Dreaming of Bahrain
We have just over a month to go until we leave for our long-planned trek to Nepal to celebrate my 50th birthday and our youngest son’s bar mitzvah. There’s only one problem standing in our way: Bahrain.
The cheapest way to get to Asia for Israelis is via the Gulf – the price can be as low as $600 round trip from Amman vs. double that if you leave from Israel. Not wanting to be freiers and over-spend, we booked a Gulf Air flight from Jordan to Kathmandu via Bahrain. Our itinerary has an 11-hour layover, so we figured we leave the airport and take in the sights of Manama, the tiny country’s only real city.
And then, a few weeks ago, following the riots in Tunisia and Egypt, Bahrain erupted. Protesters took to the streets, occupying Pearl Square, and the government fought back, killing several and wounding many more.
That kind of scuttled our plans tour the capital.
Notice Iran smack dab in the middle
It didn’t make it any better that, in 2009, a commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards called Bahrain the Islamic Republic’s “14th province.” Not to mention that Gulf Air flies over Iran on its way to and from Kathmandu. I wonder what would happen if our plane, with its Israeli contingent on board, had to make an unexpected landing in Tehran?
Now, Bahrain has since calmed down, and there’s no knowing what will be by the time we leave. But if Egypt is any clue, if fighting flares up again, even flights could be suspended.
Given the dicey situation – and not a small amount of added stress while planning not only a trip, but an entire bar mitzvah – I quickly went online to find an alternate route. Everything cost an arm and a leg.
“We can’t afford it,” I complained to my wife.
“What’s more important – money or our safety?” she shot back. That’s a hard one to argue with.
Now, of course, canceling a flight has penalty fees. But our travel insurance should cover it, right? Isn’t that why we took out the policy in the first place? Nope, said Adam, the friendly English-speaking representative of the insurance company.
“We don’t cover cancellation due to political unrest,” he calmly explained after checking with his supervisor on my insistence. “However, if you get stuck in a place where violence breaks out, we’ll pay for your emergency airlift.” That seemed kind of backward – they’ll shell out big bucks to get you home in a pinch, but not the relatively small fees for avoiding the situation in the first place?
In the end, our travel agent found us a flight that is actually cheaper than our itinerary via Bahrain. It requires staying for Shabbat in Mumbai, India, but that actually sounds fun. And get this – it’s on El Al (usually the most expensive airline there is).
So, let me see if I’ve got this right: Gulf Air, riots, threat of kidnapping or El Al, surly flight attendants, but kosher food and a safe route.
Kathmandu, here we come!
Just another day in the neighborhood
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics, tv
Tahrir Square in Cairo on Tuesday.
Tonight for examples, Channel One’s nightly Mabat news broadcast and its presenter Inon Magal didn’t know what to do first – report on:
1 – the ‘Million Man March’ in Cairo and the nearing of the end of President Hosni Mubarak’s reign
2 – the decision by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to cancel the nomination of Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant as the next chief of staff adue to ‘ethical flaws’ in allegedly shady, if not illegal, behavior regarding a number of land affairs on his moshav, Amikam
3 – or Jordan’s King Abdullah feeling the domino effect of what’s transpired in Tunisia and Egypt and proactively sacking his prime minister and cabinet as thousands of Jordanians also began taking to the streets.
So they decided to mix all three up, switching back and forth from reports in Cairo to Galant’s bitter interview to the scene in Jordan.
That’s not even mention the other stories that, on any other day, might have been the big news – a Grad rocket fired into Israel from Gaza last night which landed so close to a wedding hall with an event taking place that all the attendees jumped out of their seats when it hit.
We like to take pride at Israelity in the fact that Israel is indeed a place of much more than strife and conflict – you can read about all the other aspects of the amazing country we live in here every day.
But it’s times like these that remind us there is something just a little crazy about life here – there is strife and conflict all around us. And even though it’s our neighbors who are experiencing the brunt of it right now, we can never forget that anything can be right around the corner.
The war for the airwaves in Eilat
21st century airwaves battle for the top of Mount Amram
In 1947, the U.N. partition plan designated the sleepy port of Eilat as the southernmost tip of the new Jewish state. It wasn’t until the final days of the War of Independence, however, when Israel took control of the town in an operation that surprised the small platoon of Jordanian troops stationed in mud huts in what was then called Umm Rashrash.
The Jordanians surrendered without a fight and, today, the Red Sea border town is a major international tourist destination, favored by Europeans escaping the cold winters of the continent.
The war for Eilat is not quite over, though. It’s now being fought in the airwaves for control of our cell phones.
We were on a week’s vacation in Eilat last week and went for a hike in an area called Amram’s Pillars, west of Highway 90, the main artery connecting the far north and southern poles of the country. We chose a barren trail that climbed steeply up Mount Amram for a stunning view of the entire Eilat area, before plunging down into the mysterious red limestone rock formations where the ancient Egyptians once mined copper some 3,000 years ago.
As we trekked up and down the hills, our cell phones all began to ring at once. Who wanted us so badly when we were communing with the infinite desert?
It was Jordan calling. Or more accurately, our Israeli cell phone provider Orange was warning us that we were no longer connected to Israel’s mobile network and that any call we made would be routed through Amman at a hefty premium.
A few seconds later, it was Orange again, welcoming us back to Israel. And then it was Jordan calling. And Israel. The virtual tussle for atmospheric supremacy went on for much of the day, each time resulting in a barrage of SMS’s.
The funny thing was, despite our cell phones’ warnings to the contrary, we had no usable reception. When our group got separated at one point, not even our friendly neighbor King Abdullah could intervene to get our phones to connect.
Two days later, we set out for another tiyul, this one along the Egyptian border, through the Red Canyon and up an equally spectacular lunar landscape. This time, though, there was no aerial tug of war.
Egypt, having received the Sinai back twice – after the 1956 and Yom Kippur wars – had apparently conceded the airwaves to Israel.
Eilat under attack
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Travel, War
August is one of the busiest seasons of the year in Eilat, as well as its hottest. The kids out of school, summer camps finishing up, and semi-attractive deals offered by the dozens of hotels and resorts in the Red Sea haven all contribute to an influx of tourism from within during the month.
Especially since Israeli tourism to Turkey has dropped to virtually zero because of the post-Flotilla diplomatic tension between the countries, Eilat is even more packed than usual. Which makes this morning’s news about five rockets likely fired from Sinai landing near the city is sending tremors throughout the country.
The five rockets – two in the Red Sea, one in a field near Eilat, and two in Jordan – included one which reportedly landed in front of the Intercontinental Hotel at the neighboring Jordanian port city of Aqaba, injuring four.
According to initial reports, a possible group behind the rockets could have been Hamas, which is known to use Sinai to smuggle weaponry and operatives in and out of the Gaza strip. There are also known to be global Jihad elements in the Sinai who have the capability to fire rockets toward Eilat. The attacks could be a continuation of the weekend rocket attack on Sderot, an attempt by Palestinians rejectionist groups to torpedo planned direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Regardless of the reason, the fact that rockets are falling close to the main vacation center in Israel is disconcerting indeed. Some Facebook posts are already intimating cancellations of plans to go to the Red Sea location: “My summer vacation is ruined,” wrote one FB poster.
Rocket attacks in Eilat are rare but not unheard of, with two attacks having occurred in the last five years. In April, two rockets fired landed in Eilat and Aqaba.
But what’s more disconcerting about the attacks – both in the Eilat area and in the South near Gaza – is that if the terror groups are trying to goad Israel into another Operation Cast Lead-type incursion, these incidents won’t be remembered at all.
The world media will write about Israeli aggression and overreaction, and ignore the fact that a sovereign state has been attacked. The average newspaper reader of TV news watcher in the US or Europe probably has no idea these acts of violence have taken place against Israel. But, if Israel retaliates, you’d better believe they’ll know about it.
So, besides getting the word out that Israel is being attacked seemingly on a daily basis these days, there’s one other thing to do: keep going to Eilat. I’m not going to cancel my plans to vacation there near the end of the month, and I urge everyone else to do the same. The coral reef and the dolphin beach more than make up for the inconvenience of having to dodge a rocket here and there.
Nostalgia Sunday – The Holy Land in Stereo
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Religion, Technology, Travel
Back before Avatar, kiddies, there was stereoscopy. The technology today seems fairly simple — two separate images printed side-by-side and peered at through the lens of a stereoscope viewer — but the invention was groundbreaking and it was the virtual reality of its day.
The difficult part was providing the public with new and different pictures of faraway places that they could only dream of visiting. Intrepid photographers ventured forth to gather images from such places and, as was to be expected, the Holy Land proved a popular subject.
Take, for example, this glimpse of an “Easter procession of Greek Patriarch, entering the Church of Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem”.
Each Stereoview image came with a descriptive text, such as: “Pilgrims on the Via Dolorosa – the route to Calvary – Jerusalem”.
“Baptising in the Jordan, Palestine”.
These images are gleaned from the World of Stereoviews, an informative website and reasonably priced online shop featuring over 14,000 stereoscopic images dating from the 1850s onwards by well known photographers of the day such as the 1850s views by Francis Frith, B.L. Singley’s Fine Art Photographers’ Publishing Co. and Keystone Views (1890s up until the mid 20th century), the Underwood Company, and M.E. Wright’s Excelsior Publishing (1900s).
“Barley harvest near Bethlehem, Palestine”.
“Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem, from outside”.
The site’s owners, Jenny and Ray Norman note that Wright “was a quirky publisher who either stole or bought images from others… He is known to have produced Middle East views by dressing up his family and taking them in Lancashire – saved the trouble of the journey.” However, these fellows seem to be the real thing!
“Bedouin robbers, wilderness of Judea, near the road to Jericho, Palestine”.
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