At 60, Israel a study in contrasts

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israelis are celebrating 60 years of statehood in a country of fleeting joy and looming conflict.

Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Chopin and Mahler are on offer among dozens of concerts and comedy shows during the week of festivities to mark the state's foundation in 1948. The Israeli Opera, Kibbutz Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Ra'anana Symphonette are in the listings.

Outside some of the venues, security guards will wave hand-held metal detectors and peer into handbags -- precautionary measures against Palestinian suicide bombers.

Although such attacks have tailed off dramatically in recent years, many Israelis cannot find inner peace.

"You know that everything is temporary and life can change in a heartbeat," said Liat Diamant, 25, a student at Tel Aviv University.

"If I focused all the time on the real situation of our country, I probably wouldn't stay here ... but I love the people here -- my friends, my family," she said.

Nowadays cafes and shopping malls -- favorite targets of suicide bombings that peaked at 59 in 2002, two years into a Palestinian uprising -- are packed.

There was one suicide bombing in Israel in 2007 and one this year, a sharp drop which Israel says results from travel curbs on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The walls and fences Israel has built around the entire territory have drawn international condemnation.

Yet now for the first time in seven years, Israel and the Palestinians are talking peace, spurred by the United States to reach at least a framework deal this year on Palestinian statehood, despite deep public skepticism on both sides.

And even Israelis critical of government policy -- especially of the treatment of the Palestinians over six decades -- see cause to celebrate.

Jessica Montell, executive director of B'Tselem, an Israeli rights group that documents what she termed "all the abuses of Israel's control of the Palestinians" in occupied land, said "the celebration of Israel at 60 is somewhat bittersweet.

"But when I help my kids hang up the flags for Independence Day, I focus on those things I love about Israel: the wealth and diversity of cultural production -- music, literature, performing arts, cinema.

"And of course I am proud that in spite of the difficult security situation, so many Israelis are involved in advancing social justice causes, refusing to accept that Israel must be a military fortress where might makes right."

CONTRASTS