Happy Birthday
Singer Gerry Marsden (Gerry and the Pacemakers) is 60 today.


Forgive me for this sacrilegious link, R.T.

It may not be as easy as some expect
Richard Cohen in the Washington Post suggests that Iraqis do not wish to be liberated from Saddam Hussein just as Germans did not wish to be liberated from Adolf Hitler (contrary to what Condoleeza Rice suggested recently).

China = Israel?
I used to see myself as a supporter of the Tibetan cause. I flew the flag of Free Tibet on my car bumper, joined IFTIP (Israeli Friends of the Tibetan People) and went to see the Dalai Lama speak when he last visited Israel.

Then, some time ago, I saw a program about China, on Israeli TV, in which an academic expert on China said a few words about the Chinese side of the Tibet issue. It was very eye opening. I suddenly realized that I knew far too little about the conflict and all my information came from one side.

I have noticed that many claims pro-Palestinians regularly make about what Israel does to the Palestinians are very similar to atrocities I’ve heard and read that are ascribed to China with regard to Tibet. I’m talking about claims such as using the territories as a toxic waste dump, ethnic cleansing, unrelenting racist discrimination, indiscriminate murder of innocents and so on. You know the score. It is all suspiciously similar to what they’re saying about China and Tibet. And it’s more or less the same sort of people who are saying these things in both cases.

I know China is a very different kind of country, which still propagates its ideologies forcefully, and puts people who think differently in prison. Therefore China cannot really be compared to Israel.

I think Tibet should have freedom, just as I believe the Palestinians should have a state, when they can prove themselves trustworthy. But I have begun to wonder if the Chinese are really as wicked as they are made out to be, with regard to Tibet.

Advertisement on half a page in the printed version of Haaretz, yesterday (made out to look like a mourning notice):
THE SAME FINGER ON THE SAME TRIGGER: THOSE WHO ELIMINATED YITSHAK RABIN ARE NOW ELIMINATING YASSER ARAFAT
(signed) GUSH SHALOM

I didn't get it, so I popped into the Gush Shalom website. There it is explained graphically so even stupids like me can understand:


Now all is clear.

But you can't beat terrorism by force
Ynet says that during the demonstrations in Beit Jalla on Saturday night, one of the demonstrators shot about 20 bullets towards the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. I remember reading, that night, that Gilo residents could hear gunfire. Israel apparently warned the Palestinians that if the shooting did not cease, Israel would re-enter Beit Jalla. This was not necessary. It seems dozens of the shooter's neighbors gave him a good beating!

I knew it!
Update on the John Pilger wishful-thinking-becomes-history documentary. Nelson Ascher from Paris was kind enough to enlighten me: "There's another Pilger article in today's Guardian. There he tells who is the Israeli historian he was talking about. Guess who else could he be: Illan Pappe". Why am I not surprised? Well, because that's exactly who I thought it must be, but was too timid to say. Distinguished historian indeed. Not in Israel, well maybe in Beer-Sheva University (Some of the political scientists there are real fruitcakes. Maybe the desert sun addled their brains). These days I mainly read Pappe's articles in Arab papers. Well, I don't actually read them. Waste of time. Reading Pappe is a bit like reading those newspapers you get in supermarkets that have headlines like: "I married an alien, our daughter flew off in a spaceship".

By the way, John Pilger has his very own website. He doesn't seem to have an e-mail. I wonder why.

Yasmin Abu Ramila
Last night, on TV, they showed Yasmin Abu Ramila, the Palestinian East Jerusalem little girl who got terrorist victim Yoni Jesner’s kidney. What a sweet little girl. They said she was born without kidneys. Can you imagine what life must be for such a child? She’s older than my youngest, but looks much younger. You should have seen her mother’s face. So happy.

Palestinians and Al-Qaeda trained by Iraqi intelligence, in Iraq
The Shin Bet has revealed that last month it apprehended three Palestinian terrorists that had been trained in Iraq, along with Al-Qaeda operatives, by the Iraqi intelligence service. (Ynet)

Brave kid
The caller who tipped off the police last week about the terrorist in the bus stop at Umm Al-Fakhm junction was an Israeli Arab. His call prevented the terrorist from getting on a bus and maybe killing tens of innocents. As it happened, policeman Moshe Hezkiya was killed and the 17 year-old caller, Rami Mahmid, was critically injured. He showed great courage by asking the terrorist for his cell phone in order to call a friend. He actually called the police with the terrorist’s own cell phone! I wish him a full recovery.

John Pilger rewrites Middle Eastern history to suit his politics, in a British ITV documentary, said to be not only violently biased against Israel and one-sided, but full of false facts and innuendoes. The documentary was sensitively aired a few hours after the end of Yom Kippur, so that British Jews, just having been hopefully forgiven for their sins, were provoked into beginning the new year by sinning before God "by profanation of thy name" and "by impurity of the lips". The network’s chairman, Michael Green, was not amused. Neither was the Israeli embassy.

Just so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings of his imaginative version of events, Pilger also published an article in the UK Mirror saying, among other things that “Shortly after it was founded in 1948, Israel controlled, mostly as a result of a United Nations partition and partly by force, a total of 78 per cent of historic Palestine”. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the world: We are really really really sorry we fought back, when attacked by five regular armies. This was certainly inexcusable violence and we’re so sorry and ashamed we’ve all decided to leave, en masse, right now, all five and a half million of us. We’ve decided Golders Green is a much nicer place to live. See you soon!

“The Palestinian suicide bombers and their mass murder of innocents have hardened Israeli public opinion, but what is seldom reported is that they are a relatively recent phenomenon”. Oh, right, my policeman friend who still has nightmares of the body parts he encountered strewn all over Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv back in 1994 just has an active imagination.

He says that "Nine-tenths of Palestinians killed by the Israelis are civilians; 45 per cent are teenagers and children". this si a particularly wicked distortion. By saying civilians, he obviously means people who do not recieve a salary from any Palestinian security forces, because according to this ICT analysis "Over 50 percent of the Palestinians killed were actively involved in fighting - and this does not include stone-throwers or "unknowns"". And according to the same ICT analysis, 37% of the Palestinian victims were under twenty years old (not 45%). It is reasonable to assume that many Palestinian combatants would be between the ages of 17 and 19, isn’t it? Throwing the statistics for the over-17’s in with the little kiddies is a rather obvious distortion. If you take into account that the percentage of Palestinian female victims, including female children is extremely low, you can see that this was no indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, as Pilger falsely claims.

I couldn’t read it all. Too aggravating.

Pilger , by the way, is adamant that the documentary is completely accurate: "Our historical adviser was one of Israel's most distinguished historians”. The article doesn’t elaborate. Hmmm, I wonder who it could be.

Gil Shterzer has found an excellent Israeli blog called "Mideast: On Target", which offers very interesting commentary about the situation.

From yesterday's posts: "The quiet of the past weeks is also in the ear of the listener. Reported, but not emphasized, have been almost daily mortar and rocket attacks in Gaza as well as frequent shootings in both the West Bank and Gaza. As long as few Israelis were dying, it was deemed peaceful.

The attacks of the past few days are the result of a number of factors, bad luck being the first. Second, the shock of the IDF successes of the past months is wearing off and the terrorists are adapting to the new reality of IDF presence in the territories. Simultaneously, for the soldiers of the IDF the action of the first weeks of the operation is slipping into the danger of routine, as it is impossible to remain "alert" in perpetuity.

Last but not least, the terrorist organizations are hard-pressed to show the Palestinian population that they have not been destroyed by the IDF activity, and as a result are stepping up their attempts, understanding that at this stage quantity is more important than quality: we are likely to see a surge of poorly prepared attempts, most of which (like 99+%) will fail, but an occasional one will get through. With tragic results".

One of Gil's readers, Haggai, comments that he "started checking that site earlier this year after seeing a great talk by Elliot Chodoff" one of the contributors to the blog "about terrorism. As a prime example of how terrorists have been hoodwinking the world for decades, he explained how only one country was accused of violating international law after the Entebbe raid. No accusations were made against the various states who sponsored the terrorists, and none were made against Libya and Uganda for having allowed the hijackers to land the plane on their soil--the only country which technically violated any existing law was Israel, which of course landed in Uganda without permission to rescue the hostages!"

Where is Fred Lapides getting all these anti-Palestinian cartoons? Do you think he’s had them commissioned specially? Maybe he rubbed out Sharon and pasted in Arafat’s equally ugly mug.

Could there actually be people out there who dislike Arafat AND have a sense of humor?

Prices of flour and bread going up again.

It looks like Tawfiq Tirawi won’t win any popularity contests in the West Bank
This morning I heard someone (sorry, I was driving, I didn’t catch who it was), on Israel radio’s Reshet Bet, explaining why Palestinians won’t be very sorry if Israel gets its hands on West Bank general intelligence chief, Tawfiq Tirawi, currently holed up with Arafat. Besides his involvement in terrorist attacks against Israelis, he’s also known to be responsible for the murders without trial (following horrific torture) of many Palestinians suspected of being land merchants and collaborators. The guy on Reshet Bet radio said he also ran a particularly violent protection racket, and established a network of brothels in refugee camps, enticing local young women to work in them.

Not a very nice man.

More Israeli inhumanity: Palestinian terrorism victim's kidney was transplanted in a Palestinian child from East Jerusalem.
From Israeli Guy: "The family of 19 year old Scottish yeshiva student Yoni Jesner, who was murdered in Thursday’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, donated his organs to be transplanted. Yoni’s kidney was transplanted by Israeli doctors in 7 year old Yasmin Abu Ramila, a Palestinian from the village Akeb in East Jerusalem. Story from Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, I wonder if it will be mentioned by any foreign media".

Life-prolonging machines are not necessarily enemies
In another follow-up of the Haaretz article about the Steinberg public commission on the treatment of terminally ill patients, that I linked to, an Israeli sufferer of Lou Gehrig’s disease describes how a respiratory device has enriched his life for the last three years. He says that prior to his being put on the respirator, he had hinted to his family that, when the time came, he would prefer not to be put on such a machine. He now says that his three years on the respirator have been the most beautiful and productive of his life.

Once again, Israel single-handedly prevents ever-lasting world peace from spontaneously coming into being
Suddenly, Abu Mazen was just about to be appointed Palestinian prime minister. Funny how we only ever hear about these initiatives after they have been rendered unfeasible by Israeli activities.

France appeals to Israel not to harm Arafat
I think we should look out for Arafat’s safety just as much as France looks out for Israel’s safety.

Stephen F. Hayes pours light on the Scott Ritter affair in the Wall Street Journal. It seems he sold out for less than half a million dollars. What a fool.

"Arafat: Sharon wants to kill me"
Right! Him and another few million Israelis!

OK, that’s it for me. Whatever happens, I’ll have to learn about it tomorrow morning.
According to Ynet (Hebrew link) there have been clashes this evening in Ramallah, Nablus and Tulkarm between Israeli soldiers and tens of Palestinian demonstrators who wished to show solidarity with Arafat. Palestinians claim that soldiers shot tear gas and bullets in the center of Ramallah to keep demonstrators from reaching Arafat’s compound.

Big excitements in the Arafat compound
Ten minutes ago loudspeakers told everyone to get out of the compound and surrounding buildings. It seems they mean to blast something. I really have to get to bed but I can't miss this.

How’s this for gross distortion?
Someone called Mike Carlton in some Australian paper called The Sydney Morning Herald: “Last year, survivors of Sabra and Shatila charged Sharon with war crimes before a court in Belgium, where the law would allow him to be prosecuted for such things. Surprise, surprise, in January this year the chief witness against him, the former Christian militia intelligence chief Elie Hobeika, was killed by a car bomb. The Belgians then dumped the case on a technicality.”

Reading this passage, it looks like there is a direct connection between Hobeika’s death and the Belgians’ throwing out the Sharon case on a technicality. There is, of course, no connection, whatsoever.

Moreover, the uninitiated would think Hobeika was some holy man. Not a word to explain that Hobeika is the actual perpetrator of the massacres and not an innocent bystander.

Neither does this passage leave any doubt that Sharon killed Hobeika, although Hobeika, who, I understand, went on to be a Lebanese cabinet minister after the massacre, among other things, had more enemies who wanted him dead, than I’ve had hot dinners in the last 20 years.

It’s not clear how Sharon was meant to have gone about this alleged assassination. I’m not aware of Israeli commando forces or security forces being used for Israeli leaders’ personal vendettas in high-risk operations. This Australian Carlton person must be mistaking us with the Iraqis or something.

Well, Australia is quite a long way away. I suppose we could forgive this person for NOT KNOWING WHAT THE H#LL HE'S TALKING ABOUT.

Lawrence wonders why “they're worried about Arafat's building collapsing and yet are in complete denial that a wall at the "Al Aqsa Mosque" is getting ready to tumble down…”

Is it just me, or has his page become GREY???? And his nose has disappeared too. I can’t start my day without clicking on it. I hope he realizes the whole Israeli civil service is at risk of collapsing too, if he doesn’t get it back there.

Meryl Yourish has something to say about Arafat's little machine-gun. The girl is wicked!

By the way, isn't it funny how Arafat always manages not to be a martyr at the last minute? Of course, he's had about forty years to perfect this ability. Practice makes perfect.

More Vacation
My girls have another week off school for Succot. This used to drive me crazy. I’d just got them settled in school and then I had to start finding “arrangements” for them again. Now that they’re bigger, it’s easier. Also, I only work, half days in “Hol Hamo’ed” myself which helps. “Hol Hamo’ed” is sort of a festival weekday.

The festival of Succot continues all week, but, if you are religious, you can work and cook and travel and everything on “Hol Hamo’ed”. The First day and the last day are full fledged "Hag", more or less like Shabbat, but not exactly. I think in the Diaspora it’s two “holy days” at the beginning and two at the end. I really can’t be bothered explaining that one.

When the Temple was standing in Jerusalem (you know, the one that used to stand on the Temple Mount that the Muslims say we have no historical or religious connection to, although they weren’t around till a long time afterwards, so how would they know, exactly?) this was pilgrimage time, one of three a year.

Comparing the incomparable.
Unlike the Palestinians, the great majority of Jews, in the latter years of British mandate Palestine, would not tolerate terrorism. Haaretz’ Hebrew version has an article, this weekend, giving an account of the controversy over the question of how, in February 1942, the British discovered the whereabouts of the Lehi organization’s mythical leader, Avraham “Yair” Stern. This discovery led to his being shot, apparently in cold blood. The article mentions that “Yair” had difficulty finding anyone prepared to hide him and, for a while, wandered around Tel Aviv with a suitcase containing a folded up mattress, sleeping rough.

Another critical difference between the two peoples was the early Israelis’ wall-to-wall acceptance of the necessity to disperse all independent Jewish militias, once the State of Israel was established. Even though it was in the middle of a terrible war, Ben Gurion wasted no time in dismantling the Palmach (the Haganna’s strike force) and the Etzel and incorporating them into the IDF. This sounds easy enough, but even the breaking up of the Palmach was problematic, although it was a part of the Haganna, the basis of the IDF. Things got really messy when a disagreement over an Etzel shipment of arms, resulted in violence, the IDF opening fire on the weapons ship, “Altalena”, off Israel’s shore, leaving 16 Etzel men and 3 IDF soldiers dead. Hanan Crystal, a top political analyst, once said in a lecture I attended, that this was the nearest Israel has ever been to civil war.

In demanding all military organizations immediately be dissolved into the IDF (The Etzel signed an agreement to this affect on the 1st June, just 15 days after the proclamation of the State), Ben Gurion was making a tough uncompromising stand, against any division of Israeli military force. He spoke of the dangers of the development of “an army within an army”. He obviously saw this as crucial for sovereignty. The development of militias appears to be quite natural in young countries that don’t have strong central governments or established governmental norms. The best example in this area is, of course, Lebanon.

It seems to me that the Palestinians would have been better off with some “Altalena”s of their own, right from the start. Was this not a basic premise of the Oslo accords? Only it didn’t happen, did it? Not only is Arafat no Ben Gurion. (Is that a crazy understatement, or what?), but, unlike the new Israelis of 1948, the Palestinian people themselves appear unable to grasp this idea.

Anticipating possible comments, although readers who disagree with me (Hi, Cynical Joe) are either few and far between, or thankfully take pity on me and refrain from attacking me on my comments: Whatever Israel-haters may say, Jewish terrorists are still NOT accepted among the great majority of Israelis.

Israeli Arabs miss the point.
How sad.

Women in Egypt
A woman who bravely stood up to Egyptian patriarchal society wrote this book, reviewed in this week’s Haaretz’ book supplement. In the book she tells the story of another such woman, who was executed in 1974 for murder.

The review, caught my eye because the translator from Arabic into Hebrew seems to be my very impressive and rather intimidating Arabic teacher during my last two years in high school. I have her alone to thank for my surprisingly good result in my Arabic matriculation exam. After what she put us through, the exam was child’s play!

In spite of her inspiration, I regrettably failed to continue with Arabic (too lazy), although some basic knowledge is still there. I had planned to start a course in spoken Arabic this year, but blogging and other things have diverted me.

"And I name this war:

______________________________". (Fill in the name of your choice, please use capital letters)
Why don’t we have a name for this war? Have we really accepted the Palestinian misnomer? The Jerusalem Post enlists some help in trying to find a more suitable name.

Ehud Yaari suggests The Sixth War, which he says is what the Hizbullah is calling it. While accurate and acceptable by all because it is non-political, it will be confused with the Six Day War. Not a good idea. Some twerps want it called “the War for a Palestinian Land”, which is tripe because they were offered their land and turned it down. A thought provoking name by writer A.B. Yehoshua is “War of the Borders”. Also inaccurate, but interesting. Other options are “The Oslo War”, “The Camp David War”, “The War Against Peace” (This is Sharansky’s effort. Quite amusing.) and so on. Of course the problem in naming the war is that not everyone sees this war in the same way.

The official name of the Lebanon war was “Operation Peace for Galilee” but most people just call it the Lebanon war. The official name was never very popular.

I find less and less people I talk to are calling it “The Intifada”. People are calling it “This War”. Seeing as this is the case, there probably won’t be an acceptable, popular name for this war until it becomes “That War”, and people will find a way to distinguish it from other wars. Maybe the end of the war will give it a name, when we see where it is leading us. In the long run, we may look back and call this “The War Against Terrorism”, but that depends on the outcome.

It would be great to have a nice catchy name that would unite us all, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. I hope it doesn’t end up with a name like “The Thirty Year War”, although maybe “The Hundred Year War” wouldn’t be so inappropriate.

Hebrew link:
”About 50 thousand people at a conference of the Islamic movement in Umm El-Fakhm.
The main message: Israel’s policy endangers the existence of the El-Aksa mosque.

… The conference opened with a minute of silence in memory of the “victims of the Israeli occupation” …"

You will remember that Umm El-Fakhm is the Israeli Arab town where a suicide bombing took place the day before yesterday. Besides Moshe Hezkiya, the policeman that was killed, an Umm El-Fakhm townsman was severely injured. The article doesn't say if the Islamic movement saw fit to mention that occurrence.

Hag Same'ach (Happy Succot holiday) and Shabat Shalom!

The IDF is knocking down buildings in Arafat’s compound. He’s been calling up all his old pals asking for help (The French, of course, and … er… the Egyptians. I think the French are a better bet – Mubarak just loooooves Arafat).

For what it’s worth, someone called Ivgi, posting on an Israeli forum, has the report that they’ve knocked down all the gates and buildings in the compound and the bridge connecting between the building Arafat lives in and the building that houses his offices. Those are the two sole remaining buildings. I wonder which building he’s in. Does he get to sleep on the bed or on the table? Maybe he’s got a fold-up bed in his office? Drat.

But Israel is the wicked one
The Shin Bet foiled Islamic Jihad plans to poison the water in a Jerusalem hospital. The plan was to exploit Israeli humanitarian efforts. A young Gazan obtained a pass to enter Israel in order to go for treatment in the hospital.

Thus the brave Palestinian freedom fighters make use of the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of racist Israel that regularly implements Nazi tactics to ethnically cleanse Palestinian innocents.

Its compassion.

There are so many of these mega-attacks being foiled all the time. I wonder how long before one slips through.

Go read Ribbity about what Al-Jazeera has been saying.

They cry and cry how cruel the curfew is, how terrible their suffering is, how wicked the Israelis are for doing this to them. We hear how Palestinians have begun to understand that violence is not the way, how they dislike Arafat, how they want to change their leadership, how ripe they are for democracy.

So we take pity on them and lift the curfew. And hours later they’re at it again. Sending suicidal murderers to murder our old ladies and babies. Laughing at our pity for them, mocking our compassion.

And this happens again and again and again.

I see tanks have entered Arafat’s compound. I don’t think I should write what I would like them to do to him right now.

At one o'clock police cars and ambulances started racing past my workplace. There was no doubt what it was. Five dead, 60 injured (10 of them seriously, one fatally) in a suicide bombing of a no. 4 bus in the center of Tel Aviv on one of the busiest main streets.

Umm El-Fakhm
The 21 year-old policeman Moshe Hezkiya was answering a call about a suspicious person at the bus stop in Umm El-Fakhm. The terrorist was waiting for the bus. When the police car arrived he walked up to it, said a few words and blew himself up. So in effect, someone's vigilance, and the police's fast response prevented a suicide attack which would probably have killed tens. Moshe Hezkiya saved all those lives with his own.

Why does this sound familiar?
A former weapons inspector to Iraq remembers:

“Iraq, faced with incontrovertible evidence that it was lying, would amend its declarations to take into account any new evidence. We would analyse their new declarations, and find them to be new lies. We would gather information from other sources, such as Iraq's former suppliers, to prove that Iraq was still lying. Iraq would again admit that it had not told the whole truth, and make a new declaration. Each of these declarations turned out to be just a new lie. With each iteration, Iraq would promise a new chapter of full cooperation, similar to its current promise of unconditional access to inspectors”.

I can’t believe the Guardian ran this. They didn’t let the facts confuse them though. The rest of the edition is as misinformed as usual.

Fred Lapides found me this treasure of Israeli artists.

This is by Moshe Hoffman

A suicide attack
A man walked up to a police car at a bus stop in Umm El-Fakhem junction and blew himself up. One person was killed besides the killer and three others were injured.

Update: The man killed was a policeman, as is one of the wounded.

Another Israeli killed, this time by Palestinian gunmen in the north of the West bank.

The Miami Herald does have time for speaking to Israelis. They spoke to this man who lost his wife in the 1994 suicide mass murder on the #5 bus in Tel Aviv. I ride this bus line a lot and always think of that attack. In those days, Israel TV didn't edit the pictures shown of terrorist attacks and the pictures we saw of that particular attack were of the kind that you can never forget.

On one condition…
It turns out there is a condition for the unconditional access promised the UN inspectors by Iraq, after all.

Arab Israeli leaders continue to alienate themselves and the people they represent from mainstream Israeli society.

Blocking roads is not the way into people’s hearts
There has been public uproar for the last year or so at the plight of ex-navy divers from an elite commando who until recently practiced diving in the polluted Kishon River near Haifa. Their commanders believed the murky waters were a good simulation of seawater in busy ports. At least 20 of these unfortunate men have contracted cancer and some have died of the illness. The sick veterans and about 35 fishermen who used to fish in the river and also contracted cancer are conducting legal battles: The commando veterans want their illness recognized as resulting from their army service and the fisherman on their part are sueing the surrounding factories for illegally pouring cancerous chemicals into the river.

Yesterday Greenpeace nitwits chained themselves to an enormous pipe in the middle of one of the busiest roads in Israel as a plea to discontinue pouring the chemicals into the river, according to Haaretz. According to this Maariv article from the Haifa edition of the paper, there is a plan to pour industrial salts straight into the sea to avoid polluting the river. A Greenpeace report says these salts are really dangerous chemicals that should not be poured into the sea at all.

I ask myself if there wasn’t a less anti-social way of raising public awareness. People already know of the dangers of the pollution, and people care and want it stopped. Why alienate them by behaving like public menaces and blocking a main road? I can think of many ways to bring this back into public attention without disturbing the peace, such as writing letters to newspapers, lobbying local politicians, distributing fliers and stickers, putting up publicity booths in public places, organizing legal demonstrations and taking legal action, to name but a few.

There are some very effective organizations in Israel that lobby about ecological issues, and have launched campaigns on such issues as: The excessive building up of our few beaches and limited open spaces; the construction of a new large highway from the north to the south of the country and other issues that should be debated in any free society.

These Greenpeace attention grabbing tactics may seem cool to activists, but they are hardly the way to make a difference in such an important matter.

According to Israeli radio station Reshet Bet (Hebrew link), Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, instructed the Shin Bet to increase the efforts to apprehend those responsible for recent terrorist attacks believed to have been perpetrated by Jews. In the government meeting today, he is reported to have emphasized the moral severity of such acts and that there is no “good terrorism and bad terrorism”.

The charred body of 67 year-old David Buhbout from Ma’ale Edomim, east of Jerusalem was found this morning in a rubbish dump outside the West Bank village of Al Azaria. He is believed to have been abducted and murdered by Palestinians, when he came to the village to shop for construction materials yesterday. According to Ynet (Hebrew link) his body had signs of severe violence. The police believe he was badly abused for several hours.

Allies
Yossi Klein Halevi, as always, manages to portray Israeli popular sentiment.

“This time, though, Israelis suspect that we may not be nearly as lucky as we were in 1991. This time there may be no dress rehearsal for apocalypse.

Yet ask almost any Israeli Jew--left, right or center--whether the U.S. should attack Hussein, and the answer is unequivocal: The evil must be uprooted

[…]

Those of us who sit on the front line of this imminent war have little patience with the appeasers who urge caution even as Hussein approaches nuclear capability”.

From what I understand, Marwan Barghouti was never exactly as powerful in Palestinian circles as this commentary suggests.

Am I right in assuming that Muslim fundamentalists probably despise Western doves much more than they do the hawks? The hawks at least see them as worthy rivals, whereas the doves perceive them as no more than pathetic, uncivilized paupers, in need of Western protection and charity. How degrading for the heirs of the magnificent Muslim empire of old.

Be'Hatzlacha, R.T., in your new job today.

The Shin Bet has apprehended Muhammad Daoud, 20, a Tanzim operative (affiliated with Arafat's Fatah) who planted 2 bombs a fortnight ago near former prime minister Ehud Barak's home in Kochav Yair. Ehud Barak no longer lives there. This person and his associates would have known this if they read Israeli newspapers, which are obsessed with where Barak and Bibi (Netanyahu) live. The papers aren't interested in where Yitshak Shamir lives, though, which is quite near my home in a very modest apartment.

Ehud Barak is a natural target for tanzim. We are reminded that he is the person who made the Palestinians a more generous offer, than any other Israeli leader in history!

For some reason, the Shin Bet seems to find it harder to apprehend Jewish terrorists, although there probably aren't very many of them.

It’s just not happening
I was in the supermarket about an hour ago. There was no mad rush on the mineral water bottles or on the canned food. Sorry. Obviously just the media trying to heat things up, as usual.

????
A bomb blew up in a school in Yata, South of Hebron today, lightly injuring five eight year-old Palestinian children. This outcome was apparently very lucky because the kids had just gone back into their classrooms after the recess had ended. It’s looking like it could very well have been perpetrated by Jewish terrorists. If this is the case, the police should do everything possible to apprehend these monsters and they should be treated EXACTLY as Palestinian terrorists would be treated. Tal discusses this too.

Who to believe?
The Guardian says oil prices will go up and the Wall Street Journal says oil prices will go down.

I know nothing of such things, but isn’t it amusing to see how conspicuously political views affect economic prophecies?

The Guardian article contradicts itself though. First they say that the last decade was one of miracle growth for the US, and then they say the Gulf War punctured global growth (Wasn’t the Gulf War just eleven years ago? Mustn’t have punctured anything very badly if a year later growth miraculously happened for the US, economic world leader).

The Wall Street Journal puts it best: “Economic forecasting is always a mug's game”.

Captured terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh has been identified as one of the killers of Daniel Pearl.

Less Israelis.
The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele may not have time to talk to wounded Israeli children, but he has plenty of time to be sarcastic about Israeli preparations for the threat of Iraqi scud missiles. “While Iraq's known missile arsenal of a few ageing Scuds poses little danger to Israel, newspapers here have reported western intelligence officials as raising other wild scenarios”. I dearly hope he’s right, but maybe he’d like to contemplate what would be the consequences of just one aging scud missile with one primitive chemical warhead landing in the middle of a highly populated area. Not that he, or anyone else in the Guardian, could give a damn.

Some German kids don’t know how good they’ve got it.
How about we ship them off to Iraq or the PA to see if they like it better?

The UK Guardian at the cutting edge of differentiating between blood and blood, pain and pain.
Jonathan Steele tells the sorry plight of a 15 year-old Palestinian boy who lost his hand, in yesterday’s UK Guardian. When he tried to throw a grenade at Israeli tanks, Israeli soldiers shot him in the hand. Or so he says. It seems more likely to me that the grenade blew up in his hand. Since when are Israelis such fantastic shots that they just slice of a kid’s hands with bullets, and miss the rest of him completely? He’s actually lucky to be alive, but Mr. Steele doesn’t mention that. Neither does he mention that the Rafah houses demolished on the Egyptian border were used for smuggling weapons through underground tunnels.

I’m sorry the kid lost his home and his hand, but you know, we’ve also got our share of juvenile amputees, and not because they were throwing grenades. No. They were brutally enforcing a wicked occupation by riding buses and eating pizzas. They also have to spend months and years of recuperation. Their lives will also never be the same, and their story is no less the story of this war. But you won’t find them on the front news pages of the Guardian.

My heart bleeds
Queen Fadila of Egypt (from reading her bio it seems to me the woman has never set foot in Egypt) is being thrown out of her 2 million pound sterling (what’s that? About $3 million?) apartment on the exclusive Avenue Foch in Paris.

The UK Guardian quotes her as saying "My only income is handouts from Saudi and Moroccan princes and kings. I think there's something very odd about the sale, a sort of plot, if you like. After all, this is really the official residence of Egypt's royal family."

Royal family, my $#%. GET A JOB, you lazy good for nothing!

No pit of snakes for this robot
I say: Call in Harrison Ford!

Here's the same report I gave yesterday about Israeli security officials believing US-Iraq offensive will be before November. This time in English.

Palestinians stoned Jewish worshippers on Yom Kippur. A child was wounded.

CIA started another course to teach Palestinian Authority security officers to fight terrorism.
Yawn.

Saddam buying time.
Allows the inspectors back.

Take a look at Natalie Solent's rape analogy.

I Caused 9/11
A particularly hilarious insignificant thought.

Of course, being Israeli, I have no right to find that post amusing, because I really did cause 9/11.

Ready to roll?
Israeli Reshet Bet radio station announced on Sunday morning, top Israeli security sources evaluation about the timing of the American Iraq offensive. They reportedly say that it is believed by the Israeli security forces that the Iraqi offensive has been moved forward and will begin before November. This was reported by Carmela Menashe, the station’s military reporter. The same reporter interviewed Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, on Sunday morning, as well. The Chief of Staff traditionally gives interviews on the eve of Yom Kippur. Could Yaalon be the “top Israeli security sources”?

So what about this talk of not being ready before December? Bish says disinformation.

All this speculation about when probably seems a bit superfluous to people outside of Israel (who aren’t in the US or British military), but it makes a big difference to us over here for obvious reasons. Like everything else, a lot of Israelis would rather it started “after the hagim” (the religious holidays - meaning after Succot, which ends on the 28th September, this year). Bish speculates that if they want it to be well under way before the month of Ramadan, which starts at the beginning of November, it could be any minute. We must remember he’s been saying this for a while. I think he expected it to start in August. We still have to take the weather into account.

Ehud Yaari update
Ehud Yaari tells of an ongoing debate being held by Islamic scholars about the “advisability, purpose and "rules of engagement" for acquiring atomic, chemical or biological weapons”.

and

With regard to an unwritten agreement between Israeli Defense Minister Ben Eliezer and top Palestinian security officials calling for “an effort by PA Security Services to stop terrorist activity emanating from the district of Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip as a prelude to Israeli military redeployment and withdrawal from other towns seized in the West Bank” there are limited results. Bethlehem is quiet because the IDF has dismantled terrorist networks but the PA isn’t doing anything serious to facilitate this. In Gaza, not only are the PA not doing anything agreed on but “Fatah's military wing, Arafat's loyalists controlled in Gaza by Dahlan and his lieutenants, has taken the lead in terrorist attacks” and Dahlan’s “deputies publicly commended operations by the Popular Resistence Committees as acts of self defence”. Yaari summarizes that “the Intifada may be beginning to die out but it certainly is going to take its time getting there”.

What can we do when trying to be fair and indiscriminate can prove to be deadly?
In the the Jerusalem Report, Hirsch Goodman discusses the dilemma of open-minded Israeli Jews who don’t want Israeli Arabs to be discriminated against, but are afraid to let their kids ride a school bus driven by an Arab.

What, no deserters this time?
According to Haaretz “The director-general of the Defense Ministry, Amos Yaron, believes that there are many advantages to the proposal of Ramat Gan Mayor Zvi Bar to evacuate the residents of the Dan region in the event of an Iraqi ballistic missile attack”.

Arafat influencing Israeli elections?
Yusuf Tarifi, son of top PA official Jamil Tarifi, was released from prison a few days ago after spending the last two months in an Israeli prison. Maariv says he was released because of international pressure. Maariv says they have come by transcripts of his investigation. The transcripts include his confession of weapon deals. Others involved in these deals, from 1995 onwards, were, among others, Muhammad Dahlan and Husam Safi, close to Jibril Rajoub. Israel channel 1 news has already pointed out that these connections were what brought about his release, Israel not wanting them implicated. The Shin bet was opposed to his release, by the way.

According to the transcripts, in 1996 Abu Mazen stored a suitcase with one and a half million dollars in cash, that had come from Arafat, in Tarifi’s house. The suitcase stayed locked in Tarifi’s house and three times 55 year-old Abu Marwan, ambassador to Morrocco, took out a certain amount of money, for which he wrote a receipt. Tarifi told his investigators that he heard that the money was designated for the elections that were being held at that time in Israel. I wonder whom Arafat was backing, because if he was backing Peres he just threw all that money down the drain. What a waste!

I have rejoined the land of the living!
My mother said that her brother (my uncle) heard from a Muslim friend that many Muslims break their Ramadan fast with yoghurt, which lines the stomach and makes eating again easier. So I tried it and it seems to have worked. So now my stomach is lined with yoghurt and full of other yummy stuff, and I don't feel bad at all. You often feel bad after breaking the fast. The fast itself wasn't too bad for me, but Bish had it rough. He spent most of Yom Kippur racing on a scooter after our youngest who was riding her bike (a favorite pastime for secular kids is roaming the empty streets on their bikes). It was a really hot day. He come back looking like he'd just stepped out of the shower!

Just one more thing
Our Anna Smashnova beat Anna Kournikova in the final of the Shanghai Open!

Now I will go and prepare myself for self-inflicted starvation.
I must be out of my mind.

From the erev Yom Kippur evening service*
“Hear us, O lord, and we shall be healed, save us and we shall be saved; for thou are our praise. And bring perfect healing to all our wounds, for thou, Almighty King, art a faithful and merciful healer. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who healest the sick of thy people Israel.”

*From the Yom Kippur prayer book, Hebrew Publishing Co., New York, USA, 1931.

Another war.
This Yom Kippur is the 29th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Newspapers always have stories and memories. I find it hard to read them. I always think of the Yom Kippur War as “that horrible war” and I steer clear. I must have internalized the collective trauma of that war pretty well. Last year I forced myself to read some of the stories in the papers, and I’ve been trying this year too. On Friday, I heard a soldier, wounded in that war in a terrible battle on the Golan Heights, telling his story on the radio.

As child, I think I sensed what a heavy shadow the Yom Kippur war cast on Israeli society. There were the visible effects, of course. A boy in my class had lost his father and occasionally let loose in the classroom; one of our sports teachers had no arm; a distant cousin behaved strangely. But it wasn’t just. Was it the shock of the surprise attack? Or the stories of terrible bloody battles? I guess it was all that at first, but later on, when the truth of the foul-up started to come out, it was mainly the insecurity in knowing that the powers that be could make such a colossal miscalculation, with such horrible consequences.

You have to spend at least one Yom Kippur in Israel to even begin to understand what it was like. I live in a central part of Tel Aviv on a main street. There are always cars and people and bustle and noise. I couldn’t sleep the first night we moved in, for the noise. But even here, Yom Kippur is completely silent. Everything shuts down. No one drives on Yom Kippur. The only cars are ambulances and police cars, and even they are few and far between.

Can you imagine the shock of an air-raid siren piercing that silence? I wasn’t in Israel that Yom Kippur, so I can only imagine that experience. Bish said they realized something bad was happening even before the siren, because suddenly fighter airplanes were flying over-head. And then the phone rang. They were a religious family. Normally no one would have dreamt of calling them on Yom Kippur. Nor would they have dreamt of picking up.

That war inspired a lot of popular songs, at the time. In one of them a father promises his little girl that this will be the last war. That song always brings tears to my eyes.

Dear Mummy,
I’m told that “HaYamim HaNora’im” (“The Terrible Days”: Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and the days in between) are the time to ask forgiveness of those I have wronged.

The other day while I was dealing, unskillfully as usual, with a very angry you-know-who, I suddenly realized that what I was seeing before me was a mirror of myself as a child. Only I was much worse.

I was a real horror, wasn’t I?
I was angry, bad tempered and rebellious; I was selfish and inconsiderate; I was lazy, messy * (how’s that for starters?). You didn’t see much “nakhus” from me at all. And through it all you were tireless, stable, patient, sensitive, warm and caring. And you made the best sandwiches ever.

And I didn’t appreciate your efforts at all.

I ask myself how you could have suffered such a disagreeable child.

Now I’m a mother myself. I know we mothers can take quite a lot from our offspring, and still feel oceans of tenderness for them.

Luckily for me, you are still all the above and more, and now I can appreciate it.

I love you, Mummy. I’m sorry I was such a brat and gave you such a hard time. I hope I’m managing to make up for it a bit.

--------------------------------
* If you ask Bish he’ll probably say I still am most of those things listed above.

For Yom Kippur: Food!
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is all for family meals.
He points to the unhealthy aspect of the untimely demise of such meals in modern life, in the face of microwave snacks and fast food ate alone and while doing other things. But he’s optimistic (I like optimists. People are forever dwelling on prophecies of doom are so off-putting). He sees meals as a popular social activity and thinks they’ll be back (Well, they haven’t completely gone have they? I just ate one with my family). He realistically points out that we don’t have to go to the extremes of eating raw foods. He says we can make fast preparation foods work for us by using them to make family meals easier to orchestrate (Great! I don’t have to feel guilty anymore about feeding my daughters food out of packages). I must get this guy’s book. I wrote about it, remember? Yes, so do I, but I can’t find it.

A Dutch plane heading for Tel Aviv from Amsterdam had to land an emergency landing in Bucharest this morning after a letter was found on the plane warning that a bomb had been planted on the plane. The plane was checked but nothing was found. All the passengers continued to Israel on the regular El Al flight from Bucharest to Tel Aviv.

I’ve hit the big time
Josh Kraushaar has put me on his list of “big time blogs”. Oysh, now I feel like a fraud. I’d be much more comfortable on a list of “small fry blogs”.

Thanks, Josh.

The municipal cultural center building in Gaza City is hosting a pro-Saddam Hussein rally. Attendees have the pleasure of walking all over the US flag.

Via Inner Space (Hebrew blog).

Stocking up for the war
According to Maariv, mineral water sales are up thirty percent in Israel and sales of canned foods are up twenty percent. A friend went to our local gas mask distribution center last week and had to queue up for quite a while. She asked the soldiers there when was the best time to come and they said between two and four in the afternoon (in case you need to go).

But maybe there’s no hurry. The London Telegraph (registration required) said yesterday that the 30,000 British troops planned to take part in the attack on Iraq will only begin deployment after the debate in the British Parliament on the 24th September, and it will take at least three months for their tanks to get there. Today British officials told the Telegraph that December would be the most likely time for military operations to begin, because of the weather.

I got an e-mail from an American seventh-grader, who asked me if I could help her with her school project which entailed describing a typical day-in-the-life of an Israeli teenager. My daughters are pre-teen so I asked someone I know to help out. This is his letter:
(Names have been changed for the sake of privacy)

Dear ------,
My name is Gal. I am a 14 year old Israeli boy. I live in Tel Aviv in an apartment with my mom, dad, 16 year old brother Alon, Moggy the dog and Suzy the cat.

My day starts at 7.30 when my mom wakes me for school, school is usually from 8.15- 13.40 -6 days a week - thats right poor me we have to go to school from Sunday to Friday.

My school is a big public school, there are no private schools in Israel. There are about 2000 pupils and it is 5 minutes walking distance from my home.

We are 40 kids in the class and I suffer least in English and sciences lessons.

After school finishes I come home for lunch. Do some homework if absolutely necessary and then at about 4 pm I meet up with my friends.

We go skateboarding or hang out at each others houses playing computer games and making home made movies.

Twice a week on Saturday and Tuesday I go to the scouts. I have been going to the scouts since 4th grade and this year I will do a leader's course. So that next year I will become a leader.

Once a week usually Friday afternoon 6 of my friends play Dungeons & Dragons. I am the Dungeon Master and have to prepare the adventure for a 4 hour game.

Friday night is the only night I can stay out till late although I am always arguing with my parents because they only let me stay out till 1 am. Usually we go round to a friends house to watch a movie and order in a pizza. Other times we go to the local park and hang out.

My parents don't like me going to the malls or out of our neighborhood as there is a danger of terrorists blowing up these places. I used to be allowed to go to markets and downtown. There was never any problem of safety as Israel was always very safe to travel round even at night and even in the downtown areas. Although things are quieter now, I always go out with a cellular phone and my mother likes to know where I am all the time. So I have to call in whenever I move position - rather like living with a homing device on you. I suppose that I can understand her. If there was a danger of suicide bombers detonating in your town at any moment your mom would probably like to know where you are as well.

Gal

Terrorists are coming out of the woodwork all over the place.

I made the pita for lunch with a bit of oil, this time. It's much better like that. Oh, and I made the famous lentil soup. It turned out really good (even if I say so myself). I haven't forgotten that I owe you the recipe.

Wolfie’s comment about Netanyahu made me think of the tragedy of egotism. The perfect government for Israel right now would have Sharon as Prime Minister, Bibi (Netanyahu) as Foreign Minister and Ehud Barak as Defense Minister. But both Barak and Bibi would probably find it demeaning.

Please note that my parents are arriving for lunch in two and a half hours and I haven't even started cooking, yet. Oh, I put the rice in water to soak. That's a start.

Meryl Yourish takes on Nigerian Spam letters
She mustn't be getting enough mail if she's still reading these things. On the other hand, now I know she reads any old garbage she gets sent, maybe I'll send her a line, too.

Guess what? They stopped sending me those things (Nigerian spam...) maybe they saw I wasn't responding and they were offended? I stopped getting KLEZ twenty times a day, too. Yesterday was Friday the 13th. Wasn't that the day KLEZ should have been activated or something?

Update: Someone said something that made me realize Meryl might find what I've just said offensive. This was not my intention at all. I LOVED the post about the spam letter. Forgive me for being a bit crude. Please? With Yom Kippur coming up, I really need to be forgiven, ASAP.

So which was it?
Bernard Lewis or Gerald Durrell? The new and exciting, or the familiar and homey? Which book did I pick up and read last night before dropping off?

Guess.

I’m practicing my battle tactics. I plan to tackle Saddam single handedly armed with the most dangerous weapon of mass destruction of all: Curiosity. Bibi did say on Thursday that Saddam’s a cat to our mouse. And we all know what killed the cat.

Or was it Arafat he said that about? I'll have to be careful with my new weapon. It could turn out to be a two-sided sword.

I never thought I’d be saying this
I might not be able to stand him, personally, but Bibi (Binyamin Netanyahu) was masterful in the US House Government Reform Committee on Thursday. Here’s a link to the whole thing, all three hours of it. Bish and I saw/heard it tonight. I admit I nodded off, during some of the questions and answers, and he seemed to be getting tired towards the end of the questions and answers, but this was a great performance, no doubt about it. Those Palestinian hooligans knew why they were taking extreme methods to shut him up in Montreal. The man talks sense and he sure can talk.

Nikita, on Gil's comments:
"Did you know that Syria, a country on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terror, sits on the UN security council (actually had its rotating chairmanship too) and that while the US is excluded from the UN Commission on Human Rights, countries with the horrific human rights records of Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Sierra Leone serve on it and Libya is to chair it? Gadaffi's one-year term begins next March.

Did you know that Israel is the only U.N. member state excluded from a regional group within the overall body of the UN, and as a result, Israel cannot sit on the Security Council or other key committees?

Did you know that of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel, and of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel? The UN has convened emergency session after session to condemn Israel. As Israeli Ambassador Pazner said, "No such session has ever been convened with respect to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the slaughters in Rwanda, the disappearances in Zaire or the horrors of Bosnia. Israel is a democracy. It is ludicrous to suggest, as the U.N. has, that Israel is a worse abuser of human rights than Iraq or Syria."

SHAME on the U.N. And shame on the European states, dependent on Gulf oil and afraid of their Muslim immigrant populations, for their eagerness to condemn Israel. It smells bad. It smells really bad, and brings back strong memories".

Reading books
Jen’s brewing blog is so nice and comfy, it's like coming home at the end of a long cold day and sinking into a favorite chair.

A few days ago, there was a lovely post over at Jen’s about going back and reading books you read as a child. The post had a nice comment thread, too. I was reminded that a well-known Israeli editor of quality children’s books once said in an interview that he never reads books written for adults because children’s books are so much more optimistic.

Jen’s post and the comments made me nostalgic for books I haven’t read for a while, such as Gerald Durrell’s wonderful ”My Family and Other Animals”, although I actually read it first as an adult. The only thing is I think I’ve got it in English somewhere but I can’t find it. I’ve got our Hebrew copy handy, but I dislike reading books written originally in English in Hebrew translation and vice versa, because I’m forever trying to translate it back, in my mind.

I don’t have time to read books at all, any more. Not long ago, I cleared the pile of books that had amassed by my bed and put them all back on their shelves. Now there’s a new pile growing ever higher. I’ll probably tidy it back on the shelf unread, eventually. You understand these are all books I really want to read. I’m a slow reader, and blogging means I’m reading more news than is healthy, but no books. Books are relegated to the minutes before I drop off to sleep at night. So I never read more than a few sentences a day.

Optimistic books are so good for you, I think. I read anything of Jane Austin’s I can get my hands on, over and over again. Say what you like, beside them being a joy to read, the heroine always gets her guy, and they always live happily ever after. And I love murder mysteries. They are often just as optimistic as children’s books. They may be gory, sometimes, but the good guys always solve the case and catch the bad guys. I’m just hooked on that catharsis at the end, what can I say?

Oh, I get my share of “good” literature, and I usually make my way through quite a lot of non-fiction. But there’s nothing I love more than curling up with an old familiar favorite. So I think I’ll go to bed now, and read another two sentences on the first page of “My Family and Other Animals” in Hebrew, before I drop off.

Or should I read the first few sentences of “What Went Wrong?” by Bernard Lewis that my parents bought me as a Rosh Hashana gift? Decisions, decisions.

Maybe I should just go to sleep? I can never remember which two sentences I read the night before, anyway, so I end up reading them again and again.

Fasting
It looks like it’s going to be very hot on Yom Kippur. So what’s new? It’s always hot on Yom Kippur, to give the fasters a hard time, and it always rains on Purim to ruin the kids’ fancy-dress costumes. Aren’t I the optimist? Anyway, here are some tips for suitable food before and after fasting.

A confession: I’m thinking of fasting this year. I haven’t fasted for 15 years. OK, now I’ve had it. I’m never going to be able to live this down. It’s not that I’m getting religion or anything. Just a bit of Jewishness, long denied, creeping in.

This is a nice story
A Jewish mother makes sure her soldier son and his colleagues have enough to eat, and is helped out by half the town. I didn’t really understand why they weren’t getting any food from the army, but that’s beside the point.

Food poisoning
Maariv’s Gail Hareven (Hebrew link) says we shouldn’t get hysterical about being poisoned in restaurants by terrorist chefs. She reminds us that statistically, women have a far higher chance of being victims of violence in the home (she says its one in seven), than of being poisoned by a terrorist, but this doesn’t stop women from being in contact with men. This is a ridiculous analogy, of course, even if the point she’s trying to make is correct. Jewish women, even most ultra-religious women these days, from what I hear, have a chance to get to know the man they’re bringing into their lives. I’m sure if I could really get to know the chef in every restaurant and meet his or her parents, I’d feel much better about eating his or her food (even without the fear of terrorism).

There are still only 487 combatant refuseniks who have signed the “letter” anouncing their refusal to serve in the territories, only one or two additional signers a week.

Six weeks without a (successful) terrorist attack inside the green line, thanks to the hard work and perseverance of the security forces.

A kassam rocket fell into someone's kitchen this evening
in a Western Negev town. That's inside the green line if you were wondering. Luckily, the inhabitants were out. So much for a lull in terrorist activities.

Let us not forget that force is not the answer to terrorism. Hey there's a lull, let's get talking.

OK, OK. I know interesting things are happening in the PA. Here's one link (Amira Hass in Haaretz), and here's another (Jerusalem Post).

Israel TV channel two news just announced that the pumping from the Snir (Hatzbani) River by Lebanon is not intended just for local use as was previously believed. The water pumped is to be sent further north, where the Lebanese have the large Litani River and have no need for extra water. If this is true, it can only be seen as a provocation, and certainly not an attempt to answer a local need. I didn't catch the source of this update, but it was backed up with a video of a tractor busy filling in the river with dirt (so as to divert it into the pipes).

Meryl Yourish knows what to do with flag poles
Nazis and anti-Nazis - they all hate Israel equally. These people all seem so full of hate.

Poor Saudi kids won't get to read Harry Potter. Not that it's so surprising.

Bush's model niece would rather not hit the catwalk wearing Arab-style fashion, thank you very much.

Tent City
Yediot Aharonot (Hebrew link) says Ramat Gan mayor Tzvi Bar has organized an evacuation plan in the event of an Iraqi attack. Ramat Gan municipality has begun preparing an area in the south of the country that will be used as a tent city for evacuated inhabitants of Ramat Gan. Ramat Gan, which borders with Tel Aviv in the east, suffered most of the damage (and casualties as well, I think, although they were minimal) in the Gulf War. The mayor, who was mayor in 1991 as well, is not taking any chances this time.

The joke, at the time, was that Saddam was aiming for the large community of Iraqi Jews that reside in Ramat Gan. The more probable reason for so many scud missiles falling in Ramat Gan is that they were aimed at the army headquarters in Tel Aviv and were slightly short.

Long time Tel Aviv mayor Shlomo Lahat committed political suicide in 1991, when he ridiculed people who left the city during the Gulf War and called them deserters. The "deserters", a large percentage of Tel Avivi’s who didn't fancy playing the part of sitting ducks, Bish and me included, were not amused. He didn't run for mayor again.

I actually heard Ramat Gan mayor Tzvi Bar, on the radio months ago, talking about the need for people to just get clear out of the towns, in the event of an Iraqi attack. He went ahead and organized it for his city. Good for him.

On our best behavior for the tourists
I have noticed that I usually don't discuss politics with friends whose politics I disagree with. What’s the point? And if I don't know how a friend stands politically, I'll probably steer clear of the subject, so as to avoid unpleasantness. Janice (see her page for buying Israeli stuff) sent me this letter written by a lady she defines as a “"lefty" and a reform rabbi” who visited Israel this summer and writes of her experience. She points out that her Israeli friends didn't really want to talk about politics with her.

“Most of our friends in Israel once had strong political passions. Throughout this visit, the Israelis we encountered had little interest in talking politics—again and again, we heard the observation, “Sharon has no plan, but who does?” The Israelis we spoke to had no vision of the future, no useful scheme that could help them understand the violence they are living with, or offer a glimpse of a way out. They were eager to talk with us about the crisis—what they call Hamatzav, or The Situation—but only in personal terms. They spoke of grief and fear. Among this group are some that years ago spoke passionately of Palestinian rights, who were active seeking an end to Israel’s occupation. This time, no Israeli Jew we talked to had an interest in discussing the Palestinians’ plight. It seemed that they couldn’t—that it would be an affront to mention it, engrossed as they were in their own desperation. They were aware and disappointed that most of the world’s sympathies are with the Palestinians, but didn’t seem to have the energy to care all that much”.

I wonder if some of them weren't just avoiding the subject, knowing her to be left wing. Maybe they didn’t want things to get awkward, when they had such a short time to spend with her.

25 wanted murderers are taking refuge with Arafat in his headquarters.

We are usually advised to fly back into Israel on El Al, even if we leave the country with other companies. It seems the government is taking steps to making other airlines flying to Israel safer.

I live in dread of the next terrorist attack.
At the height of the attacks, when there was one every day, a friend confided in me that she was actually relieved when the “daily” attack happened because then she felt she could stop waiting for it and worrying. Always the bigmouth, I couldn't help pointing out that there could be more than one.

I get this sinking feeling when I hear an ambulance go by (why does their siren always make it sound like there’s more than one?) and when airplanes fly over, when I get a phone call at an unusual time, when I get a phone call at a usual time, when my eldest daughter is two seconds late getting home.

The many 9/11 commemorative specials I’ve been watching on TV have left me very jittery. I’m sure a lot of Americans can appreciate what I’m talking about.

Now that school has started I'm finding it harder to keep up with blogging. I'm busy all day after work, organizing dancing classes and other extra-curricular stuff (+ driving kids to and fro), making sure homework is done and music is practiced, sandwiches and lunches are made, a sufficient supply of socks and sports clothes are readily available. If all that isn’t enough, I now find myself on two parent-teacher committees.

Water stuff
Hizbullah is threatening to "chop off the hands of the Israelis" if Israel tries to stop additional pumping of water from the Wazzani River, a source of the Snir (Hatzbani) River, which in turn flows into the Jordan river. They’re just trying to jump on the wagon and are probably delighted for another excuse to get at Israel. Sharon has called this planned diversion of the River waters a casus belli. The Lebanese Prime Minister has complained to the U.S. that Lebanon doesn’t appreciate being threatened. I wonder why they (the Lebanese) got into this (besides needing the water). They surely didn’t think it would go smoothly. I wonder where this is going.

There will be no posting on 9/11 on Not a Fish.

Comments left by readers yesterday seem to have disappeared. I'm sorry. I think I'm going to have to change to another company.

New aviation security measures in Israel
Israel is going to incorporate a new “system that can distinguish between 'friendly and unfriendly' aircrafts”. All aircrafts arriving in Israel will have to install this new system.

An apology
I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable about my post saying Arabs could be losing their jobs as a result of three Jerusalem Arabs being arrested for planning to poison Jews in a cafe. I'm sorry I wrote it. It was a horrible thing to say. It was my anger and fear speaking.

A sick world
I sometimes don’t tell you about places I’d just love to tell you about, because I don’t want to turn them into targets.

Stupid stupid stupid
Three Jerusalem Arabs have been arrested for planning to poison Israelis in a Jerusalem cafe.

OK, so they hate us and they want us dead. So they plot to poison us. Makes sense. But what about the harm they’re doing their own people? I think many Arabs in Israel will be able to thank these three for being responsible for their losing their jobs or not being able to find jobs. Just as people are demanding security guards they’ll now start demanding no Arabs in the kitchen. It’s not like people are falling over backwards to employ them as it is.

So where is the outrage of the Arab Israeli “street” at this terrible, irreparable damage to their already shaky position in Israeli society? Where is the outcry of the Israeli Arab leaders? Nothing. Deafening silence.

In case this wasn't clear: It's not racism. It's fear. I pray not a single Arab loses his or her job in a restaurant or cafe as a result of this, but what are restaurant owners to do if people start being afraid of being poisoned in their establishments? Business is not exactly flourishing.

Little Green Footballs has been posting photos of 9/11.
Those photos of people jumping. It’s still hard to grasp. I guess it always will be.

According to this Al-Ahram feature about housing in Egypt, there was an earthquake in Egypt last week. I don't remember hearing about this. Did anyone read about it and happen to notice how high it was on the Richter scale and where the center of it was? There mustn't have been any deaths or we surely would have heard about it.

Update: Fred Lapides has it: "4.4 on Richter for Egypt 2002/08/24". The center seems to be in Giza near Cairo. That must be why they were talking about it in an article on housing. Houses must have collapsed. I don't suppose it could damage the pyramids. They must have withstood one or two earthquakes in their day, don't you think? It's mind-boggling to think of them collapsing.

Did you hear the one about the speeding hamster?
Hey Mum and Dad, you never told me it was so dangerous on Blackpool Prom.

Via AMCGLTD .

Another Gilmore Girls rerun this week.
Oh, well.

An aquarium built into a Jaguar?


I’m so lucky I’m Not a Fish.

Thank you, Fred Lapides, for helping me reach that deep understanding. He actually sent me an even more convincing photo, but too harsh for this vegetarian to post.

9 responses to 9 common distortions of the Israel-Palestinian conflict
The Simon Wiesenthal Center. Adobe Acrobat Reader required.

Who murdered the Israeli peace camp and Palestinian hopes for a free society?
It’s a rhetorical question, silly.

Here is an article by Robert Fulford on the subject of the disappearance of nearly all of the Israeli left. It discusses the disillusionment of prominent Israeli lefties such as Jerusalem Report’s Hirsch Goodman, controversial “new historian” Benny Morris, writer A.B. Yehoshua, and others.

And here’s an article by Daniel Polisar that explains, in great detail, exactly how Arafat took control of the formerly pluralistic Palestinian society in the territories, stifled all diversity and opposition, and destroyed the judicial system. Polisar, who was a member of an Israeli organization that was accredited by the Palestinian Authority as an official elections observer during the Palestinian elections of January 1996, maintains that Arafat’s leadership is not the result of free and equal elections and is inimical to peace in the region and to Palestinians’ aspirations for freedom.

”The radicals were sent packing”
James K. Glassman thinks common sense won the day in Johannesburg (in WSJ). It seems the “Green Gestapo” was more loud than influential. As the Talmud says (in the G’mara, Baba Metziya p”h) “Istra balagina kish kish karya.” Translation from Aramaic: A little coin in an (empty) jug cries kish kish (makes a lot of noise).

But he complains that steps in the right direction (promoting development in poor countries and refraining from environmental decisions impracticable in poor countries) were too minor and watered down by corporate sucking up to the Greens.

A self-critical moral dialogue among Palestinians is required.
Yossi Klein Halevi in the NYTimes: “On this Rosh Hashana, a time of self-examination, I confess that my capacity as an Israeli for self-criticism has been exhausted.

[…]

Few Palestinians seem prepared even now to examine their own share of responsibility for the conflict. Instead, most remain barricaded in a self-righteous understanding of history, apportioning all innocence to themselves and all blame to us. Perhaps their inability to acknowledge the historical complexity of this conflict is understandable: The Palestinians, after all, were its losers. Yet that failure led them to commit their greatest blunder in a history of missed opportunities. By declaring war two years ago against an Israeli government that was as far left as any in history, they turned Israelis like me from supporters of Ehud Barak into supporters of Ariel Sharon.

What the first intifada was for Israelis, this intifada should be for Palestinians: a precious moment of self-examination. The Oslo process failed because of an asymmetry of self-criticism: Only one side came to the realization that this is a conflict between two legitimate national movements. The time has come for Palestinians to partition their sense of historical justice. They need to admit that much of their suffering, especially now, has been self-inflicted. And they need to confront the repeated moral failures of their leaders, from supporting Nazi Germany to backing Saddam Hussein.”

So true. Read more.

”Hag”log: More food II. This one’s for Lawrence
At the end of Yesterday’s “Hag” lunch at my sister’s we got a going home present. One of my sister’s neighbors bought them halla (plaited white bread for Shabbat) in Bnei Brak (ultra orthodox city near Tel Aviv) for the Hag. To remind you – they have a lot of children in Bnei Brak (usually double digit, but who’s counting?) and Shabbat is holier than Yom Kippur, so this was one very large, very delicious halla. We got a big chunk. I’ve just had some of it for breakfast. Mmmmmm. Heavenly.

My in-laws say that the halla is so popular that the neighbor regularly brings about 25 loafs every Shabbat to give to all the neighbors. He sounds like a nice guy.

The Wolf and the Sheep: Follow-up (my version)
Sometimes the wolf is in sheep's clothing and the sheep is mistaken for a wolf.

The Wolf and The Sheep. A Fable
A WOLF, sorely wounded and bitten by dogs, lay sick and maimed in his lair. Being in want of food, he called to a Sheep who was passing, and asked him to fetch some water from a stream flowing close beside him. "For," he said, "if you will bring me drink, I will find means to provide myself with meat." "Yes," said the Sheep, "if I should bring you the draught, you would doubtless make me provide the meat also."
Aesop (Townsend version)


Moral (L'Estrange version):
It is a charitable and a Christian office to relieve the poor and the distressed; but this duty does not extend to sturdy beggars, that while they are receiving alms with one hand, are ready to beat out a man's brains with the other.

“Hag”log: More food.
My Dad’s contribution to today’s lunch at my sister’s (I get the feeling she’s not fussy about Our Sis so I’m dropping it until I can think of anything better) was a killer apple pie. No really, the best. And guess what? He bought it! This was the best apple pie I’ve ever tasted. I kid you not. My Dad is developing a considerable reputation as a vendee. This would be trivial anywhere else in the world but developing this talent of his requires my Dad to regularly risk his life in central Netanya.

My folks are tough cookies. They refuse to be intimidated by the threat of exploding people and continue to roam Netanya freely and enjoy its coffee shops and restaurants, guarded or not, regardless. You’d think the Hamas and the Fatah were fighting for an Island off New Zealand. You’d think the not yet constructed security fence was not only already upright but it was the Great Wall of China. Moreover, they have no intentions of letting Saddam change their daily itinerary, either, when he commences with his noxious party piece. No scuttling into security rooms for them. No fleeing the city for haven in rural hideaways. Their living room is good enough, thank you very much.

Good for them. Way to go.

Actually, this is quite ridiculous. It’s not as if I’ve changed anything in my life. Why should they, just because there have been more terrorist attacks in Netanya than in Tel Aviv of late? The last mass-event we went to was a very large peace rally on the 4th November 1995, known the world over as the night Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Actually I didn’t even go to that, just Bish and our eldest daughter, who was just four years old at the time. We make an exception once a year when we return to Rabin Square to see the fireworks on the eve of Independence Day. We even went this year, in the height of the terrorist attacks. Us and fourteen others.

“I am not saying that Muslims should give up on their religion, what I am saying is that we should learn all we can about other religions and cultures. This assimilation of foreign ideas and customs is what once made the Islamic civilization so great.”
Bargarz has a link to an amazingly moderate article in the Saudi ArabNews.

“Hag”log: New beginnings.
Some streams of Buddhism put a lot of emphasis on living life mindfully. They suggest that we can live life more fully if everything we do is done with our full attention, as if we were doing it for the first time. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we really could do everything with a fresh mind? If everything was always as exciting as when we’d first experienced it?

One way to relive that excitement is through the experience of others. Hence our fascination with babies taking their first steps, uttering their first words. The most fascinating of all is watching grownups from other worlds experiencing our reality for the first time.

I can never get enough of the stories told by those extremely brave youngsters who choose to leave the protected lives of the ultra-religious Jews and venture into the unknown – the harsh world of secular Israel, with none of the necessary skills, no money and no family support (Quite the opposite – they are often persecuted by their communities).

This young man has just taken the plunge.

“He has never walked into a store and bought himself an article of clothing, or anything else. Now, he has fearlessly gone on a shopping spree at the new central bus station and bought himself a few shirts and pairs of pants.

[…]

The most exciting purchase of all was sandals. The air that flowed between his toes excited him, made him giddy. "It's like in biblical times," he smiles.

And at his hosts' home, he passed another mental hurdle when a large dog sniffed at him. "The first time, I was shaking, but the owner of the house told me that he doesn't bite, and after a while, I found the courage to call him over to me and I even pet him. Now I can say that even though they raised me to be afraid of dogs, I like animals."”

“Hag”log: Food.
Breakfast: Leftovers from my mother-in-law’s “Hag” dinner. Artichoke hearts in lemon sauce and cold vegetarian leek cutlets (all the better to ward off the enemies - my brother-in-law quipped last night that maybe we should send the paratroopers out armed with them).

Rosh Hashana for secular Israelis is mainly about family gatherings and food. By the end of “The Hagim” (the High holidays) most people are fed up of both. And in need of a diet. Israelis traditionally postpone everything till “after The Hagim”, including diets. I know this is hard to believe, but some Israelis, not necessarily the secular ones, actually take loans to pay for lavish “Hag” meals. I doubt this is the case this year, though. Times are tough.

“Hag”log: The basics in context.
Lynn B. reflects on the High Holidays, while explaining them briefly to the uninitiated, in view of the first anniversary of 9/11.

"Hag"log: Talking about Iraqi Jews…
I’ve just come back from our Erev Rosh Hashana dinner. The brachot (blessings) for the New Year were made according to the Iraqi tradition. According to the Iraqis, apparently, you bless over the dates (for a sweet year?), the pomegranates (may our credit before God be as plentiful as their seeds), the leeks (something to do with something bad befalling our enemies), the spinach (enemies again) and the cow-peas (back to the plentiful credit) before you get to the apple and honey (also for a sweet year), and according to the Turkish Jews (or is it the Bukharans?) you start with the apple and honey and then have the dates etc. I don’t know anything about all that. We always just did apples and honey.

A taste of the richness and diversity of Israeli society.

And if we're on a nostalgic note
Diane of Gotham is looking into the once notable Iraqi Jewry. Correction: Still notable, but now most of them contribute their abilities to Israel. Iraq's loss is our gain.

Eli Amir and Sami Michael have written some wonderful books about Iraqi Jews, such as "Farewell, Baghdad" (by Eli Amir) and the sad "Victoria" (by Sami Michael). I can't link - I checked once and couldn't find them in English on the net, although I believe they have been translated. Here's an old posting of mine on the subject.

A special gift for Rosh Hashana
Ilana from Inner Balance, bless her, has found a gem on archive.org. It’s a 10-minute movie of Damascus and Jerusalem made in 1936.

It’s a little hard to find, because this is an archive with loads of movies. You have to scroll down the titles, organized in alphabetical order until you see “Screen Traveler: Damascus and Jerusalem 1936”. It’s well worth the effort.

Kol hakavod to Ilana for finding it. Someone commented on her blog (she posted it on the her Hebrew blog), that she must have the eyes of an eagle to have seen it.

Rosh Hashana – a Time for New Beginnings*
May we all be blessed with health and peace in the year to come.


This is the Sahne, my childhood idea of heaven.

*Header stolen from an e-card my parents sent me.

Update on Johannesburg
Andrew Kenny believes “The green Gestapo” is doing more harm to the environment than good. Read why in this week’s UK Spectator.

“It so happened that, before going to Ubuntu Village, I had attended a small meeting of a free-market group, the Sustainable Development Network, which has the heretical view that blacks ought to be as rich as whites, that capitalism and science will improve the wellbeing of people, plants and animals, and, most shocking of all, that this is a good thing. There I heard three small farmers, one from the Philippines, one from India and one from KwaZulu Natal (a Zulu called Buthelezi). They all told the same story. Their crops of cotton and corn had been devastated by the boll-worm and the cornborer. They used gallons of pesticide to try to contain them. This cost a lot of money, poisoned the soil, killed benevolent insects, damaged their health and killed one of their workers. Then they tried GM (genetically modified) seeds, designed to combat the pests. It changed their lives. The yields doubled or trebled. They did not have to use pesticides any more, so the soil improved, their health improved and the beneficial insects came back. For the first time, they began to make enough money to improve their standard of living. This was a revelation to me.

So at the main tent of Ubuntu Village, I approached a short man with a moustache at a stall advertising some kind of ‘biotechnology’. I asked him if he dealt at all in Bt crops (the name of the type of GM crop I had heard described earlier). His eyes flickered nervously around the tent, to check if any of the green Gestapo might be listening. I said that I had just heard from poor farmers that Bt crops were wonderful. He relaxed slightly and admitted softly that, yes, his company was promoting this technology that was saving lives, increasing biodiversity, improving the environment and giving the poor a chance to become rich. He looked terribly guilty.”

You can read on here.

Jonah Goldberg explains the merits of war
Jonah Goldberg wrote some things about war that I found hard to read. He cites the rich medical, material and social progress made over history as a result of wars. This may be true, I’m no historian, and I can certainly appreciate that much of Israel’s technological prowess is a result of our wars. But surely not all progress is a result of wars? Surely much progress was made in times of peace? And I fail to see the progress that war brought Afghanistan, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cambodia, to name but a few.

Goldberg goes on to tell of how the experience of war often enriches the lives of those who take part in it (and survive). Now, I know and accept that little boys will always play at war, but whatever Jonah Goldberg says, and I agree with much of what he says in the article, war is a necessary evil.

This is 21 year-old sergeant Aviad Dotan, IDF tank driver, moshavnik, beloved son.

He fought for the right to be a combat soldier. He was a brave young man. He did what he had to do for his country and yesterday he paid with his life.

War may be justified. War may be unavoidable. But don’t you sit there, safe in your armchair, and try to sell me war as something good.

Check out the Index of the Munich Massacre BlogBurst.
It's being updated all the time with fresh posts. There are some very interesting and informative articles and also moving personal recollections. BTW, If you didn't catch my BlogBurst post on the massacre, and are too lazy to scroll down, here it is again.

Oh, and guess what? In today's "Best of..." James Taranto has a link to the BlogBurst index.

I take my hat off to the wonderful Judith Weiss of Kesher who organized it all and has obviously been working hard all day (and night).

Update about the foiled mega-terrorist attack:
TV showed the controlled blowing up of the car-bomb. This was one BIG blast.



Very. Very. Scary.

Update: Here's a video of the blast, via The News, Uncensored.

From a reader:
“Shalom!
I´m one of the hidden readers of yours and other Israeli former lefties blogs.
Today I´m very happy cause I got my "OK Aliah", which means I´m going up to Israel in October.
I´ve heard a lot of "are you crazy?!" and "this is not the best time to go". But I don´t care. If not now, when? Should I wait until our nice neighbors give up terror?
Well, I know that Israelis get kinda proud and happy when they hear that Jews around like Israel -- and still make Aliah - even if sometimes you think and say the same "are you crazy?!"
So take this is like a Rosh Hashana message of hope and peace.
And know that Aliah may be not have big rankings these days, but I´m sure it is qualitative.
Best regards,
Shana Tova
Michel”

Definitely not crazy.

Two soldiers killed in Gaza.
One of them was burnt to death in a tank when an explosive device detonated under it. "The blast blew off the tank's turret, which pinned down the soldiers for several hours, complicating rescue efforts. The explosion set the tank on fire."

Palestinian realists
Akiva Eldar is as tedious as usual in today’s Haaretz, with one exception. He tells of Abu Mazen’s recent visited to a large Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. He went to explain the facts to the camp’s inhabitants.

“He went on to describe at length the fate awaiting refugees who seek to strike their roots in the state of Israel. "You won't be going back to your home, nor to the neighborhood or the village. The houses, neighborhoods, and villages are all gone. New cities have been built on your lands, and in your houses, Jewish babies have been born. You will join a Palestinian minority in a country where the language of the state is not their language, its culture is not theirs, its flag is not theirs, and the anthem is not theirs. No jobs await you, nor a welcome home."

Abu Mazen said that if that's not enough to to persuade the refugees to give up the honor of carrying a passport bearing a menorah, they should also know there will be no way back. He explained that the choice of one of the options means forgoing the others.

In other words, those who choose to go to Israel will block their own way to the West. Nor will the new state of Palestine be able to accept the tardy.”

Apparently this visit is not a one-off thing. Nabil Sha’ath (in charge of the negotiations on the refugee issue) made a similar visit to a large refugee camp in Jordan.

“I told them they won't find their homes in Sheikh Munes, and that nowadays it's called Ramat Aviv.” (A large part of Tel Aviv University is built on lands that formerly made up the village of Sheikh Munes. Ramat Aviv is an affluent North Tel Aviv neighborhood).

Way to go.
Israel is fully implementing a massive 4 billion shekel development plan in the Arab Israeli sector over a four year period. The Israeli Arabs are treating the plan with suspicion. Another plan is to invest 615 million shekels in Bedouin villages in the north over a five-year period.

Mega attack foiled near Hadera
A mega-terrorist attack was avoided today when police seized a carbomb following a car chase. “The booby-trapped vehicle reportedly contained 600 kilograms (1350 pounds) of explosives hidden in several gas canisters, connected to a battery and a cellular telephone-operated detonation mechanism. A container of metal shrapnel and bolts were also found”. This is reportedly one of the biggest bombs ever discovered.

The following article is part of a blogburst - a simultaneous and cross-linked posting of many blogs on the same theme. This blogburst
commemorates the Munich Olympics Massacre which began in the dawn hour of September 5th, 1972. Go to The Index of the Munich Massacre Blogburst to find links to all the other articles.

The story
At 5:00 AM, exactly 30 years ago, a seminal event in the development of modern terrorism took place. Eight Palestinian terrorists invaded the athletes' housing at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. They killed and took hostage eleven Israeli athletes competing in the Games, demanding the release of 234 imprisoned Arabs and German terrorists. Over the next few tension-filled days, all the hostages and some of the terrorists were killed, mostly due to incompetence and perfidy of the German government. The Olympic Committee made a controversial decision to continue the Games, and has never participated in any memorial for the slain athletes. Eventually almost all the remaining terrorists were hunted down and killed by Israeli agents, directed by then Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Could it have been prevented?
On Monday night, Israeli TV channel one broadcast a documentary about the Munich Massacre. Yarin Kimor, who made the movie, studied the massacre from a few perspectives I wasn’t aware of. It was quite eye opening. The following is a summary of some of the more interesting points he brought up. I don’t know if what he says is as novel as he claims, but most of it was new for me.

I apologize if the Latin spelling of the names is incorrect. The movie only had the names in Hebrew, and not knowing German, it’s hard to determine the correct spelling of German names.

Important note: Yarin Kimor’s documentary is largely critical of the German handling of the massacre, before, during and after the event, although he doesn’t go into the details of the negotiations or the workings of the rescue operation. He also has criticism about the Israeli handling of their side of the affair. When reading this post it should be very clear that the only people who are responsible for the massacre are the perpetrators and those who sent them. This does not mean we shouldn’t look with a critical eye at how the affair was handled on the receiving end.

The main discussion point of the documentary was: Did the Germans receive information about a planned terrorist attack in advance? How about the Israelis, what did they know? Kimor claims that the Germans received information that the terrorist attack was going to happen. He brings as evidence excerpts from the German investigation report on the massacre. According to this report, on the 21st Aug 1972, the Bavarian secret police passed on to Munich Police a warning that a Palestinian commando unit had left Beirut on its way to Munich for a terrorist operation. Manfred Schreiber, Munich Police Chief, was notified but did nothing. On the 24th Aug 1972, Interpol Brussels sent a message to the Bavarian secret police stating the names of two of the terrorists – Badran and Darwis, who were to take part in the operation.

According to a Yediot Aharonot investigation (says Kimor in the movie, but supplies no information about when the story appeared) the East German Shtazi also knew about the attack in advance. Shlomo Levy, an Israeli cameraman was in the East German dormitory at the time of the attack. He says he clearly saw, looking out of the window, one of the terrorists communicating with someone whom he couldn’t see, who could only have been in the same building as Levy himself (the East German building). The terrorist seemed to be receiving information, and made signs with his fingers of six, five and four. Immediately after he saw this, the terrorists demanded that the (West) German snipers be removed from the area. Levy is very sure the terrorist was receiving information from the East German building. Richard Meyer, head of (West) German espionage is very adamant that no espionage service could have known in advance, including the Shtazi.

Ilana Romano, wife of one of the victims, Yossi Romano, tells of the meeting she and Anka Spitzer, another of the widows, had with a man who claimed to be from the Italian Red Brigades. This man, who was very afraid to be meeting them, told them that the Red Brigades had known something about the planned Black September attack a month and a half before it took place. The man said he belonged to a moderate faction in the Red Brigades that decided to leak the information. He was sent to Hamburg to tell the Germans. He told them that there was going to be a terrorist attack in the Olympic Games. From Hamburg the Germans sent him to Munich, where the security services weren’t interested.

Next he went to the Israeli embassy in Germany. The security officer told him to come back the next day, and when he did, the security officer told him he didn’t have to say anything because they already knew.

Victor Cohen, who was the Shin Bet negotiator during the attack, said he would have had to know if there was any such information. On the other hand, Aharon Yariv, head of the Mossad at the time, told a Dutch newspaper in 1976 that he remembered chairing a meeting in the Defense Ministry during which it was said that there were signs that Black September was preparing a big operation due to take place in a few days time at an international happening. This was five days before the attack. The Olympics Games were the main international event at the time. It would have been natural to make the connection. Yohanan Maroz, who was head of the Europe department of the Israeli Foreign Office, says he saw no early warning reports, although anything of the kind should have passed through him. Later, the Israel Kopel report, the result of the Israeli investigation of the massacre, recommended firing two top Shin Bet officials. The report is still confidential and restricted.

If these reports are true, we can point to several different sources that were saying the same thing. Why was nothing done? International terrorism was flourishing at the time, after all. It’s not as if no one had ever heard of such a thing. Never mind the Germans, let’s say they were blinded by their vision of the “Happy Olympics” and a desire to cancel out the shame left by the 1936 Berlin Olympics. But what is the Israeli excuse? Kimor wonders why the Israeli investigation report, the Kopel report, is still confidential if it’s full of modes of operation that failed thirty years ago. I notice he doesn’t wonder why the German investigation report has not been made public, although it’s obviously not perceived as such a closely guarded state secret as the Israeli report is, or else parts of it wouldn’t have been leaked to him.

Another point that came up: When preparing the security layout for the Olympics, Munich police chief, Manfred Schreiber, ordered a catalogue of possible disturbances and disruptions. One of the points in the report was Scenario 21 that predicted exactly what eventually happened. The scenario was thought unrealistic and disregarded. When Georg Zieber, the police psychologist who wrote the scenario, persisted, his employment contract was discontinued. He tells the story himself in the movie. Dr. Georg Wolf, who was Manfred Schreiber’s second in command in the Munich police force at the time, says he has never heard of Scenario 21, although it was reportedly Schreiber himself who decided that the scenario was unrealistic.

As I said before, with regard to the negotiations conducted with the terrorists, Kimor doesn’t go into details. He does however show a document written by Nahum Admoni, later to become head of the Mossad. He didn’t show it up close, but claims it says that Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, had given an order that the negotiators pretend to be going along with the terrorists demands, as a negotiating ploy. This is the opposite of what Prime Minister Golda Meir stated in public about not giving in to terrorists. Nahum Admoni himself does not remember ever writing such a document. Israeli negotiator Victor Cohen doesn’t react to this directly. He tells about the tactics of a negotiator (I was very taken with him, a very forceful and impressive character) and says that it was not possible to make any headway negotiating with these terrorists.

Much has been said and written about the botched rescue attempt, and it is being covered elsewhere in the BlogBurst. Yarin Kimor tells the story of 17 or 18 German soldiers, who were disguised as air stewards and were on the plane waiting for the terrorists in Fuerstenfeldbruck airfield. These soldiers reportedly deserted their posts 15 minutes before the terrorists and their hostages were due to reach the airfield by helicopter. They failed to notify anyone of their desertion. Kimor says the rumours of the desertion were doing the rounds when he first made a documentary about the massacre, twenty years ago, but he could find no evidence of it at that time.

Now he brings excerpts of the statement given by the soldiers’ commander, Reich, during his interrogation. He gives the reason for the desertion:
1) The soldiers have nowhere to hide.
2) Fear of gunfire from outside of the plane.
3) The gasoline containers of the plane may catch fire.
4) The disguise is imperfect and could lead to their discovery.

The soldiers held a vote. It was unanimous. So 17 or 18 German soldiers were afraid of the two terrorists who were sent to pre-check the plane! German law allowed for them to refuse participating in an operation that could endanger their life. After everything was over, the soldiers were not disciplined in any way.

Thus the hostages were abandoned. According to Kimor, the gunfight that eventually took place was between just five German soldiers and eight armed terrorists. The German soldiers shot an impressive total of 29 bullets. There were 21,000 (unarmed) security officers “securing” the Olympic Games! Were five soldiers and 29 bullets the best the Germans could do?

It’s worth mentioning that the famous Israeli General Staff Commando Unit (“Sayeret Matkal”) had plans for staging a rescue operation of their own. A few months before, they had successfully freed the hostages of the hijacked Sabena plane in Israel. The unit’s commander at the time, Ehud Barak, explains in the movie that they were told to back down, because the Germans would never allow a foreign force to stage such an operation on German land.

The negligence goes on and on. According to the coroner’s report, one of the victims, American-born weightlifter David Berger, died between one hour and one and a half hours after the botched rescue operation was over. He died of smoke inhalation. Kimor says no one had thought to call the fire department.

Just 54 days after the massacre, terrorists hijacked a Lufthansa plane and demanded the release of the three terrorists that survived the rescue operation and were in jail in Germany. The Germans didn’t beat about the bush. All previous brave statements about not giving in to terrorism went out the window. The terrorists were hurriedly released. At the time, the persistent rumors that the Lufthansa hijacking was a sham were regarded as fantastic. But Colonel Wagner, commander of the German Terrorism Combat Unit (this is a direct translation from the Hebrew. I apologize if I’ve translated it incorrectly) says the rumors could very well be true. Commander and co-planner of the Munich Massacre, Abu Daoud, wrote in his book, years later, that the Germans offered them 9 million dollars up front, to stage the hijacking in order to free the terrorists (and rid the Germans of the headache).

It seems the Germans are quite satisfied with the way they conducted the whole affair. Unlike some of the Israelis involved, such as Aharon Yariv, who accepts that Israel was partly responsible for the foul-up. Isn’t that just a typical Jewish thing to do, never letting yourself off easily? Bavarian Interior minister at the time, Bruno Merk, doesn’t display the same disposition for soul-searching. He puts the blame squarely on the Israeli security people.

Dr. Georg Wolf, deputy chief of the Munich police, goes even further. He starts off by blaming the Israelis for refusing to cave in to the terrorists’ demands.

Then he says: “Those responsible were those conducting the wars between Israel and Palestine, the Palestinians, I mean the Arabs.”
The interviewer is then heard saying: “As a host you are responsible for your guests.”
Wolf: “Yes, but as a host I expect my guests not to start a war in my home.”
Interviewer: “The Israelis did not start the war.”
Wolf: “That does not matter.”

In order to give a complete picture, Kimor explains about the Black September organization and commanders Abu Daoud and Ali Hasan Salameh. I see someone else is dealing with this aspect in the BlogBurst, so I won’t get into it here.

Kimor also extensively interviews Professor Gabi Wyman, head of the Communications Faculty in Haifa University. He explains the great success of the massacre from the terrorists’ point of view and the effect it had on the face of terrorism the world over from that day on. Terrorists all over the world realized the strength of such an attack, perfect in timing and location, for getting their message through. Even though the media coverage was not sympathetic to the terrorists, the reporters had to explain the motives of the perpetrators, so that their viewers would understand what was going on. Thus their cause was widely advertised, even among people who regularly wouldn’t be interested. They had taken the whole Olympic games hostage after all, not just the Israeli sportsmen.

And it worked. A good example of this is the fact that in the 1980 Moscow Olympics opening ceremony, Arafat could clearly be seen sitting in the VIP box right next to Brezhniev. It was just eight years and one Olympic games after his subordinates had massacred innocent sportsmen at the very same sporting event.

We’ll never know if the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre of 11 Israeli sportsmen could have been prevented, and if it had been prevented, if they wouldn’t have found some other important world event to do something similar in. But what world event affects so many, and would have had such a powerful effect, worldwide?

We are now one year after terrorists crashed passenger planes into the World Trade Center buildings in New York and into the Pentagon in Washington D.C., killing thousands of innocent people. I put on the radio just now, a day and a half before the beginning of the Jewish New Year. The radio news announcer said that once again the terrorists are making a great effort to perpetrate monumental terrorist attacks on civilians in Israel during the Jewish High Holidays, as they did last Passover.

I’m wondering, rather wistfully, what the world would look like today had the Munich Massacre been prevented and not changed the face of terrorism from that day on. I know it is futile to think about it, what’s done is done, but this seductive thought, instinctively makes my heart jump with false hope and excitement, and simultaneously brings on a dull ache of despair.

Look who's back!

Shana Tova
Rosh Hashana is early this year. It took me a while to realize that the old friends calling me up out of the blue, were calling to wish me Shana Tova – a good year. In the old days we used to send cards. It was a whole industry. Tables used to spring up on the sidewalk in shopping areas offering hundreds of cards of different sizes (although the even largest ones were quite small, and they were all oblong), tidily organized in little piles. The cards had pictures of happy children, of honey and apples, of flowers, of Moshe Dayan, of the Western wall, you name it, all with a generous sprinkling of glitter.

This quaint tradition has more or less disappeared. Stationery shops still sell “Shanot Tovot” as the cards are called, but the tables are gone, as are the naive pictures on the cards. These days most of the “Shanot Tovot” you get by snail mail are sent by commercial enterprises. E-card “Shanot Tovot” are very popular though. The problem is there’s always a few good ones going round, and then you get them again and again about twenty times, until you’re sick of it.

Purity of arms
Although I disagree with the assertion that we are "a nation torn by ever-intensifying differences", Haim Gouri says some things about the Israeli Air Force's inherent humanity, that show how wickedly distorted are the claims that Israel is no better than the Nazis.

Yesterday's google queen.
Meryl Yourish.

The Palestinian police force has been using stolen Israeli cars,
confiscated from car thieves.

Two Israeli Arabs from East Jerusalem tried to recruit four Israeli girls, two of them soldiers and two before army service, to spy for the Palestinian Preventative Security in 1999. According to Israeli radio, the girls were apparently unaware that they were being recruited and no information was passed on by them. But according to the Jerusalem Post, a 1999 document addressed to Jibril Rajoub seized by the IDF indicates that they found one female Israeli soldier “willing to be recruited to work for the apparatus.” And went on to say that “She is a promising subject, given that she uses drugs and needs substances and drugs”. Ynet has more information (in Hebrew).

Fred Lapides says Arabia.com has already picked up the story.

Disappointment
They put on last week’s episode of The Gilmore Girls again this week! Why would they do such a thing? Don’t they realize some people wait all week long to see the next episode, not the same one again? They even had the gall to write “rerun” on the top left corner, so we wouldn’t think it was a mistake or anything. Cruel. There’s no other explanation. They’re torturing me. Hey, maybe it’s a new ploy by the Hamas?

Oh, dear. According to this I deduce that this is the last episode of the season. Maybe they intend to show this episode again and again till the new season starts? I'm OK with that. Better than nothing.

Unbiased academic research?
I was meaning to comment on this, but Tal beat me to it. An Israeli by the name of Teddy Katz was sued for libel by veterans of the Alexandroni Brigade. He had published a controversial M.A. thesis that claimed that the Alexandroni Brigade committed a massacre in the village of Tantura in the1948 War of Independence. Yediot Aharonot discovered that his defence, in the libel suit, was paid for by none other than the Orient House, by way of his good friend, the late Faisal Husseini, who was P.L.O representative in Jerusalem at the time.

Israeli radio station, Reshet Bet, sought Katz’ reaction this morning, but he said he was too busy correcting (the many discrepancies in) his thesis (by demand of Haifa University). Ilan Pappe, his friend and mentor, was only too happy to oblige, though. Always a pleasure to hear his poison.

They also interviewed Yossi Ben Artzi, dean of the Humanities faculty in Haifa University, who sounded like he didn’t care much for Katz or his theory (Aren’t I the mistress of understatement?).

A thought.
In the eighties, before and during the first Intifada, I felt ashamed and embarrassed by the occupation.

I did reserve duty in the Gaza Strip (pretty unusual for women at the time) and got a good look at Rafah, Han Younes and Gaza City. The result was that I suddenly understood the demographic problem. Round about the same time, I was shocked to see a 12 year-old Palestinian boy washing the floor of a Tel Aviv restaurant at one o’clock at night, and it wasn’t even summer. A young Palestinian construction worker confided in me that his deep ambition was to be a policeman, but that they didn’t have a police force.

My feeling that something had to change intensified during the first Intifada. When the opportunity arose for Palestinian self-rule which was to gradually become (as I saw it) Palestinian sovereignty in the territories, I was all for it.

The feeling was euphoric. No more shame. We were finally doing the right thing. At last we would be able to be on equal footing with the people we share this country with. It felt like the Messiah had come.

* * * * * *

This time around I have no feelings of shame or embarrassment. I have compassion for the Palestinians’ suffering. I’m sorry about innocent Palestinians being killed. I feel for their families. I wish it could be different, but I feel no guilt.

They had their chance and messed up big-time. The blame is theirs, not ours.

Peace Education II
Fred has sent me another article about dialogue.

Dr. Gershon Baskin writes about “IPCRI - the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information - a joint Israeli-Palestinian research center founded 14 years ago, established six years ago a new department for Peace Education. This department has developed programs that are now taught in secondary schools throughout Israel and Palestine. In this new school year these programs will be taught in more than 60 schools on both sides. There will be more than 400 Israeli and Palestinian teachers participating in the programs with more than 4,500 students involved””.

Dr. Baskin doesn’t give us any information about the percentage of Jews versus Palestinians involved in these programs. Neither does he tell us what percentage of the Palestinians involved are Israeli citizens and what percentage are Palestinians from the territories. I think these are pertinent questions, don’t you?

In the buildup at the beginning of the article, before he reaches the education programs, he makes a common mistake.

“The Israeli public,” He says, “is continuing to show willingness to arrive at an agreement with the Palestinians on the key issues of the conflict. Even today, the majority of Israelis support the establishment of a Palestinian State next to Israel. The majority of Israelis even support dividing Jerusalem and sharing it as a capital of two states. A majority of Israelis are in favor of removing most of the settlements. Almost a majority of Israelis support the June 4, 1967 as the basis for the borders dividing Israel and Palestine”. Very true. He goes on to say that “It seems that the Israeli public understands and supports what is and what will be the "price of peace"”. Yes, most of us do.

So what seems peculiar to him is the fact that, “At the same time, the Israeli public continues to support the devastating policies of the Israeli Government as it continues to destroy the Palestinian Authority. … the belief in Israel … no one to make peace with … believe that the Palestinians are committed to destroying Israel … These slogans of the past have returned and are voiced by politicians and public officials from all streams of political life in Israel. They are widely accepted by the Israeli public without any real scrutiny or questioning…” OK. That’s enough. I’m so fed up of this patronizing attitude. Of course, Dr. Baskin is an educator. Educators are often patronizing, aren’t they?

No real scrutiny or questioning? Is that a fact?

As I see it, we are continually bombarded with scrutiny and questioning by the media. Why just today, on Israeli Reshet Bet radio station, I heard a scathing critique of the Israeli Channel 2 special report, broadcast Friday, that Gil wrote about, which actually brought the leftist point of view via Ilana Dayan. Experts Ehud Yaari and Ronny Daniel, were amazingly patient with her, and didn’t say a word in reaction to the utter tripe she was spurting. Yediot Aharonot, the most popular and widely read Israeli newspaper tends to give more space to leftist views. Most of their permanent weekend columnists are left wing. Maariv also offers a serious podium for left-wing views. I need not mention Haaretz. Only a negligible amount of Israelis read it. It doesn’t have much influence on ordinary people’s opinions.

As I see it, Israelis are force-fed with quite a lethal daily dose of scrutiny and questioning. If we still persist in our views it is because they are consistent with our comprehension of reality, and not because we’re being brainwashed by the establishment.

Israpundit
New pro-Israel blog. Contributions by the best. Go see.

I agree with
every word Gil said today about Palestinian casualties.

School. Yippee!

My girls were actually glad to be going back to school. That alone is a good enough reason for two months of summer vacation!

The high school teachers and most of the middle school teachers are striking. No one’s quite sure why, even the teachers themselves, apparently. Anyway, their strike doesn’t affect us this year, and I'm sure my nephews are delighted.

School starts tomorrow
No problem getting the girls to go to bed tonight!

Excerpts from Nahum Barne’a, Yediot Aharonot, Shabbat Supplement, 8/30/02:
“Haled put the plate of knafeh on the table, to put something sweet into the bitter, and said simply: Our little brother, Issa, did the terrorist attack in Rishon Letzion, in the pedestrian mall.

Two new immigrants were killed in the terrorist attack in the pedestrian mall on 23rd May this year.(it was actually on the 22nd, Barne’a doesn’t mention that one of those killed was a 16 year-old) The Tanzim, the military wing of Fatah took responsibility. Issa, the murderer, was 17 when he died, a high school student.

“Ahmad El-Mugrabi from the Tanzim enlisted my brother,” said Haled. “El-Mugrabi has a brother, Ali, who studied at the same school as our brother. He filled his head. That’s how he enlisted the girl who committed suicide in Kiryat Yovel (the supermarket in Jerusalem), as well.

“At the beginning of the Intifada our father called us, the three boys, for a talk. You’re not part of this story, he said”.

“I was closest to Issa”, says Haleed (Haled’s brother). “He used to tell me everything. He even told me that he had begun to smoke, a big secret at his age. But he didn’t tell me about the enlistment.

"On the day of the terrorist attack he threw a party at a friend’s house. With music. Then he told Mom, I’m going to play football. At 11 that night we started to look for him. Three days later I turn on the television, here, at work and I see a photo of my brother and message of the Al-Aqsa Brigades. My brother had suddenly become a Shaheed.

“He’s not a human being, this El-Mugrabi. Why did he send my brother to commit suicide and not his own? If I had seen him in the street I would have done something bad to him. The brothers of the girl from Kiryat Yovel looked for him for a long time. They wanted to kill him”.

But El-Mugrabi is not to be found. He’s in an Israeli prison.

“Last week,” Haleed said, “They came to us from the army. They said if you work with us we won’t do anything to you. I said I’m not working with anyone. Then you’ll sleep in the street like a dog, the soldier said”.

“Then the army came a second time,” Haled said. “You’ve got half an hour to take out your things, they said. My father is a lawyer. He asked if they had a warrant. They said, you’ve already wasted five minutes of your time. Yallah, terrorists. Get out.

“After the soldiers had laid the explosives, they all stood for a souvenir photograph, like a soccer team. Then came the explosion. We had a palace, a 375 square meter house and every thing is gone. We didn’t have time to take out half of the things”.

“The Palestinian Authority came”, Said Haleed, the younger brother. “They said we’ll give you a monthly allowance of a thousand shekels. My Mom said I don’t want it. Is that the price of my son’s life? They took him to die at an age they don’t take boys to war”.

“If I had known what he was going to do, I would have cut off both his feet”, says Haled, the older one.

“I watch Arafat on TV”, says Haleed, ”And he’s shouting Shaheed, Shaheed, Shaheed. And I say to him collaborator, collaborator, collaborator. Ahmed Yassin is better than him. At least, Yassin doesn’t lie. Doesn’t talk of peace and make war”.

[…]

Abu Zooz says, “When the IDF entered Bethlehem a lot of people were pleased. Beforehand, every five people here, every ten people, would take weapons and become their own government. They would come into the restaurant and say: Give us all the money. Or they would phone me up and say: Give us 40 thousand dollars, or else we will kill you.

"But now you’re coming in, going out, and coming in, and going out. 90% of people in Bethlehem say it’s better that Israel stay”.

“It’s true”, says Haleed.

“When Arafat first came I said he’s bringing bad luck with him,” said Abu Zooz. “No good will come of him”.

“And now my father cries”, says Haled, “he cries all the time. They won’t give us back the body. They say they’ve buried him in Beer Sheva, but they won’t tell us anything”.

“We have a question,” Haleed says. “Are we allowed to rebuild our house? And if we do, will they destroy it again?”

Why is the house important? I ask.

“We can’t bring back my brother to life. At least we can get the house back. I am just thinking about the house all the time. I have decided to save enough every day for one brick, till we have enough for a whole house.”

[…]

The next morning I told their story to Muhammad Dahlan, Arafat’s close aide. …
“…I know the Palestinian people. You’re right, they are angry with Arafat. They say to me that he %!$#ed everything up. I tell them not to be heroes with me. We’ll come to him. I will attack him and you will just say Dahlan is right.

"And then they come to Arafat, and Arafat kisses them, and they start to tell him how great he is””.

My translation.

Comment about comments.
I’ve found that answering comments can be time consuming so I’ve decided to keep my reactions to them to a minimum. After all, I get my day in court all day and every day in my regular postings.

Comment about e-mails.
Most of my free time, today, was spent answering an e-mail, and now I’m too tired to blog, which isn’t very fair at all, is it?
So I think what I will have to do in future is publicly answer e-mails that I find interesting enough to spend whole days answering. By that I mean here on the blog. Don't worry, I won't divulge any private info.

I have tried to adapt today's e-mail for posting but it just isn't working so I've dropped it.

Update: This is not intended to discourage commenters or e-mailers.

The end is not nigh.
Fred says GedankenPundit has a posting that leads to this poll of Palestinian public opinion. My verdict: Don’t expect it to be “all over by Hannuka”, to rephrase a popular British saying from WWI (I think).

I know you weren’t expecting that, it’s a joke, haha.

From my mail box (I’ve seen this before. I think Our Sis sent it to me last time, but I can’t ask her because she’s abroad. Anyway, it’s just as good the second time):

Story With A MORAL

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway. It just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing.

He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

Now, the Moral of the Story:

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up!

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

P.S. - The donkey later came back and kicked the #%!$ out of the man that tried to bury him.

This time, a teenage girl.
The Palestinians have executed Rajah Ibrahim, the 18 year-old niece of 35 year-old Ikhlas Khouli, that poor mother of seven they killed last week.

An example of a country that managed to beat terrorism, with international help.
This evening, on Israeli TV channel two news, Ehud Yaari brought the Sri Lankan example of beating suicide terrorism. He explained why the Tamil Tigers gave up their twenty year struggle that had claimed 80,000 lives. When they lost international support, and had funding from abroad blocked, they realized that they had no chance of reaching their political goals. When they saw they had no choice, they signed a peace agreement with the Sri Lanka government.

So what does that mean for us? It means that European support for the Palestinians, both in spirit and in cash, is egging them on. They murder hundreds and the Europeans and the leftist lobbies in the US and in Israel say, “Oh, those poor Palestinians, it’s the Israelis pushing them to despair that forces them to do it, they’re not to blame”. This serves to strengthen them. If this uncritical international (and Israeli) support would cease, and they would be recognized internationally as the murderous menaces they are, they would be forced to accept a peace plan, and keep to it. We know this, this is nothing new. But the Sri Lanka example is proof that this is a feasible idea.

Now is not the time for dialogue
Now is the time for fighting and winning.

But the time for dialogue will come, hopefully. Fred Lapides sent me this, which started made me thinking about the effectiveness of dialogue projects.

I used to think projects like this one could be effective in creating understanding between Palestinians and Israelis. The rationale is right. Just get both sides to meet, talk and listen, getting to know each other and things will look different. But what are they really worth?

I worry that, since the war started, my daughters don’t have the opportunity to meet Arabs. This and the fear of terrorist attacks, open the way for stereotyping and generalizing. Before the war, I could always remind them of M’hammad or Isma’il or someone else, whom we had met on our last trip to Sinai and who had carried them round on their back, helped them climb on to the camel or just laughed with them. Now the memory of these friends grows dim.

Nearly two years ago, my eldest daughter should have participated in a project of meeting school children from Arab Yaffo, first in our school and then in theirs. But the meetings were to take place just a few months after the Arabs of Israel had initiated violent protest demonstrations and during which thirteen were killed. The meetings were cancelled, and the children missed a rare opportunity to meet and get to know each other.

I grew up in Haifa, a mixed city. I had two Arab boys in my class at school. One was my friend. We sat together for two years. I helped him with his English and he helped me with my Arabic. He used to joke that my Arabic writing looked like a six-year-old wrote it. The Arabs from the nearby village waited with me at the same bus stop. At night the two buses going to the village and to my neighborhood were unified and I got to ride through the village on the way home. We often visited Arab villages on scouts trips and school trips, in Israel proper and in the territories, regardless (I wasn’t even aware of the difference, in those days). There was no danger. I remember one trip in the mountains of Judea, walking in the Wadi, and looking up to see tens of school children, in an Arab village schoolyard, looking down at us, waving and smiling. It’s hard to believe it ever happened. We used to hike freely in Judea and Samaria. I well remember trips to Herodion and the Haritun cave, where two Jewish schoolboys, Koby Mandell and Yossi Ishran, who lived in a nearby settlement, were slaughtered, in May 2001. A school trip to these places has been unthinkable for years.

In those days, before the first Intifada, Arabs from the territories worked freely in Israeli cities. When I first moved to Tel Aviv, in my twenties, I got to know quite a lot of them. Bish had worked his way through university as a waiter and knew Arabs from the territories who had worked with him in the restaurant. Arabs from the territories renovated the building we were living in, taught me how to make them the Turkish coffee they liked and had free use of our bathroom. We gave them a kitten when our cat had a litter. Arabs from the territories were very much part of every day life in the city.

The forced separation between Palestinians from the territories and Jews has nothing to do with any racist sentiments or apartheid, which is what they’re trying to pin on us. It’s a direct result of the Palestinians’ violence and nothing else. The principle being that if we can’t trust them not to stab us (that’s how it was during the first Intifada -stabbings in the street) or shoot us or blow us up, then they can’t be in our streets. At first, the younger, single men were prevented from coming, but then older men with families started doing pigu’im (terrorist attacks) and the profile system proved useless.

On one of his trips to Sinai, Bish made friends with the cook at the camp place he was staying at. He was a young student of Islam from near Isma’iliya in Egypt, and the work in Sinai was a summer job. Being the cook, and purposefully sticking to the kitchen, he never actually got to meet any of the many Israelis he fed. This was his choice. But Bish was there on his own and sat with the workers and talked to them for hours. Bish found common grounds especially with the intelligent young cook, the student from Isma’iliya, who had only ever been fed with stereotypes about Jews and Israelis and was amazed by this Israeli who was the complete opposite of everything he had expected an Israeli and a Jew to be, and to top it all, impressively knowledgeable about Arab and Egyptian politics. A few weeks later, Bish returned there with the girls and me, and I was able to witness the relationship that had developed between them. It was obvious to me that the young man felt a deep bond with Bish, and he promised to take his revelations about Jews and Israelis back with him to his university. I often wonder how today’s situation has affected him.

Dialogue projects, such as are suggested in this article have been quite commonplace in Israel for years. Their main disadvantage, the thing that makes them completely ineffective, to my mind, is the fact that they usually bring together people who already believe in compromise, in dialogue, in peace. In short, these projects go to great lengths and spend a lot of money, trying to persuade the already persuaded, to convince the convinced. They don’t seem to reach the people who really need them. The people filled with hate, the people set on killing and destroying.

I don’t know how we can go about educating for dialogue. It’s obvious that the PA has been going to great lengths to educate for hate. The generation that worked in Israel, and knew Israelis, is growing old. The younger generation is made up of people many of whom have never met Israelis besides soldiers in full combat gear, pointing guns at them, and settlers, some of whom are full of hate themselves, and just as incapable of dialogue.



But talking about dialogue,
Fred also pointed out this article by David Newman, chairman of the department of politics and government at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in today’s NYTimes. Some people are completely deaf to what’s being shouted loud and clear. This person completely misses the point in his blindness and futile and ridiculous attempt at fair-handedness. In trying to explain why most of Israel’s left moved to the center and to the right he says, “When Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat failed to reach an agreement at Camp David in 2000, any remaining trust between the two sides fell away, terrorism returned to the streets of Israel and outright war to the alleyways and refugee camps of the West Bank.” Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat FAILED TO REACH AN AGREEMENT??? How about “Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak offered Yassir Arafat the best offer he’ll ever get if he lives to be a thousand, and he turned it down”?

“…terrorism returned to the streets of Israel and outright war to the alleyways and refugee camps of the West Bank”???? How about “Arafat and the PA declared war on Israel and proceeded with the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of innocent citizens, until Israel was left no choice but to reoccupy most of the areas of Palestinian self-rule”?

From his office in Ben Gurion University he knows for sure that, “Most Israelis were skeptical of the (Oslo) process and needed to be convinced that it was possible to reach an agreement with the people who, until yesterday, hated them and refused even to recognize their existential legitimacy”. Is that so? Well how do you explain, Mr. Bigshot-Article-in-the-New-York-Times, how come many extremely right wing friends of mine where convinced to vote for Ehud Barak in 1999, following Netanyahu’s unsuccessful premiership and were very hopeful about peace? Was I dreaming? Did it never happen? Were only intelligent, educated, university professors swept up in the optimism? Were intelligent, educated, university professors magically turned into a majority in Israeli society so as to elect Barak into office?

He goes on to blabber that “Few resources were invested in peace education or the creation of a language of peace that would have been meaningful to large sectors of both populations”. Both populations??? How dare he say such a thing? That the Israeli Media spoke of nothing else but the merits of Oslo, completely ignoring the problems - not a mention; that children in Israeli schools sang songs of peace and drew doves and olive branches and pictures of Arabs and Jews holding hands (and still do) – obviously irrelevant; that half the country broke down and cried openly when Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by an opposer of peace and that every year no expense was saved to commemorate his way – what’s that got to do with peace education? Oh, yes, it’s definitely both sides that were lax with regard to peace education.

So now we have the real reason for the mass flight from the leftist peace organizations. They, like Arafat, have become irrelevant. They’ve lost their grasp on reality. If they ever had it in the first place.

Saudi aches and pains
The Saudis just can’t keep Israeli goods out. They’re in a particular predicament about a certain Israeli “medicament” finding its way in, incognito, specifically, Pyroxicam, a drug used to soothe joint and muscle pains. I say, let them ache. I bet you the royal family will get some if they’re aching and paining.

Care of Fred Lapides.

Another good one
Yahoo this time: "dance depicted from fish movement". I'm #3.

Thank you, thank you. I owe it all to my Dad, who taught me to waltz to Johann Strauss' "Viennese Blood", a very fishy piece.

What am I talking about? Must be time for bed.

Hizbullah attacks IDF on Mount Dov on Lebanese border
with anti-tank missiles and mortars, wounding three soldiers.

The land is a national resource and is not the private property of the kibbutzim and the moshavim.
In July I wrote quite extensively about Hakeshet Hademokratit Hamizrahit, which
is a far left movement established by Jews originating from Arab countries. Among other things, I mentioned their involvement in opposing the kibbutzim and moshavim making money by realizing the lands they received from the state for agricultural purposes. Well, yesterday, they won their case.

“The High Court ruled … that the decision by the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) to rezone kibbutz and moshav agricultural land for real estate development was null and void on the grounds that it contradicted the principle of equality.

The court ruled that the share of the revenues, in the form of compensation, that would accrue to the kibbutzim and moshavim as a result of the building - on what is state-owned land - was excessive.

The expanded seven-judge panel, which ruled unanimously, ordered the ILA to review its decision as soon as possible. In the meantime, the court determined, all deals linked to the freeing up of agricultural land for real estate development are to be frozen.”

If you read my posting about Hakeshet Hademokratit Hamizrahit, the movement responsible for submitting the petition to the high court, you know I’m not crazy about them. But I think this High Court ruling is just and I’m happy about it.

Thank you R.T.
R.T. came over today to help us move my computer from what was up till now the study, but is soon to become my younger daughter’s bedroom, into the living room. Our computers are wired in a network so we needed help to move things round. It’s a relief to get to spend my evenings with Bish again. He sits in the living room with his laptop, alternating between the net and the TV, and I have been busy of late, blogging in the study, so we were getting quite lonely. Now that’s fixed. The computer even looks quite nice in the living room. I didn’t think it would, but it does.

Separating the girls rooms has become necessary, because my eldest is beginning to need her space. The only thing is we’re going through all this trouble, rewiring, rearranging furniture, and so on, and our lease on the apartment is up in March. We will probably renew the lease, though, if the landlords don’t get too greedy.

I'm seventh on google for "horrible fish dead picture".
And me a vegetarian! I tell you, there are some very weird people out there.

Oh, look. Arabic News.com have Francofied British foreign office minister, "Jacque" Straw.
The French will love that. They should have gone all the way and called him Jacques Streaux.

Streaux said "that Britain encourages the Syrian government to work for the sake of peace, and to use its influence with the Lebanese Hizbullah party in order to prevent the escalation of the situation on the Lebanese - Israeli borders". Hah! Good one.

My old pal Fred Lapides thinks Streaux should maybe mention to the Syrians that they "get out of occupied Lebanon".

It looks like the Yaalon interview is the token pro-Israeli article of the current Haaretz weekend magazine (printed version).
The rest of it is full of horrified letters protesting Israel Air Force commander, Dan Halutz' interview of last week; Gideon Levi's stories of dead and amputated Palestinian children; an article trying to figure out why Israel should refuse entry to a group of 52 French "Peace" activists, many of them Muslims, who just wanted to "get to know both sides better", and so on, and so forth. I feel sick.

The most annoying thing about it is what I think is the reason for this dive even further left. For a few weeks now, The radio has been full of happy, smug advertisements that Haaretz is "not what you thought", which gleefully inform listeners that according to the latest TGI survey, exposure to Haaretz has actually gone up! I could scream. (Neither Bish nor I have been able to find a link to this, for some reason, besides this from Maariv, which obviously isn't very objective). Of course, as a result, Haaretz must now feel free to swing right on back as far left as possible, having made an effort to be a wee bit more even handed for a month or two. I can't wait for the letters in response to Yaalon's interview, due next week.

And this time, the children
Another article in the Haaretz series about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among survivors of terrorist attacks. A Jerusalem family tells of life following the Sbarro pigua.

I'm starting to feel very uncomfortable among all these multi-lingual Israeli bloggers.
Fortunately I have Voltaire's Candide in Hebrew, and chapter 23 is very short. Here's the English, for people who, horror of horror's, know neither Hebrew nor French!

I think I’ll cut it out of the paper and have it framed
and go back and read it every time I have to listen to Dr. Yossi Beilin and other people, stuck in mistaken conceptions, for reassurance that not everyone in this country is a complete and utter idiot.

I’m talking, of course, about Israeli Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon’s interview in Haaretz weekend magazine.

Every word is a gem. I tried to choose a sample passage, but they’re all so good I couldn’t decide. Go read it all. I know it’s long, but it’s worth it. Yes, you too, Dad.

By the way, having said that, I notice that quite a lot of the original print version of the interview has been omitted in the translation. At least two whole arguments have disappeared. One points to the mistake many Israelis make in demanding “now” solutions instead of focusing on long term conflict management, and the other one is about some people’s refusal to be parted with “the conception”, the same conception he maintains the Israeli Media had a large part in creating. Now, why on Earth should they cut those particular arguments, I ask.

Judaism's universal identity
Yair Sheleg from Haaretz says that “settlement theology” (as he calls it) is adjusting itself to the seemingly insoluble crisis the settlement movement finds itself in, by promoting the interesting and unusual philosophical ideas of Elijah Benamozegh, a 19th century rabbi of Livorno, Italy.

Follow up on Terminal Patient bill.
Professor Mordechai Ravid, director of the internal medicine ward at Meir Hospital, Kfar Sava, claims, in today’s Haaretz, that the Steinberg committee, appointed by former health minister Shlomo Benizri to legislate guidelines on the medical approach to a dying patient, determined principles that do not add to existing laws, but just complicated matters. To base this claim he complains that the Steinberg committee was made up of dozens of members who were split into four sub-committees. He contrasts this with the committee that dealt with reforms in the health services and headed by Judge Shoshana Netanyahu that consisted of just four members. I’m glad he mentioned this, because now I know why the health services reform was such a mess! The reform was, and remains, extremely unpopular. While the new health system substantially improves the situation of the very poor and the very sick, it seems to me that the great majority of the population pay a great deal more for their health services and receive a great deal less. For instance, I had my first child before the new system was initiated and my second child after. The result was that many of the routine pregnancy checkups that I was entitled to during my first pregnancy through my sick fund, I had to pay for privately, during my second. I was fortunate enough to be able to afford this (just about), but this is surely not the case for most women. Does this not raise the likelihood of babies being born with avoidable deficiencies? What does this mean for the future health of our population?

But the article is not about that. Professor Ravid makes some interesting remarks about the difference, morally, (if any) between active euthanasia or assisted suicide and refraining from giving life support treatment, in accordance with a patient’s wishes. He maintains that the innovative idea of a timing machine that will periodically stop a respirator and allow a doctor to refrain from turning it on again (you may remember my writing about this, a few days ago) is an absurd attempt at forcing religious values on secular patients. This is all very well, but we’re not living in a perfect world and I view this idea as a realistic solution to a political difficulty.

“The main issue the committee should have dealt with” he goes on to say, ”is living wills. It is necessary to establish rules regulating on what terms such a will is valid and how it should be phrased, what restrictions must be taken into consideration in implementing it and most important, for how long it is valid. A healthy person writing a will like this is not equipped to know how he will feel when ill. If an agreed document of principles could be put together on this issue, that would suffice”.

Just pour some more money on them.
Israeli Guy, Gil, has some interesting comments on the Marshall style peace plan being suggested by Stef Wertheimer, Israeli industrialist millionaire. Gil correctly points out, among other things, that the Germans and the Japanese had the decency to surrender before the dough started raining from heaven. Wertheimer apparently doesn't think this is necessary in the Palestinians' case.

A few days ago Shoshana, from The News, Uncensored and I had a discussion about another proposed MidEast Marshall Plan (Or maybe the same one. Shlomo Meital, who did the proposing, in this case, could very well be in cahoots with Wertheimer who, I understand, is busy organizing a powerful following for his plan). Our discussion focussed mainly on the economic state the previous version of a MidEast Marshall Plan (Oslo) left the Palestinians in (and that's before they really plunged themselves into dire economic straits by initiating war with their peace partners).

Update: Some very interesting comments have been posted in reaction to this matter on Gil's page.

Something I missed before about the Temple Mount possible disaster.
Nadav Shragai says in Haaretz that Jerusalem District archaeologist Gon Zeligman, does not believe the renovations of the "Solomon Stables" are connected to the current problem, but thinks it is the result of faulty construction. The wall is part of shoddy building additions from the 19th century. In this respect his view differs from that of Dr. Eilat Mazar from the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities. Another possibility cited in Haaretz' printed edition but not in the online translation, suggests that the Waqf works changed the way the (rain?) water trickles into the mountain, causing the bulge.

This photo clearly shows the bulge:


Here is another really good photo and a sketch explaining exactly where the bulge is. Unfortunately the explanations are in Hebrew but it will help you get the picture. The bulge is on the lower right side, denoted by a little black frame with white writing and an arrow pointing at the wall. The nearby mosque with the silver dome is Al-Aqsa (The Golden Dome of the Rock, is not Al-Aqsa, contrary to popular Western belief, but a marking of the place where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammed landed when he flew to Jerusalem on his winged horse, one night). The Western Wall is on the lower left side.

Yet another Update: Tal G. has something better - a very clear aerial photo and a translation from Yediot Aharonot, which gives some different information about when the wall was built than Haaretz. Nice to see everyone agreeing about the facts.

Go read more Temple Mount disaster stuff
Ribbity Frog has been reading the official Palestinian stand on the Temple Mount south wall collapse danger in the Palestinian Authority's official newspaper Al-Ayyam. And he's summarized it specially for us in English. Isn't he a dear?

This could end in a terrible, terrible disaster
I’m very worried about the warnings that the southern wall of the Temple Mount is in very serious danger of collapsing, possibly as a result of renovations that have been going on in "Solomon's Stables" for a few years now, in order to turn the stables into a mosque. According to the Israeli Antiquities Authority, it’s not a matter of if it will collapse, but of when. They say it just won’t hold. The renovations are actually illegal, and have been going on without the required archeological and engineering supervision, for political reasons.

I have this mental image of it all coming down and bringing tens of thousands of Ramadan prayers with it (like the walls of Jericho or the Philistines in the Samson story).

Also scary is why the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust that has defacto control of the Temple Mount, and has been conducting the renovations, is so adamant that everything is all right and refuses to let any experts in to make sure. If someone told me my house was about to fall down, I’d have someone in to check it double quick, even if I thought it was nonsense. The Waqf is insisting that there has been no change in the size of what’s being called a growing "bulge". But how can they know this, when they can only see one side? Not only are they refusing to let experts check their side of the bulge, they are even going so far as to blame Israel for endangering the Temple Mount by encircling it with the army, and with archeological excavations and contend that Israel is actually planning the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

I dislike conspiracy theories, and usually try to refrain from linking to articles about Islam’s inherent evil, and that sort of stuff, which make me feel very uncomfortable. But something very fishy is going on here, which demands attention. It seems very likely, given their extremely suspicious behavior, that the Waqf is busy purposefully doing serious damage to antiquities from biblical times, so as to disprove the Jews’ rights to the area. The claims to this effect are nothing new, but now it looks like it could very well cause a calamity. It's quite logical that the Waqf can’t allow anyone in to witness what they’ve been up too, under the circumstances, even if it will cost thousands of lives. In preparation, they are brainwashing the people, so if it does happen, Israel and the Jews will automatically be blamed. That must have been why they had that big rally there, a few days ago. Besides the cost in lives, in the event of a collapse, which could be horrific, the effect on the masses all over the Muslim world, will probably be unprecedented.

Update: Nadav Shragai says in Haaretz that Jerusalem District archaeologist Gon Zeligman, does not believe the renovations of the "Solomon Stables" are connected to the current problem, but thinks it is the result of faulty construction. The wall is part of shoddy building additions from the 19th century. In this respect his view differs from that of Dr. Eilat Mazar from the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities. Another possibility cited in Haaretz' printed edition but not in the online translation, suggests that the Waqf works changed the way the (rain?) water trickles into the mountain, causing the bulge.

This would be good for one of James Taranto's "You Don't Say" passages:
"Police believe couple found stabbed in Carmiel apartment were murdered". Haaretz updates, 10:56.

We went to Lilo and Stitch

Great fun! I thought it was hilarious. My youngest thought it was the saddest movie she’d ever seen and cried her eyes out.

Aaaaaaaaaah!
I've been sweating over adding a "comments" option for HOURS. I've finally managed to get it right. All sorts of horrible things were happening on the way. The posts were going all skewy and that wasn't even the worst of it. My heart still hasn't completely recovered! But as they say, all's well that ends well. (Isn't that a silly saying? What about PTSD???)

Now I've got to rush to get the girls and me ready on time for the movie we're going to.

“As you are aware, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

M to 007

The World Is Not Enough (1999).

Buy Israel Bonds
It's apparently a good deal. Read all about it in Haaretz.

All the truth about the myth of "The cease-fire that was missed because of Shehadeh’s elimination"
By my main man, Ehud Yaari.

It looks like the fun has begun
See, it even rhymes.

Fred Lapides is back!

OK, so maybe my previous posting
made me seem overly positive about equality between men and women in Israel. So things aren’t perfect. So maybe it is more difficult for women to “succeed” in Israel, than for men. But look how many wonderful new laws that help women, the relatively few women MK’s have managed to pass in the Knesset, in recent years. Maybe it’s not the quantity of representation that matters, but the quality.

Oh, and by the way, Justin, I hope you haven't taken my argument personally. We're on the same side, after all. Let's just agree to disagree in this matter.

I forgot to point out that those Likud MK’s I mentioned before, are also Government members.
Naomi Blumenthal is Deputy Minister of Infrastructure; Limor Livnat is Minister of Education; and Tzipi Livni is Minister Without Portfolio.

Disenfranchised? Maybe disenchanted.
Justin Weitz, the original American Keiser (yikes!), has made some rather strange comments on Israeli Politics. Lynn B., always In Context, threw down the gauntlet, which I will now proceed to take up.

I hadn’t even bothered to read the original Haaretz article on the subject of the lack of a reasonable percentage of women Knesset members. Quite frankly, I find the issue extremely tedious. One thing struck me as particularly ridiculous in the article and that is the argument that “even China has more female politicians than Israel”. Well, duuuh! Last time I checked, China was a communist entity with tough affirmative action. And would it not be an understatement to point out that China is not exactly the same sort of democracy as Israel? I once saw a TV program about a Chinese family (in China), with two career-orientated parents (the mother was a successful radio presenter). They happily pointed out that they had put their solitary daughter, who was about 4 years old, if I remember correctly, in a 24 hour, 7 day a week, state funded kindergarten, so they could get on with their careers! Give me 17 women MK’s any day, if that’s the alternative.

Furthermore, it was interesting to see that (in the printed version of the article - cut in the translation for some reason) MK Marina Solodkin (from Yisrael Ba’aliyah, Natan Sharansky’s party) explains her opposition to reserving seats for women in the Knesset by reminding us that in the communist party of the USSR there was a 30% quota for women.

Coming back to our American Keiser, he writes that the relatively few women in Israeli politics, “tells of a great problem in Israeli politics”. He fails to point out that the percentage of women parliamentarians in Israel is actually higher than in the USA, according to the article in Haaretz.

He goes on to point out that the secular-religious “divide (in Israel) prevents Israel from enacting any true feminist legislation.” And that, “Israeli women have been largely disenfranchised because, the ultra-Orthodox aside, they are socially liberal”. I have no idea what “socially liberal” means as a generalization about women, or what that has to do with the price of fish, for that matter. I haven’t noticed that Likud MK’s, Limor Livnat, Naomi Blumental or Tzippi Livni, are more inclined to being socially liberal than male Likud MK’s, besides being more likely to promote women’s issues, for obvious reasons. But as to feminist legislation, as far as I know, the laws in Israel in this respect are very advanced by any standard, as are laws with regard to homosexuals rights, for instance (rather surprising, considering that “the religious parties control over a quarter of the Knesset”, isn’t it?).

Here are some examples of so-called “feminist” laws passed in Israel in recent years:
(* Denotes a Hebrew link).

“The 1992 Single parents Law has ameliorated (Hmmm, that’s a good word) the situation of single parent families. The law strengthens the protection for single-parent families with low income by increasing the level of means-tested benefits and awarding day care and child-education grants and priority in vocational training. Thus, almost all single-parent families - both official and unofficial - are eligible for income-support benefit at the increased rate”.


“In 1996, the Equal Pay (Male and Female Employees) Law was passed. Although previous legislation had intended to provide equal pay, the many loopholes had allowed for significant gendered wage gaps to develop; the current legislation will eliminate these loopholes. At this time, on the average, women earn 30% less than men who are employed in comparable positions do”.

In 1998 a law specifically forbidding sexual harassment* in the work place was passed, denoting a suggestion or a reference as enough to be regarded as harassment.

In 2000 the Knesset passed a law granting equal rights to women* in the workplace, the military and in other spheres of society. The law also lays out the rights of women over their bodies and protects women from violence and sexual exploitation. This law is in addition to a general equal rights law already in effect since 1951, which wasn’t specifically about women’s equal rights.

Another law protects pregnant women from being fired as a result of their pregnancy, and from what I understand, women get a far better deal in Israel, with regard to childbirth leave, than in the US.

So much for the secular-religious divide preventing Israel from enacting any true feminist legislation, which, as you can see, is completely without factual basis. I think the real problem in Israel, in this regard, is actually enforcing these laws. The police are busy chasing after Palestinian mass murderers, as you well know.

So, once again, back to Mr. Weitz, this time to his claim that “Israeli women have been largely disenfranchised”. Whatever could he mean? Where did he get this idea? Could he really mean that Israeli women have largely lost the right to vote and be voted into office? That, after all, is the meaning of the word “disenfranchised”, according to all my dictionaries. I have checked and rechecked, just to make sure. Could this be some sociology term I am not aware of? A term equivalent to, say, the “glass ceiling”?

If I’m right to understand the word “disenfranchised” literally, well, as I said recently, I haven’t missed a national or municipal election since 1983 and for most of that time I think I was what Mr. Weitz would call moderately “socially liberal”. However, I don’t remember anyone stopping me at the door on the way in to vote. And if we’re just talking about the right to be voted into office, there are still 17 female MK’s out there. It might not be much, and they must have had to work really hard to get there, but no one’s stopping them at the door either, although many of them are at least “socially liberal” (I can think of one, off hand, if not more, that is much further left than that). I’d also say they are, nearly all, really loud and pushy. They’d be screaming to high heaven if anyone were blocking their entrance. I assure you, we’d have heard about it. So I’ll just assume “disenfranchised” is a sociology term that is beyond me and leave it at that. I confess having taken sociology for one year in university but I was really terrible. I just didn’t get it. I’m still traumatized from discovering “mentality” was a dirty word, and to this day I continue to scramble for suitably PC alternatives, when I wish to convey an idea that necessitates the use of that particular word.

Having said all that, there are still only 17 female MK’s out of 120. Why is that? We mustn’t forget to take into account the ultra-orthodox, whose women are far too busy bringing up, not to mention working to support, double-digit sized families, and doing their portion of good deeds for their communities, to have time to be active in politics. That is, even if their rabbis and husbands allowed them to.

That aside, Lynn says her “feeling was always that there just weren't that many women who wanted to lower themselves into the slime pit that is Israeli politics”. I whole-heartily agree with this assessment. This goes for men too. In my view, that’s the root of the “lack of leadership” in Israel everyone whines about all the time. The most talented won’t go anywhere near politics. I actually see it as a sign of Israeli women’s wisdom and common sense.

I could suggest another reason. Politics demand much more personal sacrifice of women than of men, as do all demanding, powerful jobs. In Israel, family values are very highly regarded. This is probably why I was so horrified with that Chinese couple sticking their infant child into what ultimately is an orphanage type institute with a polite name. By the way, when I say “family” I don’t necessarily mean traditional families. What I mean is putting family before self. A lot of Israeli women wouldn’t dream of compromising their families for what is ultimately (in my view, anyway) a greed for power.

But this doesn’t explain women’s impressive representation in other areas, such as the judicial system. Compared to their under-representation in the Knesset, women fulfill a prominent role in the State Attorney and the District Attorney offices and in the Justice Ministry, and there are a quite impressive amount of female judges (including three high court judges).

So I’d definitely go for the slime pit theory.

This lovely letter came on Naomi Ragen's mailing list just now:
“Cathy and I just returned from a 2-week vacation in Israel. It was great. Yes there was terrorism. Yes, many of our family and friends thought we should not go at this time. However, it had been 20 years since either of us had been. We talked about going this year a long time ago and we decided not to change our plan. We wanted a special vacation, to spend time with family and friends, to revisit the country from the perspective of adult parents, and to enjoy the Mediterranean.

Although "The Situation", as viewed in the media, was scary- we realized that the chances of us being in the wrong place during an attack were extremely remote. (WE did stay off buses and stayed away from some areas.) We could be the victims of a random tragedy anywhere on this earth. We could not let the hatred of Jews and the State of Israel influence our decision to go anymore than choosing to go to our synagogue or JCC. Given our history how can any Jew be afraid to go to Israel?

The whole trip was awesome. I'm glad we insisted on flying El Al. That way we were in Israel as soon as we boarded the plane. We loved staying with and being with family and friends. We enjoyed revisiting many of the tourist attractions and historical sites. It was special just being in Jerusalem, around the Sea of Galilee, and in biblical mountain ranges. The bond that we had with the land years ago was still there. It felt so good driving through the kibbutz farmlands of the Hula valley and swimming in the Sea of Galilee. We were proud to stand in flourishing settlements created by Jewish immigrants of the 1st and 2nd aliot. We marveled at advanced Israeli technology with the launch of an Ofek satellite. It was amazing to see the development of infrastructure and business despite the constant need to invest in a strong defense. We loved being with and talking with Israelis.

We never felt in danger despite two terrorist attacks while we were there.
Security was extraordinary. Guards were stationed at all the banks, in front of grocery stores, post offices, and restaurants. Cars were searched before entering parking lots to the malls. Soldiers were patrolling the Old City of Jerusalem. All of this simply made us feel safe, even good that we were being watched over by Jewish security. It did sadden us that these measures were necessary, but we never felt threatened by it.

Israelis are sad, frustrated and somewhat depressed. They are not sure that everything is going to be ok. The world is boycotting them; people and business are staying away. Only President Bush (Thank G-d) and the Americans are with them. They understand that their control of the Palestinian population is demeaning but they feel there is no alternative. They do not see anyone on the other side who is willing, capable or has the power to implement an enforceable peace. The other side is not preparing for a harmonious relationship. There is no Palestinian who is willing to stand up and take any responsibility for their people's predicament. No infrastructure has been built or planned to improve the lives of the Palestinian. They are not transforming their refugee camps into modern cities. They are not building education facilities or curriculum designed to promote peaceful coexistence with Israelis as neighbors. They are not creating jobs by supporting business growth. Instead, they promote hatred and war. Their resources are used to buy weapons and teach suicide
Bombers how to build bombs. Leaders have become rich while the people suffer.
Israelis will have to live with the consequences for a long time.

Our trip was everything anyone would want to get out of a vacation. We did not start out on a mission of solidarity. We just wanted to go to Israel. Many American Jews thought we were nuts, Israelis thought we were special and told us so. They were delighted to see us. People would approach us to see if we were tourists (the lack of tourists was so obvious by deserted tourist sites and near empty restaurants and shops), asked if we were afraid to be here - obviously not- and then thanked us for coming. Sometimes they chatted with us, other times they just wanted to say we are glad you are here. In nearly every restaurant we were treated like royalty. Management gave us free drinks and desserts. One manager insisted we take several desserts home with us. Can you imagine how we felt? We were in Israel for our benefit but everywhere we visited we made others feel good that we were there. We thought we were going to have a nice vacation and we did. We never imagined that our mere presence would make some Israelis feel better simply because we came. That is the memory that we will cherish from this trip. We will return soon.

To our friends and family. Thank you for your concern and prayers while we were there. We appreciate your heightened awareness during our two weeks in Israel.

Lanny and Cathy Plotkin
PlotkinL@aol.com”

The situation is not good, but let’s not make generalizations about Israeli Arabs.
The Israeli Air Force magazine (via Ynet) has the story of two Israeli Arab brothers who both serve as adjutancy N.C.O.’s in the Air Force, one in an F-16 squadron and the other in a Sikorsky CH 53 (“Yas’oor”) helicopter squadron. One of them has even tattooed his squadron emblem on his shoulder. They have seen operational action in the Gaza strip (one of them was an infantryman before changing to Air Force) and in South Lebanon. The one who works in the F-16 squadron waited for four months for his security clearance. He never believed an Arab would be accepted to a combat squadron and he was delighted to find he had been wrong. The brothers, who are Christian Arabs, say there are other young boys from their village who plan to enlist.

Seven more Arab Israeli citizens arrested for terrorism.
This time for taking part in the murderous attack on the bus at the Meiron Junction in the north of Israel.

In case you don't recognise him, the poodle on the right ... er, I mean on the left, at the bottom is none other than our very own Dr. Yossi Beilin.

This is courtesy of an Israeli blog (Hebrew) I've been reading for quite a while now, written by a thirteen year-old. This blog kind of takes me back to a time in life I do not miss.

And since you ask, the Beilin poodle thing is part of Israeli folklore, by now. Once, in ancient times, Rabin called Beilin Shimon Peres' poodle.

Ribbity Frog Blog
New Israeli blog by Arabic-reading blogger. Definitely a welcome addition and worth keeping an eye on. What is it with those frogs that makes them so irresistable?

Ribbit.

Ah, Bjorn Lomborg!
The original reformed environmentalist strikes again! This time in the NYtimes.

His main claim to fame is having the audacity to say that the dire warnings by environmentalists of an approaching environmental calamity on Planet Earth are greatly exaggerated. (I'm actually surprised Denmark hasn't revoked his citizenship).

Here's the article about him published in the UK Spectator in February 2002.

So here we have it: "Follow the Money: Where Do International Contributions to the Palestinian Authority Really Go?"
This is the full 40 page IDF report, including “an explanation of captured original Arabic documents (with their English translations)” detailing “the mechanism of this multi-million dollar money-laundering operation that has turned international humanitarian aid into support for terror and suicide bombing.”

According to the report, “by keeping a double set of books, the Palestinian Authority has systemically channeled at least 14% of its public budget, as stated to the IMF and donor states, to Fatah, other terrorist organizations, and various covert destinations”.

“Analysis of the documents captured shows that double-accounting practices enable the PA to redirect funding to PLO and Fatah apparatuses that were supposed to have been disbanded after the PA was established. Some of the documents described in this report prove the connection between PA financing of the Fatah/Tanzim, and suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks carried out against Israeli civilians”.

Care of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (which was originally pointed out to me by Nikita).

“The brutal truth is that this will be Israel's war as much as America's.”
Neill Lochery, director of the Center for Israeli Studies at University College, London, suggests, in this United Press commentary, that the US should involve Israel in the war against Iraq.

Proposed Israeli law - The Terminal Patient 2002, based on five principles:
“* Absolute ban on active termination of a patient's life

* Conferral of permission to refrain from providing life-prolonging treatment, when three basic conditions are met: the patient has a terminal condition; the patient suffers greatly; the patient doesn't not want to defer his or her death. This permission authorizes a decision not to put a patient on a respirator, should the three conditions apply

* For the first time, doctors in Israel will have a legal duty to provide medication to relieve suffering of terminally ill patients

* There is an obligation to conduct a clear, candid discussion with the patient, or his or her delegates

* Authorities can comply to written instructions provided by a patient, so long as the conditions noted above are in force.”

This is a tough issue in Israel because of Jewish beliefs about the sanctity of life and the unbending religious stand on suicide. They seem to have found an innovative solution to the problem of taking someone off a respirator: The respirator will stop after a set period, and it will be possible not to turn it on again.

This is a link to "Lilach - The Israeli Society to Live and Die with Dignity", a non-profit organization that helps Israelis who wish to sign a living will. It’s a Hebrew site, but it does offer some English articles here.

More about Israeli Chief of Staff Yaalon’s speech to the Rabbis from Haaretz:
“The chief of staff claimed that the Palestinians launched a war against Israel in 2000 when they grasped that the dispute was headed toward a diplomatic resolution – and rather than choosing compromise, they initiated terror and violence. The intifada is not a popular uprising, as some would have Israel and the world believe, Ya'alon stressed. Rather, it is a war controlled by the PA leadership, with PA officials determining the tactics and norms in the war”.

The Jerusalem Post has more:
“In an attempt to maintain terrorism as a tool with which to pressure the State of Israel, this leadership thought that the State of Israel would break much sooner.

It did not believe that the State of Israel could absorb [611] dead, could absorb the kind of economic damage we have been absorbing over the past two years, and they thought that there would be demonstrations much sooner which would direct the political echelon to reach decisions, whether it be a unilateral withdrawal or anything else that is essentially surrendering to terror."

Underscoring this point, Ya'alon said that "All the Arab circles chose what they saw as Israel's weak spot: Israeli society's inability to stand up [to terrorism], and it was no accident that they chose terrorism, which strikes at civilians, and the use of missiles which overcome all of Israel's abilities [to defend itself] and strike at the home front.

"They do this out of the belief that striking at Israeli society and its civilians will set off internal processes similar to the withdrawal from Lebanon. A society which projects an inability to stand up to losses puts pressure from the lower echelons to the higher ones, and this leads to demonstrations, etc., which ultimately leads to the political echelon making decisions based on the Arab side's interests," he said.

"The Arabs look at the past 20 years, from our first pullbacks in Lebanon made while counting those killed and the Jibril agreement, and I say these two things brought about the 1987 intifada. The Palestinians' understanding that Israel cannot stand up to losses the intifada brought upon us, and when we look upon what has happened since the intifada the current conflict is not an intifada and the processes that have taken place since, their belief that the State of Israel is not prepared to fight any more, to sacrifice for its defense, was strengthened, and therefore they believed it was right to press it at its weakest link with steadfastness."

There is no way of coming to an understanding with the present Palestinian leadership, Ya'alon said, adding that to show any weakness in this regard would put Israel into a tailspin.”

The JP also details some of Yaalon’s views on the threats Israel faces from her neighbors.

Ilana of Inner Balance says, “I'm sure a lot of Israelis were shaken by his (Chief of Staff Yaalon’s) words, reading the speech felt like a bomb dropping on your head. As much as it's difficult to face the reality of the situation, Ya'alon's speech is something we needed to hear, trust its truthfulness and extend our support”.

What Yaalon says is more or less what Ehud Yaari says. I’m glad someone with authority has said it out loud, in public (sort of – the speech was meant to be closed to the press but someone sneaked a tape machine in. Very naughty. Or maybe a sneaky way of making his views known without getting into trouble with his bosses).

The Spoons Experience tells his story.
A must if you’re a sucker for stories with happy endings.

Israeli Chief of Staff reveals his outlook on issues of security in a conference of Rabbis today .
"Chief of Staff Major General Moshe Ya'alon said today that Israel must emerge victorious in the current armed conflict, so the Palestinians understand that they may gain nothing through terror". According to Ynet (the (Hebrew) online version of Yediot Aharonot) he also said that the present Palestinian leadership does not recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and is trying to implement the "Stages Plan". He also said that the withdrawal from Lebanon was a mistake, and that we must not withdraw unilaterally from the territories. There's more, Syria, Iran, Iraq, the works. I'm too lazy to translate it all, knowing it'll probably be all over the place in English tomorrow.

Good.
And good riddance.

About the Muslim rally in Jerusalem - info on Tal G.
Judith Weiss also has some interesting things to say about this on Kesher. I can only say that the pictures of this rally on Israeli TV were not pleasant. They made me very angry.

I was always one of those prepared for compromise with regard to Jerusalem. I still am I suppose. But those guys have to recognize and accept our stake in the Temple Mount, or it's no go. No way.

I would like to say some stronger things, but I'm afraid of getting swept away. Rebecca Blood in her Weblog Handbook advises against writing when angry. I'll take her advice, in this case, for fear of saying things I will later regret.

Fire near the northern border.
From Ha'aretz updates:
“13:28: Hezbollah anti-aircraft shells fired near Lebanese border cause fire to break out near Kfar Yovel, no injuries.” (I can't find a Kfar Yovel in my atlas, but there's a place called Yuval, right on the border, a little west of Maayan Baruch and the Snir (Hatzbani) River).

From the updates in the Hebrew Haaretz website: “15:53 a fire is raging in the Hatzbani (Snir) River Nature Reserve. Fire fighters and Nature Authority rangers are trying to overcome the blaze”.

The two fires may be connected. I was in that very Reserve just four days ago. Remember those booms I heard?

It's so beautiful there, I hope the fire isn't doing too much damage.

I see the Jerusalem Post has something about it, too.

Hey, look!
It got hotter than 31 centigrade and my weather pixie (on the left) got short clothes! Wonders never cease! (Don't be too upset if this is gone before you saw it, I know most of you read me when it's night in Israel. Just come back over on the next heat wave.)

Aha! A newish Ehud Yaari article!
Finding one of these always makes my day.

This time he informs us that the two new anti-Semitic books in Arabic, we’ve all been waiting for, are out. He also helps us find information* about Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement’s online campaign to boycott U.S. companies connected to Israel (while simultaneously “complaining daily about Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade with Israel”). The Fatah's popular website www.yafa-news.com also refers the mindful Arab consumer to a nice site that helps us see which goods carry the kosher sign, thus helping us avoid them. (A reminder: Yaffa is the Arabic for Jaffa or Yaffo, the city adjacent to, and nowadays part of, Tel Aviv). Last but not least, he tells us where* we can find a rare interview with one of Bin Ladens’ lieutenants.

*Arabic links. Oops! Jihadonline.com seems to have disappeared (I swear I had nothing to do with that – I wish I knew how).

I really love reading Judith Weiss over on Kesher.

The joy of an Israeli elementary education
The girls should be starting school again on Sunday. I can’t believe the summer vacation is nearly over. It just flew by.

Of course, Israeli parents are used to expecting a teachers’ strike at the beginning of each year. Israeli teachers are notoriously underworked. They work eight months a year, what with all the religious holidays, which reach their peek with three weeks (!) at Passover . Why three weeks? Well, I’ve yet to understand it. The best I can do is to assume that the predominantly female teacher community needs more time than the rest of us for the traditional pre-Passover cleaning). Of course, on the top of all the religious holidays we mustn’t forget the full two months of the Summer vacation (two months and ten days for junior high and high schools). When they do work, they have a twenty-four hour week, nearly half of the working week of most Israelis. (You'll notice I'm not even mentioning the sabbaticals).

Now I don’t want to sound jealous. I do not envy the teachers for having to spend their mornings in classes overflowing with 37 to 41 nasty, noisy, undisciplined brats (My daughters, of course, are perfectly behaved, and are no trouble at all for their teachers, besides asking intelligent and thought-provoking questions, and thus enriching the studious atmosphere in their respective classrooms). But after all they only have to do it for four or five hours a day, five days a week (luckily for our kids).

Anyway, back to the annual first of September teachers’strike. Now that my girls are old enough to stay at home without me, I couldn’t care less. Let them strike! I’ve paid my debt to society. All those stressful years, having hysterics all summer trying to arrange solutions for my kids, while I worked, and then being hit with a strike just when I thought the summer vacation nightmare was over. So strike away! See if I care! They probably learn more at home, anyway.

Last year, the biggest teachers' organization suffered a severe blow. The militant head of the organization, a professional unionist and the bane of all parents, was arrested for fraudulently purchasing a university degree, assignments, examinations and all, from the Israeli branch of Latvia University. I’m afraid I stooped to a particularly malicious joy at this unpleasant creature’s downfall.

Hopefully, until they find a villainous enough replacement for the infamous Ben-Shabbat, they’ll be less audacious and unscrupulous with their strikes.

Update: Janice, who knows all about where to buy Israeli goods, says, "We can relate to teacher's unions. They are lefty, hell-holes in the USA, too. It sounds even worse in Israel, but you were once and maybe still are a quasi-socialist state".

Article in Haaretz about a P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) victim of the Passover Park Hotel terrorist attack.


Letter to the editor in Haaretz
“You advertise “Haaretz” newspaper as a newspaper “for people who think”. It’s very nice that the newspaper publishes such serious articles that we children don’t always understand, but we think children should also understand what is happening in the State of Israel. Just as there are supplements for literature, sport, economy and arts and entertainment, you should also publish a supplement for children and young people.

Talia Tentzer, Orr Ariel, ten-and-half-years-old, Jerusalem.”

Here! Here!

Although my daughters will probably still prefer Yediot Aharonot.

Ha'aretz’ Doron Rosenblum doesn’t think the polls are anything to go by.
According to him, the real reason people aren’t out demonstrating against the government is “a kind of spiritual curfew”. He maintains that, “As in a time of plague, the majority cloisters itself behind closed curtains”. He sums up that “this is how life looks after the total, sweeping victory of the pessimists, brutes, low-brows, and thoughtless louts from the two sides”. It’s always very effective to insult those you mean to persuade. This pessimistic, low-brow brute is full of gratitude to Mr. Rosenblum. My eyes are opened! I will cease from being a thoughtless lout, from this moment on, and will immediately go join those seven brave demonstrators in front of the Defense Ministry!

The UK Sunday Telegraph claims to have the real reason for Abu Nidal’s death.
“Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist, was murdered on the orders of Saddam Hussein after refusing to train al-Qa'eda fighters based in Iraq”. The source? Reports by Iraqi opposition groups and “a US official who has studied the reports”. The article goes on to inform us, “American intelligence officials revealed that several high-ranking al-Qa'eda members had moved to northern Iraq where they had linked up with Iraqi intelligence officials”.

I woke up to the sound of an ambulance siren this morning. What happens is you hear one ambulance and you wait to see if there are more. If there are, you go and put on the radio. That is if you haven’t heard a big boom beforehand. In that case, you go and put on the radio with the first ambulance.

Latest funny Google hit: gay + male + photos. Oh, you’ve definitely come to the right place! (Forget it, I’m not posting the link).

Another interesting search engine hit - from someone looking for israeli + soldier + blogs. Amusing. If an Israeli soldier has time to blog then he’s not a combat soldier, and not what you’re looking for. What do you think this is the Danish army, for goodness sake?