This past Monday I accompanied an Italian journalist down to Kerem Shalom, the tiny kibbutz that is located just inside Israel where it meets the borders of Egypt and Gaza. It's a pretty surreal place - a pastoral little kibbutz that was founded as a tangible expression of its members' desire for, and belief in, peace between Israel and its neighbours. It is less than one kilometre from Rafah (Gaza), just inside the 1948 boundaries. Less than two weeks ago, at 5.30 in the morning, armed men from a militant Hamas group emerged through a tunnel they had dug, apparently over a period of 6 months, under the fence that separates Gaza from one of Kerem Shalom's potato fields. They killed two soldiers and snatched Corporal Gilad Shalit, who has not been heard from since.
The founders of the 5 year-old kibbutz believe that eventually the borders will be open and there will be free trade between Palestine, Israel and Egypt. Peace, said kibbutz secretary Abraham Hochman, will not come with guns. It will come through things like agricultural cooperation and negotiations.
Fifty-five people live on the kibbutz - 30 adults and 25 children. Two new families joined the kibbutz over the past two weeks.
Kibbutz Kerem Shalom
Davide (the Italian journalist) and I showed up at the kibbutz without calling first. We walked into the utilitarian little building that houses the offices and found Abraham immediately. Knowing that he'd probably been overwhelmed by media attention over the past few days, I said jokingly in Hebrew, "Surprise! Foreign journalists!" He just smiled warmly and said, "Come into my office. I already met reporters from France and Sweden today. Where are you from?"
After we'd completed the interview, he took us on a tour of the kibbutz's periphery, which faces the army base, the potato fields, Egypt and Gaza. While we were standing in front of the potato field, our backs to the concrete wall that the army erected to protect the members from gunfire, a helicopter gunship appeared suddenly and began to fire down at Rafah - the neighbours over the fence. The rat-tat-tat of the gunfire was rather gut churning. By chance, I was poised to take a photo of Davide and Abraham just as the shots were fired and caught their expressions:
Reacting to gunfire from a helicopter over Rafah
I tried to photograph the helicopter, but the whole incident was over in about a minute and it flew away too fast and too high for me to capture.
After we left the kibbutz we drove a couple of minutes down the road to the border.
On the way, we passed quite a few tanks, armoured vehicles and soldiers.
Then we arrived at the border:
And that was as far as we could go, so we made a U-turn and went back...to Israel.
Less than two hours later we were back in Tel Aviv. We ate a late lunch under the huge fichus tree that shades the patio at Suzanna, talked about what we had seen and heard that day, watched the bridal parties arriving to be photographed (because the courtyard facing Suzanna is a popular place for that pre-wedding ritual) and then we parted.
As I walked home through Neve Tzedek, I passed the remnants of an old building that will soon be replaced - probably with a luxury home. Someone had spray-painted graffiti on the wall. It said, "Maayan and Moti were here and had wild sex."
"Maayan and Moti were here and had wild sex."
I walked up Rothschild Boulevard and stopped to chat with the guys at the coffee kiosk on the corner of Herzl Street.
The guys at the coffee kiosk on Rothschild Boulevard
I always feel a bit as though I've landed on Mars when I return to my beloved Tel Aviv after a day in the West Bank, Gaza or the tense border areas. It's so strange to walk around this sunny, happy, sophisticated little city that shows absolutely no sign of being just a short drive away from a conflict zone. Really, if you didn't know - well, you wouldn't know. I tried unsuccessfully to shake off the sense of gloom and foreboding that has dominated my mood since the politicians began beating the war drums last week.
I thought about my conversation with Abraham, the secretary of the kibbutz. He told me that his partner was in Tel Aviv that very day, meeting their lawyer and a Palestinian businessman from Ramallah to discuss the joint establishment of a company on both sides of the Rafah-Kerem Shalom border. They plan to build a terminal for the purpose of exporting Palestinian produce via Ben Gurion Airport. "The armies and politicians cannot reach an agreement," he said. "But we can. We see the potential for peace and we believe that Kerem Shalom will be a very important place when peace comes."
I asked him, at the end of the interview, if he was optimistic about peace.
He looked at me straight in the eye and said slowly, emphasizing each word, "If I wasn't optimistic about peace, I would not be here."
And he smiled, warmly and directly.
