This one wild and precious life!!: A bit of Israeli hostory, politics and nature

3/23/13

Today was a day for exploring the Negev desert, the northern part of it, anyway, a place that I have never been to despite the fact that this is the area we lived in and always visit when we come to Israel. It was also a chance to see some places that are politically relevant at this time in Israeli life. Yoram’s brother, Amir, was the tour guide, and it was the 4 of us, Yoram’s dad, and Amir’s daughter and her boyfriend. We drove north and passed through the area populated by Bedouin—nomadic Arabs who have lived in this region for centuries. We passed through many small villages, seeing the shepherds with their sheep and goats on the hillsides, but then came to a new city, built by the Israeli government to try to solve the problem of the nomadic Bedouin running out of room for their animals to graze, and infringing on established communities. Just past that was the largest established Bedouin city, Rahat, with about 60,000 residents (Beersheba, the 4^th largest city in Israel has 200,000—the population of Irvine!) We continued west to another Kibbutz, Beit Kama. This was a successful and thriving kibbutz, but the young people grew up and left, so that the only people who remained were living on Social Security, and really couldn’t support themselves. To revitalize the community, they decided to sell the land immediately outside the kibbutz to people who wanted to live in a more rural setting in the area, but didn’t want to live communally. They could build private homes, but would receive many of the services (child care, schooling, infrastructure, recreation etc.) from the kibbutz, which became an incentive for some of the young members to return to the kibbutz with more job opportunities and more young people around. The fields of pea plants were so green, and ready to be harvested. The big spring bloom was about 3 weeks ago, but there were still a few daisies and poppies around.

We drove west, passing through the town of Sederot, where many of the rockets fell during the war this past fall. We continued west to a viewpoint near the border with the Gaza strip where we could see the northern part of the strip. In the photo, you see the Gaza strip in the distance on the left, then the sandy colored area is where the Israeli settlements were, which was returned to the Palestinians. The settlement buildings were destroyed when the settlers left, but nothing has been built there since. Then, to the right, you can see the towers of the electric power plant in the Israeli city of Ashkelon—that’s how close everything is!

The northern part of the Gaza strip

The fam: Inbar, Yoram, Liron, Aharon, Shiri and Mical

From there we turned south, following the road parallel to the border with Gaza, stopping by some fields with winter wheat. It was so windy, and I love the undulating view of the fields in the wind.

Our last stop was Kibbutz Be’eri, this time for a history lesson. Both Be’eri and Hatzerim were 2 of the “11 points”, 11 settlements that were established by Israeli Youth Movements in 1 night, the day after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) in 1946 . The British mandate in Palestine didn’t allow the establishment of new Jewish villages, but it was important for the Jews to establish a presence in the Negev. Turkish law (the law the British went by, since Turkey (the Otoman empire) governed the area before the British, and lost control in WWI) stated that as long as there’s a roof on the house, it cannot be demolished. So the idea was, to pick a day which, because it was a High Holy Day, there could be no work done, take the British by surprise, and set up the settlements quickly to establish a presence in the area. Yoram’s dad was 1 of the small group of twenty-year-olds that established Be’eri, and this is the original watchtower the built in 1946. These settlements provided the base from which to defend the area in the War of Independence in 1948, and 10 of the 11 still exist today, many as thriving Kibbutzim! Yoram’s dad moved to Hatzerim in ’48, when the kibbutz movement split into 2 different ideological camps.