the world and grandfather's village

The World and my Grandfather's village

By David Verveer

The title of this post might indicate something entirely different than what it really means. I live in a town (about 90.000 inhabitants) in the Israeli coastal Sharon plain, with the romantic name of Kfar Saba (Grandfather's village). The real origin of the name is unknown, but it was already mentioned with this name during the Roman and Byzantine periods, some historians claim that it originates from a Saba clan which lived in the area, but according my grandchildren, Kfar Saba is named Grandfather's village because their grandfather lives there, and whom am I to argue with them.

The site of our town has strategic value, as it was one of the caravan stops on the ancient Spice road to the Far East. The traders would arrive in Egypt and follow the coastal road, and turn inland taking the Salt Valley road, where now the towns of Zichron Yaacov / Furadis are. This coastal road was a small passable strip between the coastal swamps and the Shomron hills. Not only traders use this road but also armies conquering and fighting forces of the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Arabs, Romans, Crusaders and anybody involved in the region.

A Chan - ruins of a hostel from the Byzantine period can be seen, just outside Kfar Saba in an Arab village name Jaljuliah, apparently using the caravans for refreshing horses and getting fresh provisions.
This ancient trader's road became also the green border, after Israel's war of independence, and today is the border between the Palestinian West Bank and Israel.
The towns Qualquilia and Kfar Saba are and were neighbors, today divided by a high wall, as during the second Intifada, Kfar Saba suffered severely from terror acts by Qualquilians.

Kfar Saba is neighboring in the west with Jewish Raanana, and in the north with the Israeli Arab Triangle of a cluster of Arabic villages and towns. To the south we find Jaljuliah, mentioned before, which is the Biblical Gilgal haSharon and the Jewish town Hod hasharon. Kfar Saba is only 15 kilometers from the sea, and the area can be considered the smallest strip of Israel. The distance to Tel Aviv, the commercial capital of Israel is also around 15 Km, this explains the main function of Kfar Saba, as middle class home for people working in the Tel Aviv region.

As I mentioned before, Kfar Saba is nearly surrounded by Arab towns and villages, and provides services (administrative, health, educational and of course shopping) to a wide region of central Israel. Even though, we do not talk about it too much, integration of Israeli Arabs is complete, they sell in shops and malls, and they work at the post office or any other service in town, they work at the Meir hospital as doctors, nurses and medical staff, without any discrimination or racist problems, even not during hectic war times, such as the Gaza offensive, a few months back. I failed to mention that the Palestinian Arabs from the region do most of their shopping in Kfar Saba, and many Kfar Saba citizens go to the Arab towns in order to buy cheaper vegetable and fruits, get their cars fixed or go to dentists, who charge much less than their Jewish counterparts in Kfar Saba.

I don't claim, Kfar Saba is trouble free, we suffer still from car thefts from West Bank criminals, however since the border dividing wall, and it is less often.

In actual fact, even though, a border and wall divide us from Qualquiliah, there is much cooperation between the two towns, with its mayors meeting often in order to discuss neighborhood problems and actions.

Please note, the town Kfar Saba is not built on Arab owned land but was bought during the Ottoman and Mandate period by the Lord Rothschild foundation. The Arabs in the area mostly remained there during the War of Independence, and still live at the same place in relative prosperity, (not withstanding local financial municipal problems, due to failure in getting their citizens to pay their taxes).

When I read in foreign newspapers about the problems and discrimination between Arabs and Jews in Israel, I wonder if we live on another planet and the Israel mentioned in their reports is another place, dark and cruel. As I have lived in many places on our globe, I dare to claim that discrimination in Israel is much less than for example London, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin or Paris.

I think that the foreign press is confusing the environment in Gaza or the West Bank with that of Israel, indeed, there is still a conflict going on, 5 minutes away from Kfar Saba, were Hamas and Fatah fighters kill each other and attack Israeli troops in name of Allah, which you might call occupation, true that extremists settlers behave as dictators in the territories, which we try, not always very successfully, to curb, but that is a temporary situation, as I hope and presume that both forced agreements and pressure from the U.S. and E.U. will solve these disputes. I don't try to white wash the deeds of some of my country men, I am against colonizing, but European opinions claiming massacre and land theft and other war crimes is far from the truth and unfair to the Israeli, remember all wars in the region were instigated by the Arab countries or terrorists organizations, please take in account, Israel can not afford to lose a war, we have nowhere to go, other than drowning in the sea, as some of our enemies still have written in their manifest.