Our Final Day in Tel Aviv

Well today was our last day in Tel Aviv, and it was one of the first free days we have had. And by free I mean from 1pm until whenever (we had two tours in the morning).

We started with a walking tour of old Jaffa and had an Arab Muslim Israeli and Israeli Jew as our guides. The attempted to tell us their history overlaid on the history of Jaffa, as it is one of the few cities in Israel where Muslims and Jews coexist rather peacefully and in an integrated fashion. The views in Jaffa and the art shops were amazing, the content of the tour however was repetitive because after 9 days in Israel we have had a variety of tours and sessions where this same type of history has been told. Following that we took a tour of a park, also known as the African Refugee Development Center. We learned a great deal about how Israeli will offer asylum to many African refugees and on their visa's they mark them no work visa, but the supreme court ruled that is goes against the right to human dignity to not let them work. We also then toured the area where most of the refugees live, 12 to a one room studio apartment that sleep in shifts of 6 at a time to minimize the cost.

The best part of the day was shopping at the Carmel Market and then walking up the Mediterranean Sea along the beach and stopping at one of the many outdoor beach tables and having a drink and some chips and salsa. We took some amazing pictures and collected a few amazing shells. The sand here is the best fine sugar sand with no pebbles like the Jersey shore or North Carolina beaches. There were also a ton of wind surfers and regular old surfers out today and the place we had drinks offered breakfast and surfing lessons for 171 Shekels which is like $45 US dollars.

I think the change from today came from our talk while lounging on at the beach bar. I asked the group if the the trip shifted there perspectives on Israel, Palestine or the conflict at all compared to what they came in with. We had an amazing discussion and it ranged from not knowing at all what the solutions should be, to being more confused now than before we came. The one thing we all shared in common was that this is not an easy place to figure out and that it is probably not going to be solved anytime soon. We also talked a great deal about the irony or juxtaposition of a "Democratic Religious (Jewish)" state and how that doesn't' seem to be able to possible, as well as the fact that they don't have a constitution (because when they declared the state they Jewish population was so small they didn't want to create a full constitution until a majority of Jews had returned....who will decide when that should happen we then tossed around.

What was the change today? There are some issues that are very difficult and that can not be easily figured out but they can not be avoided. The avoidance of a conflict, or the acceptance of living in conflict is a way to perpetuate the conflict and unpleasant circumstances as a result. Now if you know me at all you know that I HATE CONFLICT, but if nothing else this trip has taught me the value of directness and that avoiding conflict doesn't get you anywhere productive.

Tomorrow we are off to the Masada and the Dead Sea and then back to Tel Aviv to good old Ben-Gurion airport to take the 12:32am red eye back to Newark. I can't believe the trip is practically over. It has been so short yet is seems like we left Bethlehem (PA that is) so long ago...oxymoron yes, but so true! Good night from one last evening in Israel...

Sabbath Shalom!