This morning brings us a new crop of horror from a War in progress. It is already sliding past mid-afternoon in the Eastern Mediterranean. More rockets were reported in the overnight hours there to bolster the horrific tempo of the day. As a group, we had no vivid memories of Gaza City from our only visit to the Holy Land. Our attempt to see the New Testament in four days was a fairly good effort, and we stand with it. But Gaza lies on the coast, south of the anchorage at Haifa. Our focus had been on the places mentioned in the stories of the Bible. There was trouble then, though not like this morning.

We had a name for that trouble. spread across the years 1987–1993. It was a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation across the Jewish state. They called it “the First Intifada.” and was a sustained series of protests and violent riots carried out by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.

The story has spread, of course due to the drama of it. This morning, some elements have spread across the Indian Ocean. This morning, the Australian police announced they have opened an investigation into a pro-Palestinian protest outside the iconic Sydney Opera House after video footage circulated of a group participating in an antisemitic chant. We are not going to repeat it here.

About 1,000 pro-Palestinian supporters marched through downtown Sydney on last night to the fabulous Opera House. The last time we visited Sydney we walked there with a sense of wonder. At this moment, it is lit up in blue and white as a symbol of support for Israel after Hamas started this carnage with unprecedented attacks against civilians early last Saturday.

Splash and Rocket were on that cruise in the Eastern Med some thirty years ago. The reminded us the trouble in the streets back then had a name that reflected something short of mass killings. They were called the “Intifada” by the locals and we called them “The Follies,” and were in progress during our visit in March of 1990.

There was a private name we used about it which has lingered, since we were abroad in a land with adherents of at least two of the three Great Patriarchal Faiths. There was no question in our mind, just as this morning demonstrates, we were “Among the Believers.” We just had to keep them all straight. It was not at all like this morning is going.

The Engineers who made USS Forrestal move around on the wine-dark sea had dropped the hook- the mighty anchor that could hold a ship weighing more than 60,000 tons attached to the seabed. At 0730 in we were in the roadstead off Haifa. We were up, bright as pennies, for the Ops Meeting in the Carrier Intelligence Center (CVIC). We were already concerned with the exercises coming up and knew that our potential playmates from the Operational side of the house were going to be buried at least neck deep in draft messages all day.

Accordingly, the hairs only stood up a moderate distance on the back of our necks when we heard the boatswain’s whistle blast over the 1MC sounds system and the electrifying words: “Liberty Call! Liberty Call for Officers and Chief Petty Officers!” That went down about 0830, a remarkably progressive event after the sequential buffoonery of the boating in Alexandria, Egypt. Still, the meetings unfolded with the inexorable force of inertia. There is a ton of stuff to do, much of it almost surpassing comprehension.

We knew the Med portion of that deployment would end with a rising crescendo of pandemonium. Splash and Rocket were snowed in, and we have to build the concept brief for the Air Wing SIX Commander to pitch to our Admiral tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get started on graphics production until the Grown-ups decide what they want to say, so there is nothing for me to do until late afternoon at the earliest.

I stroll back over to Planning and alert the duty section to the fact that Tasking will be inbound at some point. Between that and lunch there isn’t any more we can do for a while, so I am in the tack for a nap by 1300. I sleep hard until 1430, when Doc Feeks raps on the door demanding a playmate and wingie with whom to hit the Beach. I look up for a moment and decide that an Intelligence Duty Officer and two duty Intelligence specialists are probably adequate to the task of typing up five graphics. Splash and Rocket call and inform us that the sirens of the Holy Land have overcome them and they will be ashore until further notice.

Ten minutes later we are walking down the hangar bay and notice that the liberty line snakes all the way back amidships. This does not bode well; by the time we exercise our Officer Prerogative and reach the fantail we see why things are balled up. One of the contract ferry boats is an enormous ungainly ship with a flat bottom and two towering decks. He is parallel to the fantail camel and is swinging through about fifteen degrees of roll in nearly calm seas. They cannot disembark the ten passengers they have on board.

We watch with increasing skepticism for a half hour until the watershed occurs and a first

class Petty Officer slips while trying to leap to the camel and disappears between the barge and the wildly rocking ferry.

I turn away because I know I am about to see one of those horrible industrial accidents in which a frail human body is crushed to jelly between two huge and utterly unyielding plates of steel. Against all hope, the boat is leaning out against its lines and does not crash against the camel on this cycle and the sailor is pulled out unscathed. This is the second incident in attempting to board the boat (dislocated ankle, earlier in the day) and that is enough for the Officer of the Deck and the large ferry is summarily banished. After an hour of boating follies we are finally embarked on a little ferry, equally ungainly but with a ‘vee’ hull which did not swing so wildly.

We head in toward the harbor and the City, which crawls up the steep slopes of Mount Carmel. It is overcast and the wind is brisk. We are chilly in our sweaters. The old Arab town is clustered below, low and straggling along the coast. On the crest thrust the skyscrapers of Israel and the Dan Panorama and the Dan Carmel Hotels. We round the new breakwall and pass the ships of commerce and the low silhouettes of the missile boats. Turrets crown the quays facing the sea.

Fleet Landing is in the dockyard district. The first impression is of a quiet industrial backwater, and nothing changes that. There are hints of displeasure, and we wondered what relations would be like if there were higher tension. On this morning, three or four decades later, it is not displeasure. It is war, raw and pungent and unpleasant.

We piled into a Cab to travel to a shopping mall to look for toys. We can’t find an open bar later, probably related to Shabbatt activities.. The only places are near the Fleet landing, so Doc Feeks and myself wind up sampling the local pleasures. The bartender is a hefty Moroccan with blue eyes, 48, and she lifts her shirt to show us her grandmother figure with surprising power. Turns out she was a French Colon who got the boot when decolonization brought the Muslims to power.

Everybody in this place has got a story. The bartender has two sons in the IDF now. Everyone in this place has got a story. We disengage as swiftly as possible and wander down the street to an open air cart where we buy lamb kebabs on a stick. Those are thrown onto pita bread with salad and sour yoghurt dressing.

They taste wonderful. We are pleased to have had a chance to see this place with so much emotional history and only a modicum of trouble. Splash had to laugh as we walked the stations of the Cross. “Can you imagine what it would be like if there really was some trouble here?”

That was what we remembered on this morning. There is a level of cruel violence and mayhem in progress that is quite raw and real. We are glad we already saw a more peaceful version. That is not likely to be back for a while.

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