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Leza L Olson  09/07/2006 02:41:32 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Leza L Olson

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UNCLAS        TEL AVIV 03551

SIPDIS
CXTelA:
    ACTION: AMB
    INFO:   DCM ECON POL CONS

DISSEMINATION: AMB
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: DCM:GCRETZ
DRAFTED: CONS:RCBEER&DMPHILLI
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VZCZCTVI762
RR RUEHC RUEHJM
DE RUEHTV #3551/01 2491329
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FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6162
INFO RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM 4428

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 003551 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV CASC CMGT IS
SUBJECT: HAIFA AFTER THE ROCKETS 
 
¶1. Summary. Two Embassy Tel Aviv consular officers made a 
post-ceasefire visit to Haifa, Israel's third largest city, 
principal port and for about a month this summer the frequent target 
of Hizbollah rocket attacks, to assess operations of our consular 
agency there and get a feel for how the city as a whole is 
recovering from the war. Following are vignettes gleaned from that 
visit. End Summary. 
 
--------------------------- 
The Intrepid Consular Agent 
--------------------------- 
¶2. The consular agent's lot is normally a peaceful one, accepting 
passport applications, notarizing documents and answering general 
visa questions, to lighten the workload for Tel Aviv's Consular 
section.  But all that changed for long-time Haifa consular agent 
Jonathan Friedland when he returned from vacation to work July 16 
and was greeted by salvos of rockets, including a hit on a nearby 
train depot that killed eight people. Later, another rocket took out 
a vacant house two blocks from the consular agency, in the city's 
smartly restored German Colony neighborhood.  "We didn't think this 
could happen," he admitted.  "You don't do this to a major city like 
Haifa." 
 
¶3. As the rockets continued to rain down, Friedland stayed open for 
business, to post's utter amazement. He filed vivid e-mail accounts 
of the attacks and answered tons of calls from anxious residents 
(Most common exchange: Q: I'm scared to death. How can I protect 
myself from attacks?  A: Leave town and head south.) 
 
¶4. Looking back now that it's over Friedland, an imperturbable Yom 
Kippur War veteran, admits it was a bad time for the city, but not 
as bad as the wave of suicide bombings several years ago.  At least 
with the rocket attacks residents after the first few days had a 
reliable siren warning system in place that gave them a minute or so 
to find a shelter, he said.  The suicide bombings, in contrast, came 
with no warnings and left residents with a feeling of total 
helplessness. 
 
-------------------------------- 
The Green Deputy Mayor Sees Red 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶5. After paying tribute to the courageous Consular Agency staff, 
conoffs headed over to City Hall for a briefing on the city's 
response to the wartime attacks and their aftermath. Haifa 
officialdom has already perfected its pitch to the steady stream of 
official visitors coming their way to view first-hand the rocket 
damage they saw daily on CNN.  The city has put together a slick, 
101-slide PowerPoint presentation, complete with full-motion video 
and moving red arrows to trace the path of individual incoming 
rockets. Crisp, close-up photos detail dust-blasted living rooms, 
ball bearing riddled parked cars and wall-less upper floor dining 
rooms, with tablecloths flapping in the hot summer breeze. 
 
¶6. There is other damage - not the visible kind but serious 
nonetheless - that the city is also facing. Deputy Mayor Shmuel 
Gelbard told conoffs the city is already in debt to the tune of 
about 50 million shekels (over USD 10 million) and counting due to 
war-related costs.  The city's fiscal year runs through December and 
there is no telling how deep in the red it will stand by then. He 
said the city will look to the national government to pitch in and 
fill the gap. 
 
¶7. Gelbard, an ardent Green Party environmentalist, has a particular 
axe to grind, in connection with the recently ended war.  As he 
briefed conoffs on Haifa's response to the attacks and the status of 
its recovery efforts he segued into his personal agenda of making 
Haifa less of a target for future attacks by moving out its chemical 
industry facilities - most particularly a very large ammonia storage 
tank - and replacing them with his vision of a burgeoning tourism 
industry. He believes Haifa's industrial economy pollutes the 
environment and is responsible for excess deaths above the norm to 
the tune of 500 per year. The ammonia tank was a particular concern 
during the war due to a doomsday scenario that goes something like 
this: an incoming rocket hit on the tank would split it open, 
releasing the super-cooled ammonia that on contact with normal air 
turns into a viciously poisonous gas cloud that could kill thousands 
as it wafts across the city. Although the tank reportedly was 
drained of virtually all its contents during the war, to avoid just 
this scenario, Gelbard still feels the risk further buttresses his 
case for moving industry out of Haifa and bringing tourism in. He 
asserted that in such a swap-out, every lost industrial job would be 
replaced by three nice, clean tourism jobs. (Comment: Whether the 
three tourism jobs, weighted heavily no doubt towards table waiting, 
bed making and dishwashing, would pay as much, combined, as the one 
chemical job they would replace was left unsaid.  End comment). 
 
¶8. The debate over Haifa's industrial based economy in general, and 
the ammonia tank in particular, played out just after the war in a 
vitriolic exchange between proponents and opponents captured in the 
English-language daily, Haaretz.  On the one side, a professor from 
Haifa's prestigious Technion - Israel Institute of Technology looked 
at a missile hit scenario on the storage tank. In vintage 
science-speak he said, "We referred to the wind directions - we took 
the percentage of residents and the percentage of vulnerability, and 
we came up with about 100,000 casualties." 
 
¶9. The major general who heads the Israeli Home Front Command was 
having none of that. "We can go back to being a stone age country," 
he sneered, "avoid using these substances, in which case we will 
produce pitas with olive oil here, and hummus, like our neighbors - 
or we can have these substances and be a progressive country like 
Britain or France or America." 
 
--------------------- 
Underground Day Care 
--------------------- 
¶10. On the way out of City Hall, Gelbard took conoffs across the 
street to a modern annex building where, five floors below ground, a 
child care center sprang up in the building's parking garage during 
the war. With the ceasefire in place and the new school year about 
to start, things were winding down at the time conoffs visited, but 
it was remaining in operation until school began. At its peak, the 
parking garage kids camp hosted 200 children, producing a continuous 
ear-splitting racket as the usual kids' ruckus reverberated 
endlessly off the confined concrete space.  This was about the only 
way to look after kids in a group during the war, outside of bomb 
shelters, since all the usual child care facilities were ordered 
closed, to avoid the horrific possibility of mass child casualties 
if a rocket were to hit such a location.  Israeli Defense Force 
soldiers were pressed into service in the garage as camp 
counselors. 
 
¶11. Amidst parking spaces and support columns painted bright orange 
to remind inattentive drivers what level they were parked on, the 
city installed inflatable rubber play gyms, Moon Bounce trampolines 
and crafts tables. Across a couple parking spaces a movie viewing 
area on the morning conoffs visited was featuring "Bride and 
Prejudice," a recent Indian Bollywood offering about (what else?) a 
young woman who objects to her impending arranged marriage.  Odd 
viewing fare for a clutch of Israeli five-year-olds, but they didn't 
seem to mind. 
 
------------------------------------ 
A (Steamy) Stroll Down Herzel Street 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶12. Next, Gelbard took his visitors on foot to a nearby commercial 
district. Leading conoffs on a fast-paced walk around heavy 
vehicular traffic in the torrid midday heat, he stopped first to pay 
homage to the traffic circle outside a downtown post office where 
shrapnel from a direct rocket hit on that building severed a woman's 
leg.  "She's a hero," he said. "She's said she is going to walk 
again, and she is going to dance."  From there it was just a short 
hop to Herzel Street, once Haifa's prime shopping thoroughfare but 
now decidedly downscale.  Russian is as prevalent as Hebrew here. 
The stores offer no-brand clothes, money changing and cheap 
electronics.  Several clothing stores feature male mannequins 
sporting snowy white leisure suits with pastel colored open collar 
shirts. The energetic, white-bearded deputy mayor clearly senses 
post-war opportunity here. Gelbard told conoffs he sees Herzel 
Street as a vehicle-free, pergola-covered pedestrian mall, teeming 
with coffees shops, bookstores and other decidedly upscale 
appurtenances. It's another part of his vision to turn the port town 
into something post-industrial, new age and therefore lower down on 
the enemy's target list. No room for leisure suits here. 
 
-------------------------- 
The Shop-Til-You-Drop Cop 
-------------------------- 
¶13. Wilted from the heat of that forced march, conoffs gratefully 
shifted to the air conditioned comfort of a police car, driven by a 
female Israel National Police officer, for a tour of the principal 
rocket attack sites around town. At the site of an attack that hit a 
medium-sized apartment building, tearing off much of the front 
exterior wall and producing several injuries, but no fatalities, a 
neighborhood resident stopped to complain to our police escort about 
all the war tourists, saying in Hebrew this "wasn't nice." Or words 
to that effect.  Gelbard said a Chinese delegation visited the same 
spot while missiles were still flying.  During their visit, the air 
raid siren sounded and he hustled them into a nearby shelter, where 
the stressed residents were surprised to be suddenly sharing their 
space with a group of bowing, smiling Chinese. Perhaps this was the 
origin of the neighborhood's war tourist animus.  Our police escort 
was another story in herself. Over lunch after the tour she 
mentioned proudly that she had recently made a personal shopping 
trip to New York, buying USD 11,000 of merchandise for herself in 
one week.  Must have been all that overtime she racked up during the 
war. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
Inside an Immigrant Neighborhood - Some Happy Campers 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
¶14. After a tasty lamb shish kebab lunch, conoffs headed crosstown 
to the Neve Yosef Community Center, to see how the war experience 
affected one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.  We knew Haifa's 
more affluent residents simply left town to escape the rocket 
barrage. (At the peak of the exodus, 30 percent of the city's 
270,000 residents were gone.  The city came up with this figure from 
a close analysis of domestic water usage data). But what about those 
who had nowhere else to go?  And, how did the residents feel about 
their uneasy proximity to the aforementioned industrial chemical 
complexes?  The controversial ammonia storage tank is clearly 
visible in the near distance. 
 
¶15. This neighborhood has been something of an Ellis Island for 
Haifa since the time of independence in 1948.  First came newly 
arrived Jewish Brigade war veterans.  They moved on and along came 
North African immigrants, primarily Moroccans.  In the early 1990's 
it was the surge of migrants from the former Soviet Union.  Now the 
neighborhood is made up largely of Ethiopians, who began arriving in 
the late 1990s. 
 
¶16. For each of these groups, the Neve Yosef Community Center has 
been an assimilation factory, taking in newly arrived migrants, 
dazed, confused and disoriented, and turning out new Israeli 
citizens. The city of Haifa contributes some funding to the center's 
operation, but its big patron, judging from the billboard out in 
front, is the United Jewish Appeal of Northern New Jersey. The 
multi-story structure is the hub of neighborhood activity - adult 
education, crafts courses, computer labs for kids, field trips for 
young and old alike - and it was at the peak of its summertime 
activity when the war erupted.  The center's general director, Moshe 
Hazut, said he and his staff sensed the danger of their situation 
immediately.  The nearby chemical facilities no doubt were at the 
top of Hizbollah's Haifa target list, and their rockets were not 
entirely accurate, so the neighborhood was a sitting duck for near 
misses.  This made it imperative to keep residents inside, in 
fortified shelters, for as much time as possible. His staff went 
through 40 apartment buildings in the neighborhood to check out and 
supply their shelters. Many of them had been neglected for years and 
turned into storage rooms, filled with decades' worth of junk.  One 
team emptied and supplied the shelters.  A second team ran 
activities for the occupants, to help pass the time while confined 
inside them.  The center also organized day trips out of the war 
zone, to give residents a respite from the tension and danger.  Ten 
carefully selected teenagers traveled to the United States, at the 
invitation of a Jewish day camp on the affluent north shore of Long 
Island (a/k/a Great Gatsby Country), near New York City. These very 
happy campers spent two-and-a-half weeks there living with local 
families, reveling in typical summer camp activities and sightseeing 
in the Big Apple.  By the time they returned the war was over. 
 
¶17. The neighborhood emerged from the war unscathed, at least in the 
physical sense.  There were no rocket hits anywhere in the vicinity. 
 The poor aiming of the rockets proved to be even poorer than they 
had dared to hope. The chemical facilities never were hit, and 
neither was Neve Yosef. But damage has been done on a deeper 
psychological level, according to Hazut, and that may take some time 
to heal.  He has noticed a greater emotional fragility in the 
children. They act differently now. They cry, they're tense, they 
don't want to be separated from their parents.  The elderly feel 
lonely and a bit shunned, sensing that in the wartime flurry of 
activity to take care of children and help their parents, they were 
just as scared but somehow overlooked. 
 
¶18. The center is already at work on all of this, Hazut said. It 
re-opened almost as soon as the ceasefire took effect, to show 
everyone life was returning to normal.  Counselors are encouraging 
residents to talk it all out and express their feelings. Given the 
center's long history of dedicated, industrious service to the 
neighborhood it's a good bet the psychological wounds of the 
recently ended rocket war on their way to healing.  Just as the 
center for decades has shown newly arrived immigrants the way to 
settling into a new country, it's now showing them the way to get 
over the recent trauma and move on. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Conclusion: The Katrina Syndrome 
-------------------------------- 
¶19. Looking back on the long day's journey through the city, conoffs 
were struck by parallels between Haifa's situation after the 
Hizbollah war and that of the city of New Orleans after Hurricane 
Katrina last year. In both cases the shock of a sudden, traumatic 
event brought to the surface long-simmering and very much unresolved 
issues.  In Haifa's case, the debate is sharpening over its future 
direction.  Should it stick with its industrial base, or should it 
diversify radically into clean industry such as tourism, both for 
environmental reasons and to diminish its desirability as a target 
in a future conflict? The war experience also highlighted economic 
inequalities, as those with means left the city for safety to the 
south and those without such means stayed and endured the almost 
daily rocket attacks. (Exception noted for the aforementioned happy 
campers). 
 
¶20. Those issues will continue to be debated, and it's anybody's 
guess when, if ever, there will be a resolution.  But this much is 
clear: as the wartime tension uncoils itself and life returns to 
normal in Haifa, public and private discourse can be expected to 
follow suit - marked by pride and defiance, fear and frustration, 
debate and derision, love and compassion. In other words, Israel. 
 
JONES