Left & Right - part 1

One of the surprising things for me on this trip has been the realization that what we consider ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in the political spectrum is different in Israel than it is at home and everywhere else. Today, as I sat in Orna’s living room in Kibbutz Nir Yithak, with the town of Abasan in the Gaza Strip over her shoulder and just under 3 km away, it came full circle for me.

But I need to start from the beginning. That is 4 days ago, since I last blogged.

This week I was very busy mostly with work-related meetings, trying to tie loose ends before Rafi arrives next week.  (While he is here, I am planning to go on what can best be described as my ‘vacation within the vacation’: no work whatsoever.)

I had several meetings in Ramat HaHayal, the high-tech area of Tel Aviv itself. Once I even tried to walk back to my apartment but gave up after about ½ hour, as it is about 10 km away.

Passover continued of course, ending in Israel on Friday night, a day before the rest of the world. Tel Aviv has been much the same, perhaps a bit more crowded with tourists as well as kids out of school. In several places they sell these matza sandwiches, shrink-wrapped and ready to go (I guess the plastic is what makes them pliable) and they also sell these buns made of potato flour (I had to go into a bakery to ask what they are made of as I could not jive them with the ‘K for Passover’ sign at the door.)

Selling bread made of potato flour

I also had a funny and unplanned interaction with the local pharmacist.

When I first arrived here, whenever I would see a sign such as a menu or a product package in Hebrew, my brain had a hard time parsing it. It felt like I was looking at a QR Code (that two-dimensional code that can be read by smart phones).

QR Code

After a couple of weeks here, my brain started to relax and I became able to deconstruct the block of text into letters and actually start seeing words, sentences and meaning. Most of the time.

A few days ago, I needed glue to fix something. The man working behind the cash register at the local supermarket found the product for me, made in China. The only word in English was “Super glue.” Everything else was in Hebrew. When I opened the tube at home, it spilled all over my left hand. I immediately panicked. 

What if “דבק סופר” is really “Crazy glue”?!

Instructions

I put the package in a plastic bag, carefully keeping my fingers separated so that they would not stick together, and ran to the nearest Pharmacy. The pharmacist, a woman who mercifully spoke English, saw my panicked face, read the package and said not to worry. I only need to rub acetone on my hands and fingers to remove it.   “But it will ruin my manicure!” I said. (She did not get the joke).

I had lunch one day at the Hilton Hotel with one of Harley and Jessica’s best friends from LA, who is also visiting. As I walked into the hotel lobby I realized this was the first time in 6 weeks I was stepping back into my world (well, sort of; as much as the Hilton is my world). The place is beautiful but the menus are only in English and the prices listed are in US$. The view? Priceless.

View of the Mediterranean towards Yaffo

View of the Mediterranean - north

Potato buns at the Hilton

This week I also went with Emanuela to see a movie called The Source, “a modern-day fable exploring female empowerment in the Arab world” where a group of women go on a "love strike" to challenge traditional gender roles. One of the reviewers called it “Art-house for Beginners” and I agree. Things to note: The seats in the movie theatre are reserved. Coming home at 12:30, the streets were full of young people lounging outdoors in the cafes and bars. When do they sleep?  Here is the trailer. 

I also went shopping with Rita to the store of a great Israeli designer called Ronen Chen. I managed to do some damage. Here is a link the the site.

With Rita. Post damage.Needed a coffee.

I have been meeting with a lot of young entrepreneurs working on their startups and I cannot resist asking them about their lives outside work. 

One young man told me his home is in Ashkelon. It is not unusual for him to be sitting outside on the deck and watch Iron Shield missiles intercept rockets being fired from Gaza. Sometimes the rockets are not aimed at his area but farther north, so he does not even hear the sirens (which go off to warn people in areas where the Army expects rockets to land). "Like watching fireworks?" I asked him. "Yes, like fireworks. My kids hear the sirens and they know to walk to the safe room (the euphemism for bomb shelter). They are OK with that because their computer is in that room anyway."

One woman entrepreneur this week told me that when she was in the Army, her job was to teach ethical warfare in order to minimize civilian casualties to new recruits.

“Ethics?” I asked her, “Who teaches ethics to soldiers?” Apparently no other Army does.

But Israel is not fighting a regular enemy military. Much of the time, the enemy isn’t distinguishable from civilians. For example, during the three-week Gaza War that ended in January 2009, it has been documented that Hamas fighters used children as human shields and set up Kassam launching pads at or near more than 100 mosques and hospitals. 

And now I get to the part of how what we consider ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in the political spectrum is different in Israel than it is at home and everywhere else.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting “R” (he asked I don’t use his name) in Ramat HaHayal a second time, this time for lunch. 

R. is a very accomplished businessman. I was introduced to him a while back and when we first met, I was very impressed not only with his past and current accomplishments but with his perspective on general issues around Israeli politics as well. So I had the chutzpah of asking him to meet with me again, just so I could ask him questions around these issues.

R. confirmed what I had heard several times, that when it comes to economic matters, the overall consensus is that "Right" is right, nothing like we understand it in North America. The only issue of Left vs. Right is compromise with the Palestinians – or not.  As a business person, I assume R has economic policy views that would best be labeled as ‘Right.”

So what is the solution to bring about peace?

He thinks it is pretty simple, yet it requires political will from several parties (not so simple).

The chief issues are the Palestinians’ refugee status, and control over Jerusalem.

Palestinians are the longest “displaced” status people in the world. And while this may be a technicality, it is a real fixture of the Palestinian psyche. 

In 1948, after the Arabs lost the war they started with Israel, Palestinians fled to neighbouring countries, mainly Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Only Jordan gave them citizenship, but even they kept the Palestinians’ status as “refugees” in order to collect money from UNRA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

So today, the 1948 registered refugees and their descendants number 5 million people. All with a claim to move back to Israel. And UNRA is of course a very busy organization, perpetuating its very own existence at the expense of keeping Palestinians as refugees.

Negotiation is the only way to achieve peace, R believes. Keeping in mind how small Israel is (see comparison maps here) negotiations have to be based on four pillars:

1. A return to the 1967 borders arrived at in the cease-fire agreements at the end of the war of Independence in 1949 (i.e., not the UN-mandated partition plan of 1947).

2. An alignment of the 1967 borders with demographic changes based on current realities. This can only be accomplished via negotiations and trade-offs.

3. With regards to the Refugees and their descendants returning, that would not happen in Israel proper but in the new Palestinian territory.

4. And Jerusalem, the toughest one:

RA believes that a “world ownership” model would work. One where the three monotheistic religions control the city simultaneously, because “no one has a monopoly on holiness.”  After all, what is “Jerusalem” geographically speaking?  When we say “Jerusalem” we mostly mean the holy sites, which are geographically in very close proximity to each other (actually, often on top of each other, but I digress). The Old City is a 0.9 square kilometers (0.35 sq mi) walled area within the modern city of Jerusalem and until 1860, when the Jewish neighborhood of Mishkenot Sha'ananim was established, this area constituted the entire city of Jerusalem.

To run it, RA would allow for a tri-partite group that would manage the sites in co-ownership.

What about Jerusalem as the capital?  His answer: why not both Israel and the Palestinians? (Answering a question with a question…).  What does "capital" mean? Having other countries' embassies located there. That is most of it in his view.

R doesn’t believe it is a zero-sum game. The city would not need to be divided the way it was under Jordanian rule, just run in a special kind of way. How special? Like a borough system. So who picks up the garbage? A separate system of collection for each.

In his view the border would not be through the city, or even the old city, but around it. This way, both Palestinians and Israelis can enter the city – but not exit it on the other side.

So who does Israel negotiate with? Whoever is in charge at this moment.

Abbas, in R’s view, has given Israel the quietest era in security and economic cooperation. And the deal with Egypt did bring about 30 years of peace (yet I reminded him Israel is preparing in many ways for an eventual change with the likely election of the Muslim Brotherhood, including erecting a fence along the Israel-Egypt border all the way down the Sinai into Eilat).

R believes then that the only solution is to divide the country, but that Israel is handicapping its position by building the Settlements in between Arab towns.

And Gaza? R believes it was an example of a failed divestiture, where Hamas’ mismanagement could become an example of how the West Bank devolution would not work.

I left lunch exhausted. As if I had ran a marathon.

And yet that was nothing in comparison to my day in the Negev today where I went with Rafi’s cousin Avi, who seems to know exactly what I am looking for in this trip. 

But it is late now. I hope to deliver Part 2 of this post tomorrow.