Peace-keeping with style

Overlooking the sea of Galilee, its blue-green waters dotted with sailboats and water-skiers, is Degania, the first kibbutz established at the turn of the century in the north of what was later to become part of the state of Israel. In its picture gallery, the founders, women in high-neck blouses and men leaning on rakes, are Turgenev8217;s people who believed social and moral questions were the central concerns of life.

Today, Degania focuses on its main business which is no longer growing the varieties of wheat it is named after but producing tools for the diamond industry, close to half exported to India. Unusually, members of the kibbutz may pursue their own careers outside. Itzhik Ankhori, whose family came from the Ukraine, was born here when some of the pioneers were still around. He is pragmatic about the changes and says no one can afford to stand still. Even as he worries about how the sense of community can be kept going, he worries about business options beyond diamond tools.

Few leaders understand the new world as well as the former Prime Minister, Shimon Peres. When he says the future is not a continuation of the past, he means, in the first instance, that national strength depends not on the size of population or land area but on science and technology, education and information. Israel with a population half that of Greater Mumbai8217;s 5.8 million and no natural resources other than Dead Sea minerals has applied the lesson highly successfully. It continues its push for a high-tech economy and higher levels of education especially for low-skilled Eastern Jews and Israeli Arabs. Forty per cent of the general population has A8217; levels and it is intended to raise this to 50 per cent.

Peres hopes to lead his people further along that route. 8220;If the source of your strength is the intellect, no armies can conquer you. Peace makes power obsolete8221;. It is a call to give up looking to balance of power politics to ensure security and to turn instead to building networks of interdependence. The peace process is intended to achieve integration in the Middle East going beyond the redrawing of maps and standing down of armies to the creation of new common interests through trade and investment.

For young Israelis, the 1993 Oslo peace process which ended their country8217;s isolation is a logical extension of new aspirations and high standards of living 17,000 per capita today. They want to be part of a cosmopolitan community for whom the only difficulty in getting to New Delhi or Beijing is the price of an El Al ticket. It is customary for many, if their parents or grandparents can afford it, to take off on long yatras in Asia or South America immediately after doing three years of military service. It is like a rite of passage. In the Andes and Himalayas perhaps they discover life at a level of simplicity eons apart from the awful complexities of the Middle East.

Few other people anywhere are so relentlessly scrutinised by the world8217;s media and reminded every day about who they are and where they are. Israelis themselves ask the Big Questions all the time. Debates on privatisation of land the state owns 90 per cent of all land, for example, cannot avoid touching on the importance of collective ownership of land on behalf of the Jewish people and the consequences of land being sold to foreigners.

Always there are the demands of the Israeli state for preparedness and vigilance against armed attack from without or terrorism within. Even as defence spending is cut marginally, the latest budget makes provision for the supply of gas masks to all citizens.

In some ways it is easiest being ultra-orthodox and finding all the answers to the Big Questions in the Bible. Then there are those who say, like the Likud8217;s former Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, I fight, therefore I am8217;. Answers are most problematic for those who say, like Shimon Peres, I think, therefore I am8217;. A young Ashkenazy, asked why a non-practising Jew might want to emigrate to Israel, said, 8220;I like the desert air8221;, then more seriously, 8220;Jewishness is like Israeli food, indeterminate but interesting. I will have an answer when we come through to the other side of the peace process. Come back in 20 years8221;.

Not far from weekend picnics on the northern shores of the Galilee are the Golan Heights which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 war. The climb to the 1000 sq km plateau is through a wilderness of thorn shrubs and wild artichokes where gazelles skip carelessly through the tall dry grass. On the other side are long grey double lines of wire fencing broken by UN and Israeli army posts looking out onto the hills of Syria and Jordan. The Israeli army believes the Golan is essential for security; the Water Commissioner believes it is essential to secure flows to the only large body of fresh water in the country. The Syrians, demanding unconditional return of the whole plateau, were not tempted by tentative joint-venture proposals suspecting, no doubt, that they incorporated dual sovereignty ideas. It is a reminder of how much Israel needs to be at peace with its neighbours and they with Israel.

On the powerful peace constituency in Israel and the people8217;s formidable problem-solving abilities rests hope of more bridges being built in the Middle East.

The writer visited Israel on a government invitation