Wednesday, May 26, 2004

‘Happy Birthday To Me’ Post
Here in Israel, we are all living in a dream world. No one seems to realize the scale of animosity towards Israel in the world. Maybe its because the generally left-leaning media here would rather portray it all just as hostility towards Arik Sharon and his policies, for political reasons, and not that Israel’s actual legitimacy to exist is being increasingly questioned.

And maybe it’s because few ordinary Israelis read English well enough for them to be able to experience this animosity firsthand on the Internet. Most people I know stick to Israeli sites.

Melanie Phillips calls it

Israel’s astounding and unbelievable inability or refusal to grasp that the bigger war it is fighting — and losing hands down — is the battle for public opinion.

Gene at Harry's Place said something I hadn’t thought about that is very relevant to the “Are anti-Zionists anti-Semites?” question: Israel is “home to almost half of the world's Jews”.

Sever Plotzker in Yediot Aharonot’s news supplement for Shavuot: “…let’s assume that a person suggested to liquidate the present day Polish state and establish in its stead a non-national German-Polish state, because 59 years ago Poland annexed areas in the west and deported the German population there. Wouldn’t we call that person anti-Polish?”

* * * *

For my birthday, Bish and the girls bought me one of those easy-to-use teeny digital cameras that I can carry in my pocket. This was very sensitive of Bish. I really wanted one but didn’t say anything. Bish noticed my eyes light up when we were discussing something related. Isn’t he sweet?

So you can expect more photos in future, and not just of the cat.