Born at the Dawn of a New State

Two Men's Lives Reflect Divergent Fortunes of Jewish, Palestinian Peoples

TEL AVIV -- Sixty years ago, Dror Gurel and Nabil Zaharan were born into a land at war.

Sons of middle-class families, they entered the world during the same week and along the same stretch of sun-splashed Mediterranean coast. Gurel was born in Jewish Tel Aviv; Zaharan's mother gave birth just down the road, in Arab Jaffa.

Yet it was a third birth that week that, more than anything, has shaped their lives.

Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, and Gurel and his family have spent the years since trying to build the Jewish state into a military and economic powerhouse. Gurel's father, an engineer, helped design the barracks, training grounds and ammunition depots of Israel's defense. The son, also an engineer, has constructed shopping centers and high-rises that have become emblems of affluence.

Zaharan, meanwhile, has spent his life dreaming of a place he lost but never knew, and wishing for a Palestinian state that may never be. He prays for his family's safety amid nightly Israeli army incursions, and hopes his children will find work despite a crippling siege.

The trajectories their lives have taken reflect the vastly different fortunes of two peoples who, to this day, remain in conflict over the same ancient land. Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary Thursday with a nationwide party; Palestinians will solemnly commemorate what they call al-Naqba, "the catastrophe."

For Israel, this anniversary is a chance to reflect on wars won against seemingly overwhelming Arab armies, as well as the prosperity wrought by the nation's economic transformation from agricultural marvel to high-tech innovator. But Israel remains an unfinished project -- a state without final borders, a constitution, or a national consensus over the role its Arab minority should play in civic life or the sacrifices necessary to make peace with the Palestinians.

The birthday festivities will include fireworks, concerts, air force flyovers and visits by more than a dozen foreign heads of state, including one next week by President Bush. Israel's president, Shimon Peres, will mark the occasion with a reception for Israelis who were born on the original Independence Day. Dror Gurel is among them.

"I have a big problem," said Gurel, a slim man with graying hair who recently talked about his life as he sat in his spacious northern Tel Aviv apartment. "No one ever forgets how old I am."

The state of Israel had existed only hours when Gurel's mother gave birth to her first child. The next morning, she rocked her new baby as bombs exploded outside her Tel Aviv hospital room. Her husband had to miss the birth because, like almost all young Jewish men, he was serving in the army as Israel successfully fought off first its Palestinian neighbors and then an alliance of Arab militaries.

Gurel's grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe to what was then British-administered Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s to be part of the Zionist wave settling the ancient Jewish homeland. His parents raised three children in a hot, cramped concrete apartment that was shared among four generations.

Gurel's father was the chief construction engineer for the Ministry of Defense, and he spent his career helping Israel build the most robust military in the Middle East -- working on everything from airfields to West Bank bases.