Bad News

Unfortunately, yesterday, Wednesday, August 9 saw the death of my computer. I am using a friend's computer right now, but I don't have much access to it. When I return to the States, I will continue to update the blog and finish a description of the trip as well as answer the questions posed to me. Thanks for your understanding.

Escape to the South - Part 2

(Due to time constraints, I didn't have time to add pictures, but I will add them later.)

This is the second installment in the “Escape to the South” series, and it will chronicle the events of last Saturday. Again, we traveled to the south for a weekend of rest and relaxation outside of the classroom and under the hot desert sun.

Saturday we woke up to an amazing sunrise over the mountains on the east side of the Dead Sea in Jordan. One interesting aspect of this sunrise: the glare it produced off the Dead Sea was unlike any I have ever seen off of any body of water. It was as if the sun was reflecting off of a mirror. I wouldn’t realize until later that day why this was the case.

After breakfast, we grabbed a bagged lunch and loaded into the bus for our excursion to Masada. Masada was the last stronghold of Jewish fighters against the Roman armies. The ruins now seen there were built by Herod as a winter retreat, and it is the most complete surviving ancient Roman siege system in the world. We ascended the mountain by cable car because the only other route of ascent was quite treacherous – the Snake Path. Among the ruins still remaining are portions of the outer wall, the siege ramp, a swimming pool and several cisterns for holding water.

While these ruins were quite impressive, what most caught my attention was the massive expanse of land that surrounds Masada. The view from atop this mountain was truly breath-taking. Take a look at some of these pictures.

After descending the mountain and spending an hour or so on the terrace at the gift shop to eat lunch and buy souvenirs, we loaded up again and proceeded to a beachside establishment on the shore of the Dead Sea for a couple of hours of fun in the salt, I mean, sun. This experience has been one of the highlights of the trip, and I would recommend that if anyone is ever coming to visit Israel, a trip to the Dead Sea is a must. Floating in the Dead Sea is probably about as close as one can get to being weightless on Earth. It is literally impossible to sink and quite hard even to submerge your whole body. Unlike ordinary saltwater, the water from the Dead Sea has an indescribably salty taste (as you might expect), and it is also very bitter. When walking on the floor of the sea, at times you are walking on sand, at other times you are walking on a solid sheet of salt, and, best of all, at times in pure Dead Sea mud. The mud was by far the most interesting of the surfaces because sinking thigh-deep was a frequent occurrence. The consistency of this mud is as well indescribable, but I will do my best: soft, oozing, sticky, dark black and nothing like Georgia red clay. Another great thing about the mud is that it is full of minerals that are good for the body which makes it very popular to apply to the body: basically people dig deep into the sea floor extracting massive globs of mud and slather the mud all over their body. Sounds like some good clean fun!

Well, after a couple hours of swimming in the salt and playing in the mud, we departed for our lodging. When we got back, everyone got cleaned up, we ate dinner, enjoyed a class on media talking points and retired for an evening of rest.

Included in this evening of rest were some games of spades and the fellowship talent show – I bet you didn’t expect that from this group of intellectuals, huh? We saw Joel dislocate his shoulder and wrap his arm around his head. We got to see Zander’s drawing of Ram (who has now taken on this mythical, all-powerful persona – somewhat like our own personal Jack Bauer) ripping of someone’s head, and we saw Sandy’s interpretation of a raindrop, among others. Well, in the end, Zander received the prize – a keychain.

After the talent show, we retired for the night in preparation for the next day in the South.

Escape to the South - Part 1

Just so you know, we were not really escaping anything, but this trip was planned as an opportunity for some rest and relaxation from the intensity of the classroom portion of the trip. The weekend consisted mostly of hiking for long hours through the desert in various terrains under the hot sun while drinking gallons of water to stay hydrated to see some sort of archeological phenomenon and then walking back. I did say rest and relaxation right?

All joking aside, this trip was incredible. Yes, there were miles of walking in the hot sun, but what we saw made it all worth it. Our tour guide carried a .45 on his hip too – pretty cool.

On Friday, we left Tel Aviv and headed south past Be’er-Sheva to Aredat where we stopped for lunch at a rest stop before heading to the nature reserve. When we began hiking into the wadi, we quickly realized just how hot it really is in the desert and just how important it is to drink water. (Don’t you like my IDF hat and sweet shades!) After hiking in and back out, we visited the 2^nd century Roman military outpost ruins and then headed north along the coast of the Dead Sea to our lodging for the weekend.

That night, we had a class from our guide, Ram, on the different Palestinian terrorist organizations – Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad of Palestine. You may be familiar with Fatah because it is the political party that was started by Yassir Arafat. You have obviously heard of Hamas who now holds power in Palestine, and Islamic Jihad is not involved in politics but is concerned with creating a borderless Islamic state to include Palestine. He discussed their relationship to one another in Palestine, and concluded by telling us about his many interviews (somewhere in the vicinity of 60 two-hour interviews) with imprisoned terrorists. Very interesting! (This is Ram.)

Where we stayed was a pretty simple place with small buildings containing 4 rooms each for two to three people per room, and the food was great! And the view – we were on top of a mountain overlooking the Dead Sea.

Following our formal class with Ram, many of us retired for a beer and gather around Ram to hear about some of his undercover operations in the Gaza strip and Lebanon during his time in the IDF and Israeli intelligence services. Some enjoyed a game of spades. Eventually we all went to bed to prepare for another interesting day.

Look soon for the next entry about the Escape to the South.

Day 3 - Long Day of Classes

The last “diary” entry I posted was after the second day of lectures, so I will fill you in from that point. We had a third day of lectures last Wednesday, and we heard from five speakers.

The first speaker of the morning was the former Chief of Global Operations of Mosad, in other words, the third person in charge of the Israeli equivalent of the CIA. He spoke to us about the role of intelligence in combating terrorism.

The second speaker was Dr. David Menashri, a professor at Tel Aviv University and an expert in Iran, and he spoke about, as you might have guessed, Iran. He offered some interesting insights into the Irani president, Ahjamenidad.

The third speaker was Dr. Azani Eitan, and he spoke to us about financing terrorism. This lecture took on great importance in light of the recent article in the NY Times exposing the US program for breaking down the financial networks of terrorist organizations.

An Israeli Defense Forces JAG lawyer, Lt Col David Benjamin, spoke to us in our fourth lecture about the legal implications of fighting terrorism. One interesting fact about the Israeli legal system is that anyone, terrorists included, are allowed to bring charges before the supreme court in order to prevent the IDF from acting in a certain way. For instance, in order to prevent a fire fight and casualties, the IDF would surround the house of a terrorist and have the neighbor ask the terrorist to come out and turn himself over to the IDF to great success. The supreme court ruled that this endangers life of the neighbor, and they are no longer allowed to use this tactic. Unfortunate, but this is the way it is.

Finally, we heard from the Indian ambassador to Israel who spoke to us about the fight against terrorism in India. If nothing else, he made one thing clear: India does not like Pakistan.

This day of lectures concluded the classroom portion of the trip. Beginning on Thursday, we headed to the field for a trip to an Arab-Israeli town, Umm El-Fahem, where we enjoyed an authentic Arab meal and spoke to the city manager, Dafik. His point-of-view was quite interesting, rather bothersome, and pretty hypocritical. Basically, though he didn’t say it in so many words, as far as he is concerned, he is Arab first and Israeli second. This is problematic because, while he enjoys the democracy that he lives under in Israel and the benefits afforded him as a result, he applauds the courage and creativity of the Arab militants who stand up to the strongest military force in the region. What he calls courage, I would call cowardice. What he calls creativity, I would call the murder of civilians. Those who he calls militants can be called nothing but what they really are: terrorists. (Many of you might now be wondering what the difference is between a freedom fighter/militant and a terrorist. I recommend reading the article “Defining Terrorism” linked on the right. I’ll try to make this the subject of a future entry as well.)

After speaking to this man, he escorted us to the security fence that separates Israel and Palestine, specifically the West Bank. It is often called a “security wall” in the media, but this is inappropriate since less than 20% of this barrier is actually a wall, and, in those places there has been a problem with bullets flying across the border. Unlike a fence that you would put in your yard to contain a dog, this fence is not designed to be a physical barrier. The way it is built actually makes it quite easy to climb. Nor is it physically monitored by the IDF. It is fitted with sensors that, when touched, alert the IDF who are able to respond within minutes. There is also a unit of Bedouins in the IDF who are expert trackers who inspect the 15’ strip of dirt beside the fence for disturbance.

Following this we returned to the hotel, and like every night, enjoyed the Tel Aviv night life at the beach and along the boardwalk.

I will leave it at this for now because I don’t want you to get overwhelmed, but I have some other entries ready to be posted from my weekend in southern Israel and some responding to the questions some of you asked me about my lectures. Take care.

Back from the South

Hello everyone. I hope you have all been doing well and are enjoying your weekend. I just arrived back to Tel Aviv from a 3 day excursion to the South during which we visited En Avedat, Masada, the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, and Qumran. As you might have guessed, I was without internet access where we were staying: a small hiker's resort atop a mountain overlooking the Dead Sea. Until I have an opportunity to write again and update you more thoroughly from where I last left off, I'll leave you with some pictures.

The security fence between Israel and Palestine and the Palestinian town of Jenin.


Floating in the Dead Sea.


The start of this morning's sunrise over the Dead Sea.

Day 2 - Pictures and Lectures

Finally, I have pictures. We had dinner the other night in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv. Here is a picture from the roof of the restaurant looking toward Tel Aviv.

Here is a group of Fellows walking to our class at Tel Aviv University.

Speaking of class, we had 4 more lectures yesterday followed by an evening of Tel Aviv nightlife at a seaside shopping and dining center.

Our classes again started early with another lecture from Dr. Ely Karmon who spoke about Nuclear, Biological, Chemical (Radiological) Terrorism. This lecture was very interesting because it is such a relevant concern. Do you remember the anthrax mail attacks shortly after 9/11? How likely is it that it could happen again? Or worse, how plausible is it that a terrorist organization could acquire sarin gas to use against the US? Or small pox? Or a nuclear weapon?

Our second lecture was from IDF Col. Dr. Shaul Shay (Ret.) about Global Jihad with a particular focus on radical Islam in Southeast Asia. While the Middle East is the heartland of Islam, the largest concentration of Muslims in the world is in Southeast Asia with the majority living in Indonesia. There are several terrorist groups ranging from local to regional size which espouse the radical Islamic ideology and which have ties to al-Qaeda. Our focus may be on the Middle East, but Southeast Asia should not be overlooked when we think about terrorism.

Again, the lecture after lunch was tough. With our bellies full of food and the effects of jet lag still lingering, Dr. Eyal Zisser, department head for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, had a tough job. He spoke to us about his expertise: Hezbollah and Lebanon. With everything that is happening on Israel’s northern border, we have heard about this topic in nearly every lecture to one degree or other, but one thing that is interesting to note is that, despite being in the country where this crisis is taking place, I have heard very little about it in the Israeli media. I would like to think of this as being a result of the greater responsibility of media in Israel as compared to the US. Someone said it might be because I don’t understand Hebrew. Who knows?

Finally, the FDD staff instructed us on media relations. As Fellows, we are pro-democracy, anti-terror activists. With that, we will need to deal with the media to get the word out. We focused on writing a bio for ourselves promoting our expertise on the topic so as to appear credible with the media.

As I said, last night we enjoyed the nightlife of Tel Aviv. This picture is of a group of students at dinner. I had a fresh seafood dish that included shrimp, clams, mussels, crab and calamari preceeded by the appetizer of bread with various dishes in which to dip it. To say it was pretty good would be somewhat of an understatement.

Finally, here is a picture of the beach that is about 200 yards from my hotel. The sea is like bath water, and there are good bodysurfing waves.

Well, that about wraps things up. I hope all is well, and keep checking on the blog. As I said, please feel free to ask questions about what I write and what I am learning.

Day 1 - Lectures at Tel Aviv University

As I mentioned, Internet access has been rather infrequent, but I am trying my best to figure out how I can update the blog as often as possible.

The fellowship has been great so far. The hotel we are staying in is about 100 yards from the Mediterranean and a beautiful beach, so I got up early this morning for a walk on the beach and some bodysurfing with some of the other fellows. I will move on though, since the topic of this blog is about terrorism and democracy and not about the beach.

We are in our second day of classes at Tel Aviv University, and the days are pretty long. We have 4 lecture sessions of an hour and a half each between 9 am and 6 pm with half our breaks between the sessions. As expected, the period after lunch is the toughest.

Yesterday, we heard from 3 speakers. During the 2 sessions in the morning Israeli Col. Yoni Fighel (Ret.) spoke to us about the Islamic movement in Israel with particular attention paid the to the current situation in Lebanon, and he concluded with a lecture concerning the importance of defining terrorism. As you may or may not know, there is no internationally (or even widely) accepted definition of terrorism, so this makes it very hard to gain support in combating terrorist groups because what one country considers terrorism might not be the same as another country.

The unlucky speaker after lunch was Dr. Ely Karmon, and he spoke to us about the current state of terrorism in the world. His talk focused on the relationship between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah and the budding relationship between these three and Hamas and on al-Qaida.

Finally, Dr. Shmuel Bar, a former Israeli intelligence officer, spoke to us about the Islamic conflict with the West and focused on the religious roots of Jihad.

All in all, the lectures were interesting and thought provoking. If you have particular questions about the different lectures, please post a question and I will try to answer it. If there is something particularly thought-provoking, I will comment on that in a more in depth fashion.

Finally, I will try to post some pictures next time. I hope all is well.