Last week Israel’s three largest cities went to bed and woke up expecting the Iranian strike. But the picture in each of them was different. As diverse as the worlds that make up this country.
Tel Aviv: The world is out
A quarter past two. In the morning. The intensity of the day and the burden of unanswered messages of concern like “take the first plane and come back” drive away sleep as little as anything. The pleasant evening breeze does its best to break the humidity in Tel Aviv, at least so that the walk is not prohibitive.
The neighborhood is quiet enough to make you assume that people might be holed up in their houses and waiting. Badly. On the way to the 24-hour supermarket for the basics – coffee, water and dry food just in case – just two streets down, people are out having fun.
The bars are full here, too, in Florentin, the district named after the Thessalonian Solomon Florentin who in 1920 bought this piece of desert, then, and people sit on the sidewalks, talk, laugh.
A little further down one of the shelters with the door ajar waits. He wanted the situation to change suddenly. For now the parallel universe of the city dominates.
Haifa: Heavy climate
In the summers in Haifa Bay the heat is no joke. On the other side of the edge of Mount Carmel on which the city sits the beaches are packed with people. It’s usually windy there, as opposed to this side where the mountain cuts the wind and creates a stifling atmosphere, and that’s normal. The faces of the people in the center seemed to be identified with the climate: they exude a discomfort and a misery often.
Israel’s third largest city is located just 40 kilometers from Lebanon. And the heavy climate, especially in the center, has to do with something else: a quarter of the residents are Arabs and although most are Christians and all citizens of Israel, many feel torn between the two identities.
Still others seem to have no doubts about what they are anymore and consider Israeli citizenship only on paper or have joined completely. In the Arabic cafe near the harbor, Umm Kolsum’s voice fills the air like hookah smoke. On the wall are photos, an oud and an inscription “Beirut I love you”.
The person next to me, also an Arab – the people next to me are Jewish – starts the conversation by asking me if the cheese sambusek I ordered is not amazing. And it is. I tell him to talk to me on camera. He doesn’t want to. I ask him about the climate and how he feels these days in anticipation of the attack and he tells me about the uncomfortable position especially of the Arabs. He reminds me that in 2006, when Hezbollah bombarded Haifa with 100 rockets, 11 people were killed. And Arabs.
“Jews don’t bother us”, says, “but we too cannot become something else.” “And what are you?” “Arabs” he replies with a smile. “Of that I am still sure!”. I realize he’s the only person I’ve seen smile since I arrived. It was, until I took the train back.
Jerusalem: “It must end”
The tram stops. People get on and off and at every stop the vehicles mechanically and anxiously scan them out. Here there is no entrance, no detectors and machines like elsewhere in Israel. The tram is inevitably exposed to the road, which is why its stops and the vehicles themselves have often been the targets of attacks.
The young man with the automatic who just before was squinting at my tripod until he was sure what it was, is also constantly scanning. Orthodox Jews in similar wigs and summer tights or headscarves, Arab women in headscarves and long black dresses, “Western” Jews in short pants and tattoos, ultra-Orthodox in hats and coats, soldiers and female soldiers, all scan.
Out of curiosity and sometimes discomfort for each other’s world, out of fear when these and other smaller worlds unite at the sight of “the enemy”. The other’s. This is also a narrative of the problem, the most basic one at least, the one that plays out internationally, it’s just another narrative. No one on this tram is entirely comfortable with many of the others. But moving is a necessity. You call it punishment, with a touch of cynicism.
In the old town, many shops are closed. THE Ibrahim in his eighties he tells me that the war has broken them. He sells cloth. “Sometimes I make a hundred shekels a day, sometimes nothing. But what to do? I’m bored staying at home”.
I ask him about the climate, about the war, about the blow everyone is waiting for. “I”he tells me fatherly, “I’ve lived it all here. I’m not afraid, I’m old now. But I’ll tell you one thing: it has to end. Both have parents and families. We should never think of what can be but only what must be done”.
He treats me to coffee and dates and I help him with the little Greek he knows. To refresh them. “If things calm down”he tells me, “the Greeks will come back too”. Ibrahim is the voice of the minority reason. But he persists.
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