storm Hits the Negev

Israel's Water Authority drought warnings have been swamped in heavy winter rains and floods
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Late last night (17 January) the skies opened up in the Negev and heavy rains filled up the ravines and dry riverbeds of the Negev with huge floods. Roads were blocked and for a while Eilat was cut off from the rest of the country, as flood waters covered the roads. Flood aficionados rushed to the scene with cameras to document the scene.

The amount of rain in the Negev in some places has surpassed the annual rainfall. The rains will spread today to the north of the country and flooding is expected in other areas.

2010-01-18

As the Negev canyons and springs fill with water the ERETZ staff is out there putting together our recommendations for Winter travel to the Negev. Following the heavy rains the Negev will be carpeted with flowers by the end of February. Read all about in our upcoming issue of ERETZ Magazine.

Small Miracles

Sderot's Hannuka candles are once again lighting up homes all over the world.
Yadin Roman, 11 December 2009
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The "Menora" candle factory in Sderot is working around the clock to supply the 55 million colored Hannuka candles that will light up houses around Israel and the world for the next eight days. The factory owner, Israel Shiner (82), a holocaust survivor who made aliyah to Israel 20 years, sees this as a kind of miracle. For the last seven years the town of Sderot has withstood a constant barrage of missiles launched by the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Until operation "Cast Lead" it was extremely dangerous to work at the plant. Two years ago a Kassam rocket fell in the factory courtyard, missing the aluminum roof of the main building by a few meters. The explosion wrenched doors and windows off their frames, as the 300 workers crouched in the factory's small bomb shelter.

"But, even in the most tense times, at the height of the shelling, I preferred to go to work", says Natasha Kotchinski, who has been working in the plant for the last 14 years. For Shiner the candle factory in Sderot is his own private miracle. As an 11 year old boy, in 1939, as the Nazis approached his hometown of Pinchov, Poland he escaped with his family to the forests. While Hannuka came around he wanted to light the festival candles in the bunker where the family was hiding out. As they had no hannukia and no candles, he fashioned a hannukia by carving out a piece of wood. The family survived the long years of the war, hiding in the forests of Europe. When Shiner made aliyah, it was only fitting that he should remember his survival in the forest, and the Hannuka that he had celebrated after his escape, with a Hannuka candle factory.

Now, after the bombing from the Gaza Strip has stopped, the fact that this Hannuka, the festival that celebrates Jewish bravery and perseverance 2,000 years ago, the candles that light the festival are still being sent to Jewish homes all over the world from Sderot.


2009-12-11

The Cave of the Candelabras, at the ancient Jewish necropolis of Beit Shearim, is about to be opened to the public - 70 years after its discovery.

Read more about the necropolis of Beit Sheariam, burial place of Rabbi Yehudah the Prince and the Cave of the Candelabras in the November-December 2009 issue of ERETZ Magazine

The Green Line

This arbitrarily drawn ceasefire line has suddenly become a viable international smoke screen to block out the real bone of contention between Israelis and Palestinians. Yadin Roman, 24 November 2009
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The issue of Israeli settlements, Jerusalem and the attentions of the International community have all been focused on the enigmatic entity called the Green Line. On the one side of it is "legitimate Israel" on the other side are "illegal settlements" in a territory that is not Israel. As it has become such an important geographical feature it is time to supply a few facts, a profile if you want, of the Green Line.

It came into being in 1949, as part of the armistice agreements between Israel and Jordan following the war in 1948. The army officers in the field, from both sides, drew the positions held by the fighting forces, and this was presented at the cease fire discussions between the two sides, held under the auspices of the United Nations at Rhodes. The line was drawn on the map with a green crayon, and hence its name. From a cease fire line it became an armistice line, a temporary device until future peace negotiations would settle the issues between Jews and Arabs.

The Arabs never accepted Israel, the idea of peace negotiations or the legality of the armistice line. In the first few months after the war it was juggled around a little. The Iraqi forces holding the front in Wadi Ara where sent back to Iraq, and part of the territory they held on to was ceded to Israel. The area around the Beit Shean Valley on the northern side of the line, and the area in the Judean Desert on the southern side of the line, was redrawn. A year later, in 1950, the Jordanians annexed the territory between the green line and the Jordan River, and called it the West Bank – the west side of the river. Jordan proper became the East Bank. The annexation was never internationally recognized.

During the 1950s the Jordanians and Arab states encouraged Palestinians to raid the Israeli held territories on the western side of the line. These attacks brought about a retaliatory war in the early 1950s and the creation of a patrol road along the Israeli side of the line. Some sections of the line were marked with large stone cairns others with metal markers. Fighting and infiltration along the line ceased after the Sinai Campaign in 1956.

The green line was never meant to be a frontier. It has no defining geographical features; it runs through the middle of villages, cuts fields off from their farmsteads, and villages off from their springs. The line, drawn by crayon, has an actual width of 40-60 meters, which in Jerusalem for example, left a wide swath of streets and houses in no-man's-land.

Following the Six Day War it suddenly became an international entity. The areas to the east of it became the areas occupied by Israel in 1967, as there was no other international definition for it. In the last two decades it has become the spear head of the Palestinian-Arab thrust against Israel – it is illegally occupied territory that should be "returned" – even though it was never "taken" from any internationally recognized body.

Israelis and Palestinians still have to decide how to settle the issues between them. In November 1947, the international community in the United Nations voted for a plan to partition Palestine between Jews and Arabs. Israel agreed, the Arabs did not. The following seven wars all stemmed from the fact that the Arabs never agreed to a two state solution. When the Arabs, and especially the Palestinians, will finally agree to the creation of two national states the green line will not be an issue. The 400,000 Israeli Arabs, for example, living on the western side of the green line, should undoubtedly be part of the Palestinian national state – and the other half a million Israeli Arabs located in the central Galilee should also be able to fulfill their national aspirations in the framework of the Palestinian national state. In the same way the 200,000 Israeli settlers to the east of the green line, and the over 200,000 Israelis living on the other side of the green line in Jerusalem should be able to fulfill their national aspirations in the Israeli national state.

The constant attempt to concentrate on the legalities of the green line allows the Palestinians and the Arabs to keep side tracking the main issue – the creation of two national states – a Jewish national state and an Arab national state. Once the Palestinians agree to that, the issue of which side gets what hill, or where exactly will the border be drawn becomes a much easier decision: Jews will live in Israel, Arabs in Palestine. It is as easy and simple as that.


2009-11-24

A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go

Fish-ponds, kingfishers, frogs and skyscrapers. Yadin Roman, 18 November 2009
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I have a little fish-pond in my backyard. It has ten gold fish, two water lilies, a whole school of small mosquito eating fish and another unidentified spreading water plant. The pond also has a small waterfall, which spurts out of the filtering unit, because my wife wanted to hear the sound of running water from her study. It is very soothing she claimed, even after the neighbors notified us that we must have a water leak somewhere, because they constantly hear the sound of running water coming from our backyard.

The pond was built fifteen years ago, when we first moved into the house. But for the first fourteen years of its existence it did not fulfill its true purpose. Afraid that our baby son would drown in the 40 cm deep pond (the: you can even drown in a cup of water routine), we turned it into a flower garden-bed. Later when our son lengthened far beyond 40 cms, he wanted a dog, which ate the flowers in the pond flower-bed.

As our son grew older and the dog matured to a stage where running around in flower beds seemed a waste of time, the strange oval shaped patch in the garden looked a little out of place. So, when the sound of falling, sparkling, fresh water in the dry wastes of the Middle East became a desire, I set out to fulfill the mitzvah. The earth was removed from the pond, water installations were put in, together with the small fountain, and fish. You don't really count your fish, as they swim around lazily pouting for air and looking for mosquitoes. But when a dazzling blue kingfisher showed up on the tree above the pond, one by one the fish began to vanish. I didn't make the connection in the beginning, but after witnessing a spectacular kingfisher dive into the pool from the telephone wires that run along the edge of the back yard, the puzzle of the missing fish dawned on me.

It took a while to figure out how to stop the fish-hunt in my backyard. One expert advised stringing a CD above the pool. The shiny reflection on the disc would scare the kingfisher off. But the blue predator wasn't impressed with an old Elton John recording. Another expert at the fish shop advocating shooting the bird, advice which I declined as I didn't want to frighten my neighbors by adding the sound of gunfire to the sound of water coming from our backyard. Finaly I just lurked in waiting every morning for the kingfisher to show up, and then personally shooed him away. Eventually the bird tired of the game and didn't show up any more. Maybe it found a more peaceful pond to prey on, or was afraid that my next step would be to take the more violent advice.

And then the frog arrived. I became aware of its presence one day, when it dived into the pond just as I approached. The frightfully green monster had me perplexed. The fish I had brought myself to the pond, the kingfisher winged his way from the other side of Tel Aviv, but how exactly did the frog climb over the stone fence around the garden and get to the pond? It was a mystery. My frog, as I now refer to him, usually sits on the side of the pool, out of the water, sunning himself or drying off – I am not exactly clear. Then if danger approaches, me, the dog, a shadow, he leaps into the pool and vanishes into the murky 40 cm depth. A few minutes later, he pokes his head out of the water, and keeps still, waiting for the danger to pass. My common river frog, Rana ridibunda for those who need Latin introductions, is, so the book says, sexually active in summer. Like most males in the world, they attract their females by holding on to the side of the pond, and croaking, loudly. But, for some reason, my frog never gave a squeak this summer. Maybe he thinks that croaking wont carry far in my backyard, or maybe froggy is actually a female, waiting for somebody else to do the croaking.

What is the morale of this fish story? Not much, except the joy of a small backyard in a small house in Tel Aviv. The kind of backyards that will not be available as Tel Aviv builds more and mores skyscrapers where the inhabitants of those high rise floors will never be able to tell if a frog is croaking in their fish pond.

2009-11-18

Water, Gasp, Water

Israel's water problem is not because of excessive use by households. It has more to do with bad planning and little foresight. Yadin Roman, November 17 2009
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Since June we have been confronted with a government sponsored Water Scarcity campaign. The main thrust was an advertising campaign which featured Israeli celebrities with a drying, cracking face and a slogan telling us that Israel is drying out. Together with the campaign the Water Authority and the Ministry of Finance pushed through a hike in water prices and a "drought tax" for households that used more than a set monthly water quota. The quota was set so low that in any case you would have to pay the "drought tax". The tax together with a 50% increase in water rates gave the government an additional one billion NIS income. This extra money was not even earmarked for investment in water.

The truth of the matter is that the drought campaign and the "we are on the border of a desert" argument is a hoax, an excuse to raise taxes. The annual average rainfall in Jerusalem is the same as in Krakow, Poland, and just 10% lower than the average rainfall in London. Jerusalem's rainfall is 44% higher than the rainfall in Los Angeles. The infamous "drought" is not a particular desert phenomenon. New York, London, Melbourne and Barcelona have all had periods of drought, and they are not on the fringe of any desert. The longest drought periods in Israel occurred in the 1950s and 1960s and not in the last 40 years (average annual rainfall in the last decade has been 92% of the overall long-range average).

Israel's water system is also very efficient. Water loss due to leaks in the water infrastructure in Israel is 10%, one of the lowest in the world (Italy is 40%, Canada 25%, London 50%!).

The issue is not a sudden drought, rusting pipes, or an onslaught of the desert. The reason why water is getting scarce in Israel is because we have more and more people using the same amount of water. 12 million people live today between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, more than double the number of people thirty years ago. This is not a surprise, or a freak natural event, or even global warming. These are figures that have been on the table for years. The reason why we don't have water is because desalination plants were not built in time. And the solution to having enough water is to build them. The Ministry of Finance dragged its feet on this issue for the last decade and only last year finally gave the go ahead to build enough desalination plants to solve the water crisis.

So actually the "drought tax" is just innovative taxing. Rightly so the public grumbled and was about to rebel, and the members of Knesset got together to stop the tax. Until next time, maybe a clean air tax this time.


2009-11-17

See the upcoming issue of ERETZ Magazine dedicated to Israel's water-technology industry, with some intriguing new innovations.

Rebels With Cause

Angry Arava farmers block the road to Eilat because of government restrictions on the number of Thai farm hands. Yadin Roman, 6 November 2009
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This year the Arava settlements are celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. The Arava is the part of the Syrian-African rift valley that runs from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. It is an African bush like environment. A flat desert bed, interspersed with acacia trees, sand dunes and beautiful scenery. Hot dry summers, mild winters with icy nights, not the most hospitable place in the world.

The first settlers arrived fifty years ago. They settled in Ein Yahav, near a cluster of saline springs, and decided to try their hand at farming. A decade later they were joined by a handful of families who founded, what was unheard of in Israel until then – a private farm. The farmers of Ein Hatzeva dug a well near the ancient well of Hatzeva, known since antiquity as a way station on the road from the deserts of Arabia to the shores of the Mediterranean, and found water. A lot of water, enough water to want the settlement authorities to drive them out, and create official, Jewish Agency sponsored settlements on the Arava's water. A whole line of Moshavim and Kibbutzim were soon planted along the Arava, populated by eager youngsters who had come to settle the desert.

Agricultural experiments soon revealed the real secret of the Arava valley – the clean sandy areas and the mild winter climate. Sand was the best matrix for drip irrigation techniques. It held the plants roots, allowed water and nutrients to seep into it quickly and drained excess moisture so that the roots would not rot. Tomatoes, peppers, flowers and spices grew in abundance, ripening in winter – at Christmas – when the winter markets of Europe were ready to pay high prices for the off-season vegetables of the Arava.

But there was a fly in the ointment of the Arava cornucopia. Cultivating these huge amounts of vegetables needed field workers, a lot of them. Field workers who were ready to work in steaming plastic hot houses and packing houses, and do back breaking monotonous work. As the Israeli economy developed Israelis did not want to work in these conditions. The Arava was far away and even with very lucrative pay, working as a field hand did not hold much of a future.

And so, Israel, like many other industrialized nations turned to importing farm hands. Guest workers, who would come for a few years, work, make money and then return home. But, unlike what was going on in the central part of the country, where "work contractors" were making a lot of money by bringing into the country nurses and household help from the Philippines and construction workers from China and Turkey, the Arava's field hands came from Thailand. Unlike the household staff and construction workers the Thais earned high wages, came without their families, were treated as valued equals in the farms, and returned back home after five years. While in the center of the country the number of foreign workers living in Israel kept growing as many of them decided to stay in the country – in the Arava the number of workers stayed constant.

As the number of aliens in Israel grew the government decided to step in and do something about it. The easy way was of course to limit the number of new workers coming into Israel – but that would mean interfering with the lucrative business of importing them. And so the Jerusalem legislators decided on a better way – an immigration police was set up to hunt down the illegal aliens in the country and deport them, and quotas were set on the number of workers in agriculture. In order to compensate the farmer the Finance Ministry promised to allocate a research budget that would mechanize the work in the fields. But the budget was never allocated, and even if it was, nobody in the world has yet invented a machine that can pick peppers on hang tomato tendrils on trestles. As the quotas were cut, the settlers in the Arava found there life investment in settling the desert, decaying in the fields.

They are patient people these desert farmers, salt of the earth. But last week their smoldering anger burst into flames, when two officers of the Immigration Police tried to take into custody two Thai workers from the fields of Hatzeva. Two hundred angry farmers surrounded the patrol car and released the Thai workers. The next day the farmers of the Arava drove their tractors to Jerusalem to demonstrate in front of the Knesset. Then they blockaded the Arava Road, the main highway to Eilat. On seeing the level of anger the police decided to let the farmers vent their anger on the traffic to Eilat. But the farmers' demonstrations are only beginning. Tomorrow they plan to stop all traffic to Eilat and return to Jerusalem with a much stronger contingent of farmers. Meanwhile the Minister of Agriculture says that the matter is out of his hands, the Minister of the Interior, who is in charge of immigration policy, says that his hands are tied, and the gap between the government of Israel and its people is widening day after day.



2009-11-06

Safekeeping Our Antiquities

Major vandalism at Avdat raises some troubling questions
Yadin Roman, 4 November 2009
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Yesterday two Bedouins, cousins, from the Azzazme tribe in the Negev highlands were brought to trail for vandalizing antiquities in the Avdat National Park. The house that they had built without a permit, in the illegal settlement where their family lives near the ancient Nabatean town of Avdat, was destroyed following a court order. The enraged cousins decided to vent their anger on the nearby National Park run by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA). The rangers of the INPA are seen by the Bedouins as those who want to evict them from the Negev highlands, in order to finalize the plans to declare large tracts of the Negev as Nature Reserves.

Taking their car and paint cans they roped the ancient columns of the structures on the sites and pulled them down, then they sprayed paint over other parts of the site. The damage was considerable. Ancient Avdat was founded in the first century, by the Nabateans, and flourished as the capital of a large trade emporium in the Negev, during the Roman and Byzantine eras. The town, built on a mountain top in the middle of the Negev, had an acropolis on which temples, later converted into churches were built. A walled citadel stood behind the acropolis. Other parts of the town included camel pens for the large camel convoys that transported the spices of Arabia to the centers of the Roman Empire, an industrial center, a Roman army camp and more. The site was excavated in the 1950s and 1960s by the late Abraham Negev, restored in the 1970s, and has been declared a World Heritage Site. The INPA who manage the site, have built a visitors' center at the entrance and run a small restaurant and souvenir shop on the site.

Apart for the blatant vandalism of this case there are other issues which in the wide publicity that the INPA has given to the destruction have been overlooked. How can two people drive their car onto the acropolis of the site, something that is forbidden to do, take a rope, tie it to the columns on the site and pull them down one by one without anybody noticing, even after the site is closed. Once they finished they took out spray guns and paint brushes and smeared the ancient walls and structures with paint. Again nobody noticed. Where were the guards and personnel, where were the security cameras, other security measures?

The INPA charges entrance fees to the site, it rents out the acropolis for special events, conducts special night tours with head-torches around the site, operates a souvenir shop and restaurant at the site (after taking the concession away from the long-time former operator). All this has been allotted the INPA on one assumption – that it will be responsible for the safety and well being of the site. If someone can just drive his car onto the acropolis and vandalize the site at will, without any interference maybe it is time to give the site to someone else, who will at least know how to appreciate what he is in charge of and take proper care of it. Just for the record I will add that the original Nabateans who built Avdat, were also Bedouins.



2009-11-04

Where Have All The Tourists Gone?

Why is tourism to Israel not taking off? It is about time that we stop giving the fifty year old excuse: the security situation. Yadin Roman, 3 November 2009
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Israel should have had a flourishing tourism industry. This is a land holy to a third of the world's population, the historical and archaeological sites of Israel highlight the texts and stories loved by millions; the spiritual experience of a visit to this land is unique, the diverse cultures, peoples, cuisines, natural sites, beaches are as fine as any other popular travel destination. By any criteria Israel should have been a major travel destination.

But, we are not. The annual number of tourists arriving in Israel has never reached 3 million. This year the number of tourists visiting Israel, if the November-December season will be a peak travel season, will reach 2.5 million. That is the same number of tourists that arrived in Israel in 2007, and in 1996,1997 and 1998. Just for comparison Turkey has 25 million tourists, Egypt 11 million, Greece 16 million. Tiny Lebanon will have 2 million tourist this year, and at the current rate of growth will, by 2010, have more annual tourists than Israel.

As usual the excuse of the travel industry,from government officials to travel agents and hotel owners is the security condition. "Israel is always in a state of war", says Ami Etgar, the director of the Incoming Tourism Organizers Chamber, and by this he encapsulates the attitude why tourism to Israel is not taking off: the Israeli tourism industry lacks originality, creativity and oomph.

Lebanon is not exactly a country with a peaceful image. Its tourism industry is growing by leaps and bounds. Egypt is not the safest place in the world, neither is Turkey but they both rank in the 50 top tourism destinations of the world. Travel agents have recently began offering tours to Afghanistan – another destination with a problematic security record.

Official Israel is doing nothing to utilize one of our most important assets. In the last decade their have been 14 different ministers of tourism. Each one of them has brought with him a new concept and a new staff. Marketing budgets, even the smallest ones, have never been used to the utmost, even now, with a government budget which has allotted the largest marketing budget ever for tourism, nothing has yet been spent. The new minister is busy flying around the world, visiting the Israeli Tourism offices in the major cities of Europe and America.

The issue of getting tourists to come to Israel will not be solved by sending hordes of officials to staff offices abroad. Israel is an expensive destination to fly to. Why? Because the government has been blocking the ability of new "low cost" airlines to fly to Israel. Russia and Eastern Europe abound with a new Christian fervor. Millions of Catholics and Greek Orthodox pilgrims would love to make the journey to Jerusalem. But Israel makes it difficult for them to get visas. So, they take their newly earned salaries and travel to Turkey and Egypt. The number of Greek Orthodox visitors to Egypt, where there are a few Eastern Orthodox shrines, is growing be leaps and bounds. On the other hand plans to create a "Sea of Galilee Heritage Park" which will include the sites which make up 75% of the Gospels, with Christian seminar and visiting centers, have all been stalled, not for lack of funding, as many Christian communities were ready to fund the project, but for all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles. While we were busy bickering about how and where to create the park, a Bible Lands Center was created in Atlanta, Georgia in which biblical landscapes, structures and environment have been faithfully recreated. The Atlanta center has been a success from the day it opened two years ago.

Tourism is an industry that affords a livelihood for a large segment of the population. It is a great equalizer offering the opportunity to start many low-level entry businesses: local tour companies, guide services, small restaurants, souvenir manufacturing, and souvenir shops. It is mostly a cash industry, which allows businesses to grow slowly without taking out expensive loans. Tourism is a labor intensive industry providing jobs for those who don't have the education to start a hi-tech startup.

And that is probably where the problem lies. A cash based industry, that will encourage the creation of small, independent businesses and allow a larger segment of Israeli society to enjoy the resources of this land, doesn't seem to be on the agenda of Israel's political establishment.



2009-11-03

The Bedouin Diaspora

One hundred thousand Bedouins are living in unrecognized shanty villages in the Negev. Their claim to land and water has to be faced and aknowledged in order for Bedouin-Jewish coexistence to continue. Yadin Roman, 2 November 2009
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180 thousand Bedouins live today in the Negev, one-hundred thousand of them in what is called the Bedouin Diaspora: a collection of shanty villages, unauthorized, with no infrastructure, schools, and health care or any other of the amenities of modern life. Poverty, bigamy and crime are rife among the Bedouin Diaspora as is a large number of children per woman, which makes condition even harder. Within 13 years, at the current rate of expansion, the Bedouin population of the Negev will double and reach 360,000 people.

The Bedouins in these unrecognized settlements live outside the pale of Israeli law. They don't pay taxes and no planning or building code applies to the 50 thousand illegal structures in these villages. Whole areas of the Negev live in fear of Bedouins: protection money is the norm around Beersheva, break-ins, wild and dangerous behavior on the roads, stealing from farms and from tourists and travelers is rampant.

The law enforcement bodies cannot be blamed for this situation, even if they could do something about it. The Police Bedouin Settlement Unit, in charge of the legal Bedouin settlements around Beersheba, 80,000 people in all, is extremely small. At night for example, only three patrol cars man this huge area.

For decades now the government has preferred to ignore the Bedouin time bomb. The main issue is of course land. For generations the Bedouins lived a life style of roaming around large territories, raising goats and moving from pasture to pasture. This nomadic way of life, romantic as it may seem, is now obsolete. Modern amenities; electricity, water, education, health cannot deal with a tent that is constantly on the move. But in order to get the Bedouins to settle down, they have to be allotted land and water. The Bedouins claim property rights over large tracts of land in the Negev, the government, even though many of the claims have been settled, is averse to deal head on with the issue.

The Goldberg committee that was set up to make recommendations on solving the Bedouin land claims has now presented its findings to the government. The committee's recommendation is to a lot to the Bedouins half of what they claim as there land, even without deed or title, and to come to a financial settlement on the other half. The other recommendation is to "legalize" the unauthorized settlements. The recommendations have the Jewish settlement establishment up in arms. In the last decade in order to combat the "Bedouin takeover" of the Negev the settlement establishment has created Jewish farmsteads, single family farms, each one with an allotment of a wide expanse of land and water with which to raise goats, olives and grapes. The settlers are, of course, all Jewish. The single family settlements have not been officially approved by the Israeli Planning Authority, as the master plan for settlements in Israel is opposed to filling up the countryside with single family homesteads, for the same reason as the objection to nomadic roaming – the cost of bringing water, electricity, health and education to single family units.

The Bedouins of the Negev are Israeli citizens. They have proved their loyalty to the state by participating in the Israeli Armed Forces since the War of Independence. In the last two years four Bedouin soldiers have been killed in action in the IDF. By ignoring their needs and rights we are pushing them away. The grand old Bedouin sheikh, Uda Abu Muamer, head of the Negev tribes, believed in Bedouin and Jewish coexistence. He lived to be over one hundred years old and until his dying day was ready, at any moment, to grab a gun and come to the defense of Israel. We have a debt to the Bedouins, and the sooner we acknowledge it, the faster we will be able to defuse the time bomb ticking in the Negev.



2009-11-02

A New Coal Power Plant? You Must Be Kidding

The Israel Electric Company is about to get government go ahead to build a new coal fueled power plant in Ashkelon. Yadin Roman - 1 November, 2009
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The Ministry of the Environment is against it, as is the Ministry of Health and the residents of Ashkelon and its environs. Nevertheless the Ministry of Infrastructure is about to give the go ahead to the Israel Electric Company (IEC) to built a new coal-fueled power plant in Ashkelon.

Coal is the highest carbon emissions energy source that we can use. Apart from the damage to the atmosphere, coal fumes are the environmental source for many diseases. The rate of respiratory diseases in children living in the vicinity of Ashkelon, where a coal fueled power plant already exists, is many times higher than the level in the rest of the country. In one kindergarten in the area 25% of the children use inhalators on a daily basis.

So why is the IEC about to build another coal fueled power plant? Because this is what they know how to do. Th fact that large gas reserves have recently been discovered off the shores of Israel, the fact that once the Redding Power Plant in Tel Aviv started to use gas, air quality in Tel Aviv improved dramatically - seems to have no effect on the decision makers in the Israeli government. Once the new power plant comes into operation Israel will have to pay enormous fines for Carbon emissions - this also is something that government planners are choosing to ignore.

The IEC argument is that we will soon run out of energy. This argument has been presented by the company for the last decade, and lo and behold, we have not run out of energy. Of course there is also the easy way to energy sufficiency - use less energy. For example if we stop using incandescent light bulbs we will save 3% of the total energy needs of the country. How do we do this? Very simple: as no light bulbs of any kind are manufactured in Israel, you ban the import of these light bulbs. Why is nothing being done? Maybe there is no interest in lowering energy usage and costs. After all the IEC is a very powerful company.



2009-11-01

Saturday at the Muristan

In the last few months the Old City of Jerusalem is bustling with visitors. Is that why Ultra Orthodox and Arabs are trying so hard to destroy these signs of normalcy? Yadin Roman - 31 October
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The Muristan, the strange little quarter adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, bustles with happy faces on weekends. Coffee tables and chairs are taken to capacity in the small square around the central fountain of the quarter. The small alleyways leading in all directions are filled with restaurants and coffee shop crammed to capacity. Christian pilgrims sit side by side with Jewish visitors from Tel Aviv and with the local Arab residents. Hookahs are smoked in the small corner shops in the alleyways, and pomegranate juice – the fruit of the season – flows like water.

The Muristan is not your regular run of the mill Old-City environment. Originally, far back when the Romans were still around, it was the area where the leather dyers used to work. The smell of leather being treated and the grime of this ancient industry made it an unsavory place to hang out in. No wonder that the small hill at its northern perimeter was used for crucifixion of criminals and rebels. After the Empress Helena had the hill remodeled to fit into the grand church built over the place of the crucifixion and the tomb in which Jesus was hastily buried, the leather industry was gradually ousted from its site next to the church. The area remained uninhabited for the next 900 years, until the Crusaders came around. Then the great hospital of the Knights Hospitallers was built on part of this open area. Once the Crusaders were evicted from the Holy City and the Moslems returned the area of the hospital began to be known as Bemiristan – which means hospital – in Persian.

By the 19th century most of the Crusader remains had vanished and the area, by now called the Muristan, was acquired by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch who decided to build a modern market on the property – what would have been termed today a mall. The mall was built around an open plazae adorned with a water fountain (still today the only plaza with a fountain in the Old City). From the plaza five straight streets led out in all directions, bisected by an outer line of alleys. Shops and stores adorned the street level, workshops the floor above.

The quarter was finished in 1905 – and inaugurated as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the sultan Abdul Hamid II. With a small break during World War I, the quarter flourished. It had tourist souvenir shops along its main alley, and workshops for shoes and boxes, a few bakeries, restaurants, and a famous barber shop. The fountain, by the way, never actually worked on a regular basis. It had a water box on one of the columns around the fountain pool that had to be filled with water from the Gihon Spring by water carriers – once a week (for some reason, until this day, the fountain has no water supply).

Following the Six Day War the Muristan came back to life as tourists filled the Old City. A small hostel started to operate in one of the buildings, and the coffee shops became favorite haunts for backpackers and students. The Intifada, first and second, killed the Muristan. Tourists scuttled quickly through it on there way to the Holy Sepulcher, Israelis kept away, the students drifted to other hangouts,

In the past few months the Old City has sprung to life again. The Muristan is flourishing. And so the Ultra Orthodox of Jerusalem have started to riot – their excuse being the opening of a municipal parking lot next to the Old City on Saturdays. The extreme Moslems have started their own riots in the city – their excuse being that the Jews want to take over the Haram a Sharif, the area of the Temple Mount.

At present the municipality and the police have managed to contain the riots, and the Muristan is still filled with normalcy on weekends. But peaceful coexistence has always been a red rag for extremists, and evil minds are at work to destroy the wellbeing of Saturdays at the Muristan.



2009-10-31

Heavy Rains All Over Israel

The rains that started yesterday are now spreading to the north and south. Flooding in Netanya, Petah Tikva and Raanana - 30 October, 2009
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The slight rain that started yesterday has turned into a massive rain storm. Events like this are not rare at the end of October and happen at an average once every four years. The rains will spread today to the Galilee and the Negev. In the riverbeds of the Negev and Judean Desert flash floods are expected towards noon.

Following massive rainfall during the night this morning another 50mm of rain has already been reported in Rishon Letzion, south of Tel Aviv, and 70mm in Raanana, north-east of Tel Aviv. Because of the rains many events have been cancelled including the central memorial event for Yizhak Rabin, planned for Saturday night. The event has been postponed by a week.

With the warning for flash floods posted many desert-lovers have set out for the Negev to witness a flash flood. The thousands of tons of water that thunder down a dry desert riverbed, is one of natures most awesome scenes. Huge waterfalls spring to life as the wide desert riverbed floors turn into a raging sea that carries with it trees, rocks and anything else that the flood encounters on the way.

Another place to witness the power of rainfall is the Yarmuk River waterfall at Naharayim. The Yarmuk gathers its waters in the Syrian and Jordean plateaus to the east of the River Jordan. If the rains spread eastwards, as they are expected to do in the the next 48 hours - the Yarmuk will again come to life sending huge amounts of water to the Jordan and the Dead Sea.


2009-10-30

Catching a Flash Flood

Flash floods are dangerous, do not enter the riverbeds in danger of flooding, or cross them. But there are great flood watching places - following are two suggestions, under the condition that these will be the riverbeds that will get that extra rainfall that will make them flood.

NEGEV: Ein Avdat Waterfall
One of the best places to watch is the Ein Avdat waterfall of the mighty Nahal Zin. Take route 40 past Sdeh Boker to the Ein Avdat Nature Reserve turnoff. The observation platform at the reserve is a great place to look down on the river and the huge waterfall. Nahal Zin is one of the more frequent flashers of the Negev.

JUDEAN DESERT:Masada
Yes, Masada is a great place to watch a flood crashing down the Nahal Ben Yair waterfall, and a great insight into how King Herod filled the huge water cisterns of his desert fortress.

JORDAN VALLEY: Naharayim Waterfall
From Kibbutz Ashdod Yaakov take the road down to the Nahrayim site and waterfall.

First Rains Fell This Morning

Yadin Roman, 29 October 2009
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Rain has become a somber subject in Israel. Four years of drought and a gradual diminishing of the annual rainfall have made it clear, even to the last hold out skeptic, that the climate is changing. Thirty odd years ago rain was a completely different affair then the slight drizzle and a few hours of cloudy skies that we refer to today as rain. Rain rained. Poured, a bout of rain continued for three or four days, filling the streets - many still with unpaved sidewalks, with streams of water that needed to be waded across with care and boots. The Ayalon River, that once flowed between Tel Aviv and its eastern suburbs, used to flood its banks and turn into an impossible to cross raging torrent - cutting Tel Aviv off from Givatayim and Ramat Gan.

Why do I remember this? Because in the 1960s, I could not get to school when it rained because my school was "across the river".

So, for all of you who are still in doubt as to climate change, you can relax. It isn't changing, it has already changed. I leave the issue of who is to blame for this climate change to the experts who will gather this December in Copenhagen for the .

On the other hand what are we in Israel doing about it, is something that I do fell strongly about. We, as in the governmental, official Israel, we, are doing nothing. Sorry - not exactly nothing - we have created a new tax - a new price for water that will raise every families water bill by a large percent. The tax of course will not save water, because it has been set up in such a way that even if we shower once a week, go to the toilet at the office, and stop cleaning our floors - we will still reach the minimum allotment from which the tax is payable and it wont help to alleviate the water shortage problem.

Why is that? you ask. Because households is not where the problem is. Water is wasted in Israel because while the city dwellers will be taxed to the maximum before open rebellion, people living outside the cities - will continue to have all the water they need for growing cotton, bananas, oranges and other water-intensive crops, a large percentage of which are exported abroad. Every three oranges that we send to the market has the water-worth of a bathtub. Bananas and cotton use even more water.

Bananas grow in abundance in South America, as do oranges and all the other water intensive crops that we keep on insisting in growing in Israel. But it is much easier to slap a tax on households, claim that we will eventually build a few desalination plants, and continue to waste one of our most precious resources, than actually deal with the real isue of water waste in Israel.

Lets hope that this year will be an exceptionally rainy year so that we can set aside the issue of water for a few more months - at least until after the rains.



2009-10-29