In A Big Country

Going back in time to Monday, after touring the Old City with Ian as our in-depth guide, we headed off to lunch at a restaurant (must track down name!) with Professor Reuven Hazan. The professor gave us an excellent overview of the recent elections, and how the political system is divided between the Hawks, the Doves, and now the new middle party -- Kadima. The meal was excellent (interestingly, a variety of vegetarian dishes), and the briefing was thorough. While the first two speakers gave us some perspective, Prof. Hazan gave us a chalk talk that provided a grounding for the rest of the week.

Then, we got back on the bus and drove to a neighborhood overlooking the controversial security fence. Before the fence (or barrier, or wall, depending on who is calling it what), there had been the 2nd intifada (sp?), with suicide bombers loose in Jerusalem, as well as significant sniper fire from the Palestinian towns that we could see from the street. The fence has been successful at driving down the number of suicide bombings, and there is no longer sniper fire at the apartments. Indeed, people were even out on their patios in the apartments (there is a very low rental rate in Israel. Most people own their homes/apartments. For some reason, the apartments that were being shot at were taking a long time to sell, so simply leaving was not an affordable option).

It is striking just how small a country Israel is. The security fence is yet another reminder -- suicide bombers could just slip across the border and blow themselves up in the City Center of Jerusalem.

For more on the fence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier

Prior to arriving at the Security Fence overlook, we stopped at the Sherover Promenade for a spectacular view of Jerusalem -- the Old City and the Mount of Olives.

For the bigger picture on just how small Israel is, we then headed over to the National Security Council to meet wtih Sima Shine, the Deputy Head of the Israeli NSC. She had formerly been with Mossad, so I made the relatively easy decision not to trifle with her. Her talk focused on two aspects -- Hamas and -- as an even bigger concern -- Iran.

It is clear from the first two days that most Israelis (including the press coverage) are significantly more concern about the Iranian nuclear threat than Americans are. Of course, they are one of the likeliest targets of any Iranian nuclear threat. From the discussion of Iran whilst here, it is likely that either the U.S., some coalition of nations, or Israel will have to act decisively in the next few years to forestall Iran from fully developing a nuclear weapon.

We did have to go through two security screenings to get into the meeting with the NSC, although I think our status on this trip probably kept the security from being even more in-depth.