Israel Booming: From Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to Beer Sheva

Impossible.

It is impossible to compress all that has happened

this past week into a 30-second blog post.

Complexity has to be cut to a sound bite, while

we keep trying to share what the mainstream media misses.

President of Cyprus flag up in Jerusalem

The President of Cyprus was visiting,

and his country’s flag hung on Jerusalem, Israel streets.

I wonder what dignitaries see of what is really happening.

Did the President meet regular Israelis?

Did you know he was here?

Or that the German Bundestag President is speaking at the Knesset?

Most people just read of “conflict” and troubles,

 but construction is booming.

Huge cranes fill the skylines.

The Museum of Tolerance is above ground,

Museum of Tolerance

the construction site is busy with dozens of Arab workers.

building in Tel Aviv

In Tel Aviv, more towers are under construction,

two are going up near the Google office.

desert blooming

The flatland of the Negev is such a contrast

to the Judean Hills of Jerusalem.

large Hebrew sign saying they keep shmita

For the shmita year, some farmers are taking

the sabbatical year literally, leaving the land untended.

Negev desert

But in the Negev,

Rahat seen from highway

the Bedouin town of Rahat is booming,

Soda Stream plant near Rahat

 and Soda Stream’s new plant stretches out in the sand nearby.

A few kilometers down the road

large sign welcome to Beer Sheva

there is a new sign welcoming visitors to the new Beersheva.

The once sleepy desert town is the largest city in the Negev.

Beersheva is booming with new neighborhoods,

new business and new cultural life.

After the hundreds of rockets from Gaza last summer,

bomb shelter built in south

 Beersheva homes are getting new safe rooms.

There were so many sleepless nights due to red alert sirens

announcing the oncoming missiles that

home bomb shelters are being installed.

Will running to a safe spot be the summer activity again?

There was another rocket last night in the south,

and it was not the first of the season.

The UNHRC has released its report.

Did they take into account the millions of Israelis

living under terrible conditions last summer?

peace slogan in Hebrew

“I believe in PEACE” says this sticker on a Jerusalem crossing.

Everyone hopes those rockets from Gaza,

and the explosions on the Golan border will stop.

Preparing for summer in Jerusalem

Big plans for this summer.

The start-up nation is booming.

Weddings and end-of-year school performances fill the evenings.

No bombs and rockets are welcome.

Nothing is simple,

but like this Jerusalem bus sign,

Neseya tova

here’s wishing all a good and safe trip.

BDS in Jerusalem

Sorry I do not know any BDS, Boycott, Divest and Sanction folks,

so I can not ask them how boycotting Soda Stream

and putting hundreds of Palestinian workers out of a job

is good for anyone.

I can only assume that they are simply anti-Israel or ignorant,

 as they would hurt those that BDSers are supposedly are out to help.

What I do see in Jerusalem, Israel, is that

palestiniam girl. BDS image, J Street photo, Jerusalem photos

Arab girls shop.

That is not new or news

and certainly everyone here knows that 

Muslim woman image, Arab woman in jerusalem, photo Arab woman

Arab women shop.

But the biggest change in the last two years

 that I have seen

is that now

Arab family photo, Arab girls photo.image Palestinian, Jerusalem photo

Arab males shop.

Palestinians in Israel, photo Palesiinian family.

Not just for cell phones,

Muslim man, Palestinian woman, photo Arabs in Jerusalem, image muslim

or candy,

Food shopping photo, Arab food shopping, supermarket image

or food

shopping supermarket, BDS image, photo Arab, picture Muslim

in the supermarkets,

image Machane Yehuda market, shopping in Jerusalem

or in the shuk, Machane Yehuda Market, 

Arab men image, BDS, Jerusalem apartheid, J Street

or in a bakery.

Palestinian, BDS, image Arab in jerusalem, Jerusalem photos

They walk the Jerusalem streets while shopping with women

Arab girls, image Arab boys and girls, photo Jerusalem

and girls,

shopping in Jerusalem, BDS image, Apartheid, Israeli oppression picture,

and they carry those bags home too.

Mamilla mall, Arab boys, BDS fail, image shopping mall

Especially in Mamilla Mall, 

shopping Mamilla Mall, photo Jerusalem, image apartheid

groups of young Arab men

Mall shoppers, Jerusalem photo, image Palestinian youths,

can be found every day

Castro sign, Mamilla store, Jerusalem photo, Palestinian family, BDS

and at night.

I have been asked what this means,

 I am really not sure.

However, I do see that BDS in Jerusalem, Israel

is not boycott, divest and sanction,

but more like Boys Do Shop!

Time to add another pin on the BDS Fail Map 

this time from the heart of Israel.