Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Enemies At The Gate

Israel has a lot of enemies. I think the closest thing it has to an ally in the Middle East is the Mediterranean Sea. So considering that we are going on parent friendly birthright trip I wasn’t expecting to approach any borders. Well, we pretty much hit two of them and if you count Eilat and Egypt then you got three in there. I guess it’s kind of hard to tour a country, especially a country the size of New Jersey without approaching a border. And considering Egypt and Israel have had Peace since Camp David and Jordan is pretty much under control, I guess those aren’t such a big deal. I thought it would be nice if I could see Jordanians on the other side of the Dead Sea. You know, we could wave at them and they could wave back at us. That would be kind of nice. Anyway, I was really freaking surprised that we got so close the Syrian border. On the way there we got some nice views at Israel’s “Security Fence.” By no way shape or form is this thing a fence. I might have mistaken it as a fence when I saw it from one the scenic outlooks of the old city, but up close and personal this thing is no fence, its straight up prison wall. It puts the Berlin Wall to shame. I don’t know enough about the wall to comment on its validity or effectiveness, but I’ve seen enough walls to state that this thing is a wall.


So we ride up to the Golan to an army base that is Israel’s most northern defense from Syria. It also happens to be home to a kibbutz. This place is completely outfitted this military equipment. Humvees with crazy armor, there is even a pile of weapons waiting for us when we get there (to look at not to fire). The guy that was giving us a tour was from Atlanta. He actually moved to Israel during Vietnam to dodge the draft and instead fought in the Israeli army. Talk about fighting for a cause you believe in. So he shows us all these specialty weapons. I would have been more impressed if I hadn’t seen so many weapons already, but 3 days in Israel and you will become quite desensitized to weapons. Everyone has a weapon. M-16’s start looking like toys and the medics on our tour carry old WWII rifles with U.S. insignias on them. I am a strong believer that all the guns around us, the ones our soldiers brought and the ones our medics carry actually make us less safe. It’s kind of spooky to go out drinking with guns, its straight out of a gun violence or anti drug commercial. The soldiers don’t keep their clips in of course, but still it can’t be safe. They get drunk; someone wants a gun and blamo. Many of the soldiers told us they weren’t even sure if their guns worked and that they probably haven’t been fired in close to half a year. The only person that would probably be ready to protect us if we did somehow come under attack was Feris. Noam had told me that after a hike he saw him empty a bullet from the chamber. Regardless, if there is one person I trust with a gun it would be Feris, regardless of how many cats he throws. Sorry for the tangent, so Atlanta tells us all about the base and all the incidents they’ve had over the past 10 years. People placing rockets in watermelons, guys in Hummers driving up to the gates and rolling out of their vehicles all commando style, guns a blazing. I had no idea why we came here.

Crazy Atlanta guy with his modified M-16

Later that day we went to visit a strategic spot where the Israeli army, outnumbered and outgunned, defended a strategic spot in the Golan again oncoming Syrian tanks during the Yom Kippur War. In the distance I heard shelling. It didn’t take to long before one of the girls on my tour, who just came back from Iraq, to announce that those were mortar rounds going off in the distance. Why were their mortar rounds going off in the distance? Our tour guide told us that the Syrian army was probably running drills. Weird. The girl decided to get back on the bus. I felt bad.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The amount of suicide bombers has decreased by an undeniable margin. Also, the wall doesn't close off the west bank. Arabs, Jews, and whoever else would like to come in is more than free to. They just need to pass through a metal detector first. So yes, you're right, it does keep some people out.

Those with bombs strapped to themselves.