The port city of Ashdod has been continuously settled since the 17th Century BC. The bible mentions it as the City of Giants ("Anakim"). Today it has one heck of a commercial sea port, full of freshly delivered cars. Oddly enough, nearby Tel Aviv has no place for one more car to park at least judging by the hour or more it took to drive the less than 20 miles where we stood in traffic until enough space opened up for our tour bus.
Tel Aviv is actually a city not without some charm with some more or less majestic boulevards, a busy downtown, and a spectacular beach which looked a lot like Copacabana if there were a lot more falafal stands in Brazil. Our excellent tour guide Ilan pointed out that in 1909 a handful of families drew lots for the 16 building sites that has now grown to a metropolitan area of millions. The original nearby ancient city of Jaffa from which these families escaped from the squalor and crime has become a tourist area with lots of shops selling Chinese made souvenirs among some antique stores and cafes plus an orange tree that was hanging from nearby buildings, perhaps to make room for one more parking space. Jaffa is historically significant, however, since archeology is revealing all many of older cities beneath the current one. For all it's worth, the first "Trojan Horse" strategy was employed here against the ancient Egyptians when wine barrels were filled with soldiers. Happy soldiers no doubt. Of course the Egyptians got even some years later, but that's another story.
We stopped at the Rabin assassination site in Tel Aviv where, as the guide said, the dream of peace was murdered along with the prime minister. Some truth in this perhaps, but it is still unclear to me that after these two days in Israel it is all the more puzzling what the politics within Israel and with its most unfriendly neighbors (all of them to various degrees) is all about. Israel is a modern very, very, very prosperous democracy surrounded by states with very little of these virtues. What Israel is hated for could really be these things. Internally, Israel feels safe and confident with highway and rail construction everywhere. The current government's reactive policies appear to be not particularly loved. Very liberal Tel Aviv has its gay pride parade recently without problems recently, and major operas are being performed in Tel Aviv and even Massada throughout the season. These two visits on this cruise are most notable for my observing no "war mentality", unobtrusive (but ever present) security, and people just going about their business and/or recreation.
Barbara is on the all day tour to Jerusalem today. I'm sure her 8 GB memory card will come back full and we will have at least one good non-Chinese made souvenir, but we will sail for Egypt tonight with me still having the 3 1/2 shekels I brought from Boulder from my last visit.
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