Israelis To Honor Nature By Bickering In Lusher Setting

Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, May 12 – Israelis by the tens of thousands thousands took advantage of the Independence Day holiday to break from routine and argue in greener, more bucolic areas of the country for a change.

Schools are closed and most places of employment must grant time off today, and many employers have a more generous holiday schedule, freeing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to move their typical vitriolic discourse to idyllic nature reserves, national parks, hiking trails, camp grounds, and natural springs. Droves of these fiercely argumentative people customarily spend at least one day on a trek, picnic, nature walk, or other outing, basking in the refreshing experience of conducting their political, cultural, or family quarrels closer to wildlife and non-cultivated greenery.

Increasing numbers of these traditionally combative citizens take to the roads and trails each Passover and on several other annual occasions, among them Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day. Among the trees and clefts of rock, they show their appreciation and dedication to nature by having at one another rhetorically, a quintessentially Israeli activity.

“If there’s anything Israelis love, it’s nature,” says Jewish National Fund trail guide Pika Feit. “They’ll pick up their arguments with relatives, community members, neighbors, or whomever, and move them into the welcoming forests and trails of our parks and reserves.”

Ditza Gree, of the Parks and Nature Authority, of course disputes that assessment. “Feit doesn’t know what she’s talking about, as usual. Probably her outdated political views coming into play again. She completely misses the fact that these arguments involve total strangers as often as they involve close friends, family, or associates. I was just discussing this with the bus driver and the other four random passengers at the front of the vehicle this morning.”

Gree was unavailable for further comment, as she was in a heated discussion with a visitor over the latter’s cavalier assumption that setting up a barbecue anywhere and everywhere is perfectly acceptable behavior.