Today was a day of emotional and marked contrasts.
After a big kibbutz breakfast, we drove up to the Kibbutz Misgav Am - at the edge of the Lebanon and Syrian boarder, before 1967 part of the farthest north of Israel. It was a grey and rainy day, but we could still see through the fence right into both countries, technically still at war with Israel. There we met with one of the kibbutz members, Areyeh Ben Yaakov. Areyeh shared quite frankly his attitude at living on a hostile border, including the experience of being shelled non-stop during more than 30 days of the Lebanon War, and several attempted infiltrations. Not surprisingly, perhaps, he is definite and defiant in his opinions of the Arab intentions towards Israel. It is not about peace. "G-d makes peace," he said, "Men make cease-fires. Peace is not my objective. I came here to stay alive and protect the Jewish people."
Soon afterwards we climbed up through the Golan Heights, passed Nimrod castle, across to another boarder with Syria. We came to Majdal Shams, a Druze village at the edge of the "Valley of Tears." There, in this hilltop town, amidst it's narrow winding roads, we met with a local resident named Sulaman. He told us about the difficulties of living there, the proximity to land mines, the closed in nature of being in an area bounded by settlements. He took us to the "Valley of Tears" and described how Druze families are split between those living in Israel and those living in Syria. How they get family news and share joys and sorrows by shouting across the valley. Over a gracious meal of very flat Druze pita and labeneh, Sulaman was even more forthcoming in his feelings about living under occupation. Although many Druze are citizens of Israel and even serve in the army (the only Arabs conscripted), his group does not. They feel closely allied with the Syrian Druze. Sulaman spoke of the injustices he feels from the Israeli government and wants the occupation of the Golan heights to end, even though life in a Syrian Golan would be worse. "Here we have political freedom, but no civil freedom" he said. There we would have civil freedom even without political freedom. Ironic because he himself is certain that if his village became Syrian, he would immediately be sent to jail!
It is very hard to reconcile these two worlds we heard about today.
We continued with a view across "Emek Habecha", the "Valley of Tears" and heard about the dangers Israel felt when Syria held these lands overlooking Israel proper and freely shot at the kibbutzim below. The Valley was the site of the one of the fiercest battles during the Yom Kippur War. At kibbutz El-Rom we saw a film about the tank battle there and the OZ77 battalion which greatly outnumbered they bravely stopped the Syrian army.
We came away knowing the choices are hard and the issues are intense. But, with the help of some singing on the bus, we hold on to hope.
It was time for something lighter and we visited a boutique winery at Kibbutz Ein Zivan called "Bahat" where we learned a bit about wine making and tasted some of the unique wines of the region. As it happened the tasting room was next to a hand-crafted chocolate shop. No sweet was safe from our group!
Some of us headed back to Kfar Blum for some rest while others carried on to the Naot factory for some shoe shopping!
After a bit of rest we went out to dinner at Le Charolais at the foot of the Golan Heights with a group of IDF combat soldiers stationed nearby. It was sweet being with these dedicated young men. Some of the soldiers told us of former duty in the Ramallah and other hot spots, of regularly having rocks thrown at them by young Arab children, of narrowly avoiding IED's laid in the road to destroy them. Some of us could easily imagine our sons and grandsons in these dangerous positions. Hearing their stories brought the situation even closer to home for us.
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