On Salah a-Din Street, the main street on the Arab side of thecapital, the spirit was very different. People kept their heads down,aware that they were being watched, aware that the Jews weren\’t toofond of them these days.
After 50 years of evasion, soft sell andhalf-truths, Israelis are coming to terms with the darker side oftheir own history.
Over the past two years, Jerusalem alone has beenshaken by two bus bombings and by explosions in the Mahane Yehudamarket and the Ben-Yehuda shopping precinct.
You get thesense that Israel at 50 is like a bar mitzvah boy who doesn\’t want aparty — not until he gets taller and his acne clears up. Not untilhe feels normal.
In the last four years the people of Israel witnessed two contrasting realities in their pursuit of peace with the Palestinians. True, there had been a stunning series of diplomatic breakthroughs between Israel and the PLO, that was followed by apeace treaty with Jordan and a web of new relationships with a half dozen Arab states. Israelis were filled with hope that at long last their state of siege had ended and they could look forward to an era of normalcy and safety.
\”I know your relatives all think you\’re crazy, but we\’re gladyou\’re here,\” our tour guide, Zvi Lev-Ran, said as 36 tired Angelenospiled onto a bus after a 13-hour flight aboard a chartered El Al747-400 from Los Angeles. We were part of the largest mission eversponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. More thanhalf of the 430 participants were first-timers, including myself.Having been born almost exactly one year after the birth of Israel,in 1948, it seemed fitting that I participate in this mission, whichwas timed to coincide with festivities launching the Jewish state\’sgolden anniversary celebration.
For Friedman, the CyberPeace idea began in September 1993 with thehistoric White House handshake between Israeli Prime Minister YitzhakRabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. The Internet projectcrystallized after Friedman\’s own handshake with Rabin one morning inNovember 1994.
Relations between the Diaspora and Israel \”were torn apart by a lethal combination of rising Orthodox fanaticism and a Netanyahu government that\’s pandering to increasingly crude Orthodox political coercion,\” said Wilshire Boulevard Temple\’s Rabbi Harvey J. Fields, among the American Reform movement\’s most prominent leaders.
There has been tremendous pressure to lash out and hit back following the two most recent suicide bombings in Jerusalem, Gillon said in a recent interview at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
As Israel nears its 50th birthday, events have shifted attentionaway from the stalled peace talks. What dominates the headlines nowis the warlike rhetoric among Jewish factions — both within Israeland in the Diaspora — as they clash over the issue of religiouspluralism.
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