odechadangloblog

Stand Up For DARFUR

2006-11-19T09:58:00.000+02:00

RALLY AGAINST THE
GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

Monday, November 20th at 8:00pm
Kikar Tzion (Zion Square), Jerusalem
Organized by Talmidim Against Genocide

Will we see any UN resolutions about this?

2006-11-19T09:47:00.000+02:00

So the Israeli army phones a terrorist in Gaza and tells him his house is about to be destroyed so he'd better get out. The terrorist runs to the mosque and summons up a bunch of human shields so that the evil Jews won't bomb his house (logic is not their strong suit).

And it works. The Israeli army called off the strike, an IDF spokeperson saying "The attack plan was cancelled because of the people there," he said. "We differentiate between innocent people and terrorists."

Excuse me, but how were these "innocent people"? By their actions they had made themselves combatants, and as the Geneva Conventions make perfectly clear, Israel would have been fully justified under international law by going ahead with the bombing:

"The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." (Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3516, 75 U.N.T.S. 287, art. 28).

You may say it would be immoral to go ahead and you would have a strong point. But what happens now? Now the Palestinians terrorists will be able to operate with impunity, just because they have a crowd around them?

This seems to be a grave mistake. In the short run it saved lives, in the long run it will take more innocents. In Israel today, this is becoming a very common kind of mistake.

Shabbat in Safed

2006-09-13T22:06:00.000+03:00

I spent last weekend as a guest of family friends in Safed, the Galilee home of Jewish mysticism and kabbalah. The picture above is of the entrance to the Ari Ashkenazi synagogue, which was built on the very spot where during the 16th century Jews used to gaze at the fields as Shabbat began to see if the Messiah was walking across the fields, come to usher in a period of redemption and eternal peace.

This was the first time I have ever spent more than a couple of hours there, the first time I visited the town since I came to live in Israel 20 months ago, and the first time I have been up north since the recent war. Some of the most influential and innovative Rabbis lived here and shaped Jewish theology, liturgy, and mysticism. You can read all about it here.

From a cultural and spiritual perspective, Shabbat in Safed is really something special, dare I say it, even more than in Jerusalem. I had a great time and took lots of photos, and was made to feel very welcome by my hosts, who live an orthodox Jewish lifestyle.

The views from the town are amazing. Hope you enjoy the pictures:

View of Mount Meron (the highest point within Israel's pre-67 borders). The army base at the top of the mountain was a big target for Hezbollah (not that they didn't have plenty of civilian targets to be getting on with). If you look carefully you can see that the slope of the mountain is scorched from the many katyusha rockets that fell a little short of their target and burned trees.

A better view of Mount Meron.

The minaret is evidence of Safed's Arab past. During the Israeli War of Independence in 1948 ten thousand Arabs (including Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas) fled the town – 5/6th of the town's total population. The town's 2,000 Jews, whom the British army tried to evacuate, were able to remain in their homes.

Crater left by a katyusha rocket hitting the road.

The

The ugly municipal building. If you look closely at the concrete structure in the middle of the picture you can see the shrapnel holes made by the rockets from Lebanon. The rockets can only kill from their explosions within about a 10 metre radius, so Hezbollah stuffed each rocket with thousands of ball bearings to add an effective shrapnel effect.

The view southwards. The heat haze means you can't see much but at least you get an idea of how the town in perched in a vantage point over the Galilee. I think Mount Tabor is the peak in the distance.

I stayed for Sunday, the day after the Sabbath, so I could wander round the town when everything was open. People think of Safed as a religious town and it is, but all kinds of Israelis live there, including secular people. I love the clean fragrant air of Jerusalem, its mountain feel and the smell of pines. Safed has it too, but doubled.

While I was wandering through the town an elderly ultra-orthodox man saw a book I was carrying and stopped to ask me about it. I was surprised to hear an American, west coast accent. I looked into his shining blue eyes and heard his warm, energetic voice saying "revolution, revolution!" as he tried to book me into a Chabad guest house – and I realised that this guy could have been Timothy Leary, so to speak. I mean if he hadn't got religion (I'm pretty sure he wasn't born religious), he could have been talking the same way with the same gleam in his eyes and trying to turn people onto LSD or transcendental meditation or pacifism in San Francisco. I don't mean to mock him at all. I just mean that all these Jewish radicals doing their things, they are all part of the same timeless tradition of a culture that is always seeking breakthroughs between man and man, and between man and spirit.

After morning prayers on Shabbat with my host in the beautiful Abuhav synagogue we went to a brief mini-lunch with his Rabbi, attended by about a hundred of his followers. At one point the elderly Rabbi said a few words. As he started to speak all conversation stopped, everyone leaned forward in anticipation, and those sitting near him paused in mid-movement. This total devotion to a charismatic Rabbi is part of the ultra-orthodox Jewish world. I couldn't understand why it all looked so familiar – it wasn't part of my life experience… then it hit me that this is just what the most famous Jewish radical of all – Jesus – would have looked like with his disciples all eagerly awaiting to hear one of his parables of a mere few sentences. Jesus (another Galilee native) just would have been wearing robes, not a black hat and coat, that's all.

Most Jews I have known deliberately avoid learning much about Jesus or identifying with him in any way, for obvious reasons. Most Jews I know find the miracles, the faith healing etc. ludicrous… yet Safed abounds with stories of charismatic Rabbis like the Baba Sali who is supposed to have healed the sick, and performed at least one miracle I know of within this very town (scroll down to "A Story on the Baba Sali").

Sometimes it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Effi Eitam MK Advocates Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing

2006-09-13T15:22:00.000+03:00

Last Sunday, Effi Eitam the former leader of the Israeli National Religious Party and member of the Israeli Parliament, said:

"We have to expel most Arabs from Judea and Samaria. We can't deal with all these Arabs, and we can't give up the territory, because we've already seen what they do there. Some of them might have to stay under certain conditions, but most of them will have to go."
Eitam also launched a pointed attack at Arab Knesset members, whom he labeled "traitors.""We've got to remove Israeli Arabs from the political scene. We've allowed a fifth column to grow here - a group of traitors. We can't have a hostile group like this in our political system," said Eitam.

It is undoubtedly true that many Israeli Arabs are not loyal to the state, irredentist and treasonous. The MKs whom they elect to the Knesset are by and large a bunch of traitors who should be shot, though I expect these MKs are more extreme than their electors.

But – removing Israeli Arabs from the political scene? How can that be done? Apart from stripping them of their civil right to vote as Israeli citizens, it can't.

There are at least 1 million Arabs in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Eitam says most of them will have to go. So now he's on the record as calling for the ethnic cleansing of at least half a million people.

I'm not sure which is more despicable – the open call to fascism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, or the fact that an Israeli political leader is prepared to indulge his constituency in this kind of wild fantasizing. Israel needs more reality and less fantasy. This mad self-indulgence on both right and left (these days it is mainly on the right) is destroying the country.

At least Eitam has come out and revealed openly his real agenda. Let Israelis take a good look and see just how dark and filthy it is.

Israelis who were against the disengagement like to say that now we have ethnically cleansed Gaza of Jews, we can discuss ethnically cleansing Israel of Arabs (of course, they rarely turn the logic on its head and say that as they have been discussing the transfer of Arabs, why not discuss the transfer of Jews). But the comparison is not valid, because the object of the disengagement was not to rid Gaza of Jews, it was for the drawing of the border of the State of Israel. Of course without the IDF the Jews in Gaza could not have survived, so the forced evacuation of Israeli from Gaza was an application of the principle of not leaving soldiers in the field. Tempting as it would have been to leave people behind, it would have been grossly irresponsible.

Let any Israeli who votes for a list including Eitam be aware of exactly what they are voting for.

A Demonstration For The Kidnapped Soldiers

2006-09-12T15:45:00.000+03:00

Two weeks too late, I finally get around to writing about it… ifyouwillit and I went to the "non-political" demonstration in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, entitled under the slogan "Don't leave soldiers in the field". The crowd was a pleasing (though unfortunately rare) mix of left and right, it was strange seeing kids wearing the blue sweatshirts of the socialist "Young Guard" standing next to settler kids wearing anti-disengagement orange.

As the first speech began, the sun set, quickly as it always does at this latitude. Apart from the beach, the beauty of Tel Aviv only emerges at sunset, when the fluffy cumulus clouds that always seem to be drifting in from the sea turn pink and orange in the last rays.

I tuned into the Hebrew. The woman speaking was saying "there is no other path but to talk to get the soldiers back". This was where the demonstration ended for me. I went to make a statement, that I care about the soldiers, that I want them back and that I won't forget them. But I couldn't agree that the soldiers have been "left in the field". They were snatched from the field. It is heartbreaking, but there is a price beyond which is too high for the State of Israel to pay for their return. Of course I would expect their friends and families to disagree, to be willing to do anything for their return. But don't we just demonstrate our weakness? Shouldn't we be trying to maintain some dignity and willingness to sacrifice? Isn't this something we could learn from our enemies, the quiet and steadfast way the Hezbollah families bear their losses? Should relatives of the kidnapped soldiers really be doing silly things such as asking Tony Blair to take them to Beirut (as if they would be allowed in).

We forget at our peril what the real strategy of our Islamist enemies is, and why they kidnap our soldiers without allowing any red cross access to them etc. It is to make us weak and abandon our morals and principles that make us believe that Israel is worth killing and dying for. The only way we can win this, is by showing by our actions that we are not people who choose the easy way out at any cost.

But of course, we cannot just write off our kidnapped soldiers. In my opinion just as there is a price too high to pay, below that we must, as a Jewish state, be prepared to pay a certain price. It sticks in my throat to say it. I am not sure where the price becomes too high. I am going to read some writings on Jewish ransomings of kidnapped Jews by Rabbis throughout Jewish history to try to find an answer. Care to join me?

Israel On A Slippery Slope, Government Must Go

2006-08-16T22:04:00.000+03:00

This is the conclusion I have come to - with great reluctance and a heavy heart.
Some people say now is not the time to criticise, now is the time to pull together before war starts again.
Yet we all watch, open-mouthed in amazement, as our leaders continue to act as though nothing much has happened, and begin taking steps to internationalise our northern border and make concessions to Syria hours after Assad makes a speech promising that the Arabs will find a way to exterminate Israel!
Do Olmert, Halutz, Peretz, Livni and Peres have any shame?
They chose to meet the war full-on. Plans A, B and C all failed. Israel has achieved virtually nothing meaningful, at the cost of over 150 Israelis and 1000 Lebanese and $5 billion dollars, and a massive erosion of Israel's deterrence, not to mention the economic and infrastructure damage done to Lebanon.
And they still think they can sucker us.
It is time to demonstrate until these unfit people who are unworthy of being Israel's leaders, are out. It is time to get our act together and prepare for the next war, it is clear that our willingness to fight to survive is about to be tested and that our enemies have been emboldened.
As one journalist put it today, if Sharon were dead, he would be turning in his grave.
Treppenwitz has an excellent analysis of the situation that says it all, though I can't say I agree with the characterisation of these leaders as "criminal" nor that they "plot to punish one of the most loyal sectors of the population". Nor do I care for a threat to use tactical nuclear weapons!
The post below my link at Treppenwitz is also way over the red line.

Has Ariel Sharon Passed Away?

2006-08-15T19:24:00.000+03:00

Nushworld says he has and Nushworld is pretty well-connected.

I hope it isn't true.

UPDATE: it isn't

Welcome Aboard, Adolf...

2006-08-13T19:17:00.000+03:00

From Haaretz news ticker:

18:53
Iranian president Ahmadinejad launches personal blog (Reuters)

Dare I predict the blogosphere is going to have a lot of fun with this?

A Just War Against Fascism That Israel Must Win

2006-08-09T22:52:00.000+03:00

A cliche, and yet I have no doubt at all this is the correct way to describe the current conflict.
Hezbollah is an organization openly committed to the total destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. We can even say it is a Nazi organisation. Fanatically committed to genocide (scroll down to "views on Israel"and "views on Jews"). Fanatically committed to successfully completing the Holocaust that Hitler started. It is impossible to meaningfully negotiate with these people, and it is impossible to deter them, not in the long-term anyway.

But let’s examine all the wailing from Lebanon , all this “how could these evil Talmudic Jews be doing this to me, what have I personally got to do with Hezbollah” - not that I mean to belittle the real suffering of many innocent people and a larger number of people that I cannot say are 100% innocent but that shouldn’t be suffering like this. Though it is worth pointing out, did we cry for those dead Germans who voted for Hitler?

Hezbollah received a landslide of votes in southern Lebanon during the last Lebanese election. It is part of the coalition government of Lebanon and operates militarily right across Lebanon with complete impunity. Hezbollah has perpetrated several unprovoked acts of war against Israel in recent months that amount to legitimate casus belli under international law. Lebanon has no legitimate grievances against Israel! Israel does not occupy any Lebanese land!

But apparently, Hezbollah defying the state was OK with many Lebanese. Or to be more fair, it’s not strictly speaking OK with many Lebanese, but sooner or later so we are told the Lebanese were all going to sit down together and have coffee together and disarm Hezbollah and make Lebanon a country whose government army and police were actually fully in charge.
I’m sorry but this is bullshit which should not be believed for a minute. I have visited Beirut a few times in recent years (not on my Israeli passport obviously!) and to me it was clear that the average Lebanese would rather tolerate ANYTHING than another civil war. The only Lebanese who are not scared of war, in any meaningful numbers, are the Hezbollah supporters, who make up about 25% of the Lebanese population. So the tail wags the dog.

You could say that the Cedar Revolution proved me wrong, showed that the non-Hezbollah majority did have some courage. Yes, there was some courage there, but taking on civil war is an awful lot more than peacefully demonstrating against Syrian-sponsored terrorism (though I have to admit, it's far more than the cowards of Madrid managed in the face of the Al-Qaida massacre).

It is a shame it had to be like this, a real crying shame. But the idea that Israel should have sat back or played tit-for-tat whilst waiting indefinitely for the non-Hezbollah Lebanese to pluck up their courage to disarm the Nazis…. and how do you peacefully disarm Nazis???.... it was a fantasy, and with every passing day Hezbollah’s military capabilities and preparations were going stronger and stronger.

We also hear a lot of wailing from Lebanon, Europe and must of the rest of the world, that Israel’s fighting is not “proportionate”, or that it constitutes “war crimes under international law”. But just because civilians get killed in Lebanon by Israeli bombs does not necessarily mean that Israel is in breach of the Geneva convention.

Hezbollah wants the unconditional genocide of Israel and Israel is trying simply to destroy Hezbollah and please tell me what is so disproportionate about that? As for war crimes, the only obvious war crimes that have been committed are by Hezbollah who are clearly firing indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities.

There is no convincing evidence that Israel has committed war crimes in Lebanon, none whatsoever. The "evidence" presented by Human Rights Watch is very thin, circumstantial, and nothing remotely resembling a balance of probabilities let alone beyond reasonable doubt. (scroll down to 1:00pm if you click on the link)

War is ugly and bloody, I accept that, and for what its worth I make sure I see the pictures from Lebanon. Even if some of them are faked, the pictures of the suffering of civilians are certainly true. But I know at least that the IDF will work to minimize casualties to civilians.

It is time for Israel and her friends to stand strong. Israel must win for her own sake, for the sake of her friends, and even ultimately for the sake of her enemies, and for the sake of a just peace in the Middle East. There is no alternative. So be strong Israel, be ready for death and darkness before dawn. Weep for your own blood, for the blood of innocent Lebanese, but if you want to live ya Israel, be prepared to kill and be prepared to die, for another 100 years or more if that is what it will take. But don't forget to feel the pain of having to do these things, and don't forget NEVER to get used to this. Don't forget to offer a just peace to those who may be our enemies today but might just become neighbours tomorrow.

Antisemitic Hypocrite of the Week Award....

2006-08-08T22:58:00.000+03:00

.... goes to a Mr. Alec McFadden, President of the Merseyside Trades Union Congress.

See, the Israeli football team Maccabi Haifa are playing Liverpool on Wednesday, in Liverpool, England, and he is organising a demonstration - AGAINST Haifa - with the "Friends of Palestine".

Yes folks, this is the same Haifa that has been the victim of countless real and undisputed (as opposed to imaginary) war crimes during the past month as fairly powerful rockets from poor defenceless little Lebanon slam into its civilian installations, houses, etc. day after day.

And how does this sorry sack of shit justify the demonstration? Get ready for the money quote....
"let the Israeli government know that people from Merseyside and the U.K. are totally opposed to the indiscriminate bombing of civilian men, women and children," said Alec McFadden, the president of the Merseyside Trade Union Congress."

You couldn't make it up. He's so opposed to indiscriminate bombing of civilians that he wants to give the people of Haifa a lecture about it???

McFadden - there is probably nowhere else in the world right now where civilians are being indiscriminatelybombed more than Haifa. But don't let that get in the way of your Jew-hating fest, you turd. Perhaps next week you can go to a rape crisis centre and demonstrate against the victims for being rapists. Better still, go demonstrate outside Stop the War Coalition's office or the Lebanese embassy - the true proponents of the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

McFadden is a member of the Stop the War Coalition, whose demonstration in London last week was chock full of terror sympathisers waving Hezbollah flags.

Final Word on the Football

2006-07-04T20:44:00.000+03:00

I know I'm a bit late with this, but video evidence shows a Portugese yellow card foul on Rooney before his red card foul, also shows Portugese player Ronaldo winking at the bench after the sending off. Have a look.
Let's hope the cheating bastards get their clocks cleaned by the French tomorrow night.

…. It Is Now!

2006-07-03T22:34:00.000+03:00

Much more important things than football are going on right now, needless to say, but I need some closure after watching England's rather pathetic exit from the World Cup over the weekend.
Let's get things in perspective first. England, whilst far from impressive, were unbeaten in the tournament, and the second-rate Portugese side were quite fortunate to go through on penalties. England had the better of the game, and even when down to 10 men looked more likely to score. The only reasons Portgual are through instead of England are because 1) Rooney, England's star player, was stupid enough to fall for their conniving tactic of provoking a red card foul; and
2) England are even more crap at taking penalties than Portugal are.
There is no excuse for Rooney's deliberately violent foul (though he denies it), or for Lampard's miss of a near-open goal. But give the players some credit because they almost did it with 10 men.
And please, let's have a little less criticism of Svennis. We wanted a steady Italian/Swedish hand after Keegan's histrionics, and we can't complain that that is exactly what we got.
It was sad too to see Beckham hang up his captain's armband. Of course it was time for this to happen, but it is the end of an era of glamour off the pitch which just somehow couldn't ever translate its promise into glamour on the pitch.
To sum up – what a waste. It's sad. England had the hype, the fans, the easy draw, and most importantly – the world class players. Yet still we blew it away, we threw it away, and it's hard to swallow because I know they can play – see I remember those rare moments when it happened, and we didn't get even one of those this time, did we?

A Short World Cup Update

2006-06-23T17:09:00.000+03:00

I found myself in a bar last night that happened to have the Australia – Croatia match on TV. A thrilling game, and I was surprised how happy I felt to see Australia win… even though the bar was full of loud Aussies singing (I couldn't believe this) "Waltzing Matilda". It's funny how unappealing and ridiculous someone else's patriotism looks, though I can only imagine how everyone else will see us screaming England fans next Sunday. But well done Australia. When you are an "expat" (which I guess I still am to some extent) it's funny to see which other nationalities you feel a bond with. I lived in California for a few months when I was 19 and whenever I went to my local store I always found myself bonding with the Indian staff – we seemed to understand each other better than most Americans could understand me – which seemed strange at the time. And so like this, last night I guess being in Israel made me realise that an Aussie is about as close as a non-Brit can come to being a Brit.
As for England, I'm not too optimistic that they will catch fire or even scrape through against allegedly lowly Ecuador in their second round knockout game this Sunday. But who knows, maybe the moment will come and they will catch fire.

1966 and all that.....

2006-06-20T14:58:00.000+03:00

What I was trying (and failing) to say in my last post was this: as an England supporter the current contest just doesn't get me going like some of the other World Cups and European Championships did (eg. 1990, 1996, and 2002). The reason: because when you look in the eyes of the England players now, you don't see the belief that they can win. Maybe that will change now. I hope so. England now are already through to the second round and tonight's game is only a matter of pride, practice and preference (if England get at least a draw (tie) they should play easier games as their next games).
Of course, in 1990 and 1996, the players also did not have the look of belief in their eyes, and the English public and critics panned their bad starts to both tournaments. But then…. a magic moment sometimes comes… where the team catches fire and belief begins, passion ignites. In 1990 it was probably the last minute goal against Belgium…. or maybe not until the thrilling quarter-final against Cameroon (can't remember where I read this but apparently Roger Milla, Cameroon's star player, was 42 years old at the time – officially he was 38!). In 1996 it was Paul Gascoigne's goal against Scotland followed by the 4-1 demolition of Holland. In 2002 – beating Argentina 1-0. Will it come this year? Maybe it will start with a hard-fought second round victory against Germany…. or maybe even tonight with a convincing victory over Sweden. We shall see. It may not come at all. A boring game tonight, then limping out against Ecuador…. Both are real possibilities.
So instead of telling the stories of 1990, 1996 etc. again, if you want to read them, you can find them here:
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/p/cg/cmr_eng_1990.html
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ic.ic/euro96a.html
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ic.ic/argentinaa.html

Football's Coming Home

2006-06-09T18:08:00.000+03:00

In a few hours, the 2006 World Cup kicks off. I can't say that the anticipation has been keeping me awake at night, and yesterday after contemplating my lack of passion over England's prospects I came to the conclusion that I really am becoming fully Israeli.
But this morning I awoke to the first day of a weekend (Israeli weekends start on Friday), a bright blue cloudless sky, and a feeling of excitement, of joy to be alive. As I let my brain drift back almost exactly ten years in time, I realized why.
In June 1996 England hosted the European Football Championship, an event that for Europeans is almost as significant as the World Cup. English football had just gone through a truly dreadful period – after securing a surprising and impressive 4th place in Italia 1990 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4851148.stm
England had failed to even qualify for the 1994 World Cup, and the national team had become a bit of a laughing stock (much was blamed on the hapless manager, Graham Taylor – otherwise known as Turnip Head).
Usually in England, the team is talked up before a tournament. But in 1996 expectations were low. As host nation the team had not had to qualify, so was largely untested, though at last England had a widely respected manager with a track record of success (Terry Venables). But still, nobody gave them much of a chance.
England kicked off the first match of the tournament against a mediocre Switzerland team, and only managed a 1-1 draw, turning in an extremely dull, lackluster performance. The fact that some of the team members had been photographed drinking (and smoking!) in a nightclub not long before the game didn't help.
The next game came on a sunny Saturday morning, against Scotland, and this was what I was remembering today. The unspoken terror was that a draw (or even worse, a loss) could see us crashing out to mighty Holland in our final match of the group stage. After all, if we couldn't beat Switzerland……
The first half against Scotland was appalling. It ended 0-0 and furing the break the TV commentators all lambasted England.
At the beginning of the second half, England came out looking much better. Shearer scored to put England one up. About halfway through the second half Scotland got a penalty, and disaster beckoned, but David Seaman pulled off a save. Just three minutes later, Euro 96 become special, when the one and only Paul Gascoigne scored a goal of tourette-inspired genius:
http://mr-15725.mr.valuehost.co.uk/PaulGascoigne_Euro96.mpg
England won 2-0 and then in the final group game crushed Holland 4-1 to top their group in the best England performance for near on 30 years. That night a kind of euphoria seized the whole country, I remember driving home and happy drunk people were filling the streets, waving at every honking car that drove by…. then came a nervy yet ultimately victorious quarter final victory against Spain…. it was a magical time. Every mouse became a lion and every man (and quite a few women as well) had a special spring in their step – there was a great rumour 9 months later that the rate of childbirth had risen dramatically.
Then the semi final against Germany at Wembley. The real final…..
Shabbat is coming and I am running out of time, so this is to be continued soon….

Support for Disengagement

2006-06-09T16:02:00.000+03:00

….. is dropping amongst Israelis. According to a new poll, 56% of Israelis are against the plan (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/724830.html).
It also seems that the Jordanian and Egyptian governments, for reasons of their own, are not too keen on seeing the Palestinians taking charge of most of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"). http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/724822.html
Of course, they will claim their opposition is in honour of the Palestinians' presumed right to veto the location of their border.
What a bunch of hypocrites, crying over the Palestinians' right to be free, and then as soon as Israel is prepared to take a huge risk to achieve that for millions of Palestinians, throwing a spanner in the works. Perhaps the idiots in Europe should consider boycotting Egypt and Jordan, and depriving themselves of what I am sure is a veritable treasure trove of academic research, as they seem to be the major forces right now perpetuating the "occupation" – not to mention the Palestinians themselves.
Of course, the disengagement plan does look more frightening now, in view of the recent weakening of pro-democracy forces in the entire region, and the Palestinians' election of a fascist and totally rejectionist government.
I wish people could understand that Israeli territorial concessions will lead to war, bloodshed and suffering, especially for the Palestinians, because they will not be able to restrain their thugs from using the strategically significant mountain ridge to start a war with Israel.
Having said all that, as an Israeli, I still would rather fight a war with bloodshed, than perpetuate our presence in these areas, which is dishonourable and unworthy of us because we do not (and cannot) offer citizenship to the locals. If Judaism is about doing the right thing even at the risk to one's own life then the Disengagement plan is a practical application of Jewish values.
Many Israelis say, wait a while, or let us at least get something in return. But we will never get peace in return, and what will change if we wait a while? Give them their own country, end the stain on our morality, and if they want a real war, we can oblige.

A New British Academic Boycott of Israel?

2006-05-26T12:07:00.000+03:00

.... is being proposed in the British academic community.

Much has already been written about this by other bloggers like Judy http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2006/05/fighting_the_na.html, but Haaretz has a short piece about the ways Israel is viewed within the highest stratum of British academia. It is so sharp and succinct that I'm reproducing it here in full (the original is at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/720261.html).

I think the best thing about this piece is that it quickly exposes that the intellectual foundation of this type of anti-zionism is a complete denial of the Jewish people's national rights in its first (and only complete) homeland - and as this denial is extended to no other people by such Oxford types as are the subject of this piece - THAT, fundamentally, is why we can say it is antisemitism.

The 'Protocols,' 21st century style
By Benjamin Neuberger

Currently, another academic boycott of Israel is being organized in Britain. The boycott movement does not represent all British lecturers and intellectuals. The organizers are not a majority but clearly rather a small minority. However, there are no initiatives for boycotts against other countries: not against Iran, which is denying the Holocaust and threatening to destroy Israel; not against Sudan, which is committing genocide in Darfur; not against Saudi Arabia, where people are executed for religious infractions, and not against China, which is carrying out oppression in Tibet and Shenzhen. Nor is the hated United States being boycotted, because this would hurt academics who want to get to Harvard, Yale and Princeton.When I was on sabbatical at Oxford University in 2003-2005, I was astonished to see how many professors and students at the renowned university viewed Israel and Zionism. At Oxford there is a strong intellectual stream that identifies Zionism with racism, imperialism and colonialism. The control of the territories, the settlements and the view of Israel as a refuser of peace have contributed to this, but we would be mistaken if we were to think that the problem will be solved with the withdrawal from the territories and the establishment of two states for two peoples.In the view of many people at Oxford, the original and historic Zionism is racist. The people of the first immigrations are perceived as white European colonialist settlers who, like the settlers in South Africa, came to a land that was not theirs in order to exploit the Palestinian natives. Time and time again I heard that Israel is an apartheid state. Speakers who express this win gales of applause.
Only recently an "Israel apartheid" week was held at Oxford, during which the call for an economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel was heard. The proposed solution is also South African: not two states for two peoples, not a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state, but rather a single state in which Jews will ultimately be a minority. When ears are blocked, any attempt to explain that two states for two peoples is not apartheid, but rather the deepest wish of the moderates and the peace-seekers on both sides, doesn't stand a chance.Anti-Semitic tones are also not illegitimate. When it comes to "the Zionists," often the reference is not just to the Israelis but also to the Jews (especially the Jews in the United States), since everyone knows about their control of the Pentagon, Congress and the White House and everyone knows that the Jews serve Israel. And thus Israel controls the Jews of the United States, the Jews of the United States control the policy of the United States and the United States controls the world. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," 21st-century style. I have heard about "the Foxmans" who want to control Europe and about "the Schwartzes" who bribe members of Congress.Alongside the hostility toward Israel, there is no attempt to criticize what is happening in the other countries of the Middle East. I have attended faculty meetings at the Center for the Study of the Middle East with the ambassadors of Iran and Syria. The Iranian ambassador described his country as a model democracy, where since the Khomeini revolution only justice and human rights have been lamps unto its feet. No one disagreed with him and no one asked a critical question.The discussion with the Syrian ambassador was also relaxed and friendly. No one showed any interest in the occupation in Lebanon, in the torture dungeons or in free elections in Syria. They invited the Saudi Arabian ambassador for a formal speech the day after the press reported on a student who was beheaded in Jedda.As an Israeli who is opposed to the occupation and the settlements and supports a solution of two states for two peoples, but also sees himself as a Zionist who wants the existence of a Jewish and democratic state that will also be a state of all its citizens, I felt frustrated that in these circles there is no readiness to see the complexity of the Jewish-Arab conflict. There is no understanding at all of the Jewish history of pogroms, persecution and deportations, or of the meaning of the Holocaust. They do not know, and they do not want to know, that we have historical roots in this country, that our language is non-European, that half of the Jews in Israel did not come from Europe, that those who did come from Europe were considered alien and shunned "Semites" and that the Zionists had no colonialist mother country.

Just a Word on the Work Situation

2006-05-17T22:24:00.000+03:00

Since I last posted, I have had the good fortune to quit XYZ Communications...... after only a few days on that job, it suddenly occurred to me that I should phone an English friend of mine who I knew had landed a very nice little job. By a strange coincidence, providence or whatever, she called me just a few hours later and mentioned her company were looking for more people. So I went down there for an interview and I was in.
I was hired for a fixed period of 3 or 4 months, which I thought would suit me very nicely till things worked out with Big Company (no, I still haven't heard from them yet). They are an internet start up focused on the English market - product is planned to launch in September - so unfortunately I cannot reveal too much about what I do. There are about 25 of us, we are based in a house in Modiin (for my English readers, this is the Israeli Milton Keynes, located just on the "Israeli" side of the Green Line en route from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv). Today myself and the other English staff (all hired on the same temporary basis) were told that our assignment is open ended.
The people are lovely, the environment pleasant, the project interesting but the work often grinding and repetitive - though each segment of work does end in an interesting exercise that involves playing with spreadsheets that really appeals to my inner nerd. Oh, and the money's pretty good too - not something you hear from an Israeli too often.
So, here's to my good luck on the work front..... I hope yours is at least as good as mine, wherever you are!

Israeli Jews: Religious or Secular?

2006-04-15T22:44:00.000+03:00

I've been idly wondering for a while just how many Israeli Jews are secular, how many are religiously observant, and how many are somewhere in between. Living in a religious city like Jerusalem where the religious are certainly a majority, has made me wonder it even more lately. So I'm happy to say some recently compiled stats have made the Israeli news lately. Here's the link and part of the story from Haaretz, but the basic answer is: most Israeli Jews are not completely secular, but the majority are not observant.
I find it strange that many religious Zionists believe that G-d gave the Jewish people all the Land of Israel in 1967, and yet they would not agree that because most Israeli Jews do not even keep Shabbat, we do not really have the right to all the land, and G-d will therefore cause us to lose it. The Torah teaches us that Jews must be observant to deserve the Land of Israel after all, or we will be thrown out.

Here is the article:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/704149.html

"In a Central Bureau of Statistics social survey covering 2002-2004, 44 percent of Israeli Jews aged 20 and over defined themselves as secular; 27 percent defined themselves as traditional; 12 percent as traditionally observant; 9 percent as Orthodox; and 8 percent as ultra-Orthodox."

Israeli Election

2006-04-02T17:50:00.000+03:00

I'll keep it short and sweet.
Parties openly committed to giving up parts of the Land of Israel won a majority of seats, both among Israeli voters and amongst Jewish voters.
I have read some very strange commentary from Caroline Click and I think one other nutter somewhere in the Israeli press, that this didn't happen. In response I can only say - it did!
I'll go on the record and say I voted Labour. For me it was either them or Kadima. I'm probably a bit closer to Kadima really but the very few politicians I really admire in Israel (eg. Rabbi Melchior) are Labour MKs. So I decided to go for them.
Hopefully, the new government will be able to draw a sane and Jewish border for Israel, and successfully remove the Israelis living beyond that border (unless the Palestinians let those who want to remain stay, which is very unlikely but would obviously be better than removing people from their homes). This way hopefully we can recover our democracy and our unity and our self-respect, and free up our energy for defending ourselves and fixing our social and economic ills.
It is often said that this plan is ethnic cleansing on the part of the Israeli government. I contend it is not, because all the State is doing is drawing its borders, and refusing to leave those Israelis effectively stranded in the field to be killed in the field.
Already we are beginning to hear muted rumblings from the rejectionist Jewish right of veiled threats of civil war. I think this is just hot air. Hopefully all zionists will know better than to go down this road. If they do raise guns against the state however, the IDF will manage to cope, and meet force with a more overwhelming force. Better that Jews shoot Jews than Jews successfully make a mutiny against the Israeli state, democracy and people.

Working at Last

2006-04-02T17:44:00.000+03:00

'Nuff said about Big Company for now.
Like nearly everyone else I have to pay the bills somehow.
So I took the plunge and for an indeterminate length of time I shall be working at - yes you guessed it - XYZ Communications.... the call-centre in no-man's land on the northern edge of Jerusalem, (temporary) saviour to every Anglo who finds him or herself up shit creek without a paddle.
The less said about what I do there, the better for now. Suffice to say I'm still in training, and I'm being forced to work nights until next week (11pm to 7am) so I'm not exactly at my scintillating best these days.
Horror stories abound. One nice thing is that most of the people I am training with are Israelis so that's a bit of a change.
We'll see how it goes.

Waiting.....

2006-03-09T10:18:00.000+02:00

I'm on a bit of a downer right now. After my meeting with Big Company last week they told me to call them when I was ready to negotiate.
So I mulled it over for a few days and called them to be told the boss would get back to me last Sunday.
Sunday came and went, no sign. I called yesterday and was told that the bosses' PA would get back to me.
She called me this morning to tell me that the boss needs a reply from HIS boss, and that when this is forthcoming the boss will get back to me.
Maybe this isn't such a big deal but it leaves me hanging on a thread. I was trying not to feel like the job was mine but I couldn't help it. Now suddenly it all seems in jeapordy. If it falls through its right back to the drawing board for me and I strongly, strongly doubt I will find anything as good as this opportunity here in Israel.
I'm also a bit annoyed because the boss told me we were about to negotiate, when really he has taken it off to his boss. No doubt anything that comes back will be presented to me as a fait accompli. Well it'll be up to me to deal with that when it happens.
Anyway, I know that no news is bad news, and I should still be optimistic and happy about this, but I'm really ready to get going with things and I feel I am just stuck here waiting. I need to deal with this. Maybe I will go and buy a good book and just try to forget it all. Or go and find another job and embrace poverty..... yeah right.
So, got that off my chest. Thanks for listening.
BTW Arsenal - Real last night was a fantastic game. As a Spurs fan it's always painful to watch Arsenal win but last night's game was so good I didn't mind. What would be odd as a friend pointed out would be if Arsenal came fifth in the Premiership but won the Champions League and this stopped a 4th placed Spurs from qualifying. Now that would be ironic.....

Blogging in Anger

2006-03-01T09:08:00.000+02:00

One of my old friends back in England recently read my blog and commented (to another old friend) that whilst I sound fairly sane, some of my blog postings sound like the rantings of a maniac (or words to that effect).
When I look back over the posts I've made, I have to agree with him. I get very worked up over politics and the global conflict that is going on now, as well as the political conflict that goes on amongst Israeli Jews. But still, they say the golden rule of blogging is never post when you are angry, and I have definitely broken that. I will try not to in the future and I will try not to treat this a place where I can just pour my rants out into the ether.
Hopefully if I take more care when talking about politics, it will engage anyone reading it more successfully and be of more interest.
I apologise for shouting. But I don't apologise for having strong feelings about Israel, the Middle East, and what is going on in Europe today. There is too much silence and too much apathy on these areas from people who should know better.
When I started this blog I thought it would be easy to make it both personal and political, but it is proving to be an uneasy mix. I just did a google search and found that for the first time one of my posts was quoted by a political blog of some standing, with a link to my posting (http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-is-truth.html). So it hits me that this is not some private album of mine but a very public place where people from all over the world can surf in at random..... I always knew this but didn't really take it in. So I'll carry on with the politics but try to keep it all a little more disciplined. No more blogging in anger.

A Huge Opportunity (cont.)

2006-03-01T08:59:00.000+02:00

I didn't want to write about this until it was all done and dusted but..... Big Company offered me the job on the strenth of the business plan I wrote for them, subject to the mandatory psychometric testing which I was assured is just a check "to make sure you are not a psycho".
Big Company made me a salary offer and asked me to think about it and get back to them, so I am still in the negotiation process.
I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, so I'm not jumping around and celebrating yet. It should all work out though, and I should count myself as damn lucky to have found this so relatively easy. So many people come to Israel and wade through crap for years and right now it's looking like I won't have to do that... lucky me indeed.

A Special Rule of the Israel Defence Force

2006-03-01T08:43:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine confirms to me that the IDF has a standing policy that: no mother of any soldier is ever allowed into a draft office!
I guess it makes sense but it's also something of a Jewish joke too.
Going into the army is no joke though. Most immigrants I meet here, when I ask them how the army is/was for them, seem fairly OK with it. But I'm starting to wonder if some of them are putting on a brave face.
It's hard to hear first hand stories from IDF solders about how high the standards demanded are - especially from the officers - and then to see the popular foreign image of the IDF as some sort of rabble of football hooligans. Not to mention the fact it's done for three years virtually without pay. I don't mean to run down the British army but I know a bit about the British army and the standards demanded of officers whilst high are not even close to what is demanded of an officer in the IDF. Then again the Israeli army does receive 10% of GDP as its budget, and unlike the British army is a true national priority.
To anyone reading who is in or has to go in soon in an upcoming draft - I hope it's a comfort to know that to me and to millions of people both here in Israel and abroad you deserve a high honour. Even if it doesn't feel like that.
Of course, as I was too old when I became Israeli to even get in as a volunteer, it's very easy for me to say all this from my vantage point. But I still mean it.

Palestinian Opinion Poll

2006-02-21T19:43:00.000+02:00

We all hear in the course of arguments over Israel statements like "The Palestinians want to kill all the Jews" or "Most Palestinians really want peace." What Palestinian public opinion wants is often the $64,000 question.

Well, an opinion poll has just been conducted of Palestinians in Gaza and Judea/Samaria/West Bank - and the results make confusing reading. You can see the full results of the poll here http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=28550.

There are some wierd results:
* 56% support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians
BUT
* 58% support a 2 state solution
AND
* 52% want Hamas to stop attacking Israeli targets

go figure, as the Americans say.

A Huge Opportunity

2006-02-19T09:11:00.000+02:00

Well, I said I was busy, but I really do have to write about this, instead of the more social stuff I've been up to during the last week (amply covered elsewhere by ifyouwillit) http://aliya05.blogspot.com/2006/02/updated-small-but-big-enough-to-hide.html.

I spent part of last night reading some other blogs written by my fellow olim. Most of them are much better than mine, better written, more professionally laid out etc. I'm not sure I'll ever be a real blogger, but I think I will at least try to discipline myself to write something vaguely interesting at a minimum of once a week. Don't expect much in the way of formatting or layout though!

So, getting down to business..... last week I received a call from a very large and famous Israeli company based in Tel Aviv. They had received my CV (resume, for all you Americans) and invited me to come to meet them. So I researched the company and took the train down (yeah, I am strange like that) brushing up on my notes and my business hebrew.

BTW - now is a GREAT time to take that train with a good window seat. Everything is green, you see rivers, blossoming flowers.... you see parts of Israel that you just don't see from the road, for some reason, (once I saw a wild deer) and it is only an hour and a quarter - if you are close to malka it is just as quick - if not quicker - as getting the bus and only a couple of shekels more expensive. The trains are clean, half-empty, with big comfortable seats with big windows. Go!

So I get to the company which is based in one of the big skyscrapers of Tel Aviv. People are wearing suits, working..... live in Jerusalem for a year and you'll understand why those two verbs sound shocking.

So the boss brings me into his big office, with the nice view inland all the way up to the Judean Hills, and he starts telling me about how his company doesn't really do what I do. My heart starts to sink, but I can't help being impressed that because I am an immigrant, he took the time to see me.

Then he says to me - I need someone like you - to build this new business from scratch.

We thresh out some plans for half an hour. Then he says, go away and write a business plan, and come back with it next week.

Needless to say - my head is spinning, and this is a really, really huge opportunity. So I'd better stop blogging and get down to it so I can finish it by Thursday night and pissed at Sugar Hill.

I am trying not to think about moving to Tel Aviv but if - IF - this all works out I will probably need to. It's made me realise that although I have never been able to see myself living in Jerusalem for ever, I have become a Jerusalemite, and it would make me sad not to feel part of this incredible (though seemingly dying - look up the statistics) city.

England Photos at Last

2006-02-18T21:31:00.000+02:00

Well, over five weeks after my return to Israel, here are a few photos from England that I took during my visit there. I just found the opportunity of a great job and I'll be busy working on that over the next week. But as soon as I can I shall reveal all.

So in order from the top - snow!

Then below are three goldfinches.

The last picture is a green woodpecker that visits my mother's garden in Shenley, Hertfordshire. Both birds are pretty rare - you need to put the right kind of food out for them to get them to come into your garden.

London Last Friday

2006-02-05T16:06:00.000+02:00

Well, are you prepared? Or are you gonna do something about it so it never happens?

War is coming. The US will attack Iran's nuclear plants and Iran, Hizbollah, Syria, the Palestinians and Al-Qaeda will throw everything they can at Israel, the US, and Western targets; there will be suicide bombings in Europe and sleeper cells will be activated. I hope I'm wrong but don't say you weren't warned. Westerners WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

The Islamists say the West is too weak and decadent to fight to defend its freedom.

Are they right?

Up in the Golan Heights

2006-01-29T17:34:00.000+02:00

Spent the weekend with Family Scheffer at their house in Khaspin, Golan Heights. Waiting for the bus back at dawn this morning managed to take the above picture of Khaspin with snowy Mount Hermon in the background. Anyone for skiing. And yes - it was as cold as it looks.

Went for one of my long shabat walks yesterday. Walked down to the main road where I took this picture and then carried on walking east on a deserted road that ran through an empty farm. Nobody around for miles.

Eventually I hit the border and had a little run in with the IDF who were somewhat concerned to see me, the details are funny but I shouldn't publish them. You'd have laughed if you'd been there.

Back in Jerusalem now with a filthy cold. Or maybe the Syrians were watching me and sent me a cloud of chemical weapons. Check and see if I'm still around tomorrow :)

Talking of England..... pathetic!

2006-01-25T21:16:00.000+02:00

I will get around to writing about my 3 weeks in England and putting up a coupe of pictures. But first, a little story to demonstrate why I'm glad I'm an Israeli now.
To mark the anniversary of the Islamist bombs that killed quite a few people and terrified all of London last July 7th, they Mayor of London has decided to host an exhibition in London glorifying Islam.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article340399.ece
The conference will, of course, be jointly organised by the Muslim Brotherhood, and amongst many other exhibits, will include a section on "Palestinian History". One can only imagine the levels of lies, fabrication, antisemitism and black propaganda that will sink down to.
I'm too tired to say any more. All I can do is laugh at this sick attitude which just insists that the more Muslims threaten, the more victims must bow down to it.
Some Muslims think they are divinely ordained to conquer the world. They think that Allah makes non-Muslims weak, confused, subservient and unable to fight back effectively. And when I look at the British establishment, I'm not surprised they feel justified in feeling this way.
To try and make myself feel a little better, here are some sarcy comebacks from commenters at Little Green Footballs:

I'll go to my grave wondering how multiculti liberals managed to convince themselves that somehow Islam is a "culture" or a "race" and not a religion, which would require the scorn given to Christianity and Judaism. Truly amazing

“Muslim Civilisation”, which traces Islam’s history;
The center piece will be an exploded bus, with bloodstained seats.

"First it was established in all of Arabia. Then *mumble-mumble* and then they were kicked out of places by cruel Cruesaders!"

The Gallery of Limbs and Heads will be a big hit.

Organisers plan to invite survivors of the Tube attacks to attend with a special commemoration on the day.
Maybe they would also like to invite Jewish survivors of the death camps to attend a conference called Discover Nazi's?
I have no words to describe my disgust at this event. Unspeakable.

A Suicide Bomb in Tel Aviv

2006-01-19T23:17:00.000+02:00

There was a bomb today, claimed by Islamic Jihad, in Tel Aviv. I heard about it almost as soon as it happened and I turned on the TV to Israel Channel 2.
The camera showed a scene that was not too bad by the usual standards of these attacks in Israel (nobody died and only one person was seriously wounded). The camera focused on a blown up felafel/shwarma restaurant.
Then I realised - I ate lunch there, about 3 months ago, with my friends Darren and Karen. It is just round the corner from where Darren lives (by the old central bus station in south Tel Aviv). We went there because most of the places in this frankly seedy and dirty area are not very good, this place sold by far the best shwarma within walking distance.
So for the first time, I had real fear that a friend of mine might have been there, I mean a real likely fear, maybe grabbing a late lunch on his way back from teaching English at the Berlitz office.
I tried calling but his phone rang and rang. 10 minutes later, he called back. Was not nearby but a friend of his from England who was staying with him had gone out to get a shwarma without a phone so... his turn to be worried.
I'm pretty blase about the bombs really. To everyone reading this who doesn't live in Israel, I would say that as long as they are fairly infrequent and spread out, as they are these days, they don't really get to you, as long as you're lucky not to be caught up in them or have friends or family that get caught up in them. Or perhaps I just feel that way because nobody was killed today. Still, I'm sure a couple of lives were pretty seriously wrecked today. And I'll even throw in a thought for the pointless death of the bomber - he achieved nothing, and I can't believe G-d is too pleased with him right now either. What a waste of a life.

I'm Back!

2006-01-12T22:25:00.000+02:00

Back from grey cold rainy England, now re-ensconced (how I love that word!) in grey cold rainy Jerusalem, after 3 delightful weeks of pure lazy English Christmas bliss.
For the first time since I started this blog there are things I want to write about that I feel I can't publish really. One amazingly interesting story about an acquaintance of mine that has to be kept quiet, but would make a very good spy thriller; and two batches of personal stuff, which would cause nothing but upset and gloom. But neither of which are particularly bad in reality.
Of course since I last posted Israel seems to have lost a PM. When I arrived at the airport 2 days ago and got the service taxi to Jerusalem, the news came on the radio and the driver turned it up to top volume to the general approval of the passengers.
Everyone knows that Sharon's career as a politician (and possibly also his careers in walking and talking) is over. Yet there still remains a residual disbelief. I was with some friends of mine last night and we were joking that Sharon was probably going to wake up, get out of bed and demand to be driven back to his office (there's a variation of this joke going around that says he is going to wake up and say he's decided we're going back into Gaza). It's sad. I think it's a tragedy for the country. He's the last real old hero we have. In my opinion his political path – to unilaterally draw a border for Israel that ends the occupation whilst retaining most of the settlements – was absolutely the correct one, morally, politically, financially, zionistically, you name it. The new PM will follow that path but I frankly preferred Sharon a lot. I just hope the centre can hold, win the election, and see off all the delusional people who think G-d wants nothing more than to watch his chosen people construct an apartheid regime over millions of people. And in this city, there are an awful lot of them. Sometimes I wonder if insanity is more prevalent in Jerusalem than sanity. Still, I did live in Los Angeles for ten years, so even if that's true it shouldn't be too hard for me cope with.

Now I'm back in Israel I have a very short to do list – it currently reads "get a life". My hunt for a job begins in earnest. Now it's upon me I find the idea of working in an office with Israelis a bit frightening. If they behave as badly as they do in the street, what are they going to be like in a work environment, where money, career and pride are all at stake?? Probably because of this I am very tempted to start my own business (yes, I have an idea, it won't make much money but it might make a living – sorry I can't tell you what it is). We will see.

The three weeks in England were really great. I'll post a few pictures and write it up in the next few days. It snowed! But it was on Shabbat and it all melted before the end of the day, so no pictures unfortunately.

More soon after I've done a bit of job-hunting to assuage my conscience.

To all my readers in Israel (both of them) – it's people like you who are going to play a big part in keeping me here. And I hope I can play a big part in keeping you here as well.
I say this because I hear of another of my fellow Ulpan alumni(?) returned to his country of origin while I was away. And also because, I have to be honest and write this, for the first time I thought about going back to England. I began convincing myself while I was over there that I am now Israeli so what is wrong with an Israeli living abroad for a few years? Clever, huh?
But I think I can still say, I don't really want to. But I just have a feeling the next year is going to be possibly the toughest of my life. Maybe the key is to make it exciting and interesting as well so it doesn't all become one huge endless slog-fest.

It's also very easy to take Israel and Jewish things for granted when you live here. I've almost forgotten the regular anti-Semitism and alienation I experienced during my last few years in England.
Can't end downbeat – so as we say in Israel – ihiye beseder! (it'll be OK)

Must Blog!

2005-12-18T16:44:00.000+02:00

Well peeps, I was just thrilled last week when I was out in Jerusalem's new bar SUGAR HILL, to hear from Mr Jeremy Last (http://www.jeremylast.blogspot.com/) that he actually reads my blog. Since nobody leaves comments and I have no way of knowing whether anyone actually reads the site, it get s a little disheartening, so Jeremy - thanks mate - you've given me the impetus to carry on writing!

Things are moving again for me. Last Thursday I finally finished my hebrew studies! No, this doesn't mean I'm fluent (I can more or less get by day to day), maybe about half way, it just means I can no longer either stand or justify to sit all day and break my teeth on the umpteenth verb like leheetblablel which if you get one small sound wrong at the end of the word changes the meaning from "to wake up on a Sunday morning with a feeling of ennui" to "to bury the corpse of a loved one with regret". If you know hebrew - maybe you'll find this funny. If you don't then remind me to explain it to you.

This coming Tuesday I have an interview at Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv. No idea what it's for or whether it's even anything more than going through the motions (in Israel, information is given on a need to know basis, and as everyone is presumed to know everything, no information is ever given) - but it's a hopeful start. I also met some interesting guys over the weekend, we swanked out together at the King David Hotel, so I'm feeling quite lucky and bullish on the job search front, which will resume in earnest when....

I return from England! Yup I'm flying BA Wednesday afternoon to London for 3 weeks, back 10th January - staying with my folks in Shenley, Herts. Looks like I will be able to indulge my previously posted dream about the dark, cold, cosy fire, shortbread biscuits, black & movie on TV etc. Full goyische Christmas Day... can't wait. I'm such a good Jew.

One last thing - check out the Second Draft website movies section http://seconddraft.org/movies.php
and download "The Birth of an Icon" - finally it is conclusively proven that the "killing" of Mohammed Al-Dura was faked by a Palestinian cameraman working for France 2, who are still trying to cover it up. See with your own eyes. Remember the little boy crouching behind the pillar with his father while Israeli soldiers shot at them? It was all a lie, all manufactured.

So - that's it! My next post will probably be from London, so a Happy Chanukah/Merry Christmas/Happy Eid/Good Kwanzaa to you all!

A Miscarriage of Justice

2005-11-29T00:15:00.000+02:00

Sometimes when I'm sitting here at 1am posting about stuff that is almost invariably already all over the internet for my (seemingly) non-existent readership, I wonder why I bother. I suppose the answer is, because I feel I have to.

Something quite shameful happened today. A British court failed to convict the brother of one of the British suicide bombers who murdered three innocent Israelis in Tel Aviv a while back (doubtless the brutal Zionist occupation of, er, Hounslow drove him to it.....). He was charged with knowing what his brother was going to do but failing to stop it, effectively making him an accessory to murder and attempted mass murder.

So how do I know it was a miscarriage of justice? He might have been innocent right? Well, just look at this email from one of the suicide bombers to his family courtesy of the BBC that were presented as evidence:

From: Omar Sharif To: Zahid Sharif and Tahira Tabassum Sent: 22 April. Eight days before the bombing Sharif's possible location: Palestinian authority territories (sic)
Message to Zahid:
"I hope u are well. Please take care of yourself. Difficult times may lay ahead for you and the family in the next few weeks or months if Allah wills.
"Plan now and get rid of any material you may consider problematic."
Sharif asked his brother to pass on an attached message to his wife:
"After reaching our destination Allah guided us to his friends who were very happy to see us, and said they needed our help very much.
"I hope you are strong. Know that everything is just a test, and Allah will reward the patient ones.
"Look after [our children], bring them up well. We did not spend a long time together in this world but I hope through Allah's mercy and your patience we can spend an eternity together. You will hear from my friend the good news.
"Make dua that Allah makes me sincere, firm and that he accepts my actions."
The email ends with an instruction to delete it.

Of course, the family had no idea what he was going to do. Bastards. The brother deserves a bullet.

Haircut!

2005-11-29T00:12:00.000+02:00

I can hardly believe it but my big news for today is..... I got a haircut. After 13 months of growing my hair it is now short. It's a lot easier to manage but I kind of miss not having locks to play with. And I always think short hair makes you look about ten pounds heavier. Good grief I do sound like a narcissitic obsessive, my father must be turning in his grave.
So why did I have it cut? Well, I am going to Bank Leumi on Wednesday for a kind of preliminary job interview so I have to look respectable.....

More Lebanon

2005-11-23T23:34:00.000+02:00

UN Security Council called on Lebanon to extend its sovereignty to south Lebanon and condemned Hizballah’s attack on Israel - today.

Well - it's a start.

The Lebanese media seems to be completely ignoring what is happening. The IAF dropped leaflets on Beirut today telling the Lebanese not to alow Hezbollah to lead them back to war with Israel, which by all accounts was met with a mixture of contempt and bemusement. Perhaps they think Israel is still occupying part of Lebanon?

Also a wierd story about a hang-glider from Tel Aviv who accidentally landed in Lebanon today, he was chased by Hizballah and ran through a minefield to get back into Israel before being arrested. Hmm not sure I believe even a Sabra would be stupid enough to go hanggliding today next to the Lebanese border.... Mr Bond I presume?

An Answer

2005-11-22T09:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I asked what the UN wil do about the attack from Lebanon. Haarezt has he answer:

"The UN Security Council, meanwhile, failed on Monday to agree on how to condemn the violence, mainly because of disputes between the United States and Algeria, diplomats said.After several hours of negotiations, Security Council members gave up trying to amend a statement, drafted by France, that would have condemned "military exchanges initiated by Hezbollah" as well as "Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace."The United States wanted the reference to Israel deleted and Algeria, the only Arab member of the council, objected to putting the blame on Hezbollah, according to participants at the consultations.Members agreed to have further discussions but envoys acknowledged the momentum was lost.The council's deliberations followed a statement issued in Jerusalem by the visiting UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, Ibrahim Gambari. He condemned the clash, which "according to available information began from the Lebanese side" and called on all parties to "cease fire immediately."

Typical.

Busy, Busy, Busy

2005-11-21T23:34:00.000+02:00

Just in case anyone is out there listening and wants to know what's up with me.... I'm really busy. Highlights include:

1. I'm going to be in England between 21st December and 10th January.
2. I just started a new ulpan last Sunday (Ulpan Or), it includes one to one teaching twice a day and it seems to be going very well. There's a lot of work to do.
3. I just received a huge pile of work for my part-time job.
4. I am just starting to apply for full time work target date February. Just waiting for my finalised hebrew cv any day now and i'll be off....

So if you're in England, see you soon!
As I'm really busy I won't be posting much for a while. Although lots of interesting things are happening in Israel - just today we were attacked by Lebanon and the PM changed his party allegiance. Hey, the action never stops around here. Residents of several northern Israeli towns spent today sitting in bomb shelters.

Just a quick word about the attack from Lebanon. Unprovoked, aimed at civilians, rockets falling on civilian houses in an Israeli town. What is the world and the UN going to do about it? The BBC for some reason is referring to Israel's border with Lebanon as "disputed" which is quite baffling as the UN has certified the current border between Israel and Lebanon as - erm - kosher. So why according to the BBC is the Golan "occupied" (which Israel disputes) whilst the Israeli-Lebanon border is "disputed"???

Yitzchak Rabin

2005-11-06T00:03:00.000+02:00

That's him on the right, his wife Leah is on the left.

Well, this weekend was 10 years since he was murdered. Like everyone else here in Israel, I feel compelled to write about it.

A few months ago while I was studying in language school, they played us a song composed by Aviv Geffen (who politically and as a "conscientous objector", I don't have a lot of time for) shortly after Rabin was murdered. I got into a car last Friday and heard it on the radio, recognised it immediately. For some reason it brought a lump to my throat, and I started wondering why on my long walk home from Ramat Eshkol to Katamon that night, and my thoughts went back to November 1995 when I was still a young student.

It was a Saturday night, I had been out with friends and drove home on my own, let myself in quietly so as not to wake my mother, must have been about 2am. I heard the radio coming from her room which was unusual and when I got to the top of the stairs she called me in. She told me Rabin had been shot by a Jew, and though neither of us had a day to day connection to Israel at that time, I remember we both just sat there in the darkness listening to the radio. We couldn't believe it. It was such an unthinkable thing for an Israeli PM to be murdered by an Israeli Jew.

A few years before that, not long after my 21st birthday, I'm lying in bed with my girlfriend one morning and we are watching the news. Rabin has just won a dramatic and unexpected landslide election victory. He is holding a press conference and the room is full of drama and excitement, though his words are cautious.

Then came Oslo, the handshake with Arafat....... the feeling that finally the Palestinians were going to be given something which would make them stop their war (the presumption had never been tested so it was still quite plausible then) and Israel would become a normal, fully recognised country with a border. It was such a happy feeling if you believed in it. Like when you wake from a nightmare.

By 1995 it was obvious even to me sitting 2,000 miles away that the Israeli right was in a fury, petrified at what was being given away and the risks this would entail. Bibi Netanyahu was now the leader of the opposition. His grim, angry face would pop up on the TV news and he had the aura of a man who was about to comand his followers to pick up their guns and fight for their homes. The "peace process" as it was then known was coming to a crucial juncture, elections were not far away...... but "we" (for I was very much on the left in those days) knew that Rabin would take on this upstart Netanyahu and beat him.

That was why "we" loved Rabin. Because he was no idealistic peacenik like Peres. He was a gruff, pragmatic war hero, who was going into this as was obvious to everyone because a) he decided peace with the Palestinians was vital for Israel and b) he believed it was possible to achieve by giving up most of the West Bank and Gaza. So - he went for it. And he was going to convince Israelis unsure about the whole thing that it was worth it and that it was possible.

So he had a big rally, made a moving speech, and it was a strange contrast to see the old soldier standing next to people like Aviv Geffen and assorted peaceniks who could never in a million years lead the nation to compromise. He was going to take on the Likud and win.

Then he walked down the stairs, and a young Jewish fascist shot him dead.

The rest as they say is history. Like every other Mapainik I watched in horror as Peres tried to assert his authority and refused to call an early election, then Hamas started their wave of suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.... Bibi made hay.... Peres more and more unconvincing every day, ending with a botched invasion of Lebanon for heavens' sake. Finally the election is won by Bibi by the slimmest of margins and Peres continues on his way as the eternal loser of Israeli politics.
I remember watching the assassin Yigal Amir as he was arraigned in court. A very easy man to hate, with his smug smile, sitting there chewing gum, so proud of himself. I remember watching him as the police made him re-enact the shooting, there was a whole crowd of Israelis watching and as he mimed pulling the trigger the crowd shouting "No!" - as if by shouting loud enough they could somehow turn the clock back. If they had handed him over to a Mapainik crowd they would have done to him what the rabble in Ramallah did to those two IDF reservists a few years back.

A little over a year later I started seeing a woman who was half-Israeli, she had lived in Israel during that momentous year and was actually at the final Rabin rally with her father, a well-known left-wing activist. She told me that when they got home and heard the news nobody knew what to do, so they all sat there in stunned silence... until somebody ordered pizza. She told me that the assassination changed nothing, because Israeli Jews still had to stick together and that was why the more militant Israeli tail would wag the moderate dog every time. The year after that she brought me to Israel for my first ever visit.

The years pass. Barak is elected to continue the Rabin legacy, yet is possibly the most inept and arrogant PM Israel has ever seen. He leads Israel into a horrendous war with no front and more civilian casualties than have been suffered since 1948. It takes a period of two years of slaughter and the election of Ariel Sharon before the IDF is even able to mount an effective fightback.

So now I've written all this I realise there are many reasons for the lump in my throat.

Because Rabin, for all his faults, deserved better.
Because the Israel where the shloch chainsmoking by the beer keg you were talking to last night at the barbecue was the PM is no more.
Because there is a not insignificant chunk of Israeli society that doesn't really give a damn about democracy or the integrity of the state.
Because a Jewish fascist could come along and change everything with two bullets and a gun.
Because even if Rabin had lived, peace still would have been impossible, despite what Bill Clinton says.
Because if Rabin had lived, and told the world that Arafat was after all still a terrorist uninterested in a peaceful compromise, the world might have listened.
Because if Rabin had lived, the world might have remembered that the Oslo agreement said nothing about a Palestinian state and did not promise to give back 100% of the land from '67.
Because now we all know deep down that there will be no peace for Israel for a hundered years.
Because I'm not 24 years old any more, and because I know that even if 100,000 of us hold hands and sing songs about love and peace, the world will not love us and peace will not come.

****************************************************

So I pick up this weekend's Jerusalem Post and there is a special supplement about Rabin. There were I think five main articles about him, and of those only one (by Efraim Halevy) could find anything nice to say about him. Two of them made my blood boil.

The first and most revolting one was a piece by Sarah Honig. All she could bring herself to say was that her first thought was "Another Arlosoroff affair!" upon hearing about the assassination ie. that it was all a conspiracy to be used to taint the hard right with murder. Nice one, Sarah. Nice to know that your first thought wasn't "How could this happen" or "what does this mean for Israeli democracy", but "oh my precious Etzel and Lehi and their modern-day heirs are being smeared". Well guess what Ms Honig - whilst the left was contemptuous of democracy in the past, today it is the right that is the biggest danger to Israeli democracy. But you won't admit it because it's YOUR precious right, your poor victimised right that is somehow the eternal victim and outsider. The fact that 20% of Israeli Jews want to see Rabin's murderer pardoned is not news to you, and something tells me these guys are not Labour and Meretz voters.

Second in odiousness - in fact now I'm re-reading it, first - was an article by Jonathan Rosenblum, from whence I give you this choice quote:
"The most tragic spilling of Jewish blood by other Jews was the Altalena affair. Long after the ship suffered a direct hit...and white flags of surrender were hoisted, the Palmach soldiers continued to direct their fire at survivors in the water.... the Palmach commander would later recall his feelings at the time: "Jews shooting Jews - over a prolonged period. Jews killed and injured by the bullets of other Jews. But my heart is at peace with the decision of Ben-Gurion." If that commander ever had second thoughts, he never expressed them. His name was Yizchak Rabin."

So Rabin only got back a bit less of what he did to others. How nice of Mr Rosenblum to remind us of this on this occasion, the tenth anniversary of the biggest triumph ever of Jewish fascism over the state of Israel. Mr Rosenblum would rather that we remember the biggest victory of Jewish democracy - the Altalena affair - and mourn it.

If we're not careful, the Rabin murder won't be the last triumph of fascism over democracy in this land. I can easily imagine an Israel in 50 years time where a majority of the Jewish population does not place first allegiance to the democracy of the state. But there's still time to stop it happening.

Ancient Church Discovered

2005-11-05T23:52:00.000+02:00

A very large and ancient church was discovered in Megiddo, Israel today (wel,, it was announced today). This could prove to be a very interesting and important archaeological find. You can read about it here http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/641806.html

I saw a similarly large and ancient church ruin in Jerash (Jordan) a few years ago (BTW I would highly recommend a visit to Jerash if you can go - I can't imagine it's any less spectacular than Petra, but Petra is all people want to talk about). Gazing at the mosaics and imagining the people praying there in the 4th century, I got a feeling Christianity then was perhaps a somewhat different religion to what we know now. But I can't say for sure though I imagine it was an intense religion, drawing the devotion of al those who were alienated from their own communities and cultures.

Hopefully this will become another site of interest for Christians to visit in Israel.

Demos in Europe Against Iran

2005-11-03T22:20:00.000+02:00

Following last week's "Wipe Israel off the Map" statements, concerned citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have been protesting in Berlin (a particularly successful demonstration), Budapest, and Paris. Tonight there is to be a demonstration in Rome (no demonstration in London, needless to say, you'll find precious few Brits who aren't Jewish willing to stand up for Israel, and the Jewish community "leaders" there prefer to keep their heads down so as not to upset the gentiles replying instead upon softly spoken words in influential ears, "Protocols"-style).
Gianfranco Fini, the Italian Foreign Minister who is ironically enough an ex-fascist, albeit one who has visisted Israel and expressed regret for Italian antisemitism, pledged that he would come to tonight's demonstration outside the Iranian embassy in Rome. Then this strange story appeared (Jerusalem Post):

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1131035504415&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Italy's foreign minister said he will not participate in an anti-Iran rally in Rome on Thursday evening to avoid damaging Italian national interests.
Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini issued a statement a few hours before the torch-lit demonstration outside the Iranian embassy to protest remarks by the Iranian president that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
"My physical presence, as foreign minister, at this evening's rally could cause harmful consequences to our national interests and to the security of our fellow citizens from the Iranian side."

You don't think he was worried the Iranians might do something really unthinkable like, erm, kidnap diplomats, do you?

I have to criticise Fini. If he really thinks that Italian diplomats in Iran are under threat, and are already in effect hostages to his behaviour, then Italy should break off diplomatic relations with Iran now, as to be a "diplomat" you must have immunity. If he doesn't, then he really has no excuse not to be there. I suppose it's conceivable that the Italian embassy are gathering good intelligence within Iran, that could be another reason.

Frankly, if the Iranians are determined to make nukes, I prefer that we - Israel - take them on militarily. It would be a good lesson to all the anti-semities of the world - you take steps to kill us, anywhere in the world, and you will cease to exist at our hands before you can carry out your sick plans. Israel will not be intimidated and Israel will strike anywhere and at any time it needs to. It would do the world a lot of good. But hopefully the Iranian people will rise up and choose peace before it comes to that.

Hilarious

2005-11-03T13:14:00.000+02:00

The Israeli PM gave a press conference this morning....

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=307&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight

Pinter Finally Hits Bottom

2005-11-02T20:18:00.000+02:00

It's not exactly news that Harold Pinter is somewhat prone to hyperbole, nor that he hates the President of the USA, nor that he is strongly opposed to US and British military assistance being given to the democratically elected government of Iraq against assorted fascists trying to take the country over. However he hit a new low yesterday with the following statement:

"The Bush Administration is the most dangerous force that has ever existed. It is more dangerous than Nazi Germany because of the range and depth of its activities and intentions worldwide."

The statement is so self-evidently wrong I think I'll just focus on what a correct response to Pinter should be.
You should be ashamed of yourself, you desiccated old psychotic loon, you're Jewish but you'll piss all over your family and your people just to get some good copy for yourself. You have no excuse, you're such a self-aggrandising piece of shit that you're happy to trivialise the holocaust just to make your hot air more rhetorically impressive.

I smell the pong.
The pong
Of Pinter's bullshit
The stench of his lies
Will knock you out, chum.
The big pricks are out
The big pricks who call democracy fascism
And fascists democrats
Watch your back!

Golan Heights

2005-11-01T23:37:00.000+02:00

I mentioned that I spent some time with my family who live up in the Golan Heights last week. I thought I would start with a couple of diagrams as maybe you don't even know where the hell this place is. Well, here is the overview to the left. To cut a very long and controversial story short, it was a high region of Syria that abutted Israel, overlooking the Sea of Galilee (see picture below). Israel conquered the area in the 1967 war and made further gains in the 1973 war. Shortly afterwards Israel began building settlements and after a while the number of Israeli Jews living there came to outnumber the number of Syrians (mainly Druze) there. In 1981 the Israeli parliament formally annexed the area to Israel and Israeli law was applied and Israeli citizenship offered to all the inhabitants (unlike the West Bank and Gaza strip). That's enough background for now.
Last summer my cousin Nick and his wife Lynne and their six kids left London and came back to live in Israel. They chose a small community in the southern Golan Heights called Khispin in which to build their home. See if you can find it on the map below (clue - at the bottom in the middle).
I'll finish this post soon.

Links

2005-11-01T23:12:00.000+02:00

I've put up a lot of links on the left sidebar. They are all wonderful but some of them deserve an extra-special recommendation.
DEBKA has a lots of news scoops about what is going on behind the scenes in the wider Middle East (not just Israel). For example today they have a story that some of the richest businessmen in Syria have just fled with their capital following the unanimous passage of the UN security council resolution threating Syria with "further measures" for non-cooperation with the Hariri murder investigation. The site is probably affiliated with the Mossad so you have to expect a fair bit of disinformation but much of what is written there is undoubtedly true, and you won't read it anywhere else. Definitely worth checking out.
Three other sites I'll mention:
1. Melanie Phillips - more or less the only British journalist sticking up remorselessly for the truth about Israel, anti-semitism, and appeasement in Britain today. She doesn't give an inch but someone had to do it, all honour to you Mrs Phillips....I'm assuming it's not Ms :)
2. Mark Steyn - Canadian journalist, king of the neo-cons, with a great sideline in Broadway reviews (and he's neither Jewish nor gay!). Funny, but deadly serious.
3. Harry's Place - "the meeting place of the pro-war left". Need I say more? Oh yes, lots of nasty trots and trotty antisemites like to stop by too. Seriously - this is a GREAT site. If you're on the left but you believe the West still represents Enlightenment and is thus under attack from fascist Islamists, then this site is for you.

Right - that should save me the trouble of having to link directly to every good piece they write - NOW GO READ!

Enough Politics, Let's Talk About Football

2005-10-31T20:22:00.000+02:00

It's probably not news to anyone by now that the Israeli national team has NOT qualified for the World Cup to be held in Germany next year.
But you may not know that Israel only narrowly failed to qualify on goal difference. If France had beaten Switzerland 1-0 instead of drawing 1-1 in one of the last games, Israel would have finished second in the group and gone through to the playoffs. You may also not know that Israel got through all ten games unbeaten, which included two draws with each of France, Switzerland and Ireland.
I watched a few of the games and went to one - Israel v Ireland in Tel Aviv last March (the picture was taken in the stadium right after the game ended, that's me on the left). Israel didn't play so well in that game but did manage to equalise right at the end which was exciting. The funniest thing about that game was that it took place over the Purim holiday period - the one weekend of the year that Jews become big drinkers. So the Ireland fans arrived to a big boozy fancy dress party on the sunny beach - which suited them just fine. The Irish fans were very friendly and were certainly received well by us Israelis. On our way back to the hotel an Irish fan said to us "We should have finished you guys off while we had the chance." A friend of mine was saying "Can you believe what he said????" so I had to point out he was talking about the game... not the Holocaust!
The tickets for games were only about 10 pounds. I could have gone to the France game a few days after that but I could not stomach being present at what I was convinced would be a terrible defeat. I think this actually turned out to be Israel's best game of the campaign. There was certainly no love lost between France and Israel, the French national anthem got one of the loudest boos I ever heard. Israel started well but France opened the scoring. Towards the end of the game, after the Israeli goalkeeper got repeatedly battered and had his face covered in blood, a French player was sent off. Israel quickly equalised and put the squeeze on and France were in retreat until the final whistle. If only we had scored a second goal.....
So my other teams are England (of course) and Tottenham Hotspur who, now I have left the country, seem to be having their best season since the 1980s. They came very close to beating Arsenal last weekend for the first time in 6 years, and are currently 3rd in the table, an unprecedentedly high position going into November.
I will be in England for a visit soon, either in late December or in February (you heard it here first). I must make sure I get to White Hart Lane, anyone got a spare ticket?

Oily Characters

2005-10-30T12:15:00.000+02:00

Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.....

Can't Leave This One Alone

2005-10-30T12:04:00.000+02:00

Well, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (which I swear, by the way, actually means "my monkey cloud" in hebrew) says he is going to go ahead with his planned visit to Iran.
Perhaps while he's there he will stop and say hello to THESE charming boys who were out screaming death to the Jews in Teheran last Friday.
Didn't anyone ever tell the little one with the gun that Islam is a "Religion of Peace"?

Final Word on Iran

2005-10-29T18:36:00.000+02:00

Well the Iranian president didn't back down on what the BBC called a "rhetorical swipe" against Israel (I suppose Hitler was also making "rhetorical swipes" before he built the camps).
There has been much media specualtion as to why he made the remarks and why he won't retract them.
Let me hazard a guess.
Hard as it is to believe - it's because these Islamic fundamentalists think that if they really push the world into a choice of force against them or acquiescing in the genocide of the Jews, pretty much all the world will choose the latter option.
Are they wrong? The world let Rwanda happen. "Progessive" Europe did nothing to stop the slaughter in the Balkans until the evil USA intervened :)
The world is terrified of Islam. And unfortunately much of the world hates the Jewish people. A recent poll even in tolerant Britain showed that 25% of the population hold anti-Jewish attitudes. When you add those two together, you have to be grateful Israel has a strong army and the will to defend itself.
There were many pictures of the Iranian president speaking at the podium of the "World Without Zionism" conference. The pictures I saw didn't show the logo on his podium so here I reproduce it for you. If this isn't genocidal imagery, what is.

Lurgy

2005-10-29T18:34:00.000+02:00

I'm ill. Some yucky throat thing... bleh. Still. it gives me a chance to do a bit of posting whilst lying in bed.

Threat of Genocide (Update)

2005-10-28T00:40:00.000+02:00

The story now has top billing on the BBC news website. PM Blair says he is "revolted" by the Iranian president's remarks.
I read the comments on the BBC website.
It's just like the 1930's. People said then "oh of course Hitler isn't nice but what can you expect when the Jews make themselves so obvious and vulgarly successful in someone else's country" and now they say instead "of course the Iranian president isn't nice but what can you expect when the Israelis make themselves at home in someone else's country and commit crimes for 50 years blah blah".
What they mean of course is that the Jews can never be a free people, but must live on their knees and beg to be allowed a second class life. Because the Jews must live on sufferance in Palestine just as they lived in Germany.
The awful truth is the Holocaust never ended. The victims just got a country, a strong army, and nuclear weapons.... enough to hold it off, so far indefinitely.
The anti-semites will always have an excuse. And nothing short of bombs and bullets - in the end - stops them. 10 years, 15 years maybe.... but eventually they come back for another go at finishing us off once and for all.
It's times like this I am really glad I made aliyah. Proud to be one of the people holding off the holocaust. Even if I can't be in the army, I like to think that just as the IDF is the army of the people of Israel, so the people of Israel are the army of the Jewish people. The IDF guards the borders of Israel and Israel guards the borders of the Jewish people.

Never again.

Tel Aviv

2005-10-27T14:07:00.000+02:00

So the chagim (holidays) are finally over. This time of year there are so many Jewish holidays falling one after the other that the country seems to be on permanent vacation: new year, day of atonement, harvest/exodus festival and the giving of the bible to name them all. I took advantage of my time off from Ulpan (Hebrew class) by going on a couple of trips away from Jerusalem.
Last week I spent a day at my friend Darren's place in Tel Aviv. He lives near the central bus station and it is an interesting neighbourhood to say the least. It is close to a very old and poor part of town, but the area itself is a semi-shanty town, home to a large number of foreign workers from the Phillippines, Thailand, Africa etc. Sadly there are many cheap brothels nearby, doors wide open, middle-aged prostitutes about... a side of Israel you don't see in the tourist brochures. Despite all this, for men at least, a pretty safe area - it doesn't have quite the same menacing atmosphere these districts often have in other countries.
I took the new train down from Jerusalem. It takes one hour and a quarter - very slow - but the route is incredibly scenic and beautiful as the train winds its way down through the Judean hills. The train is very clean, spacious and cheap too - certainly if you are used to British Rail or whatever it's called nowdays.
Anyway, saw Darren, Maxim, Taly, Karen, and Ze'ev, all fellow immigrants, we just hung out and watched a movie and ate pizza and caught up. It was really nice & relaxed. Some people say the true mark of friendship is whether you feel you can say and do whatever you want in front of your friends, if you're not even thinking about anything else, if you're just relaxed 100%. And with this crowd I can certainly say that. Keep it up guys and may Israel bring you all the happiness and success you need.
I took a sherut (service taxi) back to Jerusalem at 2am.... must have set an all time record, we made it from the middle of Tel Aviv to Jaffa Street in Jerusalem in 35 minutes!

A Threat of Genocide, A Sign of Hope

2005-10-27T13:56:00.000+02:00

Yesterday the new President of Iran, speaking at a conference in Iran entitled "A World Without Zionism", called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" – very short shorthand for a genocide of the Jewish people. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4380306.stm
In times gone by people like me would go on to comment "and the world shrugged". We would say, how can an organisation like the UN, which was formed with the explicit intention of preventing genocide and aggression between its member states, simply sit back and watch as threats of this kind are made. Many Arab leaders used to make these kinds of statements, and were not censured at all even when they made open calls for genocide of the Jewish people, as Ahmed Al-Shukairy the head of the Arab League did in 1948.
Well, it seems that perhaps times are finally changing. In the wake of the Iranian president's remarks, the USA, Britain, and perhaps more surprisingly France, Spain and Italy (as well as the President of the European Commission) have all lodged official protests with their Iranian ambassadors. Shimon Peres seems to agree with my train of thought, and has said on the record that these remarks from a country's head of state are incompatible with membership of the UN. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4378948.stm
It is not widely known that the previous Iranian president sponsored interfaith dialogue, and even invited Israeli rabbis to participate in conferences within Iran (I know for a fact some rabbis have even flown directly from Israel to Iran). But this new ultra-hardliner is quite a different character.
It is also not widely remembered that a previous Iranian president, widely acclaimed as a moderate and reformer, gave a speech in the Iranian parliament four years ago where he called for a future Iranian government to develop nuclear weapons and use them against Israel, even if this meant destroying Jerusalem, the Palestinian people, and ultimately Iran in Israeli retaliation – because most of the Islamic word would still survive (conveniently ignoring that Israel has enough submarine-operated nukes to completely destroy the Middle East). http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.nsf/0/85f885e8d38001c785256b37006af4e7?OpenDocument
I think when you tie in all this with the fact that Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons, and is not a million miles away from success, you have to come to the conclusion that a state like Iran cannot currently be entrusted with the possession of nuclear weapons. Deterrence may not work and that is not Jewish paranoia speaking. But despite the signs of hope, it seems that the world still does not really understand this. How many times have I heard in London, "well Israel has nukes so why shouldn't Iran" – as if the two states aims', methods and moralities (at governmental level) were comparable. And you can now see, at "peace" and "anti-war" demonstrations in the west, leftists holding signs saying "hands off Iran". "Peace" activists????
Let us hope that the world does understand sooner rather than later. Because Israel cannot tolerate Iranian nuclearisation. The world may be able to stop this happening without war or with only limited war. But if not, the Israeli government must be prepared to act alone, regardless of the consequences. And if the programme advances to the stage where it cannot be stopped by conventional weapons, then heaven help us, Israel must be prepared to wipe Iran off the map through a pre-emptive nuclear strike, at the last minute before they go nuclear, if all else fails. I hope it never happens but the more that Israel shows the world it would be prepared to go that far, the less likely it will have to go that far. What a depressing thought.

First Rain!

2005-10-19T10:20:00.000+02:00

This morning sees the first rain in Jerusalem since May 6th (and even that was just a shower).... strange to wake up to a chilly, cloudy, wet landscape. Ah well, at least the first night of succot was spared (Jews are supposed to build flimsy outdoor booths this week and live in them to memorialise the exodus wanderings).
Took a picture from my window (you don't think I'm going outside, do you?) but it's no good so I'll leave it to your imagination.
Somebody told me that Jerusalem has the same average annual rainfall as London. Too lazy to check it right now.
More posts soon but probably not until I return next week from trips to Tel Aviv and the Golan Heights.

Balcony View

2005-10-14T04:29:00.000+02:00

At the risk of sounding like one of those Anglo yuppies who live in Katamon.... here is the marvellous view from the balcony of my yuppie flat in Katamon, especially for those of you in the UK and of course for anyone else who hasn't been round yet. The view really clinched it for me when I was looking for somewhere to live.
In the valley is the Jewish neighbourhood of Talpiot, the hill on the left is the famous Kibbutz of Ramat Rachel (Rachel's Heights) which was right on the old border and mounted a stalwart defence against the invading Jordanians in 1948. The hill on the right is the eastern beginning of Gilo.

Gilo - between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.....

2005-10-14T03:10:00.000+02:00

A few posts previously I talked about my visit to Gilo. While I was up there I took some pictures. Here are three of them that I hope show why this place was (re)built after 1967 and what its location is all about.

The picture above is taken from the top of Gilo looking north. You can see most of (Jewish) West Jerusalem and even beyond all the way to Mevasseret Zion, unfortunately the Old City is out of view. The picture really does not do the view justice - it is spectacular.

The pre-67 border is down in the valley below, hidden by the fold in the landscape. So you can see that the Jordanians held an excellent position to fire down onto southern Jewish Jerusalem. Partly for reasons of population growth, partly for security, and not least because the land in question was actually purchased quite legally by Jews under the British Mandate in the 1930s before it was seized by Jordan in 1948, Jewish Gilo was built on this hilltop to ensure a future Palestinian state or return of land to Jordan would not include this strategic point.

The trouble that erupted in 2000 started when Palestinian groups in nearby Beit Jalla began firing on Jewish civilian targets in Gilo, though I recall the British media at the time saw the trouble as beginning with the heinous provocation of the then Israeli leader of the opposition paying a brief visit to Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount. Also ignored by the British media at the time was the fact that the (Muslim) gunmen often fired from (Christian) holy sites, in an attempt to ensure that any Israeli defence would damage a church and therefore provide a handy opportunity to explot that old "Jewish Christ-killer" chestnut (this strategy succeeded pretty well with the whole Church of the Nativity farce). Anyway, this is the view in the opposite direction, south - a view of Beit Jalla and Bethlehem from Gilo:

I took this picture (using full zoom) standing just to the left of where the concrete barriers begin along the edge of Gilo's southernmost road, they were erected by IDF engineers shortly after the attacks started to protect the Israeli civilians living in this road from bullets fired from Beit Jalla. The final picture below is the view I got after I moved a few feet to the right but pointed my camera in the same direction:

You can read the whole story here (I recommend you ignore the stuff about Gaza) http://www.ourjerusalem.com/ourjerusalem/story/oj20040319.html

Sometimes I like to forget all about the politics and history (though you wouldn't believe it from most of my posts) and just enjoy the views. I can't really explain why but I find the paintings on the barrier a bit sad. You can see the same thing on the 443 road. I almost prefer the harsh reality of the concrete, but then again I didn't have to live through being shot at every day.

It's hard to convey the sense of beauty and peace these hills have - how clean and fragrant the air is - but it's true, even with all the warring and hatred. If you live here you probably know what I mean.

Police Rampage in Genoa

2005-10-14T01:51:00.000+02:00

Today I feel like taking a break from Likudnik indignation and writing about something new.
Remember how before 9/11, the news headlines used to be about issues like economics, like personal freedom?
Or am I suffering from false memory syndrome?
It seemed to me that by the summer of 2001, the Left in the West was successfully getting certain issues on the agenda. Whenever world leaders wanted to have a conference, they couldn't do it without meeting large peaceful protests that focused on poverty, environmental protection, and third world debt. I think that these issues were getting more and more attention and that the public was becoming more and more sympathetic to a Leftist stance on these issues (which I did then, and still do today, broadly sympathise with). These protests in the late 90s grew and grew each successive year.
Then came the G8 summit in Genoa, summer 2001. Over 200,000 protestors set up camp outside the town, including what was by all accounts a small and extremely violent minority of anarchists and class warriors called the black block, who went on a rampage of arson and looting. One of them was shot dead whilst he was trying to attack police (by throwing a fire extinguisher at them); quite possibly the policeman who fired had a justified fear for his own life.
What happened next was really scandalous. To cut a long story short, hundreds of police were sent to what was presumed to be a HQ of the black block at the end of the summit. When they got there during the night, they smashed their way in and began beating scores of innocent protestors (the black block were nowhere to be found) to within an inch of their lives, including several who were still in their sleeping bags. Of course, even if they HAD found the black block, they deserved only to be arrested and put on trial. It was a small miracle that nobody was killed. The police then refused many of the victims medical treatment, and detained several wounded people, threatened them with torture (including apparently rape by truncheon) and forced them to sing pro-fascist songs from the Mussolini era.
Jack Straw has his faults but he spoke up for the detainees very strongly while this was all going on, to his credit.
Anyway, the police claimed they found weapons during their raid but surprise, surprise - it turns out they were all planted, and now the police are on trial in Italy for their actions. So far so good but due to an amnesty law that the Italian parliament have passed (most parliaments spend time passing laws to convict criminals, it sometimes seems the Italian parliament spends most of its time passing laws to prevent the conviction of criminals) - it looks like those responsible for this outrage will get off.
You can read the story here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4332954.stm and you can also check the "See Also" bar on the top right, in particular "I still have nightmares" gives you some idea of the full horror of what happened.
Of course Genoa didn't kill the rising Western Left - Al Gore's inability to win an election (Bush's victory deranged the American Left) and 9/11 did. Plunging us back into a conflict from the Middle Ages is something I will never forgive the Islamists for. But just as activists from the 60's remember the police brutality from the Democratic Convention of 1968 as the end of the rising tide of 60's people power and the beginning of something much uglier and more violent, so in a smaller way I remember Genoa 2001 as the end of the 90's progress towards a fairer world and the beginning of today's grim reality.
The larger moral of my story: even where there is violence and terrorism, the forces of law and order must feel they will always be called to account for their actions. This story really sickens me but as an Israeli whose country is frequently accused of even worse... I have to now turn to my own society to see if I can criticise these events in Genoa without hypocrisy.
Here in Israel we have Israelis (mainly older women) who go to checkpoints and other places where IDF and Border Police operate amongst Palestinians and they watch, and film, and monitor what goes on (I have seen them in action myself, they are called "Checkpoint Watch" and I will write about this in a future posting). Sometimes I think these people go too far in their suspicions, soldiers and border police do a difficult and dangerous job. I can't say that we never have people in uniform getting away with brutalities, though they are often caught and punished, so I am glad we have these do-gooders, even if the famous Jewish "guilty conscience" does also operate to make us perhaps too soft on our enemies sometimes. Still, I suppose it is better for one guilty man to go free than to have an innocent beaten with impunity. But what if that guilty man is planning a future terror attack, targeting civilians.....

And Pigs Might Swim

2005-10-12T00:16:00.000+02:00

Just had to post this.....

Dreaming of England

2005-10-11T23:59:00.000+02:00

A couple of weeks ago I was in Tel Aviv, sitting on the beach with my friend Darren who is also an immigrant from England.

We agreed of everything in England we miss this the most:

A cold December day not long before Christmas. It is about 3pm and it is beginning to get dark outside. The weather is a degree or two above freezing, it is windy and rainy and the cloud is so low it seems to be almost touching the gently sloping green hills you can see through the window.

You are in a warm, cosy, carpeted living room, perhaps with a few little clocks and knickknacks on the mantelpiece. You are sitting in front of a real fire, with a hot cup of milky tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits (Darren had battenburg cake, I think), and an old B&W movie is about to start on TV.....

Perfect! See, they don't do cosy in Israel.....

In The Post Office (B'Doar)

2005-10-11T23:28:00.000+02:00

Here in Israel you can pay bills for water, electric, phone etc. in the post office. I had a couple of bills to pay today, I got up late and made it to the post office not long before closing.

While I was waiting in the line I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned round to face the guy behind me in the queue (line). "So you've got a water bill to pay too? So have I. Show me how much yours is." I did - it was about $10. He then showed me his - it was about $400 for the same period. He then said something else but I couldn't understand (this was all happening in Hebrew).

Just a short story that brings home how unlike my previous home of England this country really is. Imagine someone asking to see how big your bill is.....

A Day of Firsts

2005-10-11T23:17:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a day of firsts.

In Ulpan (Hebrew language class) yesterday morning, one of my classmates asked me if I am an epileptic. When I asked her why, she said "Well, I saw you zoning out when the teacher was talking, and usually only epileptics zone out like that." Those of you who know me will laugh.

This was the first time anyone has ever thought I might be epileptic.

After class I walked up to Gilo (a southern hilltop suburb of Jerusalem over the 1967 border and thus as far as the international community is concerned, part of "occupied Palestine") to visit my dentist to have a root canal done. This was my first ever root canal so I was a little apprehensive. He gave me the biggest and deepest shot of novocaine I have ever had, I swear I was a little high by the time we got started! He opened up the tooth and then went in to kill the nerve, this was the point where I just had to start yelping despite all the anasthesia.... if you've ever chewed aluminium (aluminum if you're American) you will know what I mean! Then he put this wierd plastic sheeting in my mouth and later inserted some little things that appeared to be on fire, smouldering and smoking.... all very odd, I must read about it on the net.

After that was done I checked my bank account and lo and behold! I have finally received my first Israeli paycheck. 641 New Israeli Shekels (about $160) for my part time editing work. It comes to about 35 shekels per hour of work (about $8) which is not bad for a first part time job in Israel. Well, that'll pay for about one third of the root canal anyway....

Reflections Upon My First Post

2005-10-11T22:58:00.000+02:00

Yesterday a friend contacted me and he told me he was offended by the term "Guardian reading scum" which I used (as he reads the Guardian). He also said he thinks my blog seethes with anger.

Well, let me say I don't mean to imply that everyone who reads or buys the Guardian is scum. The phrase was used in the context of my frustration with the world-wide refusal to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It is not very well known that virtually every government (including USA and Britain) refuses to accept even West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel - yet these same governments maintain consulates in East Jerusalem. In fact if you are born in West Jerusalem, both the British and American governments refuse to write "Israel" as your place of birth on your British or American passports. West Jerusalem was part of Israel before 1967, so if the 1967 lines are so sacred why this action from the USA and Britain?

As for the post seething with anger, I suppose about the Guardian and the BBC, I please guilty as charged. However, as I reject the postmodern values held so dearly in today's western culture, I don't see why I should be afraid of being angry. Justified anger is not a sin and I think any Jewish patriot has the right to be angry with the Guardian and the BBC in particular. So no apology from me.

The Blog Begins

2005-10-10T08:36:00.000+02:00

So after two years or thereabouts of thinking of starting my own weblog, finally I've got around to creating it. Like the beginning of the actualisation of any dream of mine, I have no way of knowing whether these few words will either be like the proverbial acorn from which a mighty oak will one day sprout, or become a mere curio like an old diary from teenage years. Only time will tell. Hopefully time will also tell me to stop writing such pompous crap as this last sentence.

I suppose I should write about why I decided to start blogging, or perhaps something about myself. But first please let me say: WELCOME to you, whoever you are, please feel free to drop by and comment to your heart's content.

I first discovered blogs early in 2002, or perhaps a little bit before then. Maybe I should say blogs found me rather than the other way around. At the time I was living in London and I got most of my news from one TV & radio company and one newspaper.... wait for it... the BBC and the Guardian. This was the time just after 9/11 when things were really starting to get nasty in the Middle East, and it was my main area of interest in the news. It quickly became apparent that my media sources were reporting a version of events that had very little to do with anything remotely approaching reality ("Jenin Massacre", "Israeli Blitzkrieg", cartoons with a peaceful Arafat and Sharon with blood dripping from his Jew-claws), so I plunged into the internet and discovered a whole bunch of lean mean citizen journalists, who were holding corrupt and self-serving media outlets like the BBC and the Guardian to account, who were even scooping them sometimes. It was like a drug, I was hooked, and of course not just to news and current affairs. Sometimes it was just great to virtually meet really cool people from around the globe, talking about - well - anything. So, I always thought that one day I was going to be a part of this. But since that time three years ago, it seems like blogs have lost a bit of their mystery. I mean, everyone has a blog now, right? And for that reason I almost don't want to create one. But I had to. So there it is, my reason number 1.

Reason number 2 is more pedestrian. Sometimes I see something and I just have to put my two cents in, and what better way to do it than to publish and spare my friends and family the unwilling receipt of my rantings..... I think my rantings are going to look better in print than they sound coming out of my mouth. Well - let me know!

I am not sure that I have an awful lot to offer the blogosphere right now. But there are times when I do have something to say that you might (just maybe!) find worth hearing. I am conscious that there are many people who live where I live and who do what I do who blog endlessly about the same things, and I don't want to be like that. If I do become like that, shoot me (or even better, just hack into my site and bring it down). I've even thought about having one blog just to talk about Israel and another for everything else. We will see.

I prefer a bit of mystery for the time being, so I'm only going to give you the basics about myself.

Name : anotheranglo
Highest Rank Ever Received: lance-corporal
Serial Number: *********
Lives: Jerusalem, Israel (yes, Jerusalem is in Israel, you f****** Guardian-reading scum)

That's it for now. Tomorrow I'm off to the denist for a root canal, so I'll probably post some more then when I'm sitting here like a bear with a sore head.