Andreas Lloyd

Since I came back to Denmark three weeks ago, lots of people have asked how I feel about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what I have learned about it in my three months there.

I have a lot of friends on the progressive left who were taken aback by the fact that I chose to volunteer at a kibbutz. To them, working at a kibbutz is a kind of indirect expression of support to the state of Israel. And thus, by extension, it is an expression of support to the Israeli Defense Forces, which has been occupying the Palestinian Territories for 44 years now. An occupation that continues to cause Palestinians to suffer – both directly through the IDF’s oppressive control in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as indirectly through the continued exclusion of Palestinian refugees stuck in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere.

In this perspective, working in an Israeli kibbutz means helping to produce Israeli goods (such as dates and jams and wine), some of which will be exported to Europe and North America, which can provide the Israeli government with increased tax revenue, which in turn can be used to fund the continued occupation of Palestine. And so, volunteering at a kibbutz can be seen as an indirect way of condoning and supporting the Israeli part in the conflict.

In this way, relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict posed something of an ethical test for me: Should I discard the kibbutz experience out of hand because of its relation to the Israeli state? Should I refuse to work and live among Israelis because of how their elected government has chosen to act in the conflict?

But as I see it, there is already plenty of preconceptions of how the two sides of the conflict act, and a big part of the conflict does seem to be that both sides relate to their own preconceived, stereotypical representations of one another rather than to each other as human beings.

And I realised that I would only be reinforcing such unfruitful and segregating preconceptions by acting on a perspective that any action that can be construed as an expression of support for the state of Israel cannot be condoned. It would be to support the vilification of an entire nation and a whole people without ever even deigning to meet them and talk with them. And surely, no good has ever come of such an approach.

Indeed, much the same argument, built on similar preconceptions, could be used to claim exact opposite: that any visit and volunteer effort in the Palestinian Territories can be construed as an expression of support to Palestinian terrorists who use suicide bombs and kidnappings to pressure Israel.

The complexity of the conflict seems to escape easy schemes of categorization. And no set of preconceptions can do justice to all of the ethical and political nuances of the intertwined peoples and lands of Israel and Palestine.

I find that to be pretty intriguing. So I decided to postpone my judgment of the conflict as a whole until I had had the opportunity to experience everyday life in Israel and the kibbutzim, and to see how the Israelis themselves relate to the conflict.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll write a series of posts on what I’ve learned during my stay in Israel. About the conflict. About the kibbutzim. About how the Israelis relate to all of it. And about how I feel about the conflict now that I have seen it for myself.

Gregory Bateson said that the major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.

Throughout the 19th and 20th century, people have sought to control the way nature works to fit their needs. And though many challenges have been overcome in this way, the solutions don’t appear to be sustainable in the long run. Indeed, the solutions even appear to be making things worse. And so, it seems like the problems are becoming even bigger, in spite of our best efforts to the contrary.

Our challenge for the 21st century is to give up forcing nature to fit our ways of thinking, and instead change our way of thinking to match how nature works.

I only stayed in Lotan for two weeks, but in that time I did get to try my hand at some of the creative ecology practiced there.

First of all, I got to join the Green Apprentices for some of their lectures and activities. These included learning how to construct strawbale houses, learning about Earthships and other sustainable building practices, discussing how to apply permaculture design practices in the city and more.

A definite highlight was our excursion to the nearby Kibbutz Ketura to visit their experimental organic orchard, which is part of the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies‘ Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

We spent a morning with the director of the Centre, Dr. Elaine Solowey, who is a leading researcher in the field of desert agriculture and sustainable agriculture. She has spent the last 25 years experimenting to adapt various kinds of perennial crops, mainly trees, to the extremely arid climate of the Arava. Here, crops need to be both salt-tolerant, heat-tolerant and be able to manage on relatively little water.

Solowey sees the task of adapting crops to desert climates to be of vital importance in a world where deserts are spreading every year as a result of global climate change. Being able to grow food even in the most inhospitable climates may prove to be vital in the long run. Among Solowey’s current experiments are Mezquite trees, Marula trees, Neem trees, and perhaps most interestingly, Coconut palms, which nobody apparently have tried as a crop in Israel before.

Elaine is committed to her cause, and she is definitely not afraid to answer the typical critical questions of commercial viability and the relevance of trying to grow stuff in one of the driest places on the planet with razor sharp wit. She nearly bit the head of one of the students here for asking why she just didn’t grow olives like everybody else. It was a lot of fun.

A big part of the practical work that I’ve been doing here has involved mud. I have learned that mud is also a verb. And in Lotan, there is a lot of mudding going on. There is a wide array of buildings, walls, benches, sculptures, outdoor ovens, lamps, playgrounds that have been built out of mud (typically, the mud is covering tires and other old rubbish). In the photo above, long-time volunteer Yotam is applying a final coat of mud to a wall.

It was fun to learn to mix and apply the varying consistencies of mud. But I eventually graduated to the more artistic, decorative mudding. This was my little mud masterpiece: the Super Mario Bros. minigolf castle:

The castle was part of a 3-course mud minigolf course at the Centre of Creative Ecology’s playground and ecological experimentarium known as the Eco-Kef (“Kef” is “Fun” in Hebrew).

But two weeks pass quickly, and I have left Lotan to go back to Denmark this Friday. In a way, it feels to soon. Denmark is overcast with a grey continuous drizzle that provides a monotonous backdrop against which the trees and grass appear to be so GREEN. Even so, I’ll miss the desert, especially the times of day when the sun wasn’t blazing down upon us all:

On one of the walls in the Kibbutz Lotan dining hall you’ll see a number of framed marriage certificates. These are marriages between kibbutz members and the kibbutz itself. A way for the reform jews in the kibbutz to indicate their commitment (kibbutzment?) to the community upon becoming full kibbutz members:

Unfortunately, like most other forms of marriage in our modern times, these kibbutz marriages don’t tend to last until death do them part.

Of the 130 kibbutz members whose names hang on the wall, only 55 currently live in Lotan. And only 10 of the members who helped found the kibbutz back in 1983 still live here.

In addition to the 55 permanent members, there are around 60 children, 20 foreign volunteers and around 30 other non-member residents living at Lotan. Around 150 in total. A couple of families are currently engaged in the 2-year long absorption program to become new, permanent members.

I have now arrived at Kibbutz Lotan where I’ll be volunteering for 2 weeks. Lotan is located only 20 minutes’ drive from Neot Semadar, in the Arava valley, right on the Jordanian border (there’s only 50 metres from the eastern gate of the kibbutz to the border).

Lotan is famous for its Centre for Creative Ecology, with its permaculture garden and alternative low-energy mud buildings. I’m volunteering at the centre, and will hopefully have an opportunity to learn some more about sustainable living along the way.

This is what Kibbutz Lotan looks like. A little green spot in the arid Arava valley right on the border to Jordan with the beautiful mountains of Edom visible in the distance.

A few facts about Kibbutz Lotan:

• It is one of only two reform judaism kibbutzim in Israel.
• It is also the only kibbutz affiliated with the Global Eco-village Network, and has even won an award as Eco-village of the year in 2006.
• Both ecology and reform judaism features heavily in Lotan’s mission statement.

I live in the Bustan neighbourhood of Kibbutz Lotan. The Bustan is a model for sustainable living, consisting of 10 mud domes each housing one or two persons. They look like this:

The Bustan has composting toilets, solar heated water, a variety of mud and solar ovens, as well as a couple of photovoltaic cells that provide electricity for nighttime lighting. And indeed, most of the inhabitants of the Bustan are part of Lotan’s Green Apprenticeship programme – a five-month course in sustainable practices. It is just about as sustainable as you can get (living in the middle of the desert where there is 350 sun days a year and almost no rain, that is).

Also, Bustan is Hebrew for orchard, because the kibbutz orchard used to be located where the mud dome neighbourhood now stands.

In Israel, most people work a six-day week, having only Saturday off (though Friday is only a half-day). But now the Israeli parliament has opened discussion of extending the weekend to two full days. But which day should it be: Friday or Sunday?

The issue is well described in this International Herald Tribune article, which illustrates some of the many conflicting interests in Israeli society.

I returned to Jerusalem more than two months after my first visit. This time I also visited the Mount of Olives, home to tonnes of churches, an immense Jewish graveyard and a brilliant view of the Temple Mount:

According to Jewish tradition, the Temple Mount, also known as Mount Moriah, is the foundation stone of the world. It is the rock upon which Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, and it is also where King Solomon built his great temple. Coincidentally, in Muslem tradition, the very same rock is said to be the point from which Mohammed ascended into Heaven, leaving behind his footprint in the rock.

That’s why they call it the holy land, I guess.

On the top of the Mount of Olives there’s a small chapel marking the spot where Jesus ascended into Heaven following his resurrection.

Like Mohammed, he is said to have left behind a footprint, pictured here:

Based on the size of the footprint, I’d estimate that JC used size 55 sandals.

From Haifa I went to the Galilee and from there to the Golan Heights – a relatively small area with huge political importance – both in terms of military strategic significance as well as in terms of resources. The Golan is a vital water supply for the region, and its many streams and rivers flow into the Kinneret lake, which is the main freshwater reservoir in Israel.

There are a number of national parks in the Golan. I visited the Yehudiah park. As the locals say, the yellow season has already set in, and the scenery is not as lush as in spring. But it is still a very beautiful place.

This is the Zavidan waterfall in the Yehudiah national park. Here the water falls 27 meters down into a deep pool where you can take a very refreshing little swim.

The eastern shore of the Kinneret, as well as the Golan Heights beyond is not really part of Israel. It is occupied territory won from Syria in the six-day war of 1967. But today it’s difficult to tell that a war took place here. Only in a few places when you come across signs like this are you reminded of Israel’s strained relationship with its neighbours.

Since 1974 and the end of the Yom Kippur war, there has been a cease-fire agreement between Syria and Israel. But Syria insists that a peace treaty won’t be possible until Israel hands over control of the Golan Heights. At present it’s doubtful if that will ever happen.

The day following my excursion into the Golan, I went for a very warm and sweaty bike ride around lake Kinneret. It’s a 61 kilometre roundtrip but it takes a whole day with all the sightseeing and swimming breaks along the way.

There’s a lot of Bible-related sights in the Galilee. I passed by the Mount of Beatitudes (where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount) and Capernaum (a sleepy fishing village in Roman times where Jesus recruited his first disciples), and several others. So naturally, there are a lot of biblical tour buses on the road.

I left Jordan. From Eilat I got on an express bus for Haifa in northern Israel. A six-hour cross-country journey.

This is Haifa. Israel’s third-biggest city, its biggest port, and home to a ridiculously big grain silo (the big grey building on the harbour). Apparently, this silo contains enough grain to keep all of Israel supplied for a full year in case the country is cut off from the rest of the world. It is a good example of the somewhat paranoid mindset that characterizes Israeli public policy. (though, as they say: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that people aren’t out to get you)

This is also Haifa. Home to the Baha’i gardens and the shrine of the Bab – a holy site for the Baha’i faith which around 5 million faithful around the world.

The gardens, which consist of 18 terraces – 9 below and 9 above the shrine – on the side of Mt Carmel, are meticulously trimmed and watered by 700 believers. The grass is of golf green quality. Everything is just right. And though the perfect symmetry of the gardens look nice at a distance, up close it’s kind of boring.

Instead of the Baha’i gardens, I found the nearby Ursula Malbin sculpture garden to be much more to my liking: not as tidy, but with much more life and character – especially through lovely and poetic sculptures such as this

I also liked this sculpted gate that I came across in the German Colony district of Haifa: it consists of two figures bending over, meeting in a kiss. I love the effect of looking up at the sculpture and into the blue sky above at the same time.

Last week, I went to Jordan for a few days. Mostly to visit Petra, the ancient Nabatean capital city hidden in the mountains. It is a spectacular sight, and the 2-kilometre walk through the narrow gorge called the Siq is like entering another world.

The Siq ends at the mausoleum of a Nabatean king carved beautifully out of the sandstone wall. It is easily recognised by Indiana Jones aficionados (such as me) as the temple that housed the holy grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:

It’s hard to capture in one photo but Petra is huge. This is the view from the most remote carved mausoleum, known as the monastery, towards the centre of Petra:

It’s hard to tell in the photo but the rock wall in the distance is also lined with similar carved mausoleums (mausolei?).

Here’s another attempt to capture the grandness of Petra:

This is taken from atop the mountain above the centre of Petra. This is known as The High Place of Sacrifice, where the Nabatean high priests conducted the sacrificial rites. Down below, you can see the ruins of the city (all the houses were devastated by several huge earthquakes between 300 and 600 AD, eventually leading to the abandonment of the city). In the distance is the narrow gorge that leads to the monastery mausoleum.

These are the stairs that lead to the High Place of Sacrifice in Petra. Like most of the remnants of the city, the steps have been carved directly from the living rock

After two days of exploring Petra, I went to Aqaba, the main Jordanian town on the Red Sea to spend a day snorkelling in the coral reefs. Though most of the corals had died, there were plenty of weird, multi-coloured tropical fish to see. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any photos under water, so here’s the red sea sunset instead.

(also: how can be called the Red Sea when it is so very blue?)