Days off in Israel with a ukulele

I wouldn't normally write about my days off, but these were too
fascinating. And they gave me quite an insight into life on the "other
side" of the wall. I heard about Paul Moore from a ukulele playing
relative. He runs a ukulele orchestra for children from both Arab and
Jewish families.The children and their parents all meet in each
other's houses for rehearsals in the towns of At Tira and Hod
Hasharon, one an Arab town, one Jewish. Paul's group is called
Ukuleles for Peace and it's been going for about 6 yerars. The young
people in it are extremely talented. I had the privelege of attending
rehearsals of both the younger and the older groups and I've put some pictures on Facebook, for those of you who do that sort of thing.

So, I travelled with my colleague Wenche first to Tel Aviv. Actually I
was quite surprised, because I had been expecting this smart, European style place, but what we saw of it was rubbish strewn, down at heel and pretty grotty. We changed buses there to Haifa, which looks more interesting, being a port, and is a very mixed town where Arabs, Jews and all sorts of other people live pretty close together. Finally we took a bus from there to Karmiel, which some of you may have heard of.
Recently a right wing group there has been trying to prevent Arabs
from settling in the town, because they see Karmiel as key to
Judaising the Galilee. Paul picked us up from there are drove us up to
his village high up in the West Galilee Mountains, in a place caled
Harashim. There he lives with his wife Dafna, son Alon and 7 cats in a
caravan called The Last Homely House. He is an old hippy from England
who came to work on a kibbutz in the 70s and never left. As well as
running the ukulele bands he plays in a jazz band and also performs as
a one man band. He is an avid collector of junk and his caravan is
crammed to the gunwhales with incredible finds - old manequins, a half
strung harp, washboards, grotesque dolls, dried plants and feathers.

They are all very welcoming, especially the cats. And he offers to put
some new strings on my ukulele, which I brought along on the off
chance. He is quite a character. He did his stint in the Israeli army,
and he is adamant that all immigrants to Israel should do this,
"otherwise they cannot really get the picture of what life in this
country is all about" he says. He served on the Lebanese border, and
had hilarious tales to tell about what he got up to as the platoon
joker. His wife Dafna says that she is a Zionist, in that she says all
other peoples have a state, so she thinks the Jews should too. But she
does not think this means there should be injustice to Palestinians
and she firmly believes in a two state solution.

On the way to visit the children in At Tira we drive down the toll
road that goes down the centre of Israel. At one point we pass the
town of Tulkarm, which is on the other side of the wall in the West
Bank, and there is the wall itself, banked up, with trees and plants
to disguise it. I ask Paul and Dafna if they notice it any more, "I'm
ashamed to say we don't" they admit. In At Tira we sit under a date
palm eating the dates directly from the tree and chatting with both
Jewish and Arab parents. One of the Jewish fathers asks us about our
work in the West Bank. When we tell him about the settlers and their
activities he asks who we report this to. "Why don't you report to the
police - these people are criminals" he says. For many Israeli people
it is incomprehensible that this should be allowed to go on. Although
Paul tells us that even within Israel the police force is pretty weak
and often leaves petty crime uninvestigated to focus only on crimes of
violence.

Paul is a great talker, and he was able to offer valuable insights into ordinary - if anything can be called ordinary here - life in Israel. After we left him we went through
Zefat, which is a centre for the study of the Kabbalah and then on to
Tiberias to swim in the Galilee. Tiberias is,, well to put it bluntly,
a dump. It is one of the most historic places on earth, yet they seem
to have made it into a rubbish tip. We had our swim, but I couldn't
say it was pleasant. The Sea of Galilee is definitely best seen from a
distance.

On the bus back to Jerusalem we spoke to a Jewish American couple
visiting family here. "The soldiers are all so young" they said. "But
I'm sure it does them good, they learn discipline and make friends".
Where do you start. We were too tired and besides it isn't always kind
to burst people's bubble.