Of Politics and Water
Senior Editor Mandy Katz reports from Israel...
A water crisis notwithstanding, tourists are having fun up here in the Kineret, Israel's name for the Sea of Galilee and its environs. While they might shake their heads at super-long "beaches" where the inland sea once lapped, and might fret over the much more worrisome possibility of pumps' going dry, they don't seem particularly concerned about the impending national elections.
Not all tourists here can vote, of course, as they're a multinational lot. In the national parks, you do hear a lot of Hebrew, as in the verdant spring-fed pools of Tel Dan. The tamer "Gan Yardan" (or Jordan River Garden) park also centers on flowing water, but diverted into masonry channels and pools; around shaded picnic tables, sometimes set right in the shallow streams, multi-generational Arab clans with...