Tag Archives: Israel

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Israel journey was a life-changer

Most of us have life experiences that stick with us, well, forever.

I’ve had the usual experiences: marriage to a wonderful girl, producing two wonderful sons who’ve grown into fine men, wearing my country’s uniform during a time of war, embarking on a rewarding career that has taken me to places I never imagined seeing.

Another one stands out. It’s a rare event that occurred five years ago this week. It was when four young people and I boarded an airplane for Israel. We were part of an extraordinary adventure. We spent four weeks in the Holy Land, touring one of the world’s most interesting countries from top to bottom. We lived with families and became, at one level, part of their families — if only briefly. We weren’t tourists. Thus, we saw more of a fascinating place than most people ever get to see.

***

I am a member of the Rotary Club of Amarillo. Our Rotary district had set up an exchange with another Rotary district in Israel. Our district needed a Rotary member to lead a team of four non-Rotarians on this exchange. I was one of several Rotarians who interviewed for the team leader spot. The interview took place in the fall of 2008 and the committee assigned to consider the applicants chose yours truly to lead the team.

I was stunned.

Then we got to work picking a team. They would comprise four individuals ages 25 to 40. We found four outstanding young professionals who had their employers’ blessing to take four weeks off to learn from their peers in Israel.

The program is called Group Study Exchange and its aim is manyfold: It’s meant to build relationships among nations in a people-to-people way; it exposes professionals to like-minded folks in other countries; and it helps build interest in Rotary, encouraging team members to join Rotary and become active in their own communities.

Three young women and a young man formed the team and together we began to prepare for this journey. They are Katt Krause of Amarillo, who was office manager for her family landscape contractor business; Aida Almaraz Nino of Hereford, who was a social worker at Boys Ranch; Fernando Valle of Lubbock teaches post-graduate courses for school administrators at Texas Tech University; and Shirley Davis of Levelland, teaches math at South Plains College.

We prepped for several weeks, meeting mostly in Lubbock. We learned about Israelis culture. We talked about the do’s and don’ts of embarking on a journey such as this. We prepared our presentation that we would deliver to host Rotary clubs.

At one point during our preparation, violence broke out in Gaza; Israel responded with a heavy counterattack against terrorists who were throwing missiles and mortars at cities in southern Israel. There was a serious thought that the trip might be canceled because of security concerns. The Israelis, as they usually do, put down the violence. The trip was on.

Then the day came to depart. It was May 9, 2009. Our flight was long and grueling, but we landed at David Ben-Gurion International Airport and were greeted by our Rotary hosts and by another GSE team, from The Netherlands, with whom we would travel for the next four weeks.

Our adventure exposed us to so many treasures. We were shown Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy sites. We went deep into the Judean Desert. We walked among the ruins of Masada. We swam in the Dead Sea. We went to Nazareth. We swam in the Mediterranean Sea. We looked out over the Red Sea at Eilat. We saw antiquities all along the way.

Our journey ended with a Rotary district meeting in Jerusalem, the holiest of the holy cities in Israel. We received a spontaneous prayer from an American monk on the Mount of Olives. We walked through the Old City. We saw the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem.

Our hearts were broken and filled with joy all at the same time.

The families that greeted us, housed us, entertained us and showed us their country became our friends.

***

The most rewarding part of the trip arguably is the friendships I forged with the young people with whom I was given the honor to accompany on this magnificent experience.

I pretty much think about different parts of our trip daily. Random parts that have to do with my day. Dead Sea, Masada, advice and conversations with hosts I had, inside jokes, beautiful sites. I gained so much from our adventure. It helped me grow and learn a lot about who I am. I love Rotary and what it gave to me. It’s an amazing organization, and on our trip we truly witnessed the 4-Way Test.
I will be forever grateful to Rotary International for what it gave to me. — Katt Krause.

We laughed at each other’s jokes and found ways to lighten the mood whenever we could.

The Dead Sea trip, basking in the sun and salt water while feeling the burn sensation of the exfoliation, peeling layers of skin and any scabs I may have had. Also, the total body mud masks that everyone participated in that temporarily changed our identities to that of an aboriginal warrior. — Shirley Davis.

It moved us beyond measure in ways that occasionally sneaked up on us.

Living and seeing life through the Israelis’ eyes was an experience that will, for sure, never be forgotten. One of the best moments, for me, was during our last days in Jerusalem. Walking where Jesus walked. We had traveled Israel for almost a month without seeing a drop of rain, and the moment when the monk prayed with us and for that short moment … it sprinkled! Rain over us! That was absolutely amazing! Loving the people and being loved by them, also, was an experience that’s sometimes hard to explain. I will always feel a special bond with the family I traveled with and the family I made while in Israel. — Aida Nino.

We built relationships that we all believe will last a lifetime.

Even though five years have passed, the emotional connections made with Rotarians and their families in Israel are as vivid as the country. We experienced more than hospitality, as a GSE team we were afforded rich cultural experiences and real daily life of the country. I will never forget walking through Jerusalem, shedding tears next to a family at Yad Vashem, eating with a host family or spending the day with the GSE team in the Red Sea off the coast of Eilat. Be’er Sheva welcomed us with open arms and Haifa and Tel Aviv showed us where Israel has been and where it is headed. GSE and Rotary afforded me an opportunity to understand and appreciate people across the world, especially the warmth of humanity. I am forever grateful for the experience. I went on a trip to Israel with a newly formed GSE team and came back with more than friends. I came back with a family. — Fernando Valle.

I have maintained contact with a couple of the Dutch GSE team members in the years since that amazing journey. Although we don’t see each other as much as I would like — and I assume the others as well — I consider all four of my fellow West Texans among my very best friends in this world.

We shared an experience few folks can understand fully. Perhaps other GSE teams that ventured to other far-off lands understand how it is.

This one was for the books. I am grateful beyond measure for the experience it provided to me and for the friendships it has built.

What a journey it was.

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Speak carefully … always

Secretary of State John Kerry is the latest victim of the urge to record everything everyone says every time they say it.

That does not for a moment excuse what he said the other day in what was supposed to be a closed-door meeting, which is that Israel may be turning into an “apartheid state” if it doesn’t hammer out a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/04/john-kerrys-private-remarks-taped-by-reporter-187578.html?hp=l8

The term “apartheid” is poison in polite international policy company. South Africa implemented that disgraceful policy for many decades in which it denied the black majority living there the rights of citizenship. Whites and blacks couldn’t interact with each other. The policy ended with the release from prison in the early 1990s of the late Nelson Mandela. The rest is history.

Kerry’s use of the term at the very least was careless. It well may have damaged U.S.-Israel relations beyond repair.

Why wasn’t he smarter than to make his point another way? Didn’t he learn from recent history, such as the time Mitt Romney was caught on an audio recording at a fundraising dinner making his infamous “47 percent” remarks about how nearly half of Americans are going to vote Democratic because they depend on government subsidies and handouts? Didn’t he learn from the video recording of Congressman Vance McAllister making out with his staffer? There are countless other instances of people in high places being caught saying and doing things they regret because someone had a recording device hidden somewhere.

A Daily Beast reporter recorded Kerry’s statements the other day, getting past detection and apparently not heeding ground rules stipulating the meeting wasn’t open to the public.

In this world of instant communication where everyone has a set of electronic eyes and ears, the only response simply is: Too bad.

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'Apartheid state'? Israel?

What in the name of all that is sensible was Secretary of State John Kerry thinking?

He was speaking in a closed-door event and then suggested Israel was in danger of becoming “an apartheid state” if it doesn’t work out a two-state peace treaty solution with the Palestinian Authority.

I heard it today and am shocked beyond belief at what he said. Should he resign, as some congressional and media critics have suggested? Not just yet. But he’d better have a clear explanation of what precisely he meant.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/28/kerry-under-fire-for-reported-apartheid-remarks-about-israel/?hpt=hp_t2

The term “apartheid” is as highly charged and offensive as they come. It was the long-standing racial separation policy used in South Africa to deny blacks any rights of full citizenship in a country in which they comprised the overwhelming majority. Only upon the release from prison of the late Nelson Mandela and the country’s first fully free and fair election in 1994 would bring an end to that heinous policy.

Now, to suggest Israel could become something similar if it doesn’t make peace with the Palestinians goes far beyond anything reasonable.

Kerry followed up his statement, recorded by The Daily Beast, with this: “… I have been around long enough to also know the power of words to create a misimpression, even when unintentional, and if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution.”

Kerry has made a Middle East peace agreement his No. 1 priority since becoming secretary of state in 2013. He has worked hard to bring Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table. Then this past week, the Palestinian Authority announced a unity government agreement with Hamas, the notorious terrorist group that wants to eradicate Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, understandably angry with the PA, suspended the talks.

The secretary of state has harmed the peace process further by using such inflammatory language. If there is a model of government diversity and democracy in the Middle East, it is Israel. The nation has a significant Muslim minority; its government has installed Muslims in key positions; it remains a bastion of freedom in a region governed by tyrants.

Yes, John Kerry should have chosen his words more carefully. If he cannot make it right — and soon — with Israel, then he should consider resigning.

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Make peace or deal with Hamas?

Put yourself in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes.

You govern a country of some 8,000 square miles surrounded by nations that at one time or another vowed to exterminate you and your constituents. Yes, you’ve made peace with a couple of those nations — Jordan and Egypt. The rest of the region remains iffy.

You’re in the middle of peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and then you learn that the leader of that government has brokered a deal with one of the world’s most ferocious terrorist organizations, Hamas. That organization has orchestrated terrorist attacks on your country from the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinian Authority governs.

The PA now wants to form a “unity government” that includes Hamas.

Do they want peace with Israel or not? Netanyahu has called off peace talks because the PA has formed that arrangement with Hamas, which still vows to exterminate Israel.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-calls-peace-talks-after-palestinian-deal-n88726

Can you really blame the Israeli prime minister? I cannot.

Netanyahu is furious with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for agreeing to the Hamas deal.

Having seen some of the damage that Hamas has inflicted on southern Israel myself, I understand fully why Netanyahu has called off the peace talks. I was part of a group that toured Israel in the spring of 2009 and we saw damage done by rocket fire in Sderot and Ashkelon, near the border with Gaza, which had erupted in violence prior to our arrival in Israel.

It’s a blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who persuaded the sides to talk to each other after they didn’t speak for five years. Kerry still believes a path to peace is still open, but it’s now been littered by the presence of Hamas in this arrangement with one of the principals in the talks.

“He can’t have it both ways,” Netanyahu said of Abbas. “He has to choose: Peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas.”

Netanyahu is right to be angry.

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Gov. Christie trips over his own mojo

It’s been reported that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has gotten his “mojo” back after a rough few months fighting off reports of possible cover-up in that infamous George Washington Bridge lane-closing kerfuffle.

In a way, he has. He hired a law firm to do an internal investigation of whether the governor knew anything about the lane closure, which reportedly was done to get back at the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., for refusing to endorse the Republican governor’s re-election.

The firm hired by Christie then cleared the guy who hired it of any wrongdoing. Imagine that. Shocking, I tell ya.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/202124-report-christie-apologizes-for-occupied-territories

Then he jets off to Las Vegas to meet with prominent Republican donors where he — oops! — refers to those so-called “occupied territories” now known as Gaza and the West Bank bordering Israel.

Well, it seems that one of those GOP fat cats is one Sheldon Adelson, a big-time Republican donor and a long-time ardent supporter of Israel, where the term “occupied territories” is stricken from the political lexicon.

As The Hill reported: “Many Israelis object to referring to areas where Palestinians live but Israel maintains a military presence as ‘occupied territories’” because they believe the term implicitly suggests that Israeli troops should not be in the area.”

Christie apologized to Adelson, who accepted the governor’s mea culpa.

It just goes to show how politicians need to be sure they don’t let their mojo get in the way of better judgment and use of words.

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Kerry cannot possibly be an anti-Semite

An interesting development has emerged in Secretary of State John Kerry’s difficult struggle to find peace in the Middle East.

It turns out that the angry charges leveled at him by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet members — that Kerry’s promoting “anti-Semitic” notions — cannot possibly be true. Kerry’s family name originally was Kohn and that Kerry’s family has Jewish origins.

Grandpa Kerry/Kohn changed his name and his religion, from Jewish to Catholic, which John Kerry learned shortly before announcing his presidential candidacy in 2003.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/kerrys-brother-johns-not-anti-semitic-were-jewish-n30576

In fact, Cameron Kerry — the secretary of state’s brother — is a practicing Jew to this day, having married a Jewish woman.

Israeli foreign ministry officials, of course, are quite sensitive to any comments they construe to be against their interests. John Kerry said recently that “The risks are very high for Israel” after meeting with Iranian officials about plans to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli officials took that to mean Israel needed to watch its step if it continued to threaten Iran with military action.

Naftali Bennett, an industry minister, said, “We expect of our friends in the world to stand by our side against the attempts to impose an anti-Semitic boycott on Israel, and not to be their mouthpiece.”

I understand fully the Israelis’ angst over negotiating with a country that has declared its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the planet. Let us take care, though, to avoid throwing around pejorative terms like “anti-Semitic” where it regards someone whose family roots run deep in the Holy Land.

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Yes, even babies can get a TSA pat-down

We are living in a strange new world, brought to us to by some terrorists who on Sept. 11, 2001 attacked the United States of America by using commercial jetliners as deadly weapons.

Everyone who boards an airplane is subject to potentially intense scrutiny by security agents working for the federal government.

Isn’t that right, Alec Baldwin?

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/alec-baldwin-5-month-old-daughter-selected-tsa-pat-article-1.1593109

Baldwin was returning from a vacation with his wife and five-month-old daughter, Carmen, when Transportation Security Administration agents decided to pat down — gulp! — the baby.

The sometimes-tempestuous actor tweeted about the incident, signing off with the hashtag #travelingUSisadisgrace.

I won’t get into Baldwin’s previous run-ins with flight crews and airport security officials, but I feel an odd obligation to defend the TSA in this latest incident.

I’m not sure how I would react if I was traveling, say, with my 11-month-old granddaughter and some TSA agent pulled Emma out of a line and started patting her down. I might express more-than-mild surprise, I suppose.

However, from a distance as it relates to little Carmen getting frisked, I have the luxury of being able to reflect just a bit.

Consider a couple of things here:

The bad guys who killed all those people on 9/11 told the world that virtually any act of evil is possible when flying on an jetliner. We also know that terrorists would use any means necessary — any means at all — to harm others. That means they would be fully capable of arming infants with explosive devices.

What’s more, it is totally plausible that someone seeking to sneak contraband into a country — say, drugs or weapons — might consider stuffing it into a baby’s diaper. Is it possible? The question you have to wonder, though, is its probability. Why take the chance to assume that such a thing cannot happen?

I’ve been aggravated myself by overzealous TSA agents in the years since 9/11. My wife and I have traveled some overseas and we’ve been subjected to intense scrutiny by security agents. You haven’t lived, for example, until you’ve been interrogated by an Israeli airport security guard at David Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

One consideration in this Baby Baldwin pat-down caper has to be how the TSA agent handled it. Was he or she discreet? Was the agent courteous and did the agent explain fully why? My wife and I were leaving Venizelos International Airport in Athens in November 2001 — two months after 9/11 — and had every luggage item searched meticulously by an agent, who took the time to apologize profusely for the intrusion.

Should it be routine to frisk every baby who flies on these commercial jetliners? No. I do get, though, the need to take extra precaution, even if it involves an act that seems ludicrous.

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Biden multi-tasks: peace talks with memorial service

Vice President Joe Biden took advantage of a key opportunity today to visit with Israeli President Shimon Peres about the need to keep peace talks going with the Palestinian Authority.

Biden presses Israel on peace talks

Biden went to Israel to attend the memorial service for the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who died over the weekend at age 85.

The VP’s message was that Israel should recognize Palestinian autonomy while seeking guarantees of its own security.

For his part, Peres told Biden that the Palestinians aren’t the “enemy.

“They are our neighbors and our friends,” he said, adding that terrorism is “destroying their fabric.”

That’s a realistic view of life in that terribly troubled region.

“Anytime that you have a leader from the United States as significant as Vice President Biden sitting down with the prime minister of Israel, which Vice President Biden will be doing while we’re here, there’s an opportunity for progress,” she said. “Every time there is an opportunity for progress, for the United States to be in a position to help Israel in the cause of crafting and finalizing a two-state solution, we take that opportunity.”

I’m reminded of what the great Winston Churchill once said about the value of talking. “To jaw-jaw always is better than to war-war,” Churchill said.

Keep jawing.

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Ariel Sharon, the warrior’s warrior

Ariel Sharon was fearless in his belief in Israel.

He fought valiantly for its creation and fought against its enemies when they attacked it. Sharon, who died this week after lying in a coma for years, made no apologies for anything he ever said or did on behalf of his country.

As New York Times essayist Ronen Bergman notes, Sharon could have been the one to make peace with the Palestinians. Somehow he fell short of that noble goal.

I’m kind of reminded of the axiom of how “only Nixon could go to China,” referring to the notable cold warrior President Richard Nixon opening the diplomatic door to the People’s Republic of China, governed by the hated communists. President Nixon made the correct overture in the early 1970s and it changed the geopolitical landscape forever.

Sharon, who served as Israel’s prime minister, also had that kind of credibility is it related to the Palestinians, with whom he fought on the battlefield. He could have been the one to broker a deal with the hated neighbors who have been committed to the destruction of Israel.

As it turned out, it fell to another battle-hardened warrior, Israelis Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, to reach a peace accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat. The two men shook hands at the White House in a ceremony moderated by President Bill Clinton.

Two years later, Rabin would die at the hand of a rabid Israeli nationalist assassin who hated him for the deal he reached with Arafat.

Would such a fate have befallen Ariel Sharon? He could have shown additional courage by striking a peace deal. Sadly, he didn’t take fullest advantage of his own Nixon moment.

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Mourning a far-away friend

I am in mourning this evening.

News came in this morning over Facebook of a death that has hit me hard. I feel the need to share briefly why I am grieving.

My friend’s name was Shlomo Bleiberg, who lived in Be’er Sheva, Israel with his wife, Liora. Shlomo was a physician, a big bear of a man and a kind gentleman who opened up his home and his heart to a group of strangers who had come to visit his country for a month in May-June 2009.

I was one of those strangers. I had the honor of leading a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team to Israel more than four years ago. Our flight was late arriving at David Ben-Gurion International Airport, and we were met by our Israeli hosts along with a GSE team from The Netherlands, with whom we would travel through the country for the next month.

We scurried off to Be’er Sheva, our first stop. One of our hosts was Shlomo Bleiberg.

We weren’t with Shlomo for very long, just a few days. But in that time he endeared himself to us forever. He was a kind man. It turned out we were fortunate he had extensive medical training, as one of our GSE team members, Shirley Davis of Levelland, suffered a sprained ankle on the second or third day of our trip. Shlomo treated it, wrapped it and told Shirley to take it easy on the tender ankle.

He would take us swimming in the Dead Sea and would accompany us to Masada, two of the most popular sites in the Holy Land.

Now he’s gone. I think I can speak for all of our team members that we wish we could be there for Liora. All that’s left is to mourn our friend.

I mention this because these exchanges sponsored by Rotary International routinely produce the kind of friendships and warmth that last long after we part company. Indeed, part of Rotary’s famed Four Way Test compels us to act in ways that “build good will and better friendships.”

Our time spent in a far away country did all of that for us who had the honor of taking part in this grand adventure.

Shlomo Bleiberg was a big part of an experience that changed all of us.

Rest in peace, Shlomo.