End Sept 2010

I had to fly to Tel Aviv for a family wedding (as well as scout out the liquor scene in Israel, where we supply Hapsburg Absinthe to the Airport duty-free)… it was a wedding with a difference ~ outdoors under the Mediterranean stars on a Friday evening, with the bride & groom singing to their 350+ guests on acoustic guitar , accompanied by appetisers including scampi salad and bacon twists … unusual fare at Jewish weddings ; but hey, these are ‘artists’ who do their own thing & long may the freedom continue to do your own thing … something you won’t find elsewhere in the Middle East … just try serving a pork pie in Jeddah or Damascus !

Having left a crispy London Airport at 12°C  at near midnight , it was quite a wake-up to arrive at Ben Gurion airport outside Tel Aviv at 5.15am local time, already 25°C & predicted rising to over 36°C at midday … now that’s what I call global warming !
During the day I took a trip inland asking to see the famous / infamous security wall separating Israel proper from that known in Israel as ‘The Territories’. I have visited Israel plenty of times but had never seen the wall ; not the wailing wall of the ancient Temple, but the one all the world is talking about and decrying as unjust and unreasonable … I thought I should make up my own opinion and see it for myself.

Passing very slowly through a checkpoint past the outskirts of Tel Aviv, we entered the barren stony area known as Sumeria, and you could feel the increase of tension … soldiers manning their posts carrying automatic weapons nervously examining vehicle contents, in a zone where young men are encouraged to visit the next world (early), to meet their promised 120 virgins ,and take a few infidels along at the same time. The soldiers know you can’t fight an idea like that with AK47’s and show considerable respect for their adversaries, fingers on triggers at the checkpoints.

My first sight of ‘The Wall’ was a surprise, as it wasn’t a wall at all, but a wire fence with electrified cables on top.  We then saw the actual white wall which seemed half the height of the wall surrounding London’s Holloway prison. I commented on the unimpressive height and was told that the wall around Gaza was much higher than this, given the greater danger from the Hamas-controlled territories, to the West Bank state of Palestine presently controlled by the more benign Palestinian Authority.

I saw a clean white wall with some climbing plants and was assured the other side of the wall was far from clean white, but covered in graffiti depicting the evil Zionists on the other side.  With my British passport I could have visited Palestine proper, but I was persuaded otherwise. However I have met many Brits who have visited Bethlehem & Nazareth & said they wouldn’t have missed the experience for anything.

My driver drove at maximum speed around the perimeter wall and said he was not permitted to stop anywhere in the vicinity of the wall. The road running alongside the wall is a kind of shooting gallery for the Palestinian freedom fighters / terrorists depending on which side of the wall you stand, where regular fatalities occur from pot shots at the passing cars.
When we drove past, all was silence in this baking hilly barren landscape. The Arab villages obvious on the distant hillsides with their beautiful domes and minarets proclaiming ‘their right to be there and exist’ … I wondered what Allah makes of all the killing done in his name.  How easily the Old Testament, New Testament and The Koran is used by self-proclaimed religious zealots to justify the insanity and the killing … Peace in the Middle East will require another great Mahatma Gandhi like figure to step forward and galvanise the people to accept peaceful co-existence and isolate the killers on both sides … I wish, but I doubt that Obama is that figure.
We drive back SW into Israel proper through the checkpoint away from the dusty biblical landscape, into a modern 21^st century city with skyscrapers, traffic jams and falafel bars at the busy intersections and the tension is gone.
In the evening, we watch the sun drop as a huge fiery ball into the Mediteranean, and pre pare to go out for dinner. My host booked a table for our party of 8 overlooking  the old Arab Port of Jaffa, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. This is a restaurant called ‘The Old Man & The Sea’ (Ha’zahen  ve Ha’Yam), owned and run by the Taoud Family … the father came to Israel from Gaza about 20 years ago (before the Intifada which effectively stopped most of the movement of Palestinians into Israel) and he married a local Jaffa Arab girl to set up and run one of the most famous fish restaurants in Tel Aviv.
I commented that (unlike almost all Israeli restaurants & shopping malls etc) there was no security guy at the door checking for guns / explosives, & was laconically told, “… who’s going to blow up an Arab restaurant ? … “ ; sadly the same logic doesn’t seem to apply in Baghdad or Kabul.

An old portly Arab man wearing the traditional red headdress and tassles over long white flowing robes walked into the restaurant accompanied by 4 Arab women wear Hijabs, which no doubt prompted one of the English guests to comment how surprised many Brits (with their image of Israel fed to them by Al Jazeera newscasts), would be to see Jew & Moslem eating peacefully sitting side by side in Israel, in an Arab restaurant. Try telling that to the TUC congress delegates spouting Hamas propaganda to whip up Israel embargoes among the members … if only they came to see for themselves … but then the Middle East is all about … if only …

Israel is very far from ideal, but the irony of the British Trade Union / lefty democrats supporting the hard right regimes over the border with their obvious zero tolerance / zero freedom of speech, torture and repression of any and all opposition is truly paradoxical. Try being ‘different’ or speaking your mind in Gaza, and as the bible oft says, ‘your days will be numbered ‘ !
Perhaps one day if the Iranians, Syrians, Americans and the British Trade Unionists would just mind their own business and stop playing their imperialist political war games , and leave Palestinian and Israeli  to figure it out for themselves … Jew & Arab might be able to return to living side by side in peace as they’ve done for over 2000 years … maybe just maybe ??

Oh and by the way, it WAS heart-warming to see rows of Hapsburg Absinthe in the James Richardson duty-free at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Hapsburg absinthe also sells in Lebanon,and throughout the United Arab Emirates of Abu Dhabbi, Sharjah, Dubai, etc . We look for an importer in Egypt and Jordan to complete our personal journey of Middle East peacemaking through trade !