Day 24: Thursday, May 15, Beit El and Sartaba Mountain

Outside the cities the army does double duty as the police. Here, they moderate between parties in a fender-bender.

Today we visited Beit El and then climbed Sartaba Mountain. At Beit El we visited what is essentially a pirate radio station. The Israeli government controls all radio stations, and the founders of this station complained that the only thing on the government stations was American music and government-filtered news. Our host there complained that the government was “trying to force American culture down our throats.” (This is coming from a guy who was born and spent a good portion of his life in America.) They set up a radio station on a ship outside Israel’s territorial waters next to another guy who had done the same thing, but was on the opposite side – i.e. the other guy was for any peace deal with the Arabs, whereas these guys were very nationalistic and pro-settler. There was a lot more history to the radio station, but basically it sounded like the government did harass and at times physically intimidate the station. Of course, the station says that they were always legal. They now are an internet-only station (both a Hebrew and English station), but they have a building with about 20 employees. We spoke with another guy who was the director of programming for the American station. He was born in Haifa, but grew up in NJ and finished law school in NYC before moving to Israel when he was 26.

He said there were three reasons the radio station existed, the first of which was “to bring the Jews home.” He said that Jews who believed they were coming just to “have our own space” didn’t get it, and that it is more than that. What I can’t convey was the earnestness this guy had when talking about Israel as a different sort of place where you felt God’s presence. In Q/A I asked him the same American foreign policy questions I had asked the previous night. He said the same thing, that America should mind its own business. He also advocated a self-reliant Israel, basically saying that America’s aid hurts Israel my giving it a mindset that it can’t survive on its own and is entitled to aid. He admitted that it would be difficult for Israel to go it alone, but he still wanted that. (That doesn’t mean he wants to abandon ties with the U.S., but he said that the U.S. and Israel should see each other as business partners and pay for military aid, etc.) I asked him about Jewish political donors in the U.S., most of whom advocate aid to Israel. He said that “American Jews think that they help by being political movers in the U.S., but that era is over.” He described having Jews scattered as being like a body split up.

He also said that the Israeli income tax brackets range from 35-50%. For comparison, our top tax bracket is 35%.

A typical landscape in parts of Samaria. It's pretty dry and barren.

I realized today that we’re getting a “Ron Paul Tour” of Israel – Mickey is very passionate about settling and spends half of his time knocking his own government for stopping settlement. He advocates passive resistance to government evictions of settlers, and is saddened by the fact that very few soldiers object to evicting settlers. He is furious at Ariel Sharon, because Sharon was pro-settler during the election and then agree to have land-for-peace negotiations. Mickey complains that he should have at least held new elections to give people a chance to vote with the knowledge that he would make such a deal. He also complains that many immigrants are from Russia or Eastern Europe, don’t have a democratic background, and thus obey the government blindly. He wants more Western immigrants who expect government to obey their will, not the other way around.

Mickey said that Israel is “Western in way of life, but not in its philosophy.” The more I see here, the more I agree with that.

Someone else on the bus said that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, but I said that Tel Aviv is the capital. It turns out that we’re both right, sort of. Jerusalem has been the capital ever since Israel captured it, and the Knesset is there. However, since Jerusalem is was not in the 1948 borders of Israel approved by the UN, almost all nations (including the U.S.) recognize Tel Aviv as the capital and have their embassies there.

The Israeli Knesset has 120 representatives. There are only national elections (i.e. you don’t have a local representative). Seats are awarded using this method that is too complicated for me to explain here. Arabs hold about 10 of the 120 seats. If that leaves you scratching your head, it is because there are some Arab Israelis (as in Israeli citizens who are Arab). After the 1948 war, Israel declared everyone in its borders to be an Israeli citizen. Arabs who hadn’t fled were given citizenship. Everyone who fled became a refugee. Israeli citizenship is hereditary, so every Arab who is an Israeli citizen today either lived through the 1948 war or is a descendent of one. No new Arabs are given citizenship. Today the Israeli citizens live about as well as Jewish Israelis. The big difference is that they are not required to serve in the Israeli army, though they may do so if they volunteer.

That afternoon we climbed up a mountain called Sartaba. The plan was to drive to a saddle in the mountain and then hike the rest of the way up. At this point we had one of those big 80-person buses for 20 of us. Combine that with the narrow switchback roads and the drive was no easy task. At one point the driver cut a corner too much and one wheel went off the pavement and lost traction. As he tried to move us around and get traction, Mickey commented that he was surprised we were having trouble since “I normally bring bulletproof buses up here; they are much heavier and don’t have any trouble, so we should be fine.” We knew we were staying in the West Bank, but that is when we realized just how odd it was for us to be going the places we were going as tourists. Earlier that morning our radio station tour guide had finished his talk by telling us that he was impressed by our courageous and our willingness to go to dangerous areas (Beit El) where many Israelis didn’t even go. I was very glad to know that we weren’t getting the “glossy flier” tour of Israel, but I think many parents had images of a burned-out bus in their mind by the end of the day.

I saw two scorpions on the way up, but otherwise the landscape was barren save the thorny low-lying shrubs. The view was great. The valleys below channeled the wind up the mountain at whistling speeds, and you could walk ten steps from one peaceful side of the ridge to the other and be assaulted by the winds. At the top was an abandoned Maccabeean outpost. This had once been one of a number of relay stations for a signal flame (think of Gondor in the 3^rd LOTR). The official calendar was kept in Jerusalem, and at the beginning of every new moon (if I remember correctly) a flame was put up in Jerusalem and relayed to other towns. Several feast dates were tied to lunar months. Later the Samarians would put up fake flames to throw off the Israelis, so they had to resort to manual relays ala the Pony Express. For this reason certain feasts are celebrated on one day in Jerusalem and two days elsewhere in memory of the fact that other places didn’t always know when they

should celebrate the feast or got word late. I picked up a couple of pottery shards. Could they be 2200 years old?

Some of the view from the top, with the Maccabeean fortress next to me.

It was also our first introduction to Israeli water cisterns. The Maccabees had dug channels in the mountaintop that led to caverns. Rainwater would follow the channels and fill up the cisterns, providing water during dry times.

I definitely enjoyed the hike. The landscape was barren, the wind was strong, and the view was great. For some reason I like all three, and I always like a hike. On the way down I bounced from rock to rock with an alacrity that would make my little brother John proud.