Michael J. Totten: City of Light, City of Dread

May 10, 2006

City of Light, City of Dread

TEL AVIV AND JERUSALEM – Tel Aviv is the perfect bohemian city: secular, cultured, youthful, compact, hip, and ideally situated on the shore of the Mediterranean.

It is the opposite of spectacular and glitzy. This city has not been to finishing school. It’s worn around the edges, slightly seedy in the corners, and refreshingly not as Western or California-like as expected.

Tel Aviv has been described as the Miami of the Middle East, which it sort of is. But only for one street along the beach.

The rest of the city is Beirut with Jews and (slightly) fewer machine guns.

Restaurants, art galleries, cafes, and bookstores dominate the core of the city. There are some old folks around, but for the most part it has been colonized by young urbanites.

It’s Greenwich Village on the beach. But it’s Greenwich Village on the beach in the Middle East. Beirut may be similar, but there’s nowhere else in the world exactly like it. Benjamin Kerstein in Beersheva told me about a picture he once had of a guy wearing a long-haired blonde wig and a pink tutu with a machine gun slung over his shoulder. “That’s Tel Aviv,” he said.

The city is 97 years old. It’s not only young for the Middle East, it’s young for the world.

There aren’t many old buildings around, but there are a few. Some really leapt out at me. This one below could easily have been in Beirut.

I have no nostalgia, if that is the word, for the Ottoman Empire. But it’s still sad to see physical evidence that Israel and Lebanon were recently (more recently than the founding of young Tel Aviv) more or less part of the same “country,” to use the word loosely. You could drive from Beirut to Tel Aviv in four hours if the border were open. But today the two cities might as well be on opposite sides of the moon.

Only a naif would believe that the peoples of the Levant – who today think of themselves as Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese – all felt like they belonged to one happy empire under the rule of the Ottomans. They didn’t. It just seems worse somehow now. The Israeli-Lebanese border is as inviolable as the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. (At least Lebanese and Israelis can go around it. No one is being kept in.)

The freshly constructed wall between the Israelis and Palestinians isn’t inviolable, but it’s yet another hideous wall of partition. Tiny formerly-Ottoman countries are still being sliced into even tinier countries and statelets based, more or less, on ethnic identity. It happened in Cyprus. In happened in Yugoslavia. It almost happened in Lebanon. It might happen soon in Iraq, and it already has happened informally in Iraqi Kurdistan. And it’s happening in Israel and Palestine now. While Europe moves to integrate its parts into a peaceful multinational federation, the Middle East still hasn’t finished breaking apart.

From the center of Jerusalem you can see the wall that divides Israel from what will someday – faster, please – officially be known as Palestine. Part of Jerusalem itself is on the other side of the 1967 Green Line which divided Israel from what was then Jordan.

Tel Aviv is cool. Tel Aviv is fun. Jerusalem isn’t fun. There is too much Reality in Jerusalem for it to be fun.

The city is ground zero in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were far more suicide-bombings there during the intifada than in Tel Aviv. This is partly due to Jerusalem’s proximity to the West Bank. It’s just an easier target. But it’s also more contested than Tel Aviv. Liberal and moderate Palestinians who don’t wish to destroy Israel still want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future sovereign Palestinian state.

But most Arabs who live there now don’t want to belong to a Palestinian state. They prefer, for the most part, to remain Israeli.

Jerusalem is stressful and unnervingly borderless, even with the wall up and in place. Some Israelis feel an existential dread in that city. “Jerusalem is a terrifying place to spend a lot of time in,” Benjamin Kerstein said over coffee. “There is so much tortured history and conflict.” He told me the city would be twice as intense for me if I could read the sometimes bloodcurdling Arabic and Hebrew graffiti.

I felt plenty of tension, though, partly because Benjamin put me in the mood to feel it, but also because the conflict is so much a part of what the place is.

I met Noga, a friend of a friend, for dinner. We sat at an outdoor table in front of the restaurant. She told me there were thirteen active terror alerts at that moment. Thirteen suicide-bombers were thought to be heading toward Jerusalem. Only two had so far been caught.

I swallowed hard and then did my best to blow it off. I’m more likely to be killed in a car crash, I thought. Which was true. No one exploded themselves in the city that night. But threats of that sort hang over the place all the time.

One of the restaurants and one of the cafés I visited had earlier been destroyed by suicide bombers and later rebuilt. These were just two places I went at random, and I just happened to discover later by chance that they had been blown up during the intifada.

I didn’t get to spend much time in the city – or in the country for that matter – but I did get to wander around a little bit.

Jaffa Street is one of the main arteries through Jerusalem outside the old city. Even this relatively newer part of town is much older than Tel Aviv.

Pedestrian-only streets branch off Jaffa and make for a European-like section of town packed with shopping and outdoor cafes.

The city is lovely and golden at night. This part of town feels at peace with itself.

The old city doesn’t so much. It, too, is lovely. But it also is eerie.

Jerusalem Old City Walls and Minarets.jpg

From a distance it looked impossibly ancient, like it must have back in the days of the Crusaders or even earlier.

Hardly anyone was out walking around even at 10:00 at night. The old city is a day place. At night it is almost completely abandoned. Occasionally I did see other people. They always seemed slightly shifty to me, as I must have to them. Even today people are occasionally stabbed to death inside the old city walls during the night. The intifada takes many forms.

I walked the ancient streets lined with the closed shutters of shops. The merchants had all gone home. Tourists were back in their hotel rooms or at restaurants and bars in modern Jerusalem. The old city was left to itself. It was mostly just me, the bricks, the stones, and some ghosts.

The narrow passages, the stone walls, the stairs that twist around corners…these places are thousands of years old, older than Christianity. Jerusalem makes most places in Europe seem spanking new like Los Angeles or Vancouver by comparison.

I couldn’t tell you when and where I crossed the Green Line when I walked to the old city. It is unmarked by signs let alone an actual green line painted over the streets and the sidewalks. The old city is on the other side. It technically is not in Israel proper. It’s in East Jerusalem. Jordan ruled it in 1967. The Palestinians claim it today. Israel flatly refuses to hand it over to them.

What country is this place in? It is claimed and counterclaimed. Most of the world recognizes Jerusalem’s old city as belonging to no one in particular. During the day when the streets are packed with shopkeepers and tourists, questions like this are far away. But at night when no one’s around, being in a twice-claimed neighborhood with so very much beauty and history and tension feels totally crazy. There will be a lot more violence there in the future, for sure. You can’t stop it any more than you can stop an earthquake gearing up to explode from two tectonic plates that slowly but inexorably push against one another.

You could, I suppose, visit Israel and ignore all of this. You can loll on the beach in Tel Aviv and shop in the markets inside the walls of Jerusalem. You could visit the Dead Sea, the lovely Arab city of Jaffa, and wherever else you might want to go, blissfully tuning out all the history and trauma and pain. But frankly I do not see how.

If you head down to the Negev Desert – at least if you take the road I took – you’ll drive right past wretched, oppressive, unhinged, brutalized Gaza. You could try to pretend it isn’t there and keep your eyes fixed straight ahead. But good luck with that. If you have even a flicker of sympathy for Palestinian people, driving past Gaza will make you shudder.

It’s easier to ignore all these problems in Tel Aviv. Somehow it just feels apart. Even the graffiti and public messages are upbeat.

Jerusalem, though, is full of feel-bad graffiti and public messages.

Israel is a great country. And Jerusalem is a great city despite the conflict, the uber-controversial politics, the terrorism, and the anxious history bearing down on the place. I want to go back. Life is lived more intensely there than it is other places, just as it is in Beirut.

But Israel is a haunted country. It is not where you want to go to relax.

Israel is a country where, once a year, a loud siren sounds across the land. Everything and everyone stops. Anyone driving a car presses the brake, unlatches their seatbelt, and steps out into the road. Everyone stands there – the entire country at once – and collectively remembers the Holocaust.

Photo Copyright Lisa Goldman

“There is the Israel of the day and the Israel of the night,” Benjamin Kerstein told me. “During the day we’re living the good life on the Mediterranean. At night this is a country of nightmares.”

Post-script: Please help support non-corporate writing. Your donations today make tomorrow’s dispatches possible. Coming soon: reports and photos from the West Bank, plus interviews with those who lost the Palestinian election to Hamas.

Posted by Michael J. Totten at May 10, 2006 06:25 PM

Comments

Wow. That last picture and paragraph hit me hard.

How can anyone not love and respect Israel? Virtually wiped out in Europe, they've co-opted European culture in the Middle East, treat their Arab citizens with respect, and continually tolerate the homicidal 'palestinians' who blow up themselves in their midst.

Truly a wonderful country.

Posted by: Rupert at May 10, 2006 06:46 PM

Michael, thanks again for a great post.

Posted by: Asher Abrams - Dreams Into Lightning at May 10, 2006 08:59 PM

Again you have brought us a new insight to a part of the world that we could never reach on our own. Thank you.

Posted by: Joshua Marinacci at May 10, 2006 09:35 PM

I just wanted to comment on your statement about the age of the Old City. It's more of a mixture than you're describing it to be. There are plenty of pre-Christian buildings and areas (e.g., the Western Wall, David's Tower [probably Hasmonean]) and the basic layout of the city is from the second century Roman rebuilding of the city, but plenty of it is from after the Roman Empire became Christian - for example the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And then of course there are the buildings from after the rise of Islam, like the Dome of the Rock, or the madrassahs built up against the Temple Mount (I think they are from the Ottoman period). The city is really built of layers. And the new city outside the wall is only the most recent set of layers.

Posted by: Rebecca at May 10, 2006 10:34 PM

I expected to be surprised -- yet again my expectations were exceeded.

Fantastic. A Tel Aviv not really seen in the news; an intense feeling about Jerusalem; such sadness about the Holocaust.

And again, in Darfur; similar to Rwanda; similar to Cambodia & Vietnam. (See Marc Cooper about Jews and Save Darfur.)

Please keep up your great work.

Posted by: Tom Grey - Libertay Dad at May 10, 2006 11:45 PM

My mother describes Tel Aviv a a city only a mother could love - a real ugly duckling, but with loads of personality.

So many people think that Israel is only about "the conflict", and nothing else. For the Palestinians, unfortuately, this is largely true, but Israel takes three steps forward for every one step back, which is why they've been outpacing their enemies for so long.

Thanks for the great travelogue.

Posted by: MarkC at May 11, 2006 12:22 AM

The old, seedy parts of Tel Aviv have been declared a UN Heritage site because they have a lot of Bauhaus architecture. Jerusalem was ignored by the UN. Too contraversial, I guess.
It's pretty funny, considering how much more heritage exists in Jerusalem than in Tel Aviv.

Posted by: maor at May 11, 2006 07:37 AM

Such a good post, Michael.

I really love reading about your experiences in, and perceptions of, Israel.

Jerusalem isn’t fun.

Generally speaking, perhaps not compared to some other cities. It's no (pre-Katrina) New Orleans Manhattan. But I've had tons of fun there. I guess "fun" is a subjective term, but even in the garden variety sense, drinking, dancing, partying (in the least religious, most secular way), can all be had in Jerusalem. Not to mention all of the Euro and Aussie and North American backpack travellers that pass through. Lots of great memories - not just the historical and political ones.

But Israel is a haunted country. It is not where you want to go to relax.

For me it is. There are some very, very relaxing parts of the country. The beaches in Herziliya or Eilat. Sipping an espresso drink or a beer in the cafes on the leafy, North side of Tel Aviv... The many kibbutzim in a tiny country but are still somehow in "the middle of nowhere."

Such a cool place.

Posted by: SoCalJustice at May 11, 2006 08:24 AM

Good stuff, Michael. Many thanks.

As a Jerusalemite myself, I took issue with some of your descriptions -- but naturally, opinions will differ, as they should.

It did bother me a bit that you showed (and described) the Old City of Jerusalem only at night, when it was deserted (except for the many people who still live there, whom you didn't mention). It read like your descriptions of the abandoned cities you visited in Libya and Cyprus, and that doesn't seem right to me.

(Then again, if your purpose was to show the parts of Israel that most people don't see, then you achieved your objective. The bustling shuk of the Old City has been well-photographed.)

If you're back there soon, I'd recommend the Old City museum, in line with what Rebecca was saying a few comments earlier. This museum may be unique -- it has artifacts going back well over three thousand years, with every major period represented... and they're all where they were originally found. I found it an amazing experience -- to come to grips, graphically, with just how many peoples have washed over this city like so many tidal waves, each one leaving its mark in its own special way.

Thanks also for capturing some of the beauty of Jerusalem. It's not for everyone -- many Israelis prefer Tel Aviv or Haifa, as you've seen. But Jerusalem can capture your heart and not let go... and those of us who feel that can understand the Talmudic tale: "God gave ten measures of beauty to the world -- nine to Jerusalem, and one to everywhere else".

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Posted by: Daniel in Brookline at May 11, 2006 08:39 AM

Daniel,

I have pictures of Jerusalem during the day, too. Will post them tomorrow.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 11, 2006 09:14 AM

MT says I have no nostalgia, if that is the word, for the Ottoman Empire.

But why wouldn't you? With the exception of Israel every state that used to be in the Ottoman Empire is arguably worse off today than it was in the 19th century. The Ottomans were certainly no saints, but there was still a vibrant multiethnic culture in the Middle East that was far more interesting than the sullen ethnocentric nationalism that seems to reign today. Under the Ottomans Istanbul still had a thriving Greek culture that could trace its roots back to the Roman Empire - all gone now. Baghdad was in many ways a Jewish city, with a thriving Arabic and Jewish intellectual and literary life, also vanished. Who wouldn't gladly trade the thriving bazaars of 1890s Damascus with the nasty Assad fiefdom of today? Cairo was still a fascinating city where Jews, Greeks and Copts interacted with Arabs on a daily basis. Even in language - Ottoman Turkish may have been overly artificial but it was capable of a wealth of poetic expression and allusion that has been eradicated from the utilitarian language of modern Turkey. In retrospect the break-up of the Ottoman Empire was probably one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.

Posted by: vanya at May 11, 2006 09:16 AM

Interesting post and nice pictures.

However, there is not now, there never has been, and it is to be hoped that there never will be, any city called "East Jerusalem". I suppose I should be thankful for small favors; at least you didn't call it "Arab East Jerusalem" as so many people do.

The only time Jerusalem was divided in its entire long history was for a paltry 19 years from 1948-1967 when the eastern part of the city was occupied by the Jordanians as a result of their aggression against Israel in 1947-48. This occupation was entirely illegal and was never recognized by anyone except Britain and Pakistan. Even the other Arab states didn't recognize Jordan's claim to the city. Yet people blather about "East Jerusalem" as though it were an actual place or a city distinct from Jerusalem itself. This just shows how insidiously Arab propaganda has polluted the thinking of even the most reasonable people. Without even thinking about it, people accept the Arab point of view, entirely untruthful and unjustified as it is.

You also say "faster, please" when you talk about the incipient birth of "Palestine", a country that has never existed. I presume you say this because you want this to happen.

But why? You yourself say that "most Arabs who live there (Jerusalem) now don’t want to belong to a Palestinian state. They prefer, for the most part, to remain Israeli." If the Arabs themselves don't want to live in "Palestine" and prefer the "Zionist hell" to being ruled by other Arabs, why should you wish it upon them? Do you hate them or something?

Do you think the desire of the Arabs not to live in "Palestine" might have something to do with the fact that "Palestine", first under Arafat and now under Hamas, is a diseased hell-hole run by thugs, thieves, murderers and jihadi fanatics, where people have no rights and can be murdered out of hand by roving gangs of armed hoodlums who answer to no one but themselves, and where children are rasied and groomed by their own mothers to aspire to nothing higher than to be human bombs? If Dante were alive today he would certainly put "Palestine" on the lowest level of his Inferno. Who in his right mind would want to live in such a place?

Posted by: Ephraim at May 11, 2006 10:03 AM

I have enjoyed all you posts, and this one as much as any.

But I too would like to take issue with your claim that "Jerusalem isn’t fun". Sure, it doesn't have the nightlife of Tel Aviv, but there are other ways to have fun. Jerusalem is one of the most diverse places in the world. It's safer than any big US city (despite the terrorism), and if you're interested in Judaism (not everyone is, I know), it's beyond compare.

Posted by: David Boxenhorn at May 11, 2006 10:45 AM

Ephriam, if Palestinian society is so horrible (and I'm not disputing it), then why do you want Israel to govern them? Let them govern or misgovern themselves. The only alternative is to give them Israeli citizenship, which I'm sure you don't want. Or to expel them, which you may want, but which the world would never allow.

Posted by: MarkC at May 11, 2006 10:47 AM

As much as I hate to accept the idea that Jews will not be allowed to live in Yehuda and Shomron, closing off the "Palestinians" behind the wall and letting them drown in their own poison is probably the best solution. A number of good things might come of this.

First,it will be temporary anyway. Either Hamas will act in a way that will eventually force massive Israeli retalliation, or their fanaticism and incompetence will ruin "Palestinian" society to the point that most "Palestinians" will leave of their own free will.

I'm hoping for the latter.

Of course, if the world would stop constantly trying to save the "Palestinians" from the consequences of their own stupidity and bellicosity and force them to grow up and face the consequences of their actions, they might realize that actually making peace with the Isrealis is in their interest. If that happens, it should be possiblle for Jews and Arabs to live anywhere they want. Until such time as that happens, though, Israel should by no means allow any Arabs to move from "Palestine" into Israel. The Arabs made their bed, now let them sleep in it.

Posted by: Ephraim at May 11, 2006 11:09 AM

Thanks, Michael.

Ephraim: You make some sensible points, but I think we need to remember that the Palestinians are here to stay. They're not going anywhere, and they're not going to change their adopted name either.

As such, I suspect a different scenario might play out -- Israel will retreat behind a wall, one which loosely approximates the pre-1967 lines (with deviations to accomodate Ma'aleh Adumim, Ariel, etc.). Sooner or later Hamas will act up outrageously, no doubt to distract from the nightmare of non-governance that is the Palestinian Authority; Israel will respond by hermetically sealing the walls. No Yesha Palestinians allowed to work in Israel, period. Intra-Palestinian conflict then spirals out of control into a Palestinian civil war, out of which might (please, God) come a fresh start, a recognition that accepting Israel's existence isn't so bad after all, and a willingness to build a self-sufficient Palestinian society.

That would be brutal -- is anything bloodier than all-out civil war? -- but I don't see how the Palestinians can get anywhere reasonable from where they are without civil war. In today's atmosphere, any Palestinian politician willing to deal in good faith with Israel is denounced as a collaborator. For there ever to be a peaceful Palestinian society, this must stop... and it won't, not so long as strongmen still believe they can hold power through terror.

(It's quite possible that Israel would not hold firm long enough, for any number of reasons; Israel has helped her enemies return from the brink of disaster before. But I digress.)

I dearly hope that the day will come, in my lifetime perhaps, when Jews and Arabs can live peacefully anywhere they like between the Jordan River and the sea. Ironically, Israeli Arabs have that freedom now.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Posted by: Daniel in Brookline at May 11, 2006 11:36 AM

Daniel:

Yes, I am hoping and praying for a Pal civil war to break out, and I have been for some time. I actually think that is what will happen, and it can't happen too soon. Yes, it will be awful, but I agree with you. It's the only way out.

I don't really see how it can be avoided. While their people starve, both Hamas and Fatah are dojng everything they can to corner the market on weapons, and they're already shooting at each other. When the civil war comes, I anticipate a massive exodus of Arabs from "Palestine". If Israel has any sense whatsoever (this is, BTW, by no means a sure thing, considering the abject stupidity of Peres et al with the whole Oslo thing, among other examples of mind-bending idiocy) they will not allow a single one of them to enter Israel.

Judging from other intra-Arab civil wars, such as Black September and the whole Lebanese interregnum, it will make the world take back all of their bleatings about Israeli "brutality" towards the Arabs, once they see what real the real thing is like.

Posted by: Ephraim at May 11, 2006 11:59 AM

"Liberal and moderate Palestinians who don’t wish to destroy Israel still want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future sovereign Palestinian state."

Except for all the ones moving into Israeli Jerusalem because they don't want to live in a Palestinian state. You should give them some air time too.

"The old city is on the other side. . . . The Palestinians claim it today. Israel flatly refuses to hand it over to them. What country is this place in? It is claimed and counterclaimed. Most of the world recognizes Jerusalem’s old city as belonging to no one in particular."

This was the capital of Israel for 2500 years. It is in most of our liturgy. At the end of Passover and Yom Kippur we sing "next year in Jerusalem." and have done so since the diaspora began. That's 2000 years. Jews have returned repeatedly to Jerusalem after every time we were ethnically cleansed from there. That's a 2000 year old claim repeatedly made in spite of massacres and exile. The population of Jerusalem has been majority Jewish for 150 years.

There were no self-identified "Palestinians" until 50 years ago. But now they "claim" the old city which was never theirs and their "love" for it is completely manufactured. And the world which has showered them with guns and money for 50 years says it "belongs to no one in particular."

Fuck them. They want to live there, fine, as long as they are peaceful. But to make it their "capital" is ridiculous. No other country is pressured to hand over 1/2 their ancient capitol, with all their history, to some violent gangs of recent vintage calling themselves a country.

I have nothing against an independent Palestine, if a viable and peaceful one, but this is just one of their unreasonable demands. They have to put their capital somewhere else.

Posted by: Yehudit at May 11, 2006 12:26 PM

"closing off the "Palestinians" behind the wall and letting them drown in their own poison is probably the best solution. A number of good things might come of this."

I don't understand why Israel's security fence and refusal to let Palestinians enter "closes them off." No one ever challenges this rhetoric. Gaza is next to Egypt. The West Bank is next to Jordan. They can go to those countries. They can go to Egytptian and Jordanian airports and go wherever they want.

And if they can't, can we spotlight Egypt and Jordan for keeping them "closed off"? More double standards.

Posted by: Yehudit at May 11, 2006 12:32 PM

Michael, I am sorry you didn't have a good time in Jerusalem. But I have to object to your depressing characterization of it. I know so many people who love Jerusalem and have a great time there. Maybe your Israeli friends should have made sure you got invited to some shabbat dinners.

Posted by: Yehudit at May 11, 2006 12:34 PM

"Tiny formerly-Ottoman countries are still being sliced into even tinier countries and statelets based, more or less, on ethnic identity."

Israel isn't a "tiny formerly-Ottoman country." It was a country long before the Ottomans came on the scene. In fact, Lebanon was a country in Biblical times too - see "Cedars of Lebanon."

"tinier countries and statelets based, more or less, on ethnic identity."

Greece. Latvia. Japan. Singapore. Ireland. Fiji Islands. Scotland.

Posted by: Yehudit at May 11, 2006 12:38 PM

Calm down, Yehudit. I only meant they would be "closed off" from Israel. And that's a good thing.

They can go anywhere the hell they want, so long as it isn't Israel.

However, Egypt doesn't want them, and neither does Jordan. So they will, in effect, be "closed off". This should help bring the needed civil war that much sooner.

But, like I said, I don't care. They have brought this on themselves and they will have to pay the price.

Posted by: Ephraim at May 11, 2006 12:42 PM

A civil war among the Palestinians might end up with the Palestinians deciding to accept the existence of Israel, but there are other players here too. Iran, for example. Not sure how a Palestinian civil war convinces the Iranian regime, or the Islamist movement in general, to give up on wiping Israel off the map.

Posted by: Steven at May 11, 2006 12:45 PM

Yehudit:

No other country is pressured to hand over 1/2 their ancient capitol, with all their history, to some violent gangs of recent vintage calling themselves a country.

Serbia was pressured, and indeed bombed by Western Europe, to abandon all of her ancient capital and lands to recent immigrants.

Greece had to come to terms with losing her ancient historical capital of Constantinople, the heart of the Greek Orthodox religion and center of Greek civilization and history for over 1000 years.

The Armenians, who once provided rulers and counselors to both the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and were the leading merchants in the Middle East, have nothing but an impoverished rump state surrounded by hostile enemies - most of their people still scattered in a diaspora.

The Copts today are being driven out of their homeland, where their ancestors built the pyramids and one of the earliest civilizations in human history.

So the Jews should consider themselves lucky compared to many of the other non-Islamic peoples of the former Ottoman Empire. At least they have the US as an ally.

Posted by: vanya at May 11, 2006 01:10 PM

Yehudit,

I didn't say I had a bad time in Jerusalem. I said Jerusalem isn't fun, the way Tel Aviv is fun. Jerusalem is a damned interesting place. I wouldn't want to live there, but I definitely want to go back and visit again.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 11, 2006 02:04 PM

michael-
i'm very flattered to be quoted, but i just want to clarify two quick things. the last quote from me, about the two israels, is actually me quoting - paraphrasing really - israeli writer amos oz. just want credit to go where its due.

and i do want to say, for my own personal edification, that i don't have a wholly negative view of jerusalem by any means. i love jerusalem as much as i fear it. and the fear is not so much because of the conflict - although that certainly is a factor - but because of the power of the place itself. the raw force of all that history. its terrifying in the sense that all things greater than you are - things which are fundamentally unknowable - are terrifying. as you said, its a city filled with ghosts. for me, its a place of both adoration and dread. i couldn't live there, not at this point in my life anyways, but i've never been there without coming away changed for the better.

Posted by: benjamin kerstein at May 11, 2006 02:22 PM

Incidentally- while a siren does go off on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust memorial day), that's not the siren that has the most of a stopping effect. Yom HaZikaron- Israeli memorial day- to me, seems to have a much stronger pull, and has a siren in the morning that thoroughly brings everything to a standstill. Israel is also the only country that I'm aware of which has its memorial day, Yom HaZikaron, end as its independence day, Yom HaAtzmaut begins.

Posted by: Josh at May 11, 2006 04:29 PM

Ouch, painful feelings of homesickness from your excellent pictures. Thank you for an honest report of the homeland. The Israelis must create peace, whether the Palestinians want it or not.

Posted by: Gnarlodious at May 11, 2006 04:39 PM

The people who pray and wish for wars upon others are the scum of the earth. In fact they're not any better than those who wish to throw other people into the sea.

Oh and the Paris of the Middle East will always be better than the Miami of the Middle East.

Posted by: Axe at May 11, 2006 09:38 PM

Another excellent post. If you write a book, I'll buy it.

Posted by: Carlos at May 11, 2006 10:17 PM

Totally random comment on your fourth picture (Tel Aviv)—

The building on the right has some funky, funky architecture. Condos? Apartments? Office space?

Whatever it is, those angles make it look ever so slightly off-kilter. I like.

Posted by: B. Durbin at May 11, 2006 10:55 PM

I enjoy your posts very much. However, as a Jerusalemite, permit me to suggest an experience likely to mitigate the dread you sensed on your recent visit here. Go out in the morning into the residential neighborhoods and watch thousands and thousands of children going to school in Jerusalem....and remember that a non-trivial percentage of them are descendants of Holocaust survivors.

Posted by: Dovid at May 12, 2006 03:05 AM

I don't know if you've mentioned it previously, but I was wondering what do you think of the Israeli concern regarding an autonomous Palestine and the resulting lack of control over ports, airports, etc. for the fear of allowing unexamined weapons and bad stuff to be hustled in right next to Israel?

I enjoy your writing and travels,

Dave

Posted by: dave at May 12, 2006 08:36 AM

You're pictures of the Old City at night make it look a hell of a lot like a religious Disney World.

I wish other countries preserved history and antiquities in such visually appealing ways.

On another note, my gardenias are blooming. The men on the streets selling gardenias are all out offering the intensely aromatic flowers on inexpensive garlands. I just love it.

The roses are blooming, too. I was in Dahieh and saw a vender selling the most beautiful red roses. I was running to a meeting, but nearly bought three or four rose bushes to put on my balcony.

Posted by: lebanon.profile at May 12, 2006 09:44 AM

i havent been there since i visited 25 years ago, but the pictures and some comments bring tears to my eyes. I really need to go back. I loved Tel Aviv, and I found Jerusalem deeply resonant.

Posted by: liberalhawk at May 12, 2006 10:48 AM

"Another excellent post. If you write a book, I'll buy it."

So will I, provided it includes all the photos, in colour. (Maybe on a CD, but printed would be better.)

Posted by: Don Cox at May 12, 2006 11:55 AM

1967 Green Line which divided Israel from what was then Jordan. is actually the '49 armistice line.

Posted by: bendov at May 12, 2006 12:40 PM

The description of Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem is very interesting, but in some parts it is more a description of the psychological feeling of visiting them. It should be remembered that people live pretty regular lives inJerusalem without being burdened every second by its history, although Tel-Avivies seem to be suffer a similar psychological effect when visiting Jerusalem.

Posted by: Micha at May 12, 2006 04:52 PM

about politics.

“What’s it like for you as an Israeli Arab when Israelis and Palestinians are killing each other?” I said.

“We don’t get involved,” he said. He then placed the tips of his index fingers on his cheekbones just below his eyes. “We watch.”

“When there is, eventually, a two-state solution, do you want to live on the Israeli side or the Palestinian side?”

“The Israeli side!” he said instantly and emphatically as if there were no other possible answer. “None of us want anything to do with the Palestinian Authority. They are corrupt. They are impossible. They are not straight. No one can deal with those people.”

“Are the Israelis straight?” I said.

“No!” he said. “But they are better. Which side would you rather live on?” he asked rhetorically. “Should I prefer Arafat and Hamas just because I’m an Arab?”

He asked me what I thought about Israeli-Palestinian politics. I told him I didn’t know anymore, which is true. During the Oslo “peace process” years I was staunchly on the Palestinian side. Every time a suicide bomber blew up himself and others during the intifada, and every time I saw Palestinians cheerleading the gruesome attacks, and every time I saw polls of Palestinians that showed the majority didn’t want a two-state solution but the complete destruction of Israel, I felt my sympathy for the Palestinian cause bleed away. Eventually there wasn’t much left.

It was easy to be pro-Palestinian when terrorism was relatively rare and when most said they merely wanted their own sovereign country. And it was easy to be pro-Israeli during the horrific waves of suicide operations against innocents in the early 2000s.

Things are different now. The intifada mostly is over. Brutal Israeli crackdowns mostly are over. Palestinians and Israelis are each locked in their own quiet holding patterns, cautiously waiting to see what the other side will do next. It’s hard to have strong opinions when not much is happening.

“I like how you think,” Samir said. “Do you not have any money? I will help you. I will give you the necklace and the earrings if you don’t have any money.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I have money. I might buy them. Just not for your asking price.”

He laughed. “I know,” he said. “I ask high. If a German comes in here he’ll pay whatever I ask. You wouldn’t believe it. You Americans are not so easy.”

I noticed lots of Christian jewelry for sale. I wasn’t sure if I had accidentally wandered from the Muslim Quarter into the Christian Quarter. It's hard to tell where one begins and the other ends.

“Are you a Christian?” I said.

“No,” he said. “I am a Muslim. But I sell Christian things. And I sell Jewish things. Why not? I don’t care what is your religion.”

Samir also sold items with fused religious imagery, like this one:

That’s the Hand of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammad. And that's a Jewish menora in the center of it.

For all the conflict and the hate and the bullshit, Israel may be the only place in the world where you can buy something that is Jewish and Islamic at the same time. If you do go there and buy something like that, chances are an Arab will be the person who sells it to you.

Israelis are not what I would call friends with the Palestinians of 1948. But they aren’t enemies either, though they once were. Making peace with the Palestinians of 1967 will not be easy, to say the least, especially when Hamas is the government in Ramallah. But there’s nothing eternal about Arabness and Jewishness that makes it forever impossible.

Post-script: Please help support non-corporate writing. Your donations today make tomorrow’s dispatches possible. Thank you all so much for your help so far.

UPDATE: I have been corrected in the comments. Turns out the Hand of Fatima is only the Islamic name for this symbol. It is older than Islam, and both religions have incorporated it.

Posted by Michael J. Totten at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (61)

May 10, 2006

City of Light, City of Dread
TEL AVIV AND JERUSALEM – Tel Aviv is the perfect bohemian city: secular, cultured, youthful, compact, hip, and ideally situated on the shore of the Mediterranean.