Sidetrip to a Settlement

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Geo: 32.0452, 34.7697

We'd made arrangements for a shared Nesher Taxi to take us back to the airport in Tel Aviv. It is a surprisingly efficient system, as you call them up, tell them where you are and the time of your flight. Within seconds, they provide you a pick-up time calculated by the time of your flight and the estimated time needed for security, and other people in your area also going to the airport. It's a matter of luck in terms of whether you're picked up first or last, but for us it worked out fine. The taxi was there exactly on time; we joined a couple already on the bus, and made a couple other quick stops close to our hotel. We were soon on the main highway toward Tel Aviv, but then the driver made a call and told the person on the other end that we'd be there in 10 minutes. He then proceeded to turn off the highway and entered another road which had wall and barbed wire running on both sides. As we snaked past several Palestinian villages -- obvious, as they were on the other side of the wall and had mosques -- we started to see shiny new housing developments and, pretty much out of the blue, large groups of Hassidic Jews walking the sidewalks. We were in the heart of a Jewish settlement area. Each one was it's own little walled compound, and when we turned into our target community, we passed a private security checkpoint and then saw row after row of perfectly manicured little houses, clustered around a small shopping area. Whereas everywhere else we'd been in Israel, the signs were only in Hebrew, rather than in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, as was the case everywhere else. We told Anna to look around, but that we'd explain it to her later. When we did finally explain it over snacks at the airport, her comment was "that sounds means and dumb." Well put.

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