I was interviewed this morning by Lee Rayburn of WHCU 870 AM in Ithaca. The topic was the release of prisoners by Israel and the Middle East Peace Process. ...
"I am peace, and when I speak, they are for war" - Psalms 120:7...
Why not? The Kurds out number Palestinians several times over, and unlike Palestinians, have a real ethnic and cultural distinction from surrounding Arabs (and in Turkey, Turks). But for Europeans drawing lines on maps and Turkish national ambitions, there should have been an independent nation for...
On this date in 2001, Hamas bombed the Sbarro Pizza restaurant in Jerusalem. 15 people were killed, including 7 children. The bombing was celebrated as a great victory for Palestinians, including by Palestinian university students. Ahlam Tamimi, the women who led the suicide bomber to the location, was...
Devastating Report from NGO Monitor on the tactics of the "Jewish wing of the [Palestinian solidarity] movement"...
Mideast Media Sampler - 08/02/2013 - How the Obama administration is playing Israel in the Mainstream Media...
Netanyahu responds: "The first part is untrue, and the second won’t come true.”...
(Mas'ade Druze Village Israel, looking towards Mount Hermon)[/caption]
You can see on this map how far north Metula is:
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(Metula, Israel - Map View)[/caption]
These map view give a good perspective on how Metula is surrounded on three sides by Lebanon:
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(Metula, Israel - Street Map View)[/caption]
... in the U.S.A. as of 5:04 a.m. Eastern, after an 11 hour flight from Israel to JFK. Then the 4.5 hour drive to Ithaca. So suffice it to say I'm tired. My final Israel travel post, which was mostly prepared yesterday while I was in...
(Quneitra Crossing, Golan Heights, view from Avital Volcanic Park)[/caption]
We then headed to the nearby Golan Heights Wind Farm, which had a better view of the smoke rising from the area:
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(Golan Heights Wind Farm - map view)[/caption]
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(Golan Heights Wind Farm - View of Syria)[/caption]
Mideast Media Sampler 07/30/2013...
(Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan, Israel - Map View)[/caption]
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(Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan, Israel, view towards Golan Heights)[/caption]
We then drove on the snake-like Highway 98 up the side of the Golan Heights facing Jordan across a deep ravine. The border fence along the road is shown in this photo -- my reaction was the same as yours probably is -- that's the border fence! We were assured that the Jordanian policing of its side of the border together with the topography was sufficient.
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(Highway 98, Israel, climbing Golan Heights - Jordan Border Fence)[/caption]
Note also the red triangle signifying a minefield -- something we would see repeatedly throughout the Golan even away from the border. Vigorous warning signs not to leave the established roads and pathways were everywhere.
(Kibbutz Ein Shemer, Israel, map location)[/caption]
Founded in 1927, Ein Shemer is a fairly typical Kibbutz, about 650 people, with a variety of agriculture (dairy, cotton, etc.) as well as factories. Facing pressures facing many Kibbutzim, Ein Shemer voted a couple of years ago to allow limited “inequality” of income (up to 2.5 times what the Kibbutz pays members) for those with outside jobs in order to retain and attract younger residents.
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(Kibbutz Ein Shemer residential courtyard)[/caption]
We then went on to climb towards the Golan, stoping at the Mount Barkan lookout point, near Mount Gilboa, which has a tremendous view of the Galilee region of northern Israel.
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(Mount Barkan Lookout Point, Israel, map location)[/caption]
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(Mount Barkan Lookout, Israel, view)[/caption]
(Tel Aviv beach in front of our hotel)[/caption]
In the evening I did my part to break the boycott of Aroma Café, of which we have written before. (Remember, Buycott Israeli companies to defeat BDS.)
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(Aroma Café, Tel Aviv Seaport)[/caption]
But the big news of the day was that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released an Open Letter (read the whole thing) to the Israeli public signaling his intention to seek Cabinet Approval on Sunday to release all Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners convicted of security offenses prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords, thereby complying with a promise John Kerry had made to Mahmoud Abbas as a precondition to peace negotiations.
(Itamar map, Samaria, Israel)[/caption]
Itamar, founded in 1985, is an rambling agricultural community of 175 families spread over quite a distance, with a dairy, goats, chickens and vineyards (which looked to me to have been recently planted). The products are "organic" and apparently sell for quite a high price in the main Israeli cities. We had some fresh yogurt at the small public café.
Unlike Barkan and Ariel, discussed below, many (but not all) of the homes were nothing more than simple trailers or small block houses:
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(Itamar, Samaria, Israel)[/caption]
In this photo of my wife taking a photo of me, you can see how Itamar towers over the surrounding landscape (our "guide" for the day -- my friend from Moscow days -- is to the left):
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(me at Itamar)[/caption]
Itamar has a long history of being attacked by Arabs from neighboring villages, the most infamous of which was the stabbing murder of the Fogel family, including a baby in its crib. We covered that event extensively:
Another in my ongoing posts from Israel: Today I toured areas of the Western Wall in Jerusalem I had not previously seen. First, the part of the wall to the right of the Kotel (live webcam here) beyond the Mugrabi Bridge, where there are fallen stones from...
(me and Israel Pickholtz aka Jerusalem Genealogist)[/caption]
Later, we visited the cemetery on Mount Herzl, where many of Israel's founders and political leaders are buried, including Golda Meir:
