And now, from our man in Jerusalem…

Being here in Jerusalem, I feel a little bit like a foreign correspondent sent to cover the election. I’ll take a few minutes to give you the rundown on the election and share a few of my thoughts. As it turned out, the election results were quite interesting, even if many Israelis weren’t interested enough to vote- it was the lowest voter turnout (63%) of any Israeli election in history. If you haven’t heard by now, here is latest expected breakdown of the 120 seats in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament):

Kadima (The party Ariel Sharon founded after leaving Likud): 28 Seats
Labor (The traditional left-of centre party): 20 Seats
Shas (The religious Sepharadi party): 13 Seats
Yisrael Beitenu (A right-wing party catering mostly to the Russian immigrant vote): 12 Seats
Likud (A shadow of its former self after Sharon’s departure): 11 Seats
The Pensioners’ Party (A single-issue party bent on improving quality of life for Israel’s seniors): 7 Seats
National Union- National Religious Party (right-wing, pro-settlement party): 9 Seats
United Torah Judaism: 6 Seats
Meretz (Probably the most “dove-ish” of Israel’s parties):4 Seats
The three main Arab-Israeli parties: 10 Seats

The main story here has been the extremely low (by Israeli standards) voter turnout. Israel used to boast some of the highest rates of voter participation observed in any democracy, routinely hitting 80%. From my perspective, there are a few reasons for the low turnout this time:

1) Election Fatigue: This was Israel’s third election in five years. Due to Israel’s system of proportional representation, it is very rare for a party to win a majority of the Knesset, therefore; in order to govern, winning parties must forge a coalition with their political opponents. The result is two-fold: 1) small parties often have outsized influence on the government if they are needed to reach critical mass for the coalition; and 2) the resulting coalition can be unstable, and will often disintegrate prior to the end of the term. Understandably, given this situation, many Israelis are somewhat jaded about the whole process.

2) A Brand-New Governing Party: The Kadima party is touting this election as a major victory, since only a few months ago, Kadima was only a gleam in Arik Sharon’s eye. The fact is that the 28 seats the party won is way down from mid-campaign polls that had them winning over 40 seats (which would have been a very strong mandate for the new party). I think that as a new party, Kadima did not have the same grass-roots organization and experience that the other parties had in “getting out the vote”. We’ve seen how important this element has been in the US elections, where huge efforts are made to mobilize the party’s power base.

3) Where’s the Passion? Without Ariel Sharon, who had tremendous popular appeal, Kadima relied on the leadership of Ehud Olmert, the former mayor of Jerusalem who just doesn’t have the same appeal to the masses. In truth, the only leader that really seemed to get people excited was Avigdor Lieberman, the tough-talking leader of the Yisrael Beitenu party (whose success was one of the big surprises in this election).


So now, with this luke-warm reception at the polls, Ehud Olmert has the task of putting together a coalition government that will enable him to carry out his platform of unilateral disengagement from the West Bank, a move that will displace roughly 70,000 settlers. It looks like the Labor party will support this aim, but the key question now is where to find the remaining 13 seats needed to govern. Some pundits are speculating that Olmert will round out his coalition with Labor, the Pensioners’ party and one or both of Shas and United Torah Judaism.

The next little while will be very interesting, and I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the negotiation rooms as the political jockeying for places in the government and cabinet seats heats up. It will also be interesting to see the fate of Bibi Netanyahu, after the crushing defeat handed to his Likud party. The 11-seat haul is particularly shocking considering that Likud had been in power nearly continuously for the last 20 years.

People’s reactions to the vote here have been everything from indifferent to fiery. The orange-clad National Union Party supporters may win the prize for being the most vocal. They definitely commanded plenty of attention for their cause supporting the settlements in the West Bank. Perhaps they were loudest because this election was more than anything a referendum on the fate of West-Bank settlements, with most Israelis coming down on the other side.

I think the biggest success of the election was that it went off without a hitch. All of the security forces and the IDF were on high alert for any violence, and there seemed to be very little of it. In fact, the PA seemed to be taking advantage of the international media presence to issue some relatively moderate statements. Is Abbas merely trying to save face? Whether he is sincere or not remains to be seen, but I can hope can’t I?

Exploring the Old City

It's Sunday night and I'm looking forward to another week at the Center. This weekend, I had the opportunity to do some exploring around the Old City.
Jerusalem's Old City has the highest concentration of holy sites in the world, all packed into an area less than 1 square km.

After walking down Yaffa (or Jaffa) street I entered the Old City through the Jaffa Gate and walked through the Armenian Quarter, and into the Christian and Jewish Quarters.


This is a typical street in the Old City, next to the restored main street from the Roman times, called the Cardo.














In 1967, the entire Old City of Jerusalem was captured by Israel, ending the division that had been in place ince 1948. It once again became possible for Jews to visit the holy site of the Western Wall. The reunification of the Old City also spawned a massive restoration effort of the Jewish Quarter (see the inscription on the bottom left tile).



Another street in the Old City, with people walking home from visiting the Western Wall (or Kotel, in Hebrew).








I was wandering through the Christian Quarter, when I happened upon this: the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is one of the holiest sites in Christianity and is jointly administered by several different Christian sects who share responsibilities in a relatively tense arrangement that has been known to erupt in fist fights. The responsibilities of the various monks are minutely laid out in a charter that was established in the 19th century. In a humourous oversight, none of the orders was assigned responibility for the exterior of the building, so when a wooden ladder was placed on the window sill above the entrance in the 1850's, none of the monks wanted to cause an incident by removing it. If you look at the picture I took this weekend, you can see that this "Immovable ladder" is still there.





I found this picture of the ladder dating from 1892 on Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org).














The pink-hued stone seen here is called "The Stone of Unction," and is purported to be the stone where Jesus' body was prepared for burial after being taken down from the cross. Pilgrims from around the world come here to touch and kiss the stone.






The Church is also supposed to contain the tomb (or sepulchre) of Jesus. Of course, some people argue the authenticity of the artifacts here, but from my perspective, the "authenticity" of these objects has little to do with their actual importance. Whether or not they are real, people have been coming to see these artifacts and to feel closer to their faith for over a thousand years.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates - I'll definitely write a little on the election happening here on Tuesday.

Cheers,
Seth

Some Pictures from Israel

Shabbat Shalom everyone,
It's Friday night in Jerusalem and everything is pretty quiet for the Jewish sabbath (shabbat).
I finally figured out how to post some pictures, so here are a few to start with.




I took this photo on the way from Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem. Can you tell that I'm excited to be here?








My first glimpse of the areas around Jerusalem. This area is quite hilly, and Jerusalem actually sits about 800m above sea level.













A view of the walls of the old city approaching Jaffa Gate. These walls date from 16th century and were built (or rebuilt) by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. I find it interesting to see the cars on the modern highway zipping by next to the old city.








Here's a shot of me with my grandmother (who I hadn't seen for 5 years) .













A little "brotherly love" between two of my seven cousins who live here in Israel. Benaya (left), is 19 and just had a complete lung transplant. He is doing amazingly well now - I saw him running up and down stairs and carrying heavy groceries for his mom. What an incredible kid! Elya-Menachem (10 years old) is named after my dad. Since they don't speak much (or any) English, I related to them in my pre-school level Hebrew and set Elya up playing Brickbreaker on my Blackberry. Cool gadgets can cross any language barrier, can't they?

First Week in Israel

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my blog about my trip to Israel.
Most of you will know this, but I'm here in Jerusalem, on a non-profit fellowship, sponsored by my employer (thank you Mercer) for the next three months. While I am here, I will be working for an organization called Seeds of Peace.

Seeds of Peace is an organization that brings together Israeli and Palestinian youth (aged 13-15) and sends them to a Summer camp in Maine, where they practice their English, engage in daily dialogue sessions, and most importantly, form bonds of friendship and understanding that are the foundations of peaceful coexistence. Seeds of Peace does not only deal with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The camp also brings together Turkish and Greek Cypriots, Indians and Pakistanis, and delegations from the former Yugoslav republics in the Balkans.

The Seeds of Peace Center for Coexistence (where I am working for the summer), of course is primarily concerned with the Palestinian Israeli conflict. The purpose of the center is to provide a point of contact for the Seeds (kids who have gone to camp are called "Seeds") and to provide much needed support outside of the camp environment, when re-integration into their respective communities can be difficult.

The Center is a quite impressive building in Jerusalem stone (for those of you who don't know, all buildings in Jerusalem are required to be built in this cream-colored stone), and it is located about 500 m East (on the Arab side) of the 1949 "Green Line" that divided Israel from the West bank. This portion of East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War (also known as The June War) in 1967.

This week has been a real whirlwind, with my arrival in Jerusalem, searching for an apartment, visiting family and starting work at Seeds of Peace. Here are a few highlights I'd like to share with you all.

1) Seeds of Hope

Yesterday, there was a presentation held at the Center where 4 Seeds (2 Jewish Israelis, and 2 Palestinians) had a panel discussion for a group of Muslim and Jewish college students who are on a trip here in Israel. This was more of an educational program for the visiting students, rather than a program for the Seeds. The Seeds were all 17-18 years old and had been to the camp in 2003-4. I was really struck by how articulate, thoughtful and dedicated to peace these kids were. The thing that hit me most was the clearly visible bonds of friendship that existed between the Israeli and Palestinian Seeds. One of the Israeli Seeds is a soldier in the army now (Israel has mandatory military service when you turn 18) and he told the group about how his Palestinian friends called to wish him good luck before he entered the IDF (Israel Defense Force). It was a particulary impressive moment watching after the session was over, as the Seeds said goodbye to each other. I could see the genuine friendship between them. It gave me hope for peace in the future, and solidified my understanding of the impact of what this organization is doing.

2) Detour on the way to work

As I was riding my bike to work this morning (I'm trying to avoid buses), the road that I usually take to work was blocked off by a bus. Not thinking anything of it, I biked around the bus and started riding up the street, which was deserted. All of a sudden, someone ran over from the side of the street and yelled at me to get off the road. Once I was a safe distance away, I asked someone what was going on. Apparently, a suspicious package was reported in a phone booth up the street and the Police were taking care of it. The pedestrian I spoke to was so matter of fact about it, simply saying "this happens here." The reaction was so calm. I can't imagine what the reaction would have been at home.

3) Thursday Night on Ben Yehuda Street

Tonight, after grabbing a bite to eat in a restaurant off Ben Yehuda Street (the central pedestrian area of downtown Jerusalem), I was drawn to a crowd that had gathered around in the middle of the square. A bunch of kids (they must have been 16 or 17) had set up some speakers and were taking turns breakdancing in the center of a crowd of people that had come to watch. On the periphery of the circle, I could see a group of soldiers, in their green uniforms, with machine guns strapped to their backs, watching appreciatively. It hit me that these soldiers are only 18 years old! They were probably breakdancing in this square last year, and many of the kids here now will be soldiers next year. What a difference a year makes. I have to wonder what my life would have been like if I had gone to the army at 18.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for listening to my ramblings.

I'll try to update this site as much as I can. Please feel free to comment on the site and send me notes if you agree/disagree with anything I'm saying.

Cheers,

Seth