For the past week, I have been visiting Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
My only prior visit was in the mid-80s when I served on the staff of then-Vice President George Bush as a speechwriter. \u00a0That time I saw much that tourists could not — a gathering of Knesset members and a trip to the demilitarized zone (both occasions for addresses), for example. \u00a0But it worked the other way, too. \u00a0Every tourist absorbs tastes, sounds, and rhythms of daily life that the intense schedule and security concerns kept far from our party.<\/p>\n
So here are observations of a second-time and yet also first-time visitor.<\/p>\n
Israel today has a flourishing economy. \u00a0In America, we tend to miss this happy fact, focused as we are on the country\u2019s security problems. \u00a0I was startled to hear Israelis with whom I spoke characterizing the current situation a one of peace. \u00a0The state of tension that we would consider intolerable one Israeli characterized to me as functional for all sides \u2013 the Palestinian Authority and neighboring governments as well as Israel itself. \u00a0It has created space for economic expansion.<\/p>\n
As if to confirm the man on the street view, the chair of the foreign policy committee of the Russian Senate came through town this week and told the reporters, \u201cAll the countries of the Middle East are going through significant change \u2013 Turkey, Iraq\u2026. [but] the rearrangement of the Middle East would be very dangerous.\u201d \u00a0In other words, even Russia \u2013 traditionally a fisher in troubled waters \u2013 wants to maintain the current tense stasis.<\/p>\n
So despite all the politics, Israel thrives. \u00a0The housing bust that so crippled the economies of the U.S., Britain, Spain, and several other countries missed here. \u00a0Everyone who has seen the country over the years says physical growth has never been so evident as now. \u00a0Jerusalem is as much an example of middle income and upscale sprawl as any American boomtown before the Great Recession. \u00a0You find new housing and new malls in all directions.<\/p>\n
Another sign of rising wealth is the movement of populations. \u00a0The day our family arrived (we had come for a wedding) the papers announced that immigration in 2010 was up over 2009. \u00a0According to a Jerusalem Post<\/em> interview with Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident and now prominent in government and politics, \u201cmost of those coming are from free countries,\u201d the U.S., the U.K., Belgium, and Switzerland, in particular. In addition to their other reasons for moving, the disparity between standards of living in Israel and the major developed countries had largely closed, Sharansky suggested.<\/p>\n The robust economy\u2019s wide reach was evident in a talk I had with a very well-to-do Palestinian merchant. \u00a0He mouthed the obligatory Palestinian gripes. \u00a0But after many years running his one successful store, he was branching out, opening a second outlet on the West Bank. \u00a0I joked about him building a retail chain. \u00a0He responded with the kind of laugh and modest disclaimer that told me that was exactly what he had in mind.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t mean to suggest that we saw no signs of troubles. \u00a0In a trip to the ancient (even by the standards of Jerusalem) city of Hebron, the sense of continuing threat hovered in the air \u2013 or actually blared over loudspeakers. \u00a0Hebron is the site of the tomb of Abraham and Isaac, who are, of course, claimed as their own by all three of the region\u2019s contending faiths. \u00a0An Ottoman-era edifice, now housing Muslim and Jewish centers of prayer and study, stands over the caves containing the patriarchs\u2019 remains.<\/p>\n As we began our tour, the call to prayer started up. \u00a0The voice was a steady tenor-baritone, loud but smooth. \u00a0Yet as we emerged from the massive fortress, another voice on another public address system reached us from far down the valley. And this voice was on a rant. No one could translate, but translation was hardly necessary.<\/p>\n The Palestinian merchant I mentioned had a daughter in a prestigious job in the United States. He said that many young Palestinians were emigrating to the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere. \u00a0Clearly these are well-educated young people with bright futures. \u00a0Judging from the merchant\u2019s prosperous personal story and all else I saw, if such Arabic-speaking young people are indeed moving out, it is not the economy or Israeli policy that prompts them to leave. \u00a0It is that voice down the valley.<\/p>\n In a country that has found a peculiar but workable peace, that voice down the valley and those to whom it speaks still unsettle the days and menace the nights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the past week, I have been visiting Jerusalem. My only prior visit was in the mid-80s when I served on the staff of then-Vice President George Bush as a speechwriter. \u00a0That time I saw much that tourists could not — a gathering of Knesset members and a trip to the demilitarized zone (both occasions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-issues","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}