11 May: Golan Heights - Upper and North Galilea

Today my car was really essential. I would not have been able to see all this in one day without it. I drove from Zefat,where I had still visited the old cemeteries before leaving, through Upper Galiea all the way to the Lebanese border, then through the Golan Heights and then back to Tiberias, on the Galilean See (or as we Germans call it: the lake of Genezareth), where I am now staying for two nights. I warn you, today I will write quiet a bit about history and politics.. but this is also one of the reasons why I came here.. I wanted to see with my own eyes what the situation is and also learn what had happened here in the last decades.. Yes, you an read it in history books and then you forget it quickly.. Once you have been at a place, you will not forget that easilily anymore..
First I drove up to Metula, the last Israeli town before the Lebanese border. Already hundreds of meters before, there are possibilities to block the roads, inspection posts and then you arrive at the "good fence border".. what a name !!! But there really is a fence (not good though..), but the border crossing, opened in 1976 was closed again in 2000 when Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon and it was not needed anymore for military reasons.. if there was no sign, in the end, it does not look like a border between two ennemies.. there are flowers and blooming bushes everywhere.. and on either side of the street there are fruit trees.. Just next to the border, several blocks of newly built family houses, all exactly the same, with garden and car in the front, not even hundred metres from the border. I wondered what the government paid these families to build a house right there... but this you also can see on the Golan Heights, where I drove next: there are Jewish settlements in the middle of the mainly Druze villages, completely surrounded by a fence and by gates closing at night... (!!) And many Kibbuz' and Moshavs developped around here which cultivate fruits (mainly apples) and grapes to make wine..
Golan is such a good or should I say bad example of the conflict in the Middle East: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad , when recently visiting Austria, stated again that peace in the Middle East was only possible if Lebanon and Syria were parties to the agreement and peace with Syria was only possible if Israel returnd the Golan, not because this was a stategic area, but because it rightly belonged to Syria. To recall the facts: Israel took the Golan during the 6-day-war in 1967 and about 90 % of its inhabitants fled or were expelled. During the Yom-Kippur-war in 1973, Syria won it partly back for a very short time until Israel pushed the Syrian armee back to the current borders. Today, there is a small stripe of land of the Eastern Golan, a kind of no-men's land between Israel and Syria, called "disengagement zone" and controlled by around 1000 UN-soldiers. On the Israeli side of it, there is a viewpoint on the disengagement zone and the former city of Al Quneitra (distroyed by Israel in 1967). There is a machine where you can push a button to hear the history of what happened in the Golan (for free) and it is quite incredible what a kind of propaganda this is... I was not there and I am not an expert, and even if the facts are true, the way it is presented profoundly shocked me!
You can see the proofs of these tensions still today, notably the abandoned old tanks and other weapons, the bomb shelters next to streets and in towns such as Metula in order to hide in case of rocket-fire, the "Attention! Mines!" signs (landmines were put here by Syrians in the 60ies and 70ies and Isreal did not clean them up since they think they could still serve them in case of crisis) and a very high Israeli military presence. Actually, I heard quite a bit of shooting going on, not only from machine guns, but also from tanks (much louder) and I got a bit nervous. This seems however to be normal here, I was told later by Murat, because the Israeli armee carries out trainings /manoeuvres every day in this area.
Actually I gave a lift to Murat, a Druze who is soldier in the Israeli armee. He was all dressed up and had his machine gun around his shoulders.. I hesitated quite a while whether I should give him the lift and fwas already some hundreds metres further when I finally decided to do so in order to be able to ask some questions... I drove back.. Unfortunately, his English was very basic and communication therefore not easy.. I would have liked to ask so many more questions... As I said, he is a DRUZE serving in the Israeli armee, which for the Golan Heights in rather unusual because the Druze there often feel themselves rather as Syrian and sometimes even refuse to accept an Israeli passport, even if they live on Israeli territory. He told me that he loved the Jews and that Israel had its right to exist. He accused the neighbouring arab countries for not letting Israel live in peace, as an example he quoted the rockets from the Hezbollah, which were fired to the Golan from Lebanon in summer 2006.... His mother only speaks Arabic, but nevertheless, the whole family seems to identify completely with Israel.
Once Murat got off the car, I continued towards Tiberias, situated on the Galilean see. It was great to see all of a suddent the blue water appear i the late evening sun, with the rocks around it all shining up in red. WOW ! A pity there was no possibility to stop and take a picture. I also finally found my way to Arbél, the tiny village close to Tiberias, where I booked at bed&breakfast on a small family farm.. ;-) good night !
With all these politics, I forgot to report what I actually did most of the day: I visited the springs, waterfall and ruins of Banyas, where I made a very pleasant 2-hour hike along the river, from the falls to the springs and back and then visited the Nimrod-fortress built at the beginning of the 12th century, situated on top of a mountain, in the middle of the Golan with incredible views !! There I passed another one of the Israeli settlements: a skiing station: Neve Ativ... ;-)
Today's photos at
http://picasaweb.google.de/muellju/Israel2?authkey=Gv1sRgCP2w6tDPm7Tw8QE&feat=directlink