The Security Blog

Wow.

I just found out that in my beautiful hometown, Haifa, the famous Carmel Tunnels project is nearing completion.  It’s about time.

Originally envisioned by the Ottoman Empire, the Turks thought the designing a tunnel under the gorgeous Carmel Mountain would shorten the travel time between northern Israel, Lebanon (and thus Turkey) and southern Israel (and thus Egypt).  What would have saved horse-and-camel caravans several days has a new meaning today.  As Haifa grows and develops, traffic traveling the main North-South highway in Israel skids to a halt 5 miles north of Haifa and does not ease up until about 2 miles south

While the delay length seems minuscule in American standards, it adds up to two hours in travel time to a trip that should last one and a half hours.  Further, the famous Israeli driving mentality, that demand that the brake pedal be constantly connected to the horn, creates a huge, often work-day-long traffic snarl in Israel’s 2nd busiest city.

Due to the vagaries of Israeli law, a law that was built in unique combination of the Ottoman Empire legal code, English (British) jurisprudence and Talmudic dictation, this project took many years to get started.  Once it has started, it was subject to many court challenges, some around the IMPORTANT question of just how deeply, beneath one’s house, does one’s land possession end.  Apparently, the answer is NOT “to the center of the Earth”….

The tunnels are two sets of two tunnels each (one in either direction), and they meet in each direction about a mile from my parents’ home.  You can see pictures of the current status here, here (description in Hebrew), and here. You can also see some of the 500 Chinese Workers Imported Just for This Project to Israel dancing.  For detailed pictures and maps, see here (I could not post these on this page due to (C) concerns).

The tunnels should open for travel by July 2009 ce.

Enjoy, Israel!