By Bob Van Leer

  (HAIFA, ISRAEL, Monday, April 17, 2000) - Israel is about 270 miles north and south and the climate ranges from desert in the south to green forests and hills in the north.

  From Haifa Betty and I took a tour of the Galilee and Golan Heights in northern Israel. The Galilee is rolling green hills with agriculture in the valleys. This is spring here and wildflowers are blooming. There are many storks around on their migration north to Europe for the summer. In the distance we could see snow-capped Mt. Hermon where Israel, Lebanon and Syria join.

  We crossed the Jordan River at the north edge of the Sea of Galilee and then headed up the Golan Heights. This a fault scarp similar to those in Eastern Oregon up to 2000 feet high and is relatively flat on top. Until 1967 this was Syrian territory but was taken by Israel during the year's war.

  A number of pill box firing points and other evidences of war can still bee seen.

  We stopped for lunch at Kibbutz Kfar Haruv, a relatively small kibbutz of about 250 adults and children in 47 families formed after the area was taken from Syria. The kibbutz will have to learn to do a better job of cooking if they want me to join.

  A kibbutz is a communal settlement in which everything is owned by the kibbutz and there is no private property. Each adult works and, in turn, is provided for. We were told the kibbutz type of settlement is used for where large projects are needed, such as draining a swamp, or in border areas. They are not restricted to farming. This kibbutz also has a factory that makes irrigation valves that produces 75% of the income. The concept is 91 years old in Israel, but is not growing. At this kibbutz we were told that more than 50% of young people used to return to the kibbutz after compulsory army service, but now less than that amount do. The average age of kibbutz members is getting older.

  I went into an old concrete bunker which has a commanding view of an Israeli kibbutz at the edge of the sea. From there, and other posts, we were told the Syrians randomly fired on the Israelis below. Israeli residents mostly lived in bunkers going out in the evening and at night to tend the farms.

  Syria and Israel are now having sporadic peace negotiations and part of the price is likely to be the return of the heights to Syria. Members of this kibbutz are not especially enthused about that.

  We came off the heights down a switchback road with mine fields marked on both sides down to the valley floor where the Jordan River flows out of the sea. The Sea of Galilee is of tremendous importance to Israel. Our guide said 30% of the country depends on the sea for its water and it is Israel's only fresh water lake. When Syria controlled the Golan Heights, the source of water for the lake, a canal was being constructed to cut off the water from the lake and run it to Arab territory.

  The lake is 14 miles long, up to seven miles wide and up to 200 feet deep. It is 630 feet below sea level and flows south 65 miles (air line) to the Dead Sea, 1200 feet below sea level.

  On the Jordan River at the south end of the lake, a kibbutz has built an immersion center used by thousands of Christians every year who wish to be baptized in the same river where Jesus was baptized.

  We returned to the ship and got underway to Istanbul, Turkey, our next scheduled stop.