The average temperature is -5° Celsius and the
world has turned white. A pale grey mantle covers the sky for the better part
of the week, leaving very little sun to lighten this gloomy world. The Netherlands
aren`t looking very joyful, yet still I have something to lighten my heart. My
application for the Kinneret Regional Project`s excavation season for 2013 has
been shipped off successfully. Yes, that`s right: the Lost Dutchman will be
going to Israel again this season, so true to style I hope to annoy you with
fresh blog updates on a weekly basis. It`s open season.
Not surprisingly given the cold weather, my
thoughts soon drifted to the warm days of summer in Israel. Freezing up slowly
on a railway platform makes 40-plus temperatures seem like heaven on earth soon
enough. Then you slip back into reality and decide to look at the current state
of affairs.
Israel is in the middle of its elections. As it
stands now, ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu looks to be coming out on top again, supported by
the more radical Bayit Yehudi party, led by Naftali Bennett. Quite the
respectable résumé this character boasts. He served in the elite Sayaret Matkal,
an army unit focusing on reconnaissance and counter-terrorism operations, as
well as in Maglan, which does the stuff that the IDF wants nobody to know about.
After his service he became a successful business man. Couple this with a
healthy dose of charisma and a good measure of devout religiosity and you have
a candidate who embodies that which the Israeli respects.
The main focus in European media is on how this
will affect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how the political left`s
stances on the situation aren`t popular for being considered naïve. The
discussion this could fuel is good food for other blogs more specialized on
politics and since I don`t want mine to run the risk of degenerating into the
battlefield of a flame war, I won`t touch that subject on a political level
with a 20-foot pole. In my personal life I`m always open for discussion on that
subject and those who know me personally are very welcome to it. Just not here
and not now.
Here and now, I want to address some things
which the above mentioned is sure to overlook. Prominent as the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is and deserves to be, there are a few other
problems of epic proportions which will I fear are not going to be addressed as
they are constantly drowned out by the ever-looming specter of open conflict
with the Palestinian territories.
The economy might be exhibiting a relative
growth, but as it grows, so does the disparity inside Israel. Many people do
not profit or see an increase in their standard of living, despite the numbers
of the economy. Living costs are still expensive and whereas the economic
crisis is finally driving down the prices of housing in many countries, this
remains high in Israel. This tendency towards poverty and
disuse was visible on quite a few buildings the past few years that I`ve been there.
But beyond financial disparity there is also
something that could be classified as ‘societal disparity’. This mainly revolves around conscription and
service in the IDF. Orthodox Jews are still exempt from Military service in
order to continue their religious studies. As the pool of orthodox Jews is
growing, more and more people are starting to consider this exemption as unfair
and a social injustice, seeing as service in the IDF is considered to be more a
duty than a pleasure. There are orthodox Jews who choose to serve, but they do
so mostly on voluntary basis. Social service has been mentioned as a possible
midway-solution, but there is strong resistance to these ideas from the
independent and vocal orthodox Jewish community.
Service in the IDF is nowadays not
considered desirable. I mentioned already that most consider it a duty rather
than a pleasure or an honor. Quite a few try to avoid have to do military
service altogether and for good reason. Unlike armies in the Western world, the
chances of dying are always larger and closer and most soldiers will end up in
stressful situations. A documentary I saw recently about Hebron illustrated
this perfectly. IDF troopers were heard
saying that if it isn`t the Palestinians throwing rocks at the colonists, it`s
the colonists throwing rocks at the Palestinians. It`s an ungrateful situation
where you are constantly on the receiving end of someone`s verbal stick.
Reports of drug use by conscripts during or after their service period are not
that uncommon. In fact, in a terrorism
case right now in Israel, an IDF trooper is on trial for allegedly trading his
ammunition to Bedouins for narcotics.
It saddens me that these problems are not going
to be addressed in the coming four years. Israel is probably not going to
change again. This summer it will be the same country with 18-year and 19-year
olds lounging at bus stations, sporting combat fatigues, worn-out carbines and
mobile phones; the same taxi drivers trying to charge far too much for a fare
and getting a full tirade from those who know better; the same well-burnt
people going along the broken-asphalt streets in their old and worn-out tank
tops.
Fortunately it`s not all gloom and doom I see
before me now when thinking of Israel. There`s still flying scorpions somewhere
on the hills around the lake. The monks chant and sound the bells at Tabgha,
there is still Taybeh (more on that later) and as it stands now, the rainy and
cold winter is raising the Kinneret to its sharpest water level rise in 20 years.
It will not be very nice having to swim among the flooded reeds again, but for
a lake with a chronic shortage of it, more water is always very welcome news.
 |
| Coming soon to a blog near you... |
This is the first of many blogposts that I will
be putting out the coming year and I hope you`ve found it to be worth your
time. I know that my blogposts tend to be quite long and this is something I
will try to remedy in the coming year, especially as I want to give you all
more frequent updates when I am in-country again. To whet your appetite for
more of me yapping for no valid reason, here`s a list of things I aim to talk
about in the future: mosaics, trowels, boots, why the best countries are the
shitty ones, Taybeh beer, Tabgha, the development of field-memes and the
various tasks of staff members and their importance to KRP. Stay tuned for more
in the coming weeks
Signing off for now,
The Lost Dutchman.
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