Exploring Israel (Fodor's Exploring Israel)

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Under the Spotlight

The gaze of the world often focuses on Israel. It is a place that exists deep in the psyche of the western world but that, for many, is more myth than reality. For anyone with Sunday School notions about "the Holy Land," the dynamic, restless, abrasively energetic modern nation of Israel will come as a big surprise. Many Israelis just wish theirs could be a "normal" country. But normal countries do not encourage waves of large scale immigration when they already have an unemployment problem. In normal countries, vibrant capitalism would not thrive within a monolithic socialist infrastructure where the state owns nearly all the land. But then, normal countries do not have Israel's problems. And somehow, the world does not expect Israel to find normal solutions.


People hold strong views about Israel. It is hard to grasp that a place only the size of Massachusetts can be so crucial to world politics and world religion. The problems have an old-new look about them too. Those ancient Assyrians, Egyptians, and Babylonians who vied for control over the land of the Hebrews have modern inheritors. Those Canaanite tribes who made life difficult for conquering Israelites might almost have been the prototype for today's West Bank militants.


As always, different people lay claim to the same patch of earth. Can such deep and intractable conflicts ever be resolved? The world's press certainly has plenty of easy answers, as do governments around the globe. Politicians and pundits, concerned more about their own national interest, are all too ready to instruct Israel in the error of its ways. Visitors often come up with quick solutions. Israelis know it is not so simple, and that their whole survival is at stake. They, more than anyone, want to be free to enjoy life in peace. Would it be better to hand over the whole West Bank to the PLO? Some of it? What if Hamas or Islamic Jihad took over? The PLO itself contains elements at odds with Arafat. Parts of the West Bank are almost in the Tel Aviv suburbs. Would it have been  better to hang on to it forever? Was it a mistake to do a deal with Arafat? But then, Arab states made peace because of that. The country is alive with debate, a kaleidoscope of opinions, ideas, choice, diversity.


The Land

That diversity of opinions is just one other facet of Israel's extraordinary spectrum of peoples and landscapes. For sheer physical variety, the country is phenomenal, with four climate zones and four types of terrain, ranging from handsome and verdant Mediterranean hills in the north to parched desert in the south; from majestic snow-capped Mount Hermon to the salty Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth. Journeying between the two, you will pass vineyards and olive groves mentioned in the Bible, apple orchards, fields of corn and banana plantations, tomatoes and strawberries -- truly a bewildering range of crops. Today, after just a century of labor and reclamation, Israel looks again like a land of milk and honey. This is the ancient-modern "Eretz Israel" -- literally, Land of Israel. Some call it the Promised Land, some the Holy Land, some the Zionist Entity. Most Israelis call it simply, HaAretz: the Land.


History and Heritage

Past, present, and future seem to converge here. Uninspired apartment complexes in well-ordered planned towns give an impression of modernity, but builders digging the foundations usually have to call in the archaeologists. Every walk or drive involves an encounter with Israel's long and dramatic history. Almost every Israeli family has its own story of events that span the globe -- but that started here.


Many migrants are motivated by religious or cultural zeal, many by the simple promise of food, a roof, and a regular job, and many by the longing to escape persecution. The service which Jewish families read together over the annual Passover meal, celebrating the Exodus from Egypt, concludes with "Next year in Jerusalem." Daily, that wish is made a reality.


The cornerstone of Israel's existence is the Zionist dream of gathering in all the Jews who have been exiled across the globe and bringing them back to their true home. The idea was even set down in the book of Genesis. Yet any country that willingly promotes a policy of mass immigration must seem at best foolishly philanthropic, at worst, suicidal. The economic logistics alone appear formidable. To an Israeli, however, the case looks different. Israel is a nation born of new immigrants: they are its life force.


Since 1948 more than two million have "made aliyah" -- literally, gone up -- to Israel. These olim (new arrivals) will face hard times -- not just in terms of adjustment to a new language and alien culture, but also due to the fact that their new country is, itself, at risk. Nevertheless, their decision to make a life in Israel is greeted with joy and continuing wonder by Israelis as evidence that the creation of a Jewish homeland really is working as its founders planned.


Who Can Come?

In 1950, the Israeli parliament passed the Law of Return. This enshrined as a right what had, until then, been an unwritten tenet: namely, that any person who could claim Jewish descent would be welcomed to the country. Migrants have since arrived in waves from eastern Europe, north Africa, the Gulf states, the former Soviet Union, and Ethiopia. For some of them, Israel was seen as their only hope of survival.