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Day 3: Rev. Ritsch’s Trip to Israel and the PA

 night I ended up sleeping only about two hours. Between staying up too late with the Pinchases and jet lag, I ended up staying up virtually all night. As a result, I spent Wednesday in a vaguely zombie-like state. After breakfast, we road-tripped to Netafim, a firm engaged in creating sophisticated conservative water systems that are easy to use in developing areas. Their systems are used in many Third World coutnries and the PA. Honestly, this doesn’t interest me very much, ewspecially in my zombie state; but the point of this trip is to look at how to invest in peace—not only figuratively, but literally. Businesses like Netafim provide products that serve the whole Middle East, not simply Israel. As we discovered yesterday at the Peres Center, environmental matters like water use and conservation, where Israel has excelled at literally making the desert bloom, are matters that necessarily require cooperation between all parties in the Middle East. And of course, it’s hard to knock a program that benefits not only Israel, but the Palestinians and many other countries in need.

We next travelled to Isfiya Druze Village. Often in the news we hear them described as “Druze Muslims,” but in fact the Druze are not Muslim at all. They view themselves as a mystical reform movement that broke away from Islam over a thousand years ago, and they believe very different things. They believe in one God, but otherwise, our speaker told us, they are quite different from the Muslims. Their beliefs in many ways are reflective of Buddhist thought. Furthermore, they believe in reincarnation, reflecting their belief that humanity is on an inevitable course toward improvement. They believe strongly that they are to contribute to the society where they are planted, and as a result those who live in Israel have committed to being loyal Israeli citizens. About 130,000 Druze live in Israel, mostly in the mountains.

About 20% of Israel is Arab. Though in theory they are equal, in fact it does work out that there is less opportunity for Arabs than there is for Jews. Still, the Druze in this city live well, in extremely attractive and distinctive houses. Our hosts were extremely gracious and fed us like kings. I swear I’ll have to start a major diet when I get back home, but I’ve given up here. It’d be rude not to eat when they offer it so sincerely!

Our next trip took us to Nazareth, but not for religious reasons—again, we were looking at businesses that seem to contribute to the peace process. Nazareth today is an Arab Israeli city. We were visiting NGT3, who oversee the distribution of money the Israeli government is providing to startups. It’s an interesting model, and one the US should consider: companies like NGT3 become the middle man between the government and entrepreneurs, which requires the government to screen the middle man rather than all the potential businesses themselves, and to trust NGT3 to oversee the work of the projects they are funding, because they, too, have a financial interest in seeing the businesses succeed. NGT3 specializes in medical device-related companies. They’ve established 27 companies, 13 of which are Arab-owned.

This company is very committed to working with Arab Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs, and the main speaker clearly has a Labour, rather than Likud, leaning. But she says it’s extremely difficult to work with Palestinian companies. “They have no rights. They’re occupied. But they’re also under the PA—“ the Palestinian Authority, which they view as incompetent or corrupt.

We asked her opinion of the BDS, or boycott movement. She is no fan of the occupation, but, she says, a boycott is probably not the solution. “I think a boycott may backfire,” she said. “Jews are stubborn. We might just say, ‘We’ll prove we can do it without international help,’ and do it.”

Following our visit to NGT3, we travelled to the Nazareth Church of the Annunciation, supposedly set on the site where the angel told Mary that she was pregnant with Jesus. A magnificent church—the biggest in the Middle East—houses the arched grotto which is the supposed site of Gabriel’s announcement. The church has been maintained by Franciscans and was remodeled for Pope John Paul II visit in 2000. It’s location in what is now an Arab Muslim city in Israel has created tensions. For instance, during the remodeling, a Muslim group suddenly declared that its site was actually a Muslim holy site and set up camp and tried to hold up the renovation, which caused tension in the city, with the government, and with the Vatican.  Fortunately the movement didn’t gather too much steam—protests were called against the church, which garnered virtually no response. But the tensions are real.

That night we went to Nof Ginosar Kibbutz Hotel, a kibbutz that has reinvented itself as a very nice hotel. Many kibbutzim have discovered they’ve lived beyond their original purposes—as socialist-style experiments in collective living, based mainly in farming—and have reinvented themselves as more capitalist enterprises, becoming businesses or industries in which the kibbutz invests its collective identity. This kibbutz is located right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, about which more next time. For now, I can assure you that I arrived, skipped dinner, went to my room, and slept 10 hours straight.