Thoughts about the Promised Land

Im sure people have noticed my lack of commentary on my experiences of Israel.
Some of that has to do with me being pretty much tired of traveling and preferring to just post a few pictures rather than write reams of personal analysis... after six months of travel I feel Im allowed to slack-off a bit :)
But actually the more significant factor has been that its a complicated place and it seemed wrong to leap to conclusions after only visiting one or two places and only spending a few days here (especially if Im not moving on immediately and will be spending more time here)... But Ive now spent pretty much a month here and Ive seen a good amount of the place (though it only takes a day to ride from one end to the other of the country) so I think my opinions are now reasonably well founded.

So to start, lets state where Ive been and where I have not... I spent most of my time in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv (one week in each place), and I also spent a day or so in Elat, Hebron, and Tiberius. I have traveled from the extreme South at Elat, up along the Dead Sea coast to Jerusalem. Then North through to Haifa and on to the borders with Lebanon and Syria, around the Golan Heights, back through the West Bank to Jerusalem, and then West to Tel Aviv. I didn't get to se the SW coast or into Gaza (though Im pretty sure I would not have been allowed to enter Gaza even if Id been in the area). The vast majority of my time was spent in "Israel proper" and only a few days spent in the "occupied territories". I met lots of people though they were mostly in and around the cheap hotel/hostels that I stayed in or they were just average people on the street and at stores and gas stations etc.

And so, within those places and times, What did I think?
Sad to say I was pretty disappointed!, but its difficult to just lump all the difficult experiences into a single category... Israel is a complicated place... So Ill separate comments into categories.

So, the first category of my issues is "Religion" (no big surprise I suppose), and the main place where this aspect is overtly apparent is Jerusalem... Jerusalem is a very holy city for all three of the major Abrahamic religions (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim), And there are of course vast numbers of Jewish and Christian people from all over the world (almost only the "developed" world though) who come to Jerusalem on something of a pilgrimage. Note that while the city is also very holy for the Muslims, very few foreign Muslims can visit it because its difficult for them to get entry visas, so the majority of Muslims in the city are Palestinians/ residents of east Jerusalem and the other occupied territories.

For the most part, people from the different faiths get on in a civil fashion with each other and that's fine with me (I don't personally subscribe to any of these doctrinal faiths), but there seems to be something about Jerusalem that attracts vast numbers of "people of faith" who seem to be somewhere between significantly and completely "unhinged"!... Really!  I guess I shouldn't really be surprised but Ive never come across so many people who I felt were really quite "strange" and well on their way to crazy and with an intense religious bent!... Mostly they are not "overtly crazy" (you know, wandering around in strange clothes preaching in the street or shouting at passers-by etc), they are much less obvious and they only stand out as different once you start interacting with them. 
OK, so there are a bunch of crazy people wandering around the place... But its not that much of a problem, they are just crazy and I can mostly ignore them :)

And there are also lots of people here who experience their faith very intensely but don't feel the need to "push it down other peoples thoughts", and I have plenty of respect for these people (and thankfully Id have to say these types of people are probably in the majority compared to the others).

 But there is another category of people who I have much more difficulty with and these are the "intensely religious and righteous" ... Far too many "zealots" about the place!... These are people who experience their faith intensely and feel superior to all other people because of their interpretation of their faith and also feel the need to "share" their superiority and righteousness with anybody and everybody... Actually I have to say that it seems to be a significant factor in all the Abrahamic/Western faiths that most of the adherents feel morally superior and extremely intolerant toward everyone who is not of their chosen faith.... Like, my God and my holy book and my interpretation of it is the ONLY way to correctly live life, and anyone who believes differently is a sinner/heathen/infidel/etc. and they should be brought to the "true faith" and if they will not come willingly then they should be punished and driven out!!!  ... Needless to say, I have a BIG problem with these sorts of people, and sadly there seemed to me to be a lot of them in Jerusalem (both visitors and residents).
So that's a very brief and heavily caricatured description of the challenges I had with people I met in Jerusalem.

The second category of my issues in Israel Ill call the FUQ which is short for "Fuck You Quotient" and it seems to be a pervasive factor throughout the country and culture though I think I experienced it most clearly in the traffic and driving behaviors of the locals.
Now Ill start by saying that the traffic/driving in Israel is immensely more civilized than anywhere I went in East or North Africa and is more or less on-par with traffic in South Africa, and Namibia... People drive in marked lanes, they obey traffic lights and most road signs. The cars are modern and the roads are clean and well paved... Definitely "developed world" rather than "developing world", so compared to most of my driving experiences on this trip, driving in Israel was very pleasant indeed.
But the drivers here can be incredibly inconsiderate to each other... There seems to be a pervasive attitude of "I can do whatever I want and I don't care how it effects you"! ... In the middle of rush hour with rapidly moving crowded traffic, drivers are happy to stop their car in the middle of a traffic lane, completely stopping traffic, and spend two minutes chatting with the passenger who then casually gets out of the car, spends another 10 seconds chatting with the driver before closing the door. and then finally the car moves on and traffic resumes flowing... It matters not how much horn blaring is going on behind, the people in the blocking car don't seem to care at all... Its as if everyone in the country were a Taxi driver!
By far the most common cause of the FUQ is that people are engaging with their smart-phones all the time and prioritize that over all other considerations... This causes most of the disruptions in traffic flow and people standing in the middle of door-ways or corridors blocking other people, but its also often caused by other things too though I think mostly being captured under the heading of "social priorities"... Which is to say that I think the culture here prioritizes social interaction much more highly than cultures in North America/Australia (where Ive spent most of my life). The national attitude of "Fuck You" is however un-biased and is expressed completely equally to foreigners or other Israelis alike but regardless, I found it very distasteful!

But its my third category of issues that is the biggest and most difficult to accept/reconcile...
Im very sad and sorry to say that in my opinion Israel's current (and past) political/legal/social administration is an extremely biased and unfair system!... It appears that the prevailing cultural attitude is one of "Being White and Jewish is far more important than being democratic or espousing Human rights for all"!
I know that sounds incredibly harsh but having spent a good amount of time here and having looked to try to see where I was misinterpreting things Im afraid to say I think its true.

... But where to start? ... All I know is that it would feel very wrong for me to have seen what Ive seen and then Not write about it honestly!    so here goes...

From everything I saw, Israel is extremely biased against immigration from non-white and non-Jewish people... Now I freely admit that I do not at all know what the nations official immigration laws, policies, requirements are, but the "facts on the ground" are extremely clear... Every other city that I have been to in the world has significant numbers of  people of East Asian (mostly China) and usually also South Asian (India) descent... But I saw virtually none of these ethnic groups in Israel at all... And likewise, I saw virtually no people in Israel with sub-Saharan African heritage (which is the long-winded pc way to say Black people)... and of course every other city I went to on my trip (to "Africa") had very large populations ... This may be "normal" for Arabian nations (which I have not visited - though they hardly have a reputation for democracy or ethnic equality!) so Im not sure its a valid reference for Israel? And given the wealth and industry and general "developed" status of the nation, I guarantee there are millions of people from Africa and  South and East Asia who would very much like to emigrate to live in Israel (The ongoing military tensions with Israel's neighbors would not matter one jot!), so there is some "real politik" mechanism that is physically stopping that from happening.
Now I did see lots and lots of Russian immigrants (about 20% of the population) and there are also plenty of people of Arab descent (The indigenous Palestinians of course but Ill get to that in a bit), but by far the majority of the Israeli population seems to be of European descent... which is anything but the original inhabitants of the area. So, one way or another, the fact is that Israel appears to have very racist immigration behaviors! (regardless of how politically correct and un-biased the official narrative goes).
But even this aspect of the nation is less of an issue for me than the Palestinian "situation"...

Now Im not going to get into the incredibly long and divisive arguments of who did what where and when... There are literally hundreds of books written on the subject from many different perspectives and you can go read up on things if you want. Im simply going to state what my observations were and based on my own readings what conclusions Ive come to... No doubt many people will have wildly differing opinions... That's fine with me, but I have to live with my conscience so Im stating my views as they currently are...

The short version is that the behaviors of the Israeli Administration toward the indigenous Arab/Palestinian people of the area appear to be undeniably and exclusively those of an Colonial conquest... (which seems to be about 60% through to its completion in my opinion). The effect is that the indigenous inhabitants of the land (region/island/continent) are systematically evicted from the land  - Starting with the most arable and desirable regions and progressing through to any usable and even must "unusable" land until the entire continent is populated almost exclusively by the colonists and the original inhabitants culture is completely destroyed and only a tiny remnant of the people remains... Its an absolutely horrific process and there is absolutely no justice in it whatsoever!!! Much like the results of the European Colonizing (mostly the British in these cases) of Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand.
Likewise, the "process" of the "colonization" is very clearly apparent from the modern histories of the other colonized lands...Initially, when the colonizers are few, small amounts of land are bought or traded from the local inhabitants and a more or less peaceful process is used. But as the colonizers numbers grow and become more dominant then areas of the more desirable land are taken by force (with the colonizers having overwhelming technological and military superiority). And then as the colonization rate increases and more and more land is taken by force, the indigenous people become more militant and fight back... which the colonizers of course treat as completely unjustified attacks and then wrapping themselves in the cloak of "self protection and security" they visit horrendous punitive actions against the indigenous peoples and seize more land and raise villages etc. etc. etc. The story is as I said horrendous, predictable and extremely well documented as it has been repeated so many times...

So that is what happens with European colonization, and as I said it has happened a lot, but it happened mostly in the 18th, 19th centuries and was more or less a "mopping up" process in the first half of the 20th century. Since then the "victorious" colonizers have done some belated "soul searching" and nowadays the generally accepted "developed world" view is that the whole process was incredibly unjust, self serving and violated every version of Human Rights that we can think of... And of course we (in the developed world) like to think that we would never do anything like that again.... But Im not quite so sure, and Israel seems to be a definite "case in point"...

It seems to me that this process is exactly what has been happening in Israel all through the 20th century and is currently in "full swing" even now!!! The Palestinians are systematically being evicted and eliminated from the land of their forefathers, They are being visited with every known form of persecution and when individuals or groups within their population retaliate against the colonizers then the colonizers label the whole of the indigenous people as terrorists and visit ever more sever punitive actions and continue to usurp their lands and resources. Like I said, its the same old story! But to me the amazing thing is that its being carried out in the current times!

And Israel's administration clearly feel absolutely no shame whatsoever about what has been done in the past or what they are continuing to do every day! And of course the general Israeli population feel the same way too for that matter, but the public of any nation are pretty much putty in the hands of internal propaganda and will believe with conviction any narrative they are fed by their media.
And yet, the administration don't admit to what they are doing , well at least not publically because that would result in complete excommunication from the rest of the developed world!  So the same narrative that is used to generate internal popular consent is circulated and used to generate external political approval, though with somewhat less success... And I suppose that reduced success in generating political approval with other nations/peoples is directly because other people have less to gain and more to loose than the Israelis...
I think its a fundamental aspect of the human psyche ... I think that the peoples of other nations would be just as susceptible to committing mass acts of colonial persecution etc against another people if there was the same level of gain/loss at stake... When our greed locks onto something that some other group of people has and that we want, then we are all very capable of and depressingly competent at identifying the differences between US and THEM and then finding any and all means of justifying WE are the good guys, THEY are the bad guys and then its completely fine to do what ever horrible think we want to THEM and identify it as JUST and RIGHTEOUS in the defense of US....

Just like that wonderful and much lauded constitution document of the USA that starts out "We the people..."   Well, that "WE" somehow didn't seem to include African slaves or Native Americans!.. How convenient!
Yes, at the time it was written most of the founding fathers owned slaves and the "Indian wars" were just getting started! (late 18th century)

So sad; so depressingly and predictably sad!!!

... In fact, I found the whole experience of visiting the Israel and traveling around the place and seeing the effects of a hundred years of colonization, and doing some of my own literary research as well, so intensely depressing and aggravating at the same time that Im not going to write any more on the subject... Im going to leave it at that and just state that I didn't like it!

And so having spent about a month here I find that Im happy to be leaving the beautiful sunny warm beaches of the modern city of Tel Aviv and heading back to the cold rainy city of Vancouver... Like I said, quite disappointing... Well for me anyway, Im sure if you don't pay much attention to these sorts of things then it would seem like a wonderful place ...