Blowin' in the wind: Israel and Palestine

Having spent all of yesterday lounging around trying to recover from the fun of turning 24, with my lovely friends on Friday night,  I am going to make my 3rd day of 24 a productive one! 

So far I have skipped over the whole religious/land based conflict in Israel and Palestine.  Mainly because I'm not sure I actually understand it but here goes...

After the Second World War the Jews sought, with the help of the British, to secure a homeland. Somewhere they weren't going to be denied entry, thrown out, locked up or massacred...this seems reasonable. Redrawing boarders to create a new  homeland however, inevitably means someone gets trampled on. Cue the Palestinians. 

I have no real opinion on whether the Jews are the rightful owners of Jerusalem and all that nonsense. All I know is man's intolerance for differing religious beliefs never fails to amaze me. 

I was watching the BBC's documentary on the history of the Jews the other week. It talked  about how before Hitler's regime had even reached Lithuania most of it's Jewish population had been herded into their Synagogues. Locked in there and left to the perils of starvation and eventual death.   Unable to even dispose of the bodies of the dead.  Horrific, right? 

This just left me, aside from with a slight lump in my throat, wandering after such turmoil how can one cause another group of people such grief? They have been in their shoes as it were.  

I'll let Bob Dylan say the rest:

Why Israel?

A lot of my friends and family have been asking why I have chosen to go to Israel so here goes:

Beautiful..and they don't really have winter.

Idea began back in China when I had finished teaching and started travelling around  enjoying myself and meeting Israelis all over the place!  Most had just finished military service and were enjoying the sights in China before heading off to University.

Until  this point the thought of going to the Middle East had never crossed my mind. Attitudes to women the tendency to bomb each other and their own people had erased it almost entirely from my map. Apart from maybe a trip to the Pyramids at some point.

The foodie in me salivates at this beautiful food!

As ever when I travel my ideas and perceptions of different places and people change.  After a few chats over watery Chinese beer with various different travellers, some from Israel others Americans who'd been over as part of their Birth Right (American Jews get a free trip there!), I decided it's a place I'd like to see for myself.  

It took chat with my friend Paul about what makes me happy and dismissing the idea of going back to teaching English in Asia or doing a PGCE, as a result, to come up with the idea of working on a Kibbutz and it being my next venture!

Spice heaven!

I mentioned Travel being the thing that makes me happy. Next came the question of where?...up cropped Israel. Paul mentions his dad having worked on a Kibbutz and says his dad describes it as the best time of his life. This sparked an in depth Google search and a few clicks, pages of forms and months later.. here I am!

When you're at a loose end as to what to do with your life a Kibbutz seems like a good chance to put my skills to the test.  I am also interested from a political perspective as I am a bit of an idealist and would love a world that was further into the Socialist spectrum  than the ConDems.  I am interested to see a society based on equality and community in practice.   

Motivations and a Misson to Israel

That's me on the left climbing The Great Wall of China

As I add to the statistics of unemployed graduates, but try not get bogged down in apathy, I have decided to join the blogosphere!  To keep you guys out there up to date on my latest travels: trying out new skills; seeing new places; tasting and cooking new food.  At some point I hope to discover something I enjoy and someone will pay me to do! Working in a call centre is not the answer! 

Teaching my kindergarten class a new song on the Ukulele

 


After teaching English in China for 6 months my next adventure will be Isreal to volunteer on a Kibbutz! I am ready to book flights but I am hitting a few hitches on the way with paperwork. In order to guarantee my place on a Kibbutz I need my doctor to write a letter confirming that I am not still contagious with Measles I had 2 YEARS ago! That was a fun flight home from Cambodia  but that's another story. Two years..if it was months maybe I could understand but this is ridiculous..  

Fingers crossed things don't get too serious in Syria, in the meantime.