Israel, Jordan and Egypt: a fresh bird’s eye view
Descending Mount Sinai - April 2022
Perhaps our fresh bird’s-eye view comes from the eye of Ra, this week.
We are taking a little side road from retirement security to talk about financial security and, candidly, just what’s new in this part of the world. There’s a lot that’s new. Including a few things that surprised us.
For context, we traveled as tourists so we saw what you’re going to see from a bus and at ground level. These highlights just touch the surface.
Israel: Since our last visit (2016), Israel, like the rest of the world, has been dealing with the personal and economic trauma associated with COVID-19. The IMF has high praise for Israel’s handling of the pandemic, citing assertive vaccination campaigns, fiscal support for families, and a nice bounce by the tech sector in 2021.
The sector we were closest to – travel and tourism – took a beating and is just beginning to rebound. That means we had some hotels practically to ourselves and sites were less crowded, even uncrowded.
We start our trip in Tel Aviv – feet in the sand at the edge of the Mediterranean on a cool, sunny evening. We’re surrounded by volleyballers, joggers and dogs. If traffic is any indication, the economy here is in great shape. In fact, long termers might think it’s too good. In this country of 8.9 million people, almost half live in the greater Tel Aviv-Yafo area. Before 1948, this land was called Palestine, a Greek derivation of the word Philistine. You may recall one famous Philistinian, the biblical Goliath of Gath, a bit south of here. It’s said that the Philistines were seafarers from the Aegean who first landed in Egypt but were successfully pushed north of the Sinai into the next set of coastal plains.
Our tour quickly takes us north and east into the region of the Galilee, along the ancient Via Maris that’s run from Egypt to Mesopotamia for more than 5,000 years. In this part of the more fertile north you’ll see acres of bananas and oranges and kiwi under netting. Life is visibly more agricultural, slower, farms still managed using the kibbutzim cooperative and moshavim family-based systems. As tech has boomed, ag has become a smaller part of the Israeli economy; the country is a net importer of food goods.
On the eve of Ramadan, we find ourselves in Nazareth, “the Arab capital of Israel”. The city sits across a set of hills that are part of the east-west Nazareth Range running along the lower Galilee. The topography amplifies music booming from schools on a hot afternoon in the busy city as its largely Muslim population prepares to enter the holy month. We’re sitting in a replica of a first millennia synagogue. The juxtaposition feels very close.
Our journey takes us further north past the Golan Heights to Tel Dan, and south along the Jordan River into the West Bank and to Jericho. The oasis of Jericho, which seemed impoverished and dusty to us six years ago, is booming. We don’t see this in the formal economic reports, but we see the new homes and this newspiece locally tells us we’re not hallucinating.
On the hour-long ride up Route 1 to Jerusalem we pass outpost after outpost of Bedouin families, part of the informal economy of Israel. We spot small pods of wild camels. “They’re worth $5,000 apiece to the Bedouins,” our guide says. We see modern shepherds hanging out in the shade of a billboard, sheep grazing on the median in front of them. We spend the rest of our time in Israel at the Gloria Hotel, just inside the Jaffa Gate. We’re in the Christian quarter and centrally located for access to all parts of the old city.
After a few days in the Old City, we’re back on the bus headed down Route 1 toward the crossing from Israel to Jordan.
Our transition is made simpler by our fantastic Israeli guide – Rami Salfiti – whose LinkedIn is spartan, but whose knowledge of all things Israel and historical runs very deep.
Salfiti is casually dropping data bombs while tracking down missing luggage, directing the bus, and getting all the forms to the right person in the right order. If you’re thinking of Israel, he’s your guy.
Takeaways: Israel is strictly regulated in ways that aren’t always visible. There are big differences between the areas under the Palestinian Authority (generally more chaotic, greater economic challenges) and those under Israeli authority. To say there’s a lot of history behind this might be the understatement of the … millennia. Of note, Mercer ranks Israel’s pension system #3 in the world – after the Netherlands and Denmark. On paper, retirement savings coverage is relatively universal and benefits, while ‘streamlined’, are provided on a progressive scale based on income and need.
Jordan: Opposite us at the border, we’re immediately met by convoys of trucks bringing goods to or through Israel: cement, and maybe flour.
Bags of things on pallets.
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is producing something that Israel is not.
On the way to Mount Nebo we pass through the Plains of Moab. We suspect both of these things have vastly different Arabic names today, but our Arabic is not good and they elude us. “This area feeds all the Gulf states,” our new guide Omar says, and we soon find out why. Everything from this point forward, all the way to the Nile delta, will be rock. Rock and non-arable land. Forgive us Jordanian friends. It is possible we say on the bus that this might be what Hell would look like if it stopped burning. (According to the World Bank, about 2.3% of Jordan is arable land.)
“We grow olives – there are springs everywhere – the Bedouins know this,” Omar continues. Jordan and its neighbors also rely heavily on Ukrainian wheat, oats and olive oil. It’s an issue right now.
We are now on another ancient road, the King’s Highway, reported to be 1500 miles long, connecting the continents of Asia and Africa. We pass small towns, few people visible; it’s Ramadan, it’s warm out, and it’s the season of Khamsin – 50 days of spring wind and dust storms like the one we are currently experiencing. Amman, a city of 4 million, is to our north as we head south to Wadi Musa (Mousa, or Moses), and Petra.
If you have ever been to Petra, you know. (This piece is great, caution, it comes with sound). This is the sort of place you never want to leave. We could say much more, but we’ll stick to the short story of Ziyad. We meet him first as he’s coming down a set of open-air stairs on the back of a small white burro, offering us a ride. He’s hands-free, impressively at ease. We decline. We are not feeling our best this particular day and we have not a sous, not a farthing, on us.
Ziyad is also not having a great day. The tourists have barely begun to come back, none of them are interested in a burro trip up to the high place, and it’s getting hot out. He chats us up, gently, and eventually says, come up with me, I won’t charge you. The trip turns, in time, into a trek on the back of a burro over the top side of Petra on a trail we would shy away from on our own two feet. How the burro manages it so well we’re not sure.
We meet Ziyad’s brother at the world’s best-located open air snack bar and coffee salon, on an outcropping overlooking the other high places. We apologize for thoughtlessly drinking an espresso in front of the two men during Ramadan.
They won’t be having anything, “not even water?” “not even water” – until the daily fast is broken in the evening.
Resuming our walk, we talk about family. Ziyad shares a pic of his two young girls. His phone screen is cracked and we talk about the merits of Samsung v. Apple. He calls the girls to ask what they’d like from the village. “An apple!” “An orange!” “Some biscuits!” We think about the fact that we have a perfectly good iPhone 11 at home that we’ve been unable to give away – even to the kids of our friends. We do find a way to pay Ziyad.
We spent the evening at another incredible location – Wadi Rum – Valley of the Moon – in a tent glamp-camp managed by Bedouins of greater means, dressed like sheikhs. This is a place that deserves more time. In the morning out of respect for the fact that we are in the desert we skip the shower and head to Aqaba on the Gulf for the fast ferry to Egypt and swimming.
Takeaways: Jordan’s pensions system is newer than many; the country’s Social Security system covers less than half the workforce and, by World Bank projections, could go insoluble within a decade if no adjustments are made. HelpAge Jordan recently published this thoughtful analysis and recommendations for Jordan. PS: they’ve found a ‘very deep aquifer’ under Wadi Rum with ‘enough water to last 77 years – so much that we’re selling some of it to Israel.’ RSM will suggest you go see the Wadi before it implodes on itself.
Egypt: We spend our first night in Dahab on the clear waters of the Red Sea, touted for its world-class snorkeling and diving. On the way down from the ferry we have passed miles and miles of brand new, unfinished-maybe-abandoned resort developments. “Pandemic,” says our new guide Max. But we’re wondering what catalyst got all this development going in the years just before the pandemic hit.
Egypt’s population, at 110 million, dwarfs that of the countries we’re coming from but it will be at least a day before we see the 28 million inhabitants of the greater Cairo area. First we are heading up into the Sinai peninsula, supported by a guide, his assistant, a bus driver, a secondary bus driver, an on-board tourist policeman, and two armed guards in a marked tourist police SUV. We’re either safer, or a lot less safe, than we were before we arrived. Certainly our group-related employment figures have just spiked.
The rocks of Jordan pale beside the vast square miles of rocks that are the Sinai. They are impressive, and endless. Along the way we learn about Egypt. Under the leadership of President El-Sisi, the country is undergoing a massive infrastructure spend. ‘We’re going to have a new capital city that will be smarter than Dubai,” Max says – it will accommodate 8,000 civil servants in an effort to relieve over population in Cairo. Other projects include the recently completed highway expansion around Cairo, a monorail connecting the provinces, sewer improvements, new trains replacing the British-era models still in use. A second Suez canal, doubling capacity and revenue. A plan to funnel Nile water through the Sinai to support agriculture.
After reaching our somewhat remote destination, we ascend Mount Sinai by starlight on camels, accompanied by their Bedouin masters. It’s surreal and wonderful. At the same time we are beginning to recognize how privileged we will be to take a bus to Cairo, to stay in a Hilton alongside the Nile, and to fly home to a place where the living is, generally, easier.
There are over 400,000 Bedouins in South Sinai and more than a million in North Sinai, our guide tells us.
As we approach Cairo, the better part of a day later, truck traffic picks up, and then all traffic picks up – a wild mix of cars, trucks, tok-toks, flatbeds full of produce, and horse-drawn carriages. If it has wheels or feet you’ll see it on the freeway.
We see with our own eyes the infrastructure works, and also the displacement of families formerly occupying the apartment houses sliced open to make way for the expanded highways.
This growth is fascinating and unexpected and not without impact – positive and negative.
Takeaways: along with other infrastructure work, Egypt tackled its Social Security system with changes becoming effective January 2020. The system’s coverage rate is said to be 80% of the employed population. We saw so much informal work, however, that this is hard to picture. Keep an eye on Egypt. Interesting things afoot here.
Thank you for joining us on this journey into the spaces, economies and family financial wellness of a smattering of countries in the Middle East. We hope you find some ideas here that make your work more productive and more interesting.
- Lisa
This piece was featured in the April 21, 2022, edition of Retirement Security Matters. For more fresh thinking on retirement savings innovation, check out the newsletter here.
