DAY TRIPPING

This morning I decided to venture outside the Tel Aviv “bubble” and explore some other venues. I hopped on a train to Askelon which is about an hour directly south and the scene of a recent rocket attack from Gaza. (Interesting, the rocket firing was identified as an “attack” and the IDF action is called a “response.”) The train is great, it seems to always be on time, clean and unlike the bus there is leg room. The seating on the bus is set up for people 5’9” and under, if you are taller, it is very uncomfortable; I think that is called heightism.

The first really significant insight of the trip which confirms a feeling I had when I went to Jerusalem is that there is a lot of empty space in Israel, miles and miles of it. Why is that important, because as I understand the argument for settlements in the West Bank, there wasn’t enough room in Israel for the new immigrants. But I feel I just spent a day riding through so much empty space and I’m not talking desolate Montana or mountainous Sierras space, I mean large, flat, buildable space.

Arrived in Askelon and immediately was hit by my second major insight: the Israelis have figured out a formula for creating cities out of almost nothing. As mentioned earlier it seems like the person when invented Sim City was an adviser to the Israeli government. Here’s how I see it working. Start by finding a generally suitable place, probably some town that is 5,000 years old and probably inhabited by Palestinians. Then move about 100 yards to the side of that “Old Town” and start building your “Sim City.” There is always a major, paved highway in and out which then connects to the national highway grid, add excellent bus coverage, if possible a train stop is a nice touch and of course complete internet, cell phone and TV cable coverage. Then lots of standardized housing and most important of all a couple of really nice hotels for the tourists. As I walk the streets of these towns I find myself clicking on a mouse going, “hotel over there” click, “one bank, one gas station, one post office, one school” click, and them “houses, houses, houses” click, click, click. The hub of the city becomes a very modern, fully furnished shopping mall, surrounded by hundreds of little hanger-on shops for the residual Jewish petite bourgeois store owners, lots of bakeries, cheap clothing outlets and peddler stores. The final piece of the puzzle is hordes of Jewish immigrants “urning to be free” of which there seems to be no shortage. My sense is that some of this has a nice socialist component, ie lots of hospitals, schools, old people services, immigrant services and some kind of safety net while at the same time there is a solid capitalist component, ie banks, tourism, technology sector. It feels like the Israelis can knock this “insta-city” thing out almost anywhere and anytime they want (even if someone else already lives there.) Everywhere one goes there is the feeling that things are either about 20 years old OR 5,000 years old depending on what side of the road you are looking at.

One of many, many building/housing projects which you see everywhere, I have yet to be in a city that does not have major construction going on.

I think I found the targeted shopping mall, but if so the debris was cleaned up pretty quickly and the shoppers didn’t appear to be looking over their shoulders in worry, or at least not more than usual, timeless Jewish worry about the Cossacks coming. I can tell you that the thought of a random rocket hitting a shopping center is a really efficient use of limited military resources, it is the maximum “bang for the buck.” One last point about the coastal towns, it’s really nice having a beach! I saw a movie once that had a bus load of Muslim women covered from head to foot drive up to an Israel beach, walk to the sea, slosh around with their feet in the surf, go back to the bus and drive away, much to the shock of the hundreds of semi-naked Israeli sunbathers. The commentary said this was the first time that the Palestinians had seen the ocean/beach in person. It was a very powerful and sad comment/image.

But, moving on, I jumped on a bus to Sederot, about 5 miles from Gaza, which is more regularly shelled and I could have written the exact same commentary as above, except no beach. Then on to another bus to Be’er Sheva. To give you an idea of time/distance, I left Tel Aviv exactly at 10a.m. and arrived in Be’er Sheva at 2p.m. despite having walked around the towns along the way. Be’er Sheva is a really fascinating study. To get there you drive through miles of solid agricultural land, I felt like I was on I-5 going to Fresno. Miles and miles of sunflowers, fruit and nut trees (nuts grow on trees, right?), corn, wheat and lots of weird experimental thingies with nets, tents and such.

This video from the bus window seems boring, but it is miles of wheat and fruit trees, it made me realize that Israeli's roots are agricultural.

What was missing and very conspicuous by its absence was WATER. Unlike the Central Valley, I didn’t see any aqueducts, irrigation canals, sprinklers, absolutely nothing, not even clouds in the sky. I simply couldn’t figure out how they water this place.

The bus station is run down as usually seems to be the case and as you come out your are hit by the dichotomy of a modern, thriving city to the left and a teeming, vibrant “Old City” to the right. Initially I went left and walked into one of the largest, most modern Malls I’ve seen in Israel. I’ll spare you another Mall photo, but we are talking hundreds of high end stores, lots and lots of food courts, air conditioning, of course and lots of people shopping and hanging out. For the first time I saw a large number of Moslem women in full garb, covered from head to foot mixed in with the Israelis.

Moslem women getting ready to take money out of the ATM about 10% of the University seem Moslem.

Having gotten my fill of yet another modern Israeli city (did I mention unlimited food concessions) I walk across the street to the “Bedouin Market” and will once again spare you another photo of rows and rows of an old time Middle Eastern market. I think I was the only tourist, or at least I was the only person with an REI fanny pack and clicking pictures with my cell phone. (I can run, but I can’t hide) And once again, I sound like a broken record, there was fruit, vegetables, meat and clothing stalls for as far as the eye could see. Question: What happens to all that produce that doesn’t get sold? There is no way that these vendors could ever sell all the fruits/vegetables on display and in the heat of the day, there must be incredible spoilage. Here also were lots of Moslem dressed women. I don’t really know what/who they were. The guide book said they were Bedouin, whatever that is in 2008, I think they are all Israeli citizens, because we were too far away from a Palestinian town.

So, here is the topic for the day: Whatever “message” the young Israel girls in the modern mall were trying to send with their skimpy outfits, long curly hair and naked legs, the young Arab girls in the bazaar with their covered outfits and deeply penetrating, heavily made-up eyes were more than capable of sending that exact same “message” with equal effectiveness. Sorry, about that being a complicated question, but you get my drift. I got a brief (and I mean brief) look from one of the Arab girls that was like a hot metal spear into the cold butter of my soul. (ok, I’m a lawyer, not an English major) Anyway, discuss this topic among yourselves, while I move on to other matters.

Main building of BGN seen upon entering the campus.

Finally, I hiked up to the Ben Gurion University of the Negev which was really awesome. I am convinced that every person in this country between the ages of 18 and 25 is either in the army or the university. As usual, the campus was awash in kids hanging out, talking the talk, and so many food courts and areas to just lie around and be a student.

Yet another view of students hanging out and thinking deep thoughts, kind of.

I’ll let my pictures describe the place, but this is the heart of how Israel intends to tame the Negev Desert, it kind of reminded me of UC Davis with its orientation towards agriculture and husbandry.

This was such a very cool sculpture it is a tiny ribbon of water that flows through the entire BG campus, it is only about 2 feet wide, but I think it is a metaphor for making the desert bloom or some such thing, you can walk along it for a very long distance.

I think I have one more University to visit in Haifa and then I’m done, but each one of these visits has been very emotional and inspiring.

Every square inch of every wall at the University was covered with donors names. As I have mentioned before, I'm conflicted on how I feel about this, but it is really incredible how many people from all over the world have given money to build these schools and hospitals.

By this time it was almost 5 p.m. and I found a train station and bought a ticket to of all places Dimona, which is the town with the Israeli atomic bombs and about a half an hour into the dessert, I was so excited to make the trip. Unfortunately, as I waited on the platform a guy told me that there was some kind of union strike and that Dimona was closed. I asked three people for an explanation and each said that it was too complicated to explain to me in English, curious! Suddenly, a train to Tel Aviv appeared and I jumped on board and was home by 5:30. Bottom line, I did get out of Tel Aviv, the bad news is that I still have not “seen” a Palestinian, but the good news is that somewhere in the middle of the Negev Desert there is a Bedouin woman who is my life-long soul mate and wants to have my child (I didn’t have time to tell her about my vasectomy, but I’m sure she will understand, we have that kind of non-verbal relationship.)