Reserved revelry of the times
Filed under: coexistence, Crime, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Travel, War
With a population of around 67,100 and proximity to both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Modiin is one of the larger suburbs of Israel. The city is located very close to the Green Line, though, making for some awkward situations for Israeli-Arab relations in the neighborhood – especially along the 443 highway, a major commuter thoroughfare. This isn’t a band of fringe settlers butting heads with nationalist Arab elements. Like the Kfar Saba-Qalqilya juxtaposition, it’s mainstream Israel in close quarters with villages.
Terror-resembling hate crimes have taken place in the area many times over the years (including these four incidents from 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, during the Second Intifada). This past March, long before the wave of violence that kicked off last month, the high court defended arrangements which basically ban Palestinians from using the 443 in order to minimize its exposure to terror. And since the war in the south has escalated, there have been stoning incidents, Molotov cocktails and even a stabbing.
Anyone reading this blog knows that in times like these, life goes on. In general, incidents like the aforementioned don’t keep Israelis from going about their business, much like the way that regular shootings and muggings in American inner cities don’t keep Americans from going about theirs. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t take precautions. We do.
A friend of mine who lives close to me in Modiin attended a party last night in Jerusalem, and while he didn’t drink, so as to maximize safety on the journey home, his sister did. Quite inebriated, her head was spinning from the drive, which, as we all know, has the potential to cause vomiting. Cruising along the 443, my friend found himself in a bind. He did not want his car to get all vomited out, and he wanted to comply with his sister’s wishes for a break in the motion, but on the other hand, it was the middle of the night and he was within rock-throwing range of more than one Arab village.
So yes, in times like these, we keep working, living and even sometimes partying as if there were no conflict. But that doesn’t mean the conflict doesn’t color our judgment and impact our actions. And in case you were wondering, the way he tells it, my friend’s solution was to pull over for his sister to vomit out the car door for two minutes at a time, and only when she really really needed him to. She used a plastic bag the rest of the time.
Photo of the 443 highway courtesy Michaeli via Wiki Commons.
Israel picks up the bill
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Medical Breakthroughs, Politics, War
While the news is full of Israel’s “crimes” against the civilian population in Gaza, here’s one “crime” you probably haven’t heard about. Israel routinely admits residents of Palestinian Authority controlled territory into its hospitals – and the Israeli taxpayer foots the bill. Not only that; Israel even helps pay for treatment of patients in PA hospitals, where the patient never even comes near an Israeli hospital!
While many of us probably have heard of exceptional cases of Israeli doctors treating PA Arabs, I, and probably you, were under the impression that it was limited to high profile or complicated cases, such as the Save a Child’s Heart Foundation – with ill PA residents coming to Israel as a last resort. That kind of thing has been going on for a long time – even during the current war, as evidenced by the photo (courtesy of the IDF spokesperson), captioned “Injured Palestinian receiving medical treatment by Israeli and Palestinian medical personnel at the Erez crossing.” 
But Israel’s contribution to the health of Palestinian Authority residents goes far beyond emergency assistance; according to some folks I interviewed for a story on a new database system being developed by an Israeli software company for hospitals in Bethlehem and Ramallah (an amazing story in and of itself!), Israel’s Health Ministry often pays for care of PA residents both in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority itself!
The company building the database, called i-Rox, is located in Bnei Brak, and consists almost entirely of ultra-Orthodox women programmers (this story just gets better all the time!). According to the company’s CEO, the programmers are building in a component that allows PA hospitals to share their information with Israel’s Health Ministry, because in some cases, Israel’s health funds help provide – and pay for – treatment of patients in PA hospitals.
Yes, I had a hard time believing it too – until I Googled this World Health Organization PDF document. According to this eye-opening reporting (for 2006-7), “Approximately 60,000 Palestinians from the West Bank area have been treated in Israel hospitals over the past year. Around 20,000 were hospitalized, and about 40,000 received ambulatory services of all sorts. Approximately 5,000 patients from the Gaza area have been treated in Israeli hospitals over the past year – about 2,000 hospitalized and about 3,000 receiving ambulatory services of all sorts. Among the patients receiving medical care in Israel, approximately 2,500 were children, the majority of whom received long-term treatment for cancer and complicated operations.”
As far as Israel providing services to PA hospitals, “Public health laboratories at the Israel Ministry of Health continue to regularly provide assistance to the Palestinian Health Authority in the way of laboratory tests for poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, influenza and other viral diseases,” the report says. Israel – via the health funds and the Health Ministry – continued those tests throughout the year, “in spite of the fact that the Palestinian Authority delays or halts payments.” Of course, the anti-Israel forces out there have never let themselves get confused by the facts – but at least we know the truth, and in this day and age, that’s no small feat.
Finding hope in the Gaza conflict
One of the gifts of working for an organization like ISRAEL21c is that even in the midst of conflict and crisis, we get the rare privilege of seeing another side of the story.
In the last difficult week, when the images on TV and in the newspapers were so negative and heart wrenching, we still heard stories about ordinary Israeli Jews and Palestinians working together in an effort to bring reason, peace and humanity to the Middle East.
One of the most touching stories to emerge during this current terrible war was the tale of a tiny baby boy from Gaza called Jafar.
Born a few weeks ago with serious heart defects, his Palestinian doctors knew that he couldn’t survive without surgery. They phoned Dr. Akiva Tamir, an Israeli doctor they knew from the Israeli charity Save a Child’s Heart, and together the Israeli and Palestinian doctors raced to bring Jafar to Israel.
On Monday of last week, while missiles rained down on Gaza and southern Israel, Israeli doctors from Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv volunteered their time, and performed surgery on the small boy. His grandmother was there waiting for him when he was transferred to intensive care.
Jafar is still at the hospital. He is recovering well. His heart surgery was a success. He joins a growing number of Palestinian children – 1,000 so far – who owe their lives to the volunteers at the wonderful charity Save a Child’s Heart.
Sometimes, like so many people here, I worry that this battle between Israel and Hamas will never end, but it’s stories like these, of individual Israelis and Palestinians working together and thinking far beyond the conflict that give me hope that one day things will be better.
Coexistence Exists
Filed under: Blogging, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Religion
It’s no surprise that main stream news is focusing on the current situation in Gaza and southern Israel. Watching CNN’s coverage Israel looks like a battlefield right out of any epic war movie. The images are constantly played over and over again—which means I get worried phone calls from America, over and over again.
But there is more to life than the images on the news. In Jerusalem, all is pretty much quiet. Yes, tensions are high and I feel the added stress, but life is still not the media’s picture of Israel. In fact there is more coexistence happening on a daily basis than most people are aware of.
Here is Jerusalem Jews and Arabs work together building fancy new high rises or the new light rail train across the city. Today I spoke with an Arab-Israeli who was taking a five-minute-break from his moving job. He sat drinking coffee with his co-workers, both Arabs and Jews, and spoke about the weather (the very cold Jerusalem winter) and my dog’s funny looking sweater (I though he might be cold, but the dog clothing thing is just not for me). The point is that small talk still exists—talking still exists and not all forms of communication are from one rocket to another.
On a larger scale, I think back to the recent coexistence projects I filmed in the Israeli mixed cities of Acre and Lod. Again, the news’s projection is all about violence and crime in these areas, rather than focusing on the positive stories taking place.
Most people now think of Acre as that city that had riots this past Yom Kippur. But Acre quickly recovered from the fighting and both sides remain relatively calm during the current military operations. When I was there in November, I didn’t feel tensions, but rather found the coexistence projects’ efforts really taking effect. The Israel21c video below shows some of the projects, sponsored by the Jewish Agency, that are taking place in Acre.
Last month, I filmed a story about a new coexistence project in Lod. Aviv Wasserman, a native Israeli, founded The Lod Community Foundation about six months ago with the goal of getting this poverty-stricken city back on its feet. Aviv is hardcore, and now lives in Lod where he has set up shop in his apartment. From his office-apartment to monthly meetings, he has built a network of concerned citizens that want to rebuild the city together. Lod is a very diverse city (Jews, Arabs, Russians, Ethiopians, Bedouins, Christians, etc.), but Aviv has managed to have representatives from each community take part in the committees and meetings. Again, you can watch the video below to learn more about his incredible project.
So, there you have it, the other side of conflict. It does exist, even if it doesn’t make the news.
Shvitzing together
As I drove up the road toward Ramat Rachel the other afternoon, I thought about the fact that I was looking forward to a long-awaited Swedish massage — to offset the very physical aspects of new motherhood — while people living in the south were huddling in bomb shelters and sealed rooms, dealing with a very different set of expectations for the day.
But as usual, albeit unexpectedly, I found myself in a fairly altered reality sitting in the Jacuzzi before my massage. I had stepped in, gingerly, as one does, and relishing my first dip following the long months of pregnancy. As I slid down, savoring the hot bubbling water, I realized that the men around me — the Jacuzzi always seems to be filled with men with pot bellies — were all speaking Arabic. For better or for worse, that’s fairly unusual in the surroundings of the Ramat Rachel complex, which is a popular swimming pool and gym owned by the kibbutz and frequented by local, mostly Jewish, Jerusalemites. And it felt even more unusual, given the fact that Israeli Arabs haven’t been too pleased with Israel’s Gaza offensive and now the ground offensive.
I went on with my afternoon of relaxation, and soon realized that there must be some kind of company outing, because the entire complex was filled with Arab men; in the lockers near the massage rooms, in the sauna, in the steam room, and again, in the Jacuzzi. They didn’t seem bothered by my presence in the Jacuzzi, during the three minutes that I grabbed before my massage. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about, and whether they were contemplating how unusual it was to be in fairly Jewish surroundings during this particular week. Moreover, the Ramat Rachel Jacuzzi looks out onto the towns of Gilo and Bethlehem; good choices for controversial views.
But as usual, people are people, talking about the most banal of subjects and issues, which was confirmed when the man to my left turned and asked me if it paid to go into the sauna and steamroom. I laughed at myself, and told him that it was all part of the ‘shvitz’ experience, and one that shouldn’t be missed.
When we bumped into each other in the sauna later on, he thanked me for the recommendation, and told his buddies — in perfect Hebrew, better than mine — that I was the one to be thanked for their relaxing round. We smiled at each other, and maybe, I think, thought to ourselves that it should always be like this. I know I did. I hope he did as well.
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