Activism

Tel Aviv and the failure of the Zionist dream

telavivflags
Flags on the beach in Tel Aviv. (Photo: Flickr/schnapper_j)

Editor’s Note: Very exciting news. Mondoweiss Assistant Editor Allison Deger just arrived in Israel/Palestine and will be based in the West Bank for the next three months. She sent this update below on arriving in Tel Aviv:

Since arriving everyone has been eerily nice to me. Starting in Tel Aviv people were very friendly and at 6am after my plane landed when I couldn’t sleep I took a walk along the Mediterranean and then jumped into the sea. The water was warm and I could taste the salt. The morning beach-goers who looked like they had been transported from Coney Island greeted me and cracked deprecating jokes. They were welcoming, and it felt really good to be there. The occupation was no where in sight.

Tel Aviv is in every sense a “bubble.” Even its political problems are bubble-problems. And I should know, I live in Berkeley. In my bubble the city picks up residential compost, the Peace and Justice Party wins local elections, and there is a Scientology Church. On the streets, you can overhear young people talking about “decolonizing” their minds, food, health or even sexuality. But Tel Aviv is very different from Berkeley. Foremost, there is a small and active group of native Americans who organize and demonstrate against the overtaking of their lands, and new developments, like shopping malls, on their sacred burial sites. Residents of Berkeley see them. And everyone knows the name of the tribe whose land it once was: Ohlone. But in Tel Aviv, there are no Palestinians or even signs of their not so historic thriving presence–other than maybe Arak on cafe menus.

Tel Aviv is a failure of the Zionist dream. Parts of the city are like a ghetto, amounting to the exact opposite of what Herzl envisioned for the future of the Zionist project in Altneuland, the city’s namesake.Where Herzl imagined theatres in every major European language, the real “old new land” is part dump and part shopping malls and hotels. It’s commerce, capitalism, recession and a few J 14 occupiers wearing trendy clothing hanging out on Rothschild Blvd. There is major dilapidation in what seemed like nearly half of the town. Alley ways smelled of sun-dried urine and many buildings have tin roofs and shoddy construction. All of these social welfare problems block out Tel Aviv’s original sin, forcing Palestinians to leave.

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Ahlan wa Sahlan, Alison

The last time I was there I couldn’t get over how cheap alcohol is in TA. You can buy wine and spirits from Bulgaria and the ex Soviet Union for less than a dollar.
The other thing was the rudeness.
And the place looks very shabby. They must spend all their money on the army or something.

BTW the palestinians live on in the language – yalla etc, in the food -hummus, felafel
and in the mental furniture of all the Zionists.

Was Herzl’s dream really Jews and Arabs living together in Tel Aviv? Or was that a fiction they just used temporarily to sell Zionism to the wider public?

From the standpoint of the socialist ideals of Israel’s founders I can see how modern day Tel Aviv could be viewed as a failure. But given the overwhelming evidence of the last 60+ years I have a hard time believing that racial harmony and coexistence were ever the true goals of Zionism.

You mean they have capitalism? And hotels? Oh my goodness!

Tel Aviv is not the whole Israel-same as Palestinian dumps are not the whole Palestine. The primitive description and simpleton language of the Berkley tourist/activist shows the narrowness of the author views and nothing more.

Stay off the falafel as Michelle Bachmann now reckons they are a “jihadi” dish. That means that Shin Beth will now have to arrest, torture and indefinitely detain just about the entire population of Israel. With this and the antics of Daystar and TBN, the Zionists really are up the creek!

http://dailycurrant.com/2012/09/28/bachmann-we-ban-falafel-school-lunches/

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-evangelical-20121001,0,6110978.story