Rep. Garry Smith Reflects On December Visit to Israel

Weeks after his December visit to Israel, State Rep. Garry Smith (R-27) took some time to look back on the trip.

Smith was in the Holy Land at the invitation of Israeli officials who extended the invite to Smith, after he and Rep. Alan Clemmons (R-107) sponsored a resolution recognizing the “cordial and mutually beneficial relations” between Israel and South Carolina.

The resolution was passed in June, not long after President Barack suggested that peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians should begin with 1967 borders (the resolution can be viewed here).

“We expected there to be a lot of debate in the House and Senate, but that didn’t happen,” Smith said. “It passed unanimously. It was not a partisan issue.”

Smith said the Upstate in particular has long had deep ties to Israel, citing beloved former Greenville mayor Max Heller, who died in 2011.

Smith said that eight other states are expected to pass resolutions similar to South Carolina’s.

The trip to Israel was arranged with the help of Israeli journalist and activist Earl Cox. Smith’s contingent included Clemmons, Republican National Committee member Cindy Costa and 9/12 Project member Joan Brown.

The group had lunch at the Knesset—Israel’s Congress—and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Smith was taken aback, but not surprised, by the level of security attended to Netanyahu. “A black SUV pulled up and it was protected by men stacked five deep and heavily armed,” Smith recounted. “They parted and there was Netanyahu.”

While meeting with the country’s leaders was memorable, the deepest impression on Smith may have been left as a result of his time spent with local leaders in some of the smaller towns. 

It was in these settings, both urban and rural, that the decades of war were striking to Smith.

“When you go there you really start to understand how small Israel is,” Smith said. “Their enemy is literally right on top of them.”

Smith could not help but notice how smaller cities had gates around them and that bomb shelters populate roadsides like guardrails would in America.

Smith spoke of an elementary school that had a 20-foot barbed wire fence around it and had a reinforced dome to protect it from rocket attacks.

According to the mayor of one town, there were 8,000 such rockets launched between 2001-2008, many of which were inscribed with a message, as if to reinforce the intention behind their firing. Smith described a meeting with a mayor of a town roughly the size of Mauldin. “He told us that he had been up since 1 a.m. and that if we hear the air raid sirens we have between 20 and 25 seconds to get to the bomb shelters,” Smith said. “What you see on television doesn’t prepare you for that.”

Even if the rockets don’t hit their targets, their effect is profound. Smith said that in one town he visited, 75 percent of the children suffer from post-traumatic-stress-disorder.

While the perpetual state of alert made an impact on Smith, so too did the beauty of the landscape.

“There were fruit and vegetable farms as far as the eye could see outside Jerusalem,” Smith said.

The countries surrounding Israel have been in the news during the Arab Spring and Smith said the average Israeli citizen is worried that some of the countries that have deposed dictators might replace them with leaders that are even more hostile to Israel.

Despite the pervasive fear and uncertainty, Smith said he saw no sign Israelis were weakening,” I think most of them have committed to stay and see things through.”