Short conference (link to program)/Israel impressions. Here we go:

I arrived very early on Friday morning in Israel after a fairly miserable pair of flights on British Airways -- mostly not BA's fault, other than the tiny economy seats. Nursing a small cold while traveling is obnoxious -- no fun having a stuffy head during those pressure changes -- and I finally had pumped myself up with so much Alka Seltzer cold medicine that I made myself sick to my stomach on the second leg of the journey. And when you finally get to the destination and commence to shmoozing, it's difficult to speak through all the throat clearing, and who the heck wants to shake your hand after watching you blow your nose sixteen times? I actually offered God a deal: if He would cure me on landing in Israel, I'd for sure up my belief factor by a considerable degree. He didn't bite at the bargain.

Anyway, being utterly unprepared, my first notable experience on arrival was of being ripped off by the cab driver who took me from Ben Gurion Airport to where I was staying in Jerusalem, the Prima Royale. He charged me what I later found out was about double what it should have been. And of course, I gave him a tip. 'Cause that's the kind of guy I am...you know...a doofus.

The airport was much bigger and modern than I recalled from my previous trip, and of course I peered out the window on the drive to Jerusalem with senors on full taking it all in and trying to get that overall feel of the place one does when traveling to a new place whether at home or abroad.

Again, I was struck by the use of land -- agriculture sprinkled in wherever it would fit in the rocky landscape -- and by the construction one sees almost everywhere (and my imagination was envisioning Haganah forces trying to fight their way through all this back in '47/'48). Israel is booming, no pun intended. Clearly there's optimism both at home and abroad for what's happening in this state with a vibrant civil society and protected rights and freedoms. This production is not from oil wealth growing on trees, nor is it from foreign aid (mostly spent on American military hardware) -- Israel is creating wealth. That's how it's supposed to be done, and it's encouraging to see, indicative of a resilient society that can take a lot of punishment without folding (as opposed to a typical "Big Man" society that crumbles around him when the Big Man dies or is overthrown).

It's easy to see how Israelis and many in the large Jewish establishment here in America can develop a cavalier attitude toward the pipsqueak brigade of university dilettantes and traveling propaganda tent shows -- the Ron Francises writing "Israel" in quotation marks or hawking the latest book on a one-state solution...once you've been here and seen the complexity of the thing, it's easy to have a perspective shift and see these fools for the trivial idiots they probably are, after all, what could possibly threaten all of THIS? I would recommend avoiding this complacency and taking a few minutes a day to see Israel as the rest of the world does -- a dot on the map easily erased. You'll be able to anticipate all sorts of difficulties that way.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I got to the hotel in Jerusalem, checked in and went down for breakfast -- a good one (great grapefruit in Israel, BTW). Room was small and fairly no-frills, but decent.

I ran into Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club (who had his own interesting travel experience) in the lobby -- an interesting gent I'd end up spending a good deal of welcome time with over the next few days. We went off to track down conference organizer Richard Landes's house, only a block away on Jabotinsky Street. Richard wasn't in at the time, but we arranged to come back for the planned Shabbat dinner later, while Richard F went back to his room to get some rest, and I grabbed a tourist map and started a stroll toward the Old City.

One of the other tribes sharing Jerusalem's spaces, a stray cat:

The temperature was brisk up there in the Judean hills, somewhere in the 40's, and again I was struck by all the construction going on in the few blocks between the hotel and the Old City:

Everything in Jerusalem seems to be uphill, and I started to get a bit of sweat going by the time I got to the Jaffa Gate and hit that edge of the Armenian Quarter near David's Tower.

Jaffa Gate:

The tower:

Those who have been will immediately understand the experience I had in this area, where on entering I was immediately set upon by aggressive shop owners, one of whom collared me and brought me back to his shop ("please, our location very bad, come look, buy something, at least let me give you my card...no stay, have some tea or coffee") -- not having anything else to do anyway, I went along with it, but I had no intention of buying $90 earrings or anything of the sort (though they looked very nice), though the guy would NOT take no for an answer, portraying my buying from him as some sort of charity thing to support him...haha, boy was he trying that on the wrong guy. I could not escape until finally I convinced him was NOT buying anything whereupon he finally muttered I should get lost...perfectly happy to oblige.

The shop I made my escape from (green awning):

I still had some time and energy, and thought about walking down into the Souk, but with one look down that narrow street, and after having yet another shop owner pull me in for another attempt at the same aggressive treatment, I simply said "screw this" and turned tail for the hotel to rest up for dinner (while fending off a few offers of guided tours from dubious experts on the way out the gate).

Dinner at the Landes's that evening was an exceptional experience -- Shabbat and the first night of Chanukah. I started meeting some of the other folks who were in for the conference, as well as some of Richard's friends...it was a large table. In addition to Richard's lovely wife and daughter, as well as Richard F, I met a steady stream of folks, many of who's names my brain has let go of, but those I can mention are Richard's former student and current US Navy man, Stuart (the guy in the picture), the impeccable Frenchman Philippe Karsenty (the defendant in the first Al Dura trial), Joel Rubinfeld of the Atlantis Institute in Belgium, Nidra Poller, Judith from Kesher Talk, Richard's fellow BU colleague Anna Geifman who had a lot of interesting things to say about the parallels between the modern Islamist death cult and Russian revolutionary terror.

The conversation around the table was really a privilege to be audience to...to say it was high level and interesting would be putting it mildly (a friend of Richard's a former combat medic who was in Jenin and appears in Pierre Rehov's film commented, "These people have had this place to themselves for nine years and they haven't built a single playground...it's just piled with guns.").

Anyway, a few hours later and it was back to the hotel for a few hours of nap (I don't think I got what could be called a real "night's sleep" my entire time in Israel) and a repeat on Saturday. In the afternoon, after lunch again at the Landes's, Richard Fernandez, Stuart and I headed for the Old City again (see photo in entry below), this time trying for the Zion Gate, I believe, and a walk to The Wall.

After wandering through the alleys, trying to keep our sense of direction, and actually asking for directions a couple of times, we finally made it:

We hung out on the plaza for awhile soaking up the atmosphere, and I did approach and lay a hand on the Wall, before we headed back through the maze to home. That night, Saturday, we left Jerusalem and headed to Herzliya...this time with myself, Richard F., Stuart and Stephanie Gutmann, author of The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy, squeezed into one cab (so I wasn't responsible).

The conference was at The Daniel Hotel, and may I just pause for a moment and say that after the stark digs in Jerusalem, The Daniel was the lap of luxury...fresh apples and bottled water on the table, bath robe in the shower, flat screen TV and a lovely view of the beach...highly recommended.

The four of us had dinner in the lobby, then met up with Richard L and his wife in their room for some drinks and talk with Judith, Mary from Exit Zero who had just come down from Beirut where she had met up with Michael Totten (who was also in for the conference), and Lee Smith from the Hudson Institute who is about the coolest dude you'd want to meet. I stayed up way too late listening in.

Sunday morning began the conference:

I was tired, a bit nervous, and anxious to see how things would go. What an interesting day. I enjoyed all the panels, listening to the speakers (I love a good speaker, and there were plenty here), soaking in the atmosphere and meeting some of the folks involved. What a privilege to be a part of it.

My own was panel #4 and didn't start until 3:15. By then the fatigue was starting to catch up with me, but once I got on the stage I got some adrenaline and started to feel a lot more comfortable. On the panel were Allison Kaplan Sommer, who moderated, Judith Weiss, Richard Fernandez and Michael Totten. I went first ("The Blogosphere and Lebanon -- Having an Impact on the Mainstream Media") and it seemed to go well. The whole thing was over rather quickly with not too much time left at the end to do Q&A and develop anything, but so it goes. I got some very good feedback after the talk, so I'd say it was a success from a very personal standpoint.

Evening meant finding dinner in Herzliya, with me, Judith, Mary, Michael, Lee, Charles from Lebanese Political Journal and Sarah, a lovely girl who was a student at IDC and working for the conference heading out to some restaurant in town where I had one of the best steaks I've eaten in a long, long while. The lushes I was out with managed to go through several bottles of wine. Conversation was good and I got a lot of interesting insights into what things are like in Lebanon and beyond.

After dinner, we hit some club down by the beach called Rio, where the music was way too loud, and I felt way too old, but I was glad for doing something different.

All of this means I was late for the final day of the conference, sleeping through, much to my honest regret, the first panel and much of the second of the day.

I did see all of the excellent blogger panel, featuring Yaakov Kirschen of Dry Bones (awesome guy), Lisa Goldman, Charles, Michael Totten, Mary Madiganj, Richard F., Benjamin Kerstein, and Aussi Dave (another guy who it was nice to meet and place a face with the blog and who ended up doing a very good presentation). This was a very good panel with a lot of articulate people on it.

Between Charles and Lisa there was a lot of interesting talk about the social networking and interaction that has been going on across borders, especially during times of conflict -- very exciting and promising stuff that's changing the way the world works...little by little. Without changing any of that, I'd also say it shouldn't be over-emphasized, either. Most of the people you chat with in fear states don't control a thing. It takes one bad man with a gun and all those bloggers in dictatorships will be using their email contacts across the border begging for help in getting a visa to save their lives. They don't matter because they don't live in democracies, they don't have protected civil rights, and when push comes to shove comes to shoot the whole lot of them will blow away like a dandelion puff, or a bunch of Chinese kids in Tiananmen Square. The networks in the democracies can paralyze their countries, the ones on the other side of the border only serve to provide a facade of friendliness...they can't stop a single missile from being launched and may dangerously deceive democracies with a friendly face -- the face that doesn't control the guns. Put 20 million computers and blogger accounts on the ground in Iraq, and we'll still need more troops, because US not knowing enough about THEM is not the problem (although the tactical intelligence could be usefull...but beware of disinformation).

In the long term, maybe the communications revolution can do something to change the world and the societies the bloggers live in, but we have to survive until the long term. In the mean time, that means Israelis have to do what they have to do to protect themselves from missiles, and their kids from being blown up in pizza parlors.

Anyway, I had to get up and leave at 4:30 the next morning to go to the airport, so the evening was mostly spent hanging around the hotel, talking to Charles and Michael Totten and some others (would have liked to have continued that -- it was late and I couldn't coordinate my thoughts leaving a lot unsaid)...I never did actually sleep.

Flight home was a lot easier to take than the flight out, in spite of delays on both legs. Stephanie Gutmann and I (we were on the same flight out) got the third and fourth degree in the security line (What were you here for, why, how long, who invited you, where...etc, etc...)

So, that's the scoop! How was your weekend?