Israel
This post is going to be a little different than
the previous two. First of all, I am going to ignore some mishaps that occurred
in Stockholm that led to me spending 20 minutes walking up and down stairs
three times only to end up paying $4.50 to use a bathroom. Also, I thought my
headphones were broken, but it turns out my laptop was just being dumb. Sorry,
but that’s it for the humor in this post. Anyway, I am going to focus mostly on
sustainable urban design (or lack thereof) in Israel and what I feel could be
useful for California. That said, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me
to talk about Israel without discussing the social situation, so get ready for
some political ramblings.
Let me get one thing out of the way: I am Jewish and most of my
mother’s family lives in Israel. However, I would consider myself vehemently
anti-Israel government, 100% opposed to settlements, and supportive of a
two-state solution. My cousin is also quite liberal as well and is disappointed
with Israel’s strongman Benjamin Netanyahu. Her husband is even more extreme in
his disdain of Israelis, going as far to say as everyone is nice to you unless
you’re Arab. I question the notion that Israelis are friendly at all, but I’ll
leave that for later. I really don’t understand why we can’t just get along,
but I guess some people have different ideas. I hesitate to say that I am
strongly pro-Arab because I feel like that means that I have to support Hamas
and believe that Israel has no right to exist. I am, however, pro-peace and
pro-equality. If you want to hear more of my thoughts on the political
situation, read on, otherwise I’ll talk more about Israel’s urban design in my
next post.
I did not go anywhere near the settlements or the Palestinian side of
Israel, both out of fear and lack of time. However, there are persecuted
minorities within Israel itself. In the “Jewish” part of Israel, around 16.5%
of the country is Muslim. Their status is not quite oppressed, but it is
something like I imagine America’s south to be today. There is a lot of
economic segregation, as the Arabs tend to be much poorer than most Jews. Think
of East Palo Alto, except there literally aren’t any Arabs in many parts of
Israel. That is not to say that there are no Jews who live together with Arabs,
it is just almost exclusively in poorer areas. I’m getting this information
from my cousin who works at a university by the way, so feel free to contradict
me if I’m wrong. She also said that primary schools are segregated, even in
otherwise mixed communities. I would presume that the Arab schools aren’t quite
as good either. One thing that I have read about is the Israeli position on
mixed-faith marriage. It is recognized in Israel, but not performed, so you’d
have to fly to a nearby country, which isn’t all that easy to do if you’re
already economically disadvantaged. Another example of Israel’s overt racism is
the governmental makeup. There are a few Arab representatives in parliament,
but no Israeli party, even the most liberal Labor Party, would seriously
consider forming a coalition with Muslims, even if it would give them a
majority. Anyway, that’s just semantics.
I actually was taken to a Muslim area in Jerusalem. This was just a
small sample and part of a rather touristy area. It was basically an old,
narrow lane for walking. You’re basically bombarded by people trying to sell
you something in their store. There were a lot of sports shirts/flags or
whatever (especially for the Lakers, Celtics, Yankees, etc. There was also some
sarcastically pro-Israeli memorabilia (like “Don’t worry America, the Israeli
Defense Forces are Behind you”, which was actually meant to be taken literally
as there were soldiers everywhere). The place we ate lunch at had the “best
hummus in the world” according to my cousin. It was pretty good, but I don’t
know if it could merit such a title. The falafel at this place was actually
quite bad too. The worst part was the waiter who served us. I saw him holding a
cigarette in one hand and then proceeding to serve pita! Disgusting, and
smoking wasn’t even allowed in the restaurant. At least the other shop owners
had the courtesy to blow smoke in the faces of passing tourists instead of
suffocating customers inside. Okay, enough story time.
One thing you notice about Israel is that there are military people
everywhere. That’s because every Israeli citizen (except Arabs and some super
religious people) has to serve in the army. This reinforces the notion of
Israel as a police state, and it doesn’t really make me feel comfortable to see
so many soldiers (some armed with assault rifles) everywhere. I’m not so
worried about surveillance, but the more guns there are, there more likely that
I’ll get shot. As I write this, I think that Israel is trading rocket fire with
Hamas. I don’t at all support Hamas, but neither do I think that Israel’s
deadly blasts are justified on the basis of deterrence. There is literally no
reason that we can’t live together, but barring that, Palestinians need their
own country with freedom of trade, travel,. Etc. Oh yeah, the settlements are
just horrible and racist and reflect an 1840s Andrew Jackson philosophy. Unfortunately,
the current government is only stoking the fire further and the US is not
exactly threatening to pull aid to Israel. I don’t really feel like boycotts of
Israeli companies (or of Caterpillar or HP or whatever) are really going to
make a difference-the solution will have to be through political
reconciliation. My cousin’s husband (also Jewish by the way) seemed more
supportive of the idea though. It’s good to know that not everyone in Israel is
racist.
I’ve been rambling too long about socio-political hogwash, but there is
one more thing that I found interesting. Israel is largely a mishmash of
various European immigrants who were pushed out of Nazi Germany and not
necessarily welcomed in the United States. However, besides the Arabs, there
are a good number of African (nearly all Ethiopian) immigrants as well. Israel
has admitted to even recently giving the Ethiopians birth control without their
consent. Many of the Ethiopians can’t read or write Hebrew and they tend to do
the jobs that Mexicans would do in America. Even though they are Jews, they are
still basically second-class citizens, perhaps slightly more respected than the
Arabs.
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