Israel: Welcome to the promised land

Jerusalem is a strange mix of commerce and religion. Photo / Getty Images

The cab driver doesn't have much time for the past. "History schmistry," he says. "You can't dig a hole around here without a group of archaeologists gathering. Less history, we'd have less trouble."

On land which has seen Jewish, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman wars, revolts and divine revelations, the state of Israel last year turned 60 amid calls to wipe her off the face of the planet. Hardly the way to treat a sexagenarian.

The recent battles between Israel and Hamas in Gaza are the latest in a long line of conflicts between Arabs and Jews in the region, going back 100 years.

With their fraught history, Israelis may be forgiven for skimping on pleasantries. Customer service is in its infancy, driving is suicide. Yet despite all the shouting and passionate overtaking, the prickles are all on the outside. Like a desert cactus, Israel is sweet on the inside.

This Promised Land is heavenly. White-sand beaches slouch into the Mediterranean and red sands blanket the vast Negev Desert. With so many places of historical and biblical significance, practically the entire country is a Unesco world heritage site and, after years of uprisings and conflict, the people here know what it means to "live in the now".

The streets vibrate with life, and a population of Mediterranean and eastern European descent makes for some of the most beautiful people you'll ever see.

Tel Aviv is called the White City for its 1930s Bauhaus boxes but the architecture runs to anything from European Rothschild to Beirut bourgeois, Russian low rent, and bastardised LA hi-tech.

Donning stilettos and leopard print at Allenby St, it morphs into the red city where saggy-balconied apartments provide a gorgeously decadent backdrop to late dinners surrounded by Russian speakers, before even later nights over coffee and bottles of Arak; then dancing until dawn in Tel Aviv's ballistic nightclubs.

Hummus is a national obsession - every restaurant boasts the best in Israel, but take care ordering it in a Kiwi accent, as it sounds like Hamas, which is obviously a lot less popular. Yemen, Polish, Italian and Moroccan restaurants cater for those with plenty of shekels but most fun is the ubiquitous spiced meat shwarma washed down with a Maccabbe beer, eaten while people-watching at a pavement table.

Louche and laid-back, Tel Aviv's blissed-out culture is hard won for the youth who spend three years in the army.

Things were bad here during the 2000 intifada but Tel Aviv-ites are coolly indifferent. "If something really serious happens tell me, otherwise I'm going to the beach," said one young woman at the height of the attacks.

Today, Israel is extremely security conscious but you get used to side arms, bag searches and metal detectors and even being frisked by a voluptuous female soldier toting an M16 won't faze you after a while.

Shopaholics sashay Dizengoff's designer mile, and hedonists head to Sheinkin St, the centre of all things boho and home to the art market. Walk the length of the beach promenade to the old city of Jaffa, where Andromeda was sacrificed to a sea monster and Jonah met the whale.

Winding into the surprisingly verdant Judean mountains, the road to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv is like driving through a time warp. The roadside is littered with the bones of rusted army vehicles from the wars of 1948, '56, and '67.

One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52, and captured then recaptured 44 times.

The Old City is home to the Temple Mount, Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock. The global head offices of monotheistic beliefs jostle in narrow labyrinths running between the Arab, Jewish, Christian and Armenian quarters. Pungent wafts of incense, spices and fresh halva vie for sensory attention with colourful displays of Russian icons, Egyptian leather, Armenian pottery and bedspreads wearing Jesus' face.

Commerce tussles with piety like Jacob wrestled the Angel. The Via Dolorosa, believed to be the path Jesus walked to his crucifixion, is, ironically, the site of the most aggressive stallholders.

The Greek and Armenian clergy who share the Church of the Holy Sepulchre recently had an almighty punch up over right-of-way around the Basilica. In Jerusalem, religious passion seems to exude from the cobblestones.

The city's ultra-conservatism is evident everywhere. Like a flock of humourless crows, the city's large Orthodox population are the Amish of the Mediterranean. In homage to a 600-year-old European tradition, the Haredim wear millstone-shaped beaver fur kolpiks, long black coats with shoes and stockings, black felt fedoras and side-locks in 35C heat.

A city that feminism forgot, female movie stars are whited out of billboards in Jerusalem and the sexes are segregated on some bus routes. Bare shoulders are pornographic so cover up to avoid the hisses of hairy-chinned matriarchs.

An hour by bus from Jerusalem, the mountain-top refuge of Masada stands as it fell 2000 years ago; the site of a siege to conquer a Jewish rebellion defying Roman rule in 74CE. Rising 470m from the Judean desert and overlooking the Dead Sea from the vantage point of a flat topped mesa, Jordan glimmers in the east. On the western side the ancient red stone ruins of Herod's palace afford a sentry's view of the road to the Old City.

From 2km up the winding Snake Path, the plains below are etched with the wonky stone squares of the Roman camps, encircling the mountain and cutting off the escape route of the renegades. Masada held out for three months.

Building a huge earth ramp to the summit to transport a battering ram, the Romans stormed the fortifications only to discover a mass suicide. After the rout, the Jews scattered into the diaspora for the next 2000 years. "Masada will never fall again" chant graduating Israeli Defence Forces soldiers today and they mean it.

"Israel wins its wars because it has to," said a cafe owner on Ben Yehuda St in Tel Aviv. Passionate, bloody-minded and parochial, he reminds me of New Zealanders of my father's generation. "Why are you in such a rush?' he asks. "Sit down, stay while and enjoy, because tomorrow, who knows?"