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From: Ephraim Frank
To: heb_roots_chr2hebroots.org
Subject: Interesting impression

WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEF Sept 22, 2000 Copyright Joel Skousen. Quotations with attribution permitted: Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief. Website: http://www.joelskousen.com 

MY IMPRESSIONS OF ISRAEL:

I recently returned from my fact-finding trip to the Middle East. What follows is my frank and personal assessment of the modern state of Israel, without the embellishments of rose-colored glasses. Millions of religious pilgrims trek to the "Holy Land" each year, skimming the surface of the country in almost total isolation from reality. Their guided tours, cushioned by air-conditioned tour buses and 5 star hotels, concentrate on what was, not what is. Churches dot the Judean landscape, each laying claim to a piece of the past that, with few exceptions, doesn't exist anymore. I would estimate that fully 80% of the "holy sites" are not the actual location where the original events occurred--which in most cases is virtually impossible to determine. The famed "Via Doloroso" tracing the presumed path of Jesus agonizing trek to Golgotha is merely an arbitrary walk through 14th century streets built on 40 foot deep rubble left over from the numerous destructions of Jerusalem s past. The few holy sites that are authentic are encumbered by heavy stone medieval churches with dark interiors that do not, in my opinion, impart any of the spiritual feeling of the original place.

The Israeli government itself helps perpetuate the mystical, romantic illusions of the past, being acutely aware of the millions of dollars each year generated by religious tourism. The old city of Jerusalem is bathed in soft rosy artificial light at night to give tourists that romantic feeling they can write home about. But the selective rosy views only mask the chronic tension enveloping this relatively hostile land, a region bereft of natural beauty--except for about 5 weeks during the spring when wild flowers briefly bloom, and commercial photographers descend to work their art of selective embellishment that makes Israel look so enchanting in tourist brochures. So great is the contrast between promotion and reality that psychological clinics in Israel have a special term to describe the disillusionment that often affects religious pilgrims. It s called the "Jerusalem Syndrome" and refers to a chronic form of depression that can afflict those who cannot deal with the extreme contrast between holy and unholy. But with all that said, and in spite of the crass commercialization of religious antiquities, I must admit that one can still sense the God of Israel hovering over the land. I have no doubt that He intends to redeem Israel someday--and believe me, it needs redemption.

LAND: I was struck by the steep ruggedness of terrain in the Judean and Samarian hill country. One doesn t get an accurate impression of the stark hostility of this terrain from photographs. Though not very high in altitude the hills of Israel are almost barren, extremely rocky and punctuated by deep ravines and gorges that make travel in central Israel a strain on man and machine. From Biblical stories and movies one gets the impression that trips to Bethlehem, Bethany or even Nazareth are relatively peaceful walks in the pastoral countryside. In reality, there is almost no greenery, only rocks and sand of a fairly bland hue-- completely lacking in the brilliant colors and shapes characteristic of the deserts in Utah and Arizona. Travel involves major descents into gorges often over a thousand feet in depth and climbing back up again repeatedly.

It was also sad to note how little topsoil had been allowed to develop in the hill country. Although the rainfall is extremely sparse here, I attribute the main cause to extreme overgrazing. For centuries the Judean hills have been used to graze sheep and goats which have extracted the last once of nutrition from this land and not given anything back. Even today herds of sheep and goats, mostly Bedouin-Arab owned, forage on almost bare ground with no visible grass--only tiny bits of stubble. This destruction of the long term soil development is typical of many things I witnessed in Israel on Arab lands. There seems to be a politically correct notion that Arab tribal nomadic culture requires that they be left to age-old practices, no matter how damaging they are to the land agriculturally. The Israeli government is also under severe pressure internationally to let the Arabs do whatever they want.

AGRICULTURE: There are two fertile plains in Israel, one along the Mediterranean coast and the other around the sea of Galilee and the Jordan river (which is more like a small creek). Both areas have been put into intensive cultivation by the Israelis. While there have been many comparisons to the Biblical adage of making the "desert blossom," the extreme efforts applied to maximize water resources in relatively poor soil have had many negative environmental effects. Water is extremely scarce, and thus Israel has been at the forefront in the development of drip irrigation systems that conserve the maximum amount of water. Large diversion projects of Jordan river water have, however, overtaxed the northern water resources in order to expand agriculture to the Negev desert to the south, where the sandy soil is much less fertile. Maximum utilization and reuse of fixed water supplies tends, over time, to concentrate contaminants and salt content, leading to the corruption of the aquifers. Both Israeli and Arab controlled agricultural areas pump large quantities of water out of the ground with deep wells. Overpumping from the aquifers has resulted in an increase in the saline content as water from the Mediterranean sea seeps in to replace it. Excessive chemical and fertilizer use in agriculture and industry has also led to extreme pollution levels in rivers and groundwater sources. Some rivers are actually toxic.

The Israelis are reacting to the problem with some earnest. More strict environmental regulations are being implemented, but the Arab controlled areas are exempt for political reasons. There is also a growing movement in Israel to switch to organic farming. I visited a few Kibbutzim (collective farms) and Moshavim (cooperative farms) that are on the cutting edge of organic farming. Israel has developed a special fabric covering that allows them to grow vegetables free from insects inside a greenhouse type enclosure. It is more costly, so much of this elite produce goes to markets serving the orthodox Jewish communities world wide that require certified insect-free food.

Israel has established a significant agricultural outreach to other nations who desire to implement the unique low-water farming techniques it has developed. The Arabs in Israel and neighboring Jordan have especially benefited from Israel s willingness to share their agricultural expertise. Jordan has been radically transformed into an agricultural Mecca due to the willingness of the late King Hussein to work with the Israelis rather than reject all contact as the more radical Arab factions have done. For Arabs living next door to productive Jewish agro projects, the lure of becoming productive farmers has in many cases overcome the innate hostility between the two cultures. I saw it with the Druse Arabs in the Golan heights and in the Arab areas in Galilee. In these areas orchards may not be as well kept as the Jewish farms but at least they are vastly more productive than before. Only in PLO controlled areas did I find such a strong hatred of everything Jewish that they refused to join in the new green wave of agro-prosperity. As one example of extreme resentment, young Arab radicals regularly destroy trees that the Jews plant as part of their national reforestation effort. This kind of hatred is an all too common byproduct of constant PLO propaganda and incitement to exterminate all Jews.

ECONOMY: Most Americans don t realize that Israel has one of the most tightly controlled statist economies in the world. It is socialist in the extreme due to a combination of early Zionist collectivist fervor and the influence of Russian and Eastern European Marxists that came to Israel and formed the core of the ruling Labor Party. Israel s Histadrut, a kind of super labor union, controls every aspect of Israel s economic life--at least until recently. During the last decade, there has been a slow but persistent movement toward free-market reforms in Israel--not because the Jews have much of a free market philosophy in their heritage, but rather because they have a naturally competitive spirit and were forced to compete in a fast-paced international economy. When the government refused to implement needed reforms, there began a ground swell of rebellion in the 1980s and 90s against Israel s ponderous education, medical, tax and regulatory establishment. The more the government tried to suppress the gray and black markets, the greater the "brain drain" in Israel became as thousands emigrating to the US and Europe.

The government s virtual monopoly on television was broken after private illegal cable services began sprouting up all over Israel. The Histadrut s monopoly on health care was broken by a persistent gray market for after-hours surgery performed by low paid doctors eager for extra money. Even Israel s ponderous "free" public education establishment is under attack as religious and private schools are being formed in ever-increasing numbers to supplement low quality public education. Often the best teachers can make more money teaching privately on the side than in their state controlled teaching jobs. In Israel, public money is doled out even to orthodox Jewish schools which tends to keep them tied to certain political parties which promote those subsidies in the Knesset.

Dependency upon government is a chronic addiction in all of Israel, keeping taxes so high that Israel has to beg for American aid and loan guarantees every year, producing a very high ratio of foreign debt to GNP. Income taxes have been as high as 80% in modern Israel, so naturally, tax evasion is rampant. Recently, to help stem the growth of the underground tax-evading economy, income tax rates were reduced to below 50%, and new taxes imposed such as the 17% VAT tax. But I noticed that only established storefront businesses (mostly Jewish) collected the tax. In the Arab markets (part of the underground economy) I was never charged the VAT tax.

POLITICS: There are no free-market political parties in Israel, only shades of statism. Parties on the "right" are orthodox religious parties who are opposed to "land for peace" concessions, but otherwise have their hands in the public coffers as much as the parties on the "left." Except for the recent change to popular election of the Prime Minister, all voting in Israel is for political parties--not individual candidates. You vote for the party of your choice and the party produces a list of who will serve in the Knesset. Thus, the Israeli model of parliamentary politics is very close to Lenin s dictum of maintaining rigid "party discipline." Members of the Knesset owe their entire political existence to the party, and only indirectly to the electorate. Thus, the powers at the top can and do demand total conformity to the party line. For this reason, Israeli politics are rampant with corruption. Payoffs and personal enrichment are commonplace as is the inevitable blackmail that comes when a party official tries to oppose the party line. Virtually all high political offices, including those in the court system are part of the political patronage system. Hence, it is almost impossible for a beleaguered Knesset member to recur to the courts for justice, if the Powers That Be are against him. The mere threat of prosecution is turned off and on like a spigot to induce the desired leverage on wavering politicians. This week s announcement that the investigation into Benjamin Netanyahu s corruption charges is being dropped is a tell-tale sign that the PTB are intending to resurrect Netanyahu as a leader in the Likud. This is part of the ongoing evidence pointing to external control of both major parties in Israel.

The Labor Party has undergone a continual stream of factionalization since 1948 when they began with an outright majority of the 120 seats of the Knesset. Now they hold less than 20 seats and must build coalitions with other parties in order to rule. The Labor Party still has two major factions within its ranks--one allied with Shimon Peres who is tightly controlled and financed by the European NWO globalists, and the other aligned with Ehud Barak, the current Prime Minister who, in turn, is controlled by the US faction of the NWO globalists (Kissinger and group). The other two major parties Likud and Shas range in support between 15-17 seats and must form coalitions with other opposing parties in order to govern.

The Likud Party is the Israeli equivalent of the American Republican Party. While the Likud has several members who are pro-free market in orientation, the leadership under Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu is as corrupt as the Labor Party. Sharon is a close friend of Shimon Peres, so there is little difference in their politics except that Sharon pretends to be the opposition. Bibi Netanyahu owes his entire political career to the Henry Kissinger group in the US who financed his education, got him a job on Wall Street and guided his rise in Israeli politics.

The Shas Party is a "right wing" party of Sephardic Jews whose base of support resides primarily among the Moroccan Jews who have immigrated to Israel. Its most prominent leader (Deri) is currently in jail on corruption charges stemming from years of taking bribes from his coalition partners in the Labor Party--who blackmailed Deri in order to keep the Shas Party aligned with the leftist Labor agenda--something the Shas membership nearly rebelled over.

What is ironic is that the Arab population in Israel controls 10-12 seats and thus has become the determining faction that can make or break any coalition. For this reason, it would be political suicide for the Israelis to allow a repatriation of millions of Arab refugees to Israel, who would then be able to command a majority of votes in the Knesset. It is specifically for this reason that Arafat is demanding not only an independent state, but that Israel (not the Palestinian state) absorb almost all the Arab refugees. Arafat fully intends to take back Israel either by militarily conquest (after Israel s security position is weakened by "land for peace" deals), or by democratic conquest via forcing the return of refugees to Israel.

PEOPLE: There are notable exceptions to the generalizations I will make here about Jews and Arabs, but I find these general observations do correctly describe some of the underlying reasons for long-term conflict between the two groups. The Jews represent about 80% of the population of Israel, and perhaps only 20% of these could be considered deeply orthodox. The rest are composed of traditional and secular Jews, most of whom have some feeling for generic Zionism (support of a homeland for the Jews) but who are otherwise very liberal and left-leaning in their politics. The Sephardic Jews are Semitic peoples and tend to be more fervent in their defense of Israel as a nation. The Ashkenazi Jews come from eastern Europe and Russia and tend to provide most of the high intellectual power in Israel, as well as a disproportionate amount of its socialist and Marxist policies.

There is a fair amount of conflict among the Jews themselves, as the various factions hardly agree on anything. In contrast to this innate competition, however, there is a general feeling of collective unity that keeps them from splitting apart entirely, borne out of a common heritage and welded together by persecution. This same collective mentality has allowed the Jews to prosper under socialism (at least in the incipient phases of economic development) that normally proves disastrous in other cultures. For example, none of the collective farms the Israelis helped develop in Africa survived, even when managed by Israelis. Israel s brand of socialism has, itself, had to give way to free market techniques in order to compete in the world economy. Many Kibbutzim have dropped their most onerous collective policies or have converted to Moshav-type cooperatives. The Jews are clearly the most industrious group of people in the entire Middle East and thus are destined to lead economically.

On a negative note, I found a certain amount of insensitivity to the feelings of conscience among both Jews and Arabs. Everywhere we drove in Israel, there was a pervasive discourteousness, a quickness to anger, and a reluctance to give way in heavy traffic. Although Jews are, generally, highly rational and quick mentally, they have a certain tendency to reject, in a very off-handed manner, new concepts that didn t fit into existing patterns of thought. Despite their quick minds, Israeli Jews are almost totally blind to the deceptions and corruption involving many leaders at the national level. They have almost no concept of the dangers of the NWO and the globalist agenda to subjugate Israeli sovereignty for the "global good." Even though approximately 80% of Israel knows about Barry Chamish s startling investigations documenting the role of the Israeli secret service (Shabak) in the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, they do nothing. So while there is a subtle collective feeling on behalf of their national survival, it gets mistakenly mingled with a reliance upon national leaders which produces a uniform type of apathy concerning individual action. 

There is perhaps an overconfidence inherent in the Jewish mind as well. In intellectual discussions I find it very difficult to get thinking Jews to consider other points of view. On more than one occasion while interviewing some of the best and brightest Jewish intellectuals, I found them completely insensitive to certain spiritual and libertarian ideals. At the same time, ironically, there seems to be a fascination in the Jewish mind with intricate conceptual thought as evidenced by the great time invested in study of the tiniest details in the Talmud and in other rabbinical writings. Why they cannot see through the complexity of global or national deceptions and conspiracies eludes me.

Factionalism is rampant in Israel due to the intensity with which debate is embraced, especially on religious points, which are highly subject to the special interpretations of each different school of rabbinical thought. I will say, however, that I found the orthodox Jewish settlers to be happy, industrious group, filled with passion for life and for Israel. Their cooperative Yeshivot (schools) are a model of self-help and sacrifice in order to provide a better life for their children. They are certainly not the "right wing" fanatics the liberal media in Israel makes them out to be. Without this small core of faithful orthodox Jews, Israel might not have received the many small miracles that led to national independence and subsequent victories over a determined enemy with a massive quantitative advantage.

The Arabs are generally less intense than the Jews, more likable when not agitated, but less industrious as a whole. Part of the Arab apathy in overcoming environmental deficiencies of their Middle East surroundings may be tied to the problematic and fatalistic Islamic doctrine asserting that much of the bad that happens is the "will of Allah." In contrast, the Jewish concept of being treated by God as a collective (The chosen people, the House of Israel) seems to motivate individual initiative to assist the salvation of the group. Despite this collective view the Jews have of mutual protection the Jews tend to be independent thinkers. In contrast, Arabs tend to be greatly swayed by group psychology. If they have good leaders, they are peaceable and friendly. If they have bad leaders, as is presently the case in the extreme, they can be capable of mass hysteria and panic or even aggression. Both Jews and Arabs are somewhat captivated by materialism, but in different ways. The Jews view material gain as an ongoing tool for progress while many Arabs tend to view material gain as an end in and of itself. Thus, possession of "things" is a sign of prestige in the Arab world. Sadly, because of this, petty theft is a common way of life among many Arabs and is a constant source of irritation for the Jews. Some Jewish settlements have a hard and fast policy of not hiring any Arab labor. However, because Jews tend to rise to entrepreneurial levels quickly in life, the Arabs provide most of the basic labor pool. Thus, Arabs working among the Jews are a permanent fixture in Israel, and of benefit to both Jew and Arab. However, the constant problem of things "disappearing" keeps a barrier of distrust between the two peoples.

There is another imbalance in the relationship between Jews and Arabs that must be aired. Except in times when border areas are sealed during terrorist attacks, Arabs can come and go among the Jewish controlled areas in perfect safety, with no fear of reprisals and vindictive behavior. Yet Jews can never go into Arab controlled areas of the Palestinian Authority and have that same assurance of safety. In the Gaza strip there is a separate strip of land owned by Jewish settlements on the coast. The Jews must pass through Palestinian controlled land to get to their zone, and often they must be accompanied by armed convoys of Israeli troops. This week, two Israeli soldiers were wounded (one fatally) in an Arab attack on a military convoy trying to protection Jewish civilians trying to get to their homes in Netzarim--a Jewish settlement in the Gaza strip. Clearly this is evidence that only the Israelis can be trusted to provide overall security to the lands where a mixed population of Jews and Arabs exist. I don t believe this is a reflection of the common Arab himself, who has a tradition of hospitality, but rather of the hostile Palestinian leadership that is itching for a fight.

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