A Storm Over Nazareth

Storm over Nazareth

Last week in Nazareth, Israel, stormy weather approaching, an Arab Israeli citizen, Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim, the Imam of Nazareth, was arrested for inciting violence. In the backdrop a historical reconstruction of the town reminds us that Nazareth was once a Jewish city in the heart of a Roman province.

Nazareth, 1st Century AD
In those turbulent times the governing power was Rome, and the Jewish people were the ones in conflict with their government. Some Jews argued then, as this Israeli citizen argues today, that one must take arms against injustices and fight for his belief with force.
Meanwhile a Jewish boy grew up in Nazareth, and became a preacher. He preached of tolerance, of benevolence and of turning the other cheek. His name was Jesus. His crucifixion would mark the beginning of the Christian faith. Soon after, the faith was adopted by a regional empire: The Armenian Empire. The Armenian people stood fast to their faith for 18 centuries even when they were conquered by the Mongols and under Arab rule in the 13th century.
Nazareth, 19 hundreds
By World War I, the Ottoman Empire was the dominant Muslim power and it was set on destroying these ancient people. Genocide followed.
Many Armenians fled from turkey and ended up in Israel, some in Nazareth. A small community of Armenians still lives here till this day. The underground Jewish organizations, living in Palestine under Ottuman rule heard their stories of mass killings and coupled with the new laws issued for Jewish deportation they realized that the Jews might be next. This contributed to their decision to change sides and assist the British as they conquered the Middle East.
After the Second World War and the genocide perpetrated against European Jews, many Jews came to Israel.  The British, attempted to prevent the influx and fell out of favor with both Jewish and Arab residents. At the end they divided the land in accordance to its population. As Nazareth was mostly Arab it was supposed to be under Arab rule. However war broke and Israel conquered the town.

Nazareth, Today
Nazareth is a prominently Arab city and many Arab citizens don't approve of Israel. Salim is one. Salim called for a Jihad (Muslim holy war) against the state of Israel and called it Satan. He gave sermons and circulated leaflets to the worshipers at his mosque telling them to act against the state. 
There it is, a full circle. History is a storm. You may be basking in the sun one minute and shattered on the rocks the next. The question is what you do when that storm arrives.  The winds of change have put the Jewish people in power and Salim chose to fight this change with violent conviction.
The question we must ask ourselves is where history will carry Nazareth tomorrow. Where will our hometown be tomorrow? We must remember that our place may change and that our actions of violence as well as those of benevolence will become our legacy for better or worse.
What legacy do you want to leave behind ?

DeLorean in Orthodox Jerusalem

DeLorean in Mea Sha'arim

A drive through Mea Shaarim, an ultra orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, might as well be taken in a time-traveling DeLorean. It takes us on a journey to a different place and time, A Ghetto in Eastern Europe of the 1800's. 

Most people are quite surprised to see the circular fur hats worn in the scorching summer heat or a man raising his palms and shyly blocking his vision at the sight of a woman. These day-to-day gestures have continued day-by-day for hundreds of years.  For the people of this god fearing neighborhood they are not simply idiosyncrasies, or traditional whims, they are the very fabric of life.

As I walk through the street, I think of the data made public last week. 53% of the orthodox community in Israel falls below the poverty line. Once again, the snapshot reality of the media fails to point out the historical context of this fragment of Jerusalem.   

During the Holocaust, the Jewish orthodox intellectual crowd took a difficult blow. Most where easily identified as Jews by the Nazi régime and murdered. Few escaped to the holy land, but for those who escaped Israel was just a historical haven and they had no ambitions for statehood, some even thought that an establishment of such a state before the coming of the messiah was a sin. 

Israel was established as a Jewish and democratic state, and to its founders that meant the Jewish element that was destroyed must be nurtured. The plan was to provide the orthodox 'wise men' or rabbis who see "Torah as their Craft" with a government income so they could once again become fertile ground for thinkers and religious leaders. This population grew quickly and enjoyed a very unique and protected lifestyle. 

For more than 60 years, two narratives evolved separately by neighboring Israeli Jews. One of a liberal, secular, democratic country that will draw on its Hebrew heritage for inspiration and direction in a world of conflicts, and another of religious riotousness and a belief that God's law is above state law and tradition above liberty. These cultures would have to clash eventually.

Today the orthodox community in Israel is a paradox. It can no longer shut out the world but is unable to integrate itself into the culture around it, it is unable to sustain itself economically through study and yet unable to find employment in the modern world. 

As I stroll through the Ultra-Kosher shops, the bible-study rooms and stare upwards at the laundry lines of the many poor but large families living here I can't help but wonder how or if they grasp their own dilemma. 

With extreme tradition these simple people have managed to beat the Nazi war machine and revive their community just as it was hundreds of years earlier. But just like the protagonist in a Greek tragedy, their attempt at escaping a horrible doom proved to be their downfall. 

Their way of life is a relic of the past, detached from modern life and in danger of extension and yet, the Orthodox Jew with his fur hat, dark overcoat and ironic existence, is forever a part of the Israeli mosaic, a master piece of diversity that makes this country unique and beautiful.        

A Scary World and the Myth of the Lone Bomber

Bomb in Turkey! coordinated attacks in Iraq! printer-bomb found Yemen plane! Iran weapon ship stopped on its way to Africa! What a scary place our world has become.

How has this happened? Where did we go wrong?

Terrorist bombers have existed for decades. Israel used to be a focal point for fundamental Islamic terror organizations. With the birth of terror bombings a new myth emerged.

Media reported of a bomber, crazed and oppressed by the forces of occupation. This troubled soul was lead to a desperate act of violence as defiance; Whereas the bomber is perhaps reproachable, the media pleaded, his act is but a red flag to encourage us to look at his desperate cause.

This was what we would call "The Myth of the Lone Bomber". Why a myth?
As we can learn from terrorist attacks the world over this is almost never the case. Take for example the attack on Mike's Place, an Israeli Bar a few years back. This young Muslim bomber was a British college dropout who was unemployed and yes, he was desperate. However here is the route he underwent before finally committing his desperate act:

Indoctrinated in Jihadist Islamic Ideas through his local mosque, he became an activist in London. Recruited as an Islamic soldier to Bosnia fighting for the Mujahidin, he then flew to Syria, then to Pakistan for combat training, passed the border and met with Al-Qaida in Afghanistan, fought allied forces, then flew back to London and once more to Syria from which he was supposed to be taken to Iraq to combat allied forces yet again, but his mission changed and he was handed over to Hamas.

This is where his Jihadist ideology would finally be transformed into action but not before Hamas would drive him through Jordan across the border to Israel to research possible bombing targets, then invite him back to Gaza for more mental training, recording his farewell tape and receiving his already prepared trigger and explosives.

Luckily this man did not manage to carry out the attack, his bomb did not go off. His partner yet another desperate soul with a similar route was the one that ended up committing mass murder as an act of defiance in Mike's Place.
Not Exactly a one man show, is it?


What is clear from all the current events is that there is a network surrounding the bomber. The bomb itself is just the most apparent part of the network, the tip of the Iceburg.

This network provides the ideological doctrine, identifies and recruits , trains, transports, smuggles weapons and explosive, engineers the bomb, plans the route, provides documents and takes care of media relations after the attack.
Yes it is easier to recruit people who are desperate and yes the occupation is one of the reasons that a lot of people are desperate in the small Gaza strip but why are British Muslims desperate not to mention Iraqis, Saudis and Yemenites, Turks, and Kurds?

Should we look at London's underprivileged class as a breeding ground for terror because it inspires desperate bombers? We think not.

We believe that this myth of the bomber being just a symptom of desperate plight as oppose to a fanatic ideology and network of terror, rewards terror organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah and encourages them to continue utilizing terror as a means to an end.

If terror is allowed to be an effective tool to voice an opinion in Israel, than why not in Iraq or for that matter England or the United States.

At Identity Travel we encourage people to plead their case through dialogue, and to travel throughout the world, meeting other people with other views, listening and constantly reassessing their own opinions.

After all, as Mark Twain said "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness".

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