***
It still is a sort of paradise, at least the half of that is left, because, you’ve guessed it:
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
I seem to recall Joni Mitchell was talking about somewhere she had visited in Australia, but it could have been right here in Banias. Even in the height of the season there were no more than two coaches and half a dozen cars, so quite what the thinking was in paving paradise is unclear.
Banias is interesting for four reasons. Firstly, has been a sacred site from the times of pre-history and like all sacred sites first became so because it was a site of natural wonder. At Banias numerous springs miraculously gush out of the rocks around a cavern; the springs bring water from Mount Hermon and go on to become the River Jordan, while the cavern is shaped, equally miraculously, like a temple. Secondly, it was later an ancient Greek - and even later Roman - sacred site where they worshipped the god Pan - hence the name of Banias derived from Pan-ias. Thirdly, it was the site of the Roman city of Caesarea Philippi. Fourthly, it is where Jesus said to Peter: “Thou are Peter; and upon this rock will I build my church.”
Actually, this third point of interest can soon be discounted because as Twain said, “The ruins here are not very interesting,” and they are not. The city was built by Herod the Great’s son Philip who named it Caesarea Philippi partly in honor of the emperor Caesar Augustus and partly in honor of himself. One can only assume young Philip put it up in a bit of a rush as Roman ruins of far greater antiquity are still standing proudly all over Asia Minor, whereas his city is indeed just a pile of rubble. In Mark Twain’s time the site was distinguished by “trees and bushes that grow above many of these ruins now; the miserable huts of a little crew of filthy Arabs are perched upon the broken masonry of antiquity, the whole place has a sleepy, stupid, rural look about it, and one can hardly bring himself to believe that a busy, substantially built city once existed here, even two thousand years ago.” Now it is just fenced off and sad, only marginally more interesting than the enormous paved-paradise car park that lies alongside it.
The sacred aspect of Banias cannot be so easily discounted. Three hundred years before Herod and Philip, and soon after Alexander the Great conquered the tribal lands hereabouts, the Ptolemy clan built the Temple to Pan. Pan was the god of all that might be found near the temple: goats and deer, hunting and gathering, music and campfires. When not attending to matters pastoral he encouraged his flock to stampede into battle, causing, you’ve guessed it... pan-ic... and pan-demonium. Mark Twain saw that “niches are carved in the rocks still, and the Greek inscriptions”. We know that the smaller niche housed a sculpture of Echo, the mountain nymph and Pan’s consort, while the larger one on its right housed a statue of Pan’s father, Hermes, son of nymph Maia. Inscriptions in the niches mention those citizens who gave large donations.
***
But for the Excursionists the most relevant spot was where Jesus told Peter about the rock and the church. Mark Twain does not mention an exact spot where the famous pronouncement took place, but I hear two tour guides being quite specific about it being “right here”, next to a small boulder in front of Echo’s niche. Who knows? And more to the point who knows what Jesus meant by rock? For Protestants like the New Pilgrims, and of course
Twain himself, the meaning was clear: Jesus meant that he would build his church (not yet in the building sense of the word) on the foundation of faith that He was the Christ and the Son of God. The Catholic view is that Jesus was saying that He would build His church on the apostle Peter himself. For Orthodox Christians, having the benefit of precise ancient Greek meanings and nuances, the rock refers to the Apostolic calling as a whole.
Twain reverted to the anti-Catholic position: “The place was nevertheless the scene of an event whose effects have added page after page and volume after volume to the world’s history. For in this place Christ stood when he said to Peter: ‘Thou art Peter; and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ On those little sentences have been built up the mighty edifice of the Church23 of Rome; in them lie the authority for the imperial power of the Popes over temporal affairs, and their godlike power to curse a soul or wash it white from sin. To sustain the position of ‘the only true Church,’ which Rome claims was thus conferred upon her, she has fought and labored and struggled for many a century, and will continue to keep herself busy in the same work to the end of time.”
They camped overnight in Banias and “during breakfast, the usual assemblage of squalid humanity sat patiently without the charmed circle of the camp and waited for such crumbs as pity might bestow upon their misery. These people about us had other peculiarities, they were infested with vermin, and the dirt had caked on them till it amounted to bark.”
By now his patience with the local lack of initiative was wearing thin. He had noticed the high number of children with sore eyes and the high number of blind adults, and concluded that one led to the other, but couldn’t square why nobody did anything about it. “And, would you suppose that an American mother could sit for an hour, with her child in her arms, and let a hundred flies roost upon its eyes all that time undisturbed? I see that every day. It makes my flesh creep. Yesterday we met a woman riding on a little jackass, and she had a little child in her arms - honestly, I thought the child had goggles on as we approached, and I wondered how its mother could afford so much style. But when we drew near, we saw that the goggles were nothing but a camp meeting of flies assembled around each of the child’s eyes, and at the same time there was a detachment prospecting its nose.”
While there he had an insight into Christ’s role as a healer: “As soon as the tribe found out that we had a doctor in our party, they began to flock in from all quarters. Dr. B [Doctor George Birch, a fellow Excursionist] had taken a child from a woman who sat near-by, and put some sort of a wash upon its diseased eyes. That woman went off and started the whole nation, and it was a sight to see them swarm! The lame, the halt, the blind, the leprous - all the distempers that are bred of indolence, dirt, and iniquity - were represented in the Congress in ten minutes, and still they came! Every woman that had a sick baby brought it along, and every woman that hadn’t, borrowed one.
“What reverent and what worshiping looks they bent upon that dread, mysterious power, the Doctor! When each individual got his portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant with joy - notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and impassive race - and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing on earth could prevent the patient from getting well now.
“Christ knew how to preach to these simple, superstitious, disease- tortured creatures: He healed the sick. The ancestors of these - people precisely like them in color, dress, manners, customs, simplicity - flocked in vast multitudes after Christ, and when they saw Him make the afflicted whole with a word, it is no wonder they worshiped Him.”
***
They left Banias after breakfast and Dr. Birch’s impromptu surgery and five miles later found themselves in the ancient pile of Old Testament stones known as Dan. Since Twain’s time the site has since been extensively investigated by archaeologists and incorporated into the Tel Dan Nature Reserve.
The Nature Reserve is a lovely place to meander around, with paths through its ancient forests surrounded by wildflowers and birdsong, rushing water and leaping barbel. The springs emanating from the rocks at sacred Banias have now been joined by others from nearby hills and a veritable torrent gushes through the center of the Nature Reserve even in mid-summer. Here and there one stumbles across Old Testament stones piled high into a wal
l of sorts but unless one is an enthusiast for the more arcane aspects of first millennia BC inter-tribal smiting and smoting and weeping and wailing and girding of loins and gnashing of teeth - and neither Mark Twain nor the writer are - it is hard to summon up much enthusiasm for the archaeologists’ endeavors.
For me the most interesting non-floral, non-faunal part of the Tel Dan Nature Reserve is the site of the 1964 Pencil Line War on the Reserve’s northern edge. This also marks the pre-1967 Six Day War border with Syria. Here is what happened. In 1923, when the British and French were carving up Asia Minor into the countries we know today, they disagreed on this part of the border between Syria and Israel. The British wanted part of their mandated land to have some bearing to theoretical Israel and so follow the old biblical boundaries from “Dan to Beersheba”, while the French wanted their mandated land of Syria to cling to more secular, geographical features. They reached a compromise and drew a line, by repute with a 9B grade pencil, on a map. On the ground this 9B line represented one hundred and thirty yards, and not just any old one hundred and thirty yards but the one hundred and thirty yards through which flowed one of the three sources of the River Jordan.
Naturally enough both sides claimed the water source, both sides set up military posts one hundred and thirty yards apart and there were frequent skirmishes. In 1964 the Syrians joined forces with the Lebanese to physically divert the water away from Israel; Israel responded as she usually does - explosively - and all was quiet for a while as the Syrians licked their wounds. Then on 13 November 1964 the Syrians shelled the nearby Kibbutz Dan, and the Israelis responded with air and ground assaults, knocking out the Syrian position and moving their forces one hundred and thirty meters forward. A burned out Syrian tank can still be seen in situ as a war-trophy-cum-tourist- attraction. The Pencil Line War was over in an afternoon and was finally settled forever when the old border was lost in the Six Day War.
I apologize for this lengthy aside, only justified by it being the kind of story about the absurdity, the arrogance, the pomposity of Empire that Mark Twain would have loved - and loved laying into.
And so we head south. There are now wide gaps opening up between Twain’s descriptions of how the land lay then and how the land lies now. The cities in the old Ottoman provinces that had become Lebanon and Syria have changed - or more accurately grown - enormously but the barren landscapes he described then are still recognizably the same forlorn landscapes we have seen over the last two months. Here in what has become Israel we are seeing the opposite; the desolation and squalor of 1867 have been transformed into a fertile plenty. Having been wonderstruck at the winery and delighted at the Tel-Dan Nature Reserve we are about to be spellbound by Agamon Hula.
When Twain saw what he knew as Lake Hula and what the Bible calls the Waters of Merom, he first saw it after “we traveled a long stretch of miserable rocky road, overrun by water, and finally turned and followed down the other side of the valley, along a vast green swamp that occupies the whole width of the valley. We camped at last at a fountain and a mile down abreast of Lake Hula.”
By now we have impressed upon Bruno that we like to travel at caravan- serai speed, with frequent stops for atmosphere and tea24. The track that the Excursionists took has been absorbed by agriculture. A shiny new highway sweeps around the “miserable rocky road” and halfway up the side of the valley so the first sight one sees of the “vast green swamp that occupies the whole width of the valley” is from a high vantage point; this makes the unfolding viridescent abundance even more spectacular. It is clearly a man-made phenomenon and there and then I ask Bruno to make some phone calls so I can meet the man behind the scene in front.
It has been unusual in the Middle East for the writer to meet a man taller than himself or to greet one whose handshake swamps his own but in Aviram Zuck the writer meets the man. I explain about the Mark Twain project and he interrupts me with: “Oh, I know all about Mark Twain. Whenever I’m giving a reforestation presentation I open with a slide of Mark Twain quotes about the area!”
On the wall I see a large-scale version of the same 1922 British Mandate map we are using. I ask what he uses it for.
“In this case to recreate the River Jordan.” I must be looking surprised. “Yes, we recreated it, every twist and turn.”
“Why did it need recreating, it must have been quite happy since time began?”
“Come.” We walk over to the wall and next to the map are several other maps and photographs and graphics. For half an hour Aviram tells the story of the Hula project. I scribble down notes and now this evening I’m deciphering them while they are still fresh. Here goes: In the 1950s after Israel was founded the farmers in the Hula valley were desperate for land and water and looked down enviously at the three thousand hectares - or eleven square miles - of pale green swamps and marshes below. At the time the government wanted to make a grand political gesture and to create farmland from swampland seemed like one. The drainage of the swamps seemed like a good idea at the time, but like all good ideas at the time was certain to run into our old friend TLUC.
It was an agricultural and ecological disaster. Over six feet of peat topsoil were lost and the effluents flowing into the Sea of Galilee did untold damage to its ecosystem. By the 1990s the situation was so ruinous that a major new vision for the area was needed, and under the auspices of the Jewish National Fund “Hula 2” was envisioned.
And vision is the word. Three thousand hectares worth of vision, of thinking the impossible and making it happen. Two new north-south canals were built, the poor old River Jordan re-established, a dozen cross canals intersecting them at each junction with water level barriers. New peat topsoil was laid down and vast spraying machines sprinkle it with exactly the right amount of water.
“The farmers love it because they can grow pretty much anything they want. It’s as fertile as any piece of land in the world. Peanuts and potatoes are the big cash crops here now,” Aviram explains. “But the real start of the show is the Nature Reserve.”
We jump in his pick-up truck for a tour. In the center of this artificial agricultural paradise they have created a bird sanctuary. “The Hula is on the main migration route. Before Hula 2 they had almost stopped using this route. Now we have five hundred million birds flying through every year, three hundred and fifty different species. This is now one of Israel’s major tourist attractions, and birdwatchers come from all over the world in the spring and fall.”
A tractor chugs by the other way. The driver is oriental and so are the workers in the trailers behind. “Where are they from?” I ask.
“Thailand,” Aviram replies. “They come over here for three years then go home and buy a house. We look after them really well.”
“Mark Twain stayed at a village called Ain Mellahah, that’s obviously gone,” I suggest.
“Partly gone, it’s now the Mellahah pumping station, over there on that small hill. And what would Mark Twain think of all this?”
“He would have loved it. He was a great technocrat and loved engineering solutions. Above all he would have loved the vision and willpower behind all this. He strove for progress and improvement. He never accepted that just because things had been done this way there wasn’t a that way.”
Agamon Hula is a paradise for birds and birdwatchers, yes, but I can’t help but see TLUC hovering like a ruby-throated hummingbird. The swamps and marshes had evolved there since forever; the first attempt at improving nature had been a disaster; this second attempt at improving nature is clearly not a disaster in any obvious sense at all, and yet, and yet. For a start - if you were a crane and halfway between Europe and Africa there was a Disneyworld paradise pit stop with unlimited peanuts and fresh water and nice people in sensible hats taking photographs of you, wouldn’t you be inclined to forget Europe and Africa and the hassle of flying backwards and forwards and stay firmly put?
This evening
we are staying at the Cosasu family’s guesthouse in Rosh Pinna at the southern end of the Hula experiment. Of course, they know all about Hula 1 and Hula 2, but their own story is illustrative of how Israel has “made the deserts bloom” to use the phrase that so annoys the Palestinians. They arrived from Romania in 1953, both in their mid-twenties, both penni- less but educated: Levana was a teacher and Yaron was halfway through his architecture degree. They arrived at Jaffa and were unceremoniously put on a bus to a kibbutz. “They told us we were farmers now, the country needed farmers not teachers and half-architects,” Levana explains. “But in many ways not knowing anything about farming was good as all of us looked at farming as engineers or scholars. We made water flow, we helped seeds grow fuller. And communist! It was more communist than Romania. We worked and worked and worked. We worked so hard on that kibbutz in those early days,” she says looking rather wistfully at Bruno with his smooth hands and easy care clothes. And teaching, and architecture? “Yes, later, five years later, they let us go.”
***
It only took the Excursionists and their caravanserai the next morning to ride the fifteen miles to Capernaum. When first reading The Innocents Abroad I was surprised that Mark Twain didn’t make more of Capernaum, didn’t stay longer. It is after all the first place where Jesus can be said to have landed; nothing certain of His life up to then - in His mid to late twenties depend- ing on where you plant His birth - can be said to be known. It is only after His ministry started in Capernaum that His life as a traditional biography can really be attempted.
For Twain Capernaum “was only a shapeless ruin. It bore no semblance to a town, and had nothing about it to suggest that it had ever been a town.” This it still is now, and it takes a leap of imagination to see the site as the busy fishing town of twenty thousand people that it was. Indeed, the same can be said all along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, now largely empty, then very much peopled - the reverse in fact of Nazareth to where we are heading, which two thousand years ago would have been a tiny village and is now a bustling town bursting with multifaith life.
Innocence and War Page 15