ISRAEL 4

 I'm spending the night on Mt. Gerizim at Hayovel headquarters in Israel.  The comments to these blog posts have been enjoyable except for the folks who accuse me of getting rich on this trip.  I normally don't like to publicize my gifts, but due to the prejudicial comments I think it's important to let everyone know I'm not taking a penny for this trip.  It's a complete offering on my part. 

                  True, I don't do many things gratis; when I do I'm fairly picky about the recipient.  But this has been a joy to give.  Now we'll see if all the people who accused me of benefitting financially from this trip will comment with apologies.   

                  Today I had breakfast with the governor of Mt. Hebron, which is the largest jurisdiction in Judea and Samaria but the least populated.  About 75 percent of the people in Israel live within 10 miles of the coast along the Mediterranean.  This afternoon we drove through what seemed like millions of acres of barren, uninhabited land that was all forest during the times of David the king.  A corner of it was where David fled during Absalom's rebellion; to imagine Absalom hanging from a tree by his hair takes every creative ounce you can muster because it's nothing but rocks and weeds.  For many, many square miles. 

                  The 1995 Oslo Accords gave 40 percent of Judea and Samaria to Arabs and 60 percent to Israelis.  That was a treaty the whole world pretty much agreed with.  Since then, Israel has only gotten its footprint on 6 percent of their land.  Whenever a farmer moves onto another piece of it, terrorism drops and peace increases.  I'm here trying to get the few farmers already farming to be more successful and encourage new ones to take the leap. 

                  One of the biggest problems in Israel is that the Jewish people today have no agricultural heritage.  For centuries they've not purchased land or farmed; they've been jewelers, clock fixers, and bankers--all services and crafts that are portable.  That way whenever they were chased out of an area, they could flee with their stock in trade.  That meant that in 1948 when Israel was established, they had precious little experience to launch good farms.

                  So who did they turn to for advice?  Their friends in the U.S.  And what did their friends in the U.S. tell them to do?  Build chicken factories, use chemicals, feed chicken manure to cows and every other anti-ecological thing you can imagine.  I'm here as much to undo the horrible advice from my country as much as to encourage these new farmers.

                  As if that isn't enough of a headwind, these farmers face constant and continuous threat from terrorist neighbors.  In a wonderful breakthrough partnership between my hosts, Hayovel, and the Mt. Hebron government, a surveillance trailer is now ready to go with a new farmer to offer protection while he's getting established.  I got to see it today and it's quite a beauty.  It has a heat detection camera and regular cameras that can zoom in up to three miles away to monitor a breach in the perimeter.   

                  Two awnings with solar panels unfold to make it completely self-powered.  The monitors can be tied in with the IDF forces or the farmer.  We drove by a farm this afternoon where a 16-year-old shepherd was stabbed to death by Arabs from a nearby village.  When the youth failed to show up at the end of the day with the sheep, a search party went out.  While they were searching for him, the Arabs shot at the rescue team.  To be sure, many Arabs, especially those living in Israel proper, are friendly and peaceful.  But in Judea and Samaria, it's a different story and these farmers trying to live on Israeli land face constant exposure to violence.  This trailer represents a brand new initiative to protect these farmers as they establish their operations.

                  This afternoon I spent a couple of hours at the Farm at the City of David.  The 36-acre farm in Jerusalem is an attempt to grow every plant and every animal known to exist during Israel's Davidic period.  They asked me to come and counsel them on their disease and odor problems.  I introduced them to the carbonaceous diaper (it was fun trying to get them to say that in Hebrew) and rotating the animals around the pens to break host pathogen cycles.  The team there was incredibly receptive; it made immediate sense to them and they wondered why this isn't common practice.

                  Well, truth isn't common practice.  Tomorrow is my third and last all-day seminar and I'm eager to see who I'll have the privilege of meeting this time.