This is the second of a two-part series about the rising tension and danger on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Don’t miss Part One: Everything Could Explode at Any Moment.
NORTHERN ISRAEL -- Lisa and I followed Israeli Defense Forces Spokesman Zvika Golan as he led us in his jeep to the kibbutz of Malkiya right on the Lebanese-Israeli border, within immediate striking distance of Hezbollah’s rockets and bombs.
Zvika pulled off to the side of the road and pointed out a UN base just over the fence on the Lebanese side. He yelled something at the UN soldiers in Hindi. They waved and hollered back at him in Hindi. By happy coincidence, both Zvika and the peacekeepers are from India. Theirs is, perhaps, the only verbal communication that ever crosses that fence.
At Malkiya we met Eitan Oren, an Israeli Kurd from Eastern Turkey. He gave Lisa and me a quick tour of the place which was unremarkable in almost every way. It looked, to my eyes anyway, like just another small town only with fewer roads and more foot paths connecting the buildings.
“It’s dying here,” Eitan said. “Socialism is out. Capitalism is in. The ideology collapsed. I was never a socialist. I don’t belong in the concrete jungle of Tel Aviv. I’m a nature boy. I belong here.”
Here, though, was right on the rim of a volcano. Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon was right there. And, as Zvika kept telling Lisa and me, the border was gearing up to explode.
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