San Diego (special)--San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts returned from an Oct. 16-25 American Jewish Committee mission to Israel with memories of three particularly emotional moments as well as a greater appreciation of internal Israeli issues and the complexities of the Middle East peace process. 

Roberts was among a group of nine U.S. municipal officials selected from throughout the United States to participate in Project Interchange, which the AJC runs in conjunction with the National League of Cities.

The delegation was accompanied by Gary Rotto, the AJC's regional director in San Diego, who described the trip as an intensive seminar on such broad topics as Israel's economy, its local government, military security, Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, the peace process, and Arab-Jewish coexistence.  On Monday, Oct. 18, the group's first full day in Israel, Roberts took an optional trip to the old city of Jaffa, and was shocked as he watched Israeli police rough up some Arab teenagers. Not wanting to embarrass his Israeli hosts, Roberts was at first reluctant to describe the incident which he witnessed, but told the story after being prodded by HERITAGE.  Roberts said he and Jack Drakeford, president of the Englewood, N.J., City Council, were standing on an overlook near St. Peter's Church when they saw a couple of Israeli policemen question a young Arab man in a manner that by the tone of his voice seemed hostile. They let that man go, and headed down the hill toward a park.

ON THE GOLAN--A tour of the Golan heights was part of the itinerary for supervisor Ron Roberts and other local elected officials from throughout the United States in a program sponsored by Project Interchange and the American Jewish Committee

"They were maybe 15-16 yards away from us and there were these three Arab kids that were walking across, and probably were coming up to where we were," Roberts said. "They were walking in that direction and the police were going in another direction and when the police got to (them), one of the police gives one of the kids I will call it a "karate kick," hits him in the shoulder.... 

"And then the police goes over and so help me, he knees him in the groin, and the kid goes down and they had the other two kids sit down, and while he was on the ground he kicks him again -- a third time. And I am thinking, 'sh--, these kids must have really done something!' You could see them pulling their I.D.'s out and the police are hovering over them, and then after a few minutes of questioning, the police walk off and the kids walk off in the other direction." 

Troubled, Roberts later related the incident to Rotto, who had stayed back at the delegation's hotel in Tel Aviv. "I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but this was broad daylight, maybe 4 o'clock in the afternoon, in a very open area. I would imagine anyone in the area would have seen this. You got the feeling that this was maybe the way they do business.  "It was kind of my first introduction," Roberts said. "If you saw something like that happening here (in San Diego), I guarantee you there would have been a big commotion."

ROUGH ARREST-- After witnessing Israeli police officers rough up some Arab youths in Jaffa, San Diego Supervisor Ron Roberts snapped this  photograph during the interrogation. The youths  subsequently were let go.

Rotto said the incident was discussed by members of the delegation several times during the trip, and "I think the consensus was that we don't know what that was all about, what the circumstances were before or after, but certainly as one looked at the situation it was very different from what people would expect." 

Asked if anyone reported or complained about the incident to authorities, Rotto said to his knowledge no one had. "We haven't debriefed with our Washington office, but that is one of the things I will be talking about with them," he said. "Unfortunately that was the introduction to Arab-Jewish relations" for the delegation, Rotto added. 

Rotto contrasted the incident with a later meeting that the delegation had the following day with Hasan Atamny, head of the local council of Kfar Kara, an Arab village. 

The American officials asked Atamny whether, given the opportunity, he would prefer his village in Israel to be part of the Palestinian Authority. "The mayor said: 'we feel Israeli; we feel that our life is better in Israel than any other Arab country or entity. We feel there needs to be improvements in how our municipality is treated, but this is our country. We feel part of this country. We may be ethnically Arab and we don't have a problem reconciling this with being Israeli.'" 

Rotto said Atamny's village is entirely Arab, "so it is not as if he has a Jewish constituency that he has to speak to." He said that Atamny is a graduate of Hebrew University's School of Law as well as the youngest mayor in Israel. 

Roberts said his meeting with Atamny left him with the strong impression that in Israel "there is a commitment to try to make things work for everybody. The way the national vote is organized, there aren't districts so the Arab minority is given every opportunity basically to aggregate their votes and elect members to the Knesset in a way that wouldn't happen if you had districts. 

"While there were issues, he also said there were positive things that were resulting from it and there were opportunities for a lot of the people from his community." 

The second emotional experience for Roberts came on Friday, Oct. 22, when the delegation visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and went through the Children's Memorial in which visitors, holding onto a railing, walk through a darkened, mirrored room in which burning candles are reflected and re-reflected to create 1.5 million images -- one for each Jewish child murdered during the Holocaust. Names of the children are read aloud as the visitor walks through the room. 

"That is pretty powerful," Roberts said. 

The group also laid a wreath in Yad Vashem's darkened ceremonial hall, where an eternal flame burns in a room paved with the names of the concentration camps and ghettos where many Jews met their deaths. Roberts participated in a reading for that occasion. 

Roberts and other Americans had been complaining for days before they reached Yad Vashem that the pace of the tour was too hurried; that they barely saw one place before they were whisked to another. 

Now, at Yad Vashem, "I am half way through this and they tell me it is time to go," Roberts recalled. "I am feeling ... I almost wanted to be alone then," he said, his voice thickening. . "I didn't want to get back on the damned bus, and I don't want to see anybody -- to be honest with you." 

At this point in the interview, Roberts briefly excused himself and walked from a couch in his office at the County Administration Building to behind his desk where he retrieved some tissues and dabbed his eyes.

Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 23 and 24, combined to offer another emotional experience as Roberts, a Catholic, walked the route along the Via Dolorosa that by tradition is the one on which Jesus was paraded on his way to his crucifixion. The next day Roberts attended a 5:30 a.m. mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built over the spot believed to have been the site of the crucifixion. 

On the Via Dolorosa, "I had been prepared for the idea that there was a lot of commercial stuff there, but a lot of what was there could have been forever, and the tightness and the feeling of looking up the walkways and what that whole experience might have been" were transporting feelings, Roberts said. 

Although the mass at times seemed like a competition between Roman Catholics and Syrian Orthodox who held their ceremonies at the same time in nearby nooks of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, this experience too was an emotional one, Roberts said. 

"It is like you are somewhere you knew existed, but I never expected in my lifetime to be there," he said.

 * * * 

While traveling through Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Roberts made a few local San Diego connections. For example, on Monday, Oct. 18, at a meeting with Rafi Brender, deputy director of Israel's Foreign Trade Administration, Roberts asked whether the maquiladoras established along the U.S.-Mexico border might be models for joint industry shared by Israel and its Arab neighbors, Rotto reported. 

In response, Brender told the San Diego County supervisor that Ran Cohen, minister of industry and trade, plans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in January to get a better understanding of maquiladora programs. A meeting between Roberts and Cohen is anticipated. 

On Tuesday, Oct. 19, the delegation visited a youth village operated by WIZO and Hadassah and Roberts decided that its director, Tzvi Levy, could give San Diego County lots of good advice about ways of helping troubled youth. 

The center "is almost identical to what we are trying to do at San Pasqual" where the county is developing a program for troubled adolescents, Roberts said. "A lot of the kids were from families where there was domestic violence, either physical or sexual or something, and this was a place for the kids to sort of be," he said. "The thing that was different: they also had kids from the former Soviet Union -- some of the families where the kids weren't adjusting or were having difficulty making the adjustment. They also offered them an opportunity to be part of what was going on." 

Roberts said the center for 500 youth is set on a campus "and it was very very impressive with a much larger number than we would ever think of doing and a much smaller staff than we would do. We got to meet not only some of the administrators, including the director, but also with some of the kids. I was very impressed with him-- so much so I talked to him about the possibility of coming to San Diego. ... He is going to be in New York in January and I would like him to come and speak about their experiences with these kids and share them with our people who are putting our own program together." 

On Thursday, Oct. 21, the group toured the Jerusalem College of Technology, at which a dormitory was financed with a contribution made by Beverly and Joseph Glickman, parents of Elaine Galinson. She and her husband, Murray Galinson, helped to dedicate the dormitory in November of 1998 while in Israel as part of the United Jewish Federation's Shalom '98 Mission. 

"I was looking at a wall and I saw the name and I said 'Gary why is that name familiar to me?' and he said 'that is Murray's father-in-law,'" Roberts recalled. 

Some of the women in the delegation pointedly questioned Reuven Surkis, vice president of development for the college, about why the Orthodox institution was for men only, whether traditional Judaism discriminates against women, and whether Israel should attempt to separate religion and state the way the two are constitutionally set apart in the United States. 

Roberts said he felt a little sorry for the college official "because he didn't know he was getting in this ambush." The women, in Roberts view, were demanding that "everything that they have learned in the Western World has to be like that right now." For his own part, Roberts said, he kept telling the women "you've got a couple thousand years of history that you have to understand here." 

Among the women officials were Mayor Karen Anderson of Minnetonka, Minn.; San Francisco Supervisor Alicia D. Becerril; Atlanta City Councilmember Clair M. Muller, Houston City Councilmember Annise D. Parker and Philadelphia City Councilmember Mairan B. Tasco. Besides Roberts and Drakeford, male officials were Portland, Or., City Commissioner Charles Hales and Cuyahoga County, Oh., Commissioner Tim McKormack. 

On Thursday, Oct. 21, the group visited the Palestinian Authority and met with Bethlehem's Vice Mayor Ziad Abdallah Al-Bandak. Remarking on the vice mayor's surname, Roberts asked if he had relatives in San Diego County. 

"He said 'I do,'" Roberts reported. "I said: 'Is Sami related to you?' He said: 'you mean Sami with the baby strollers?'" Sami Bandak owned a Ranch Bernardo-area company which manufactured baby strollers and also is known as a philanthropist particularly for causes helping children at risk, Rotto later explained. After Roberts returned to San Diego County, he called Sami Bandak and related the conversation to him. "He said 'he is my first cousin,'" Roberts recalled. "This really is a small world." 

On Friday, Oct. 22, the group went to the Kotel. Donning a baseball-style cap given to him for the occasion, Roberts said a prayer at the wall. He said he also remembered that his San Diego friend Jack Berkman proposed to his wife, Candace, near the wall. 

On Sunday, Oct. 24, after attending that emotional mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Roberts met at his hotel in Jerusalem with Zvi Zilker, the mayor of Ashdod, who once proposed that his city -- which is Israel's largest port -- and San Diego consider becoming sister cities. Although Zilker suggested the idea in 1996 at a meeting in San Diego with Mayor Susan Golding, nothing came of the idea. 

Roberts said that he met with Zilker to learn more about the proposed relationship. "I told him 'I don't want to be presumptuous that I am going to be the mayor of San Diego, but we are in a campaign and I know there had been some discussions and I wanted to get to know you and know a little bit about your city,'" he said. "I thought if there is an interest it is something we should explore and perhaps take to another level."

The upshot of the meeting was that the two men will try to get together again and explore the issue further in January when Zilker plans to make a personal visit to San Diego. Sister city relationships offer the opportunity for across-the-board relations between cities, involving not just the Jewish communities but various sectors of the general community as well. 

* * * 

Throughout the trip, the American officials wanted to learn more about the peace process. They were exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints. 

Their initial meeting was with AJC's own Middle Eastern director Joseph Alpher who during his tenure at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (an Israeli think tank) had helped to draw several maps showing possible divisions of territories in dispute with the Paestinians. In the following days, they toured an Army base and a kibbutz on the Golan Heights, met with MK Elie Goldshmidt of the ruling One Israel party and with MK Naomi Blumenthal of Likud; lunched at the home of Eve Harow, a former American who lives "over the green line" in the municipality of Efrat, dialogued with Salah Al-Ta'amri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and talked with Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert. 

Roberts said he was impressed by the residents of Kibbutz Merom Golan, located on territory previously controlled by Syria and likely to be transferred back to Syria in any peace agreement. 

"The people there were very frank in discussing that," Roberts said. "One of the guys who has been a leader of the kibbutz for 26 years said 'I know we are part of this, we are part of what they are talking about....' He said 'Nobody wants to pick up and leave what has been your house for all these years. What we really want to see is peace and something that really works and if our moving means we can have it, then we want that.' ... I was very impressed by the attitude. He wasn't going to do it if it wasn't going to work; he wanted guarantees." 

Concerning the meetings with the two Israeli Knesset members and the Palestinian Legislative Council representative, Roberts said: "What I felt like was that we were hearing negotiation positions." In the case of the Palestinian official, he said, "his feeling was Israel has to give up virtually everything including Jerusalem or there is no deal. ...You could tell these were the opening positions in negotiations that are going to be there." 

Roberts said he found two major streams of thought among Israelis and Palestinians about what a future peace should look like. On both sides some believe the two nations should be as separate as possible --"you do your thing and we will do our thing, and we hope you prosper and we intend to prosper," Roberts said. And on both sides there also is the view that there should be ongoing economic cooperation, joint projects for co-prosperity. 

The County Supervisor said he felt that the itinerary arranged by the American Jewish Committee tried was shaped in a way to give members of the delegation a good overview of the situation. He said, however, he also would have liked to see one of the Palestinian refugee camps. "Larry Remer (a San Diego political consultant) had done it and recommended it to me," Roberts said. 

Besides peace between Arabs and Jews, another issue that the delegation learned about was the strained relationships between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews in Israel. 

"It doesn't make any difference that everyone is under the umbrella of the same religion, the differences of the interpretations -- how that should be converted into public policy is what overwhelmed me," he said.

Over the long term, he suggested, how Israeli Jews settle their own differences may be "a far more fundamental and important question" than even the peace terms with the Arabs. "The external stuff, it will get settled out," Roberts predicted. "I think there will be peace." 

But, he said, "when I came back on the airplane-- today I feel more strongly about separation of church and state then probably I ever have. ...You come back, you start to see your own counry and your own society in a little different light. I came back thinking, you know our problems seem much easier to solve.... You get the feeling that there are some very big issues out there that we as Americans are shielded from."