Northern Exposure

9th August 2006
Dear All,

I write this from the plush peaceful, sanitized Sheraton Hotel in Ramat Gan, I have rejoined all the olde fogies on the Solidarity Tour and have bid farewell to Zev Krengel who traveled with me to the North.

An observation made by Zev was that where ever you go, the residents there believe that they are not in danger, but if they hear that you are going to visit another place, you are mad, because they think that is where the Katyushas will fall.

We rushed off and after Paula Slier and her cameraman to Metulla (on the border). Zev remarked that he had hardly slept because of the persistent booms the night before.

Driving to Metulla, a beautiful scenic village, which is usually full of tourists at this time. 75% of residents had left! Only some men were left, as we entered a siren went off and we ran into the clinic and met an MDA volunteer who was ex PE.

After the all clear we went to The Alaska Inn to see where Paula Slier (ex-SABC) was broadcasting from with a perfect view from Lebanon. There were quite a lot of journos there.

We were then met by two farmers (the one a 3rd generation Metullan). They took us to their apple orchards. They have lost $6 million of business. All their Thai workers have absconded, and the Arab workers hardly ever show up. Their fields have been damaged by rockets, tanks clearing space and by lack of attention. The entrance to Lebanon was in front of us.

I saw a house on the other side which had been hit. All workers carried a gun in the one hand and a hose or shovel in the other. Lying on the floor all around us were soldiers who could not been seen with the naked eye, bedecked in camouflage. The farmers became shifty and wanted to get out of there, straight in front of us was a key entry point to Lebanon, I could have walked further but did not want to risk.

On the way back to Metulla we entered a militarized zone where the army police flipped out when we wanted to take photos.

We then said good bye to Paula's cameraman Yonni who was weraing his helmet and bullet proof vest to go to Menara a kibbutz on the periphery of Israel, but on a fault line of the current conflict.

We passed the turn off to Kfar Giladi where 11 soldiers had been killed the day before,

We went further up, lots of tanks on the field firing above us, the higher we went the more damage we saw, the louder the cacophony of noise became.

We saw rockets land below us.

We arrived at Margaliyot as we took a wrong turn we saw three men gesticulating at us, pointing out that we were mad. We went into the shelter for a code red! There were Kurdish Jews, one was amazed that Zev was dati-religious.

At one stage when we ventured out, the one guy panicked and literally pushed Paula and Zev into the shelter.

We eventually got the all clear from them and went up to Menara

I shat myself, the roads were steep and the Katyushas were landing below us, we past a militarized zone. The soldiers thought we were mad. The eventually allowed us and we visited lonely Peter Kurland, formerly from PE. He was so happy to see us, it was clear that the constant rattling had affected Peter's sleep patterns, and he was visibly stressed. Toda a lonely, isolated almost forgotten man, on the border.

He took us for walks, oblivious to persistent fire power, he took us to the cable car which had not been used for the entire holiday period. The kibbutz was already financially unstable.

When we left we chatted to young soldiers, and soon another code red, this time two bulking tanks drove past us and into battle...

We drove back down Margaliyot, and on our way out we were hauled in, the fire got louder. This time by Kurdish, Iranian and Iraqi Jews. We stayed in and out of the shelters for 45 minutes, the local cop started telling us what we could and could not do, we spent most our time in the bunker. We were taken to vantage points and we saw the clear destruction and devastation and the smoke rising from falling Katyushas.

Things then went scary and surreal.....


We heard that Yossi Sarid (Former Head of Meretz, and Minister of Education) was on the Kibbutz, here was an intellectual, supposedly bourgeois Ashkenazi living among simple Sephardi farmers. Every night Yossi addresses the residents on the days events-one of the only forms of entertainment for these people.

Accompanied by the police van we went to go meet the man. As we arrived at the chicken coop to meet Yossi Sarid, he was there because in between writing columns for Haaretz and appearing on TV, he primarily collects eggs and helps the Kibbutz, because all Thai workers have absconded.

As we got out Zev jumped back a Katyusha landed 80 metres from us. I crapped myself, the guards panicked and ordered us back, I was non-plussed, I did not come this far not to meet him.

Out walked Yossi, not phased

Yossi Sarid-Nice to meet you (monotonous tone)
Wayne-Shalom, what an honour
Zev-Can we have a picture
Sarid-OK
The Policeman-Are you not coming with us to the shelter
Sarid-No, Im busy

He walked back to collect his eggs, this was surreal, we thought he was unfriendly, but for me this was Zionism, here is someone who gets called a leftist, a non-Zionist, who unlike many other public figures and leaders and politicians who left the North and just come back for the odd photo op, Sarid has stayed to help the economy, help his brethren, help his Moshav by collecting eggs.

He is not leaving his people and he is not letting the Katyushas prevent him from collecting those eggs,

We in turn had rushed back to the shelter. We stayed and soon, these people who did not even know us or who we could hardly converse with started giving us lunch.
An amazing Kurdish meal, however we had to leave also and run the gauntlet to miss the usual 3oclock afternoon boom show. We went down, and in the area where tanks were earlier in the day, lay 2 or 3 tanks, the rest had gone into battle.

There were less civilian cars, and more army cars going up into battle, there was more scorched earth and less people in Kiryat HaShmona, there were more stressed journalist at Kibbutz Hagoshrim and less provisions in the shop and there were more buses with soldiers coming in and less people in houses in the area.

2 and a bit hours later we were back in sunny, beautiful Tel Aviv, beaches were packed and life goes on.

As I saw good night, I wonder how many nights Peter Kurland will spend at Menara, what will it take for him to leave, on our way to Maayan Baruch, I spoke to a former SA Family, who were fleeing to Tel Aviv, for them it was one Katyusha too many,

My adrenalin rush has subsided, I am bored now, however, I will sleep well tonight, as rockets wont land here, I find the quietness in my hotel quite eerie,,,,


Wayne Sussman
Ramat Gan