NYC Indymedia: Mossad Bombs Kill Almost 200 in Bali Tourist Nightspot
Told you.

Among the many (less than complimentary) comments:
You are destroying the hopes of Palestinians
by A. Assad

History is littered with all those who have villified the Jewish people. Your ignorant hatred is betraying the legitimate grievances and aspirations of me and my fellow Palestinians. Shame on you.

Noticed by Bish. Oh, look, Taranto noticed it, too.

Update: The comments continue to amuse. Quite a few familiar commenters, as well (Lawrence Simon, for one). There's even one good one attributed to the author of the article. I assume it's a prankster. :-)
Just kidding
by Dean Bates

You people are so sensitive. Lighten up. I thought Jews had a sense of humor.

Diane L. came clean about that one on LGF. The comments there are hilarious too.

Here's another good one.

Where is the frog?
He should be back by now.

"Hell is heaven with people". Bish.

How many more innocent people are going to die before the bozos get it into their thick skulls that Israel is just A TRIAL RUN?
Has anyone noticed yet that there were no ISRAELIS killed in Bali?

Haggai went to the University of Michigan Divestment Conference. Here is his account of the event. I admire his courage.

By The Limey Brit.

Alone among the crowd an evil lurks
Behind a beard, a veil, a ballcap, a smile, even.
Can you pick out today's attempt?
Do you see the one who hates enough to die
Early, to invoke, for an instant, earthly Hell?
Fiery fury, detonated in a bus, exploded in the marketplace,
Grabs eight and a half lives to an all-too-soon conclusion.
He goes to Hell, his seventy two virgins unmet.
In whose plan do the murdered innocents follow him?
Justice may not equal the victim with her killer.
Keep her near your mercy, not your wrath.
Let your rage fall not upon those upon whom death has fallen.
Men cry aloud in the streets of Jerusalem;
No one will hear the pleas of the aggrieved for peace.
Once again we hear the old refrain:
"Palestine will not be occupied!"
Quote not the suppressed voice of reason,
Regarded here as treasonous collaboration and
Shot accordingly.
To the "victors" go the spoils;
Ululating former mothers praise their sacrifice, rewarded with status, cash, prestige.
Vene vidi vici has always been the dream,
Where one day the last Jew will be pushed into the sea.
Xenophobic hate is swelling, heaving, boiling, exploding.
You turn your face away?
Zion burns again.

Andrew Duncalfe, the Limey Brit himself. Is that a brilliant name or what?

Sent to me by Dan Lovelady. First thing I read today. Strong stuff for 5:30 in the morning. We don't usually have any suicide attacks before 7:45.

Haaretz thinks nature is a tragedy
Haaretz translated this NYT story about that lioness in Kenya that adopted the oryxes. But they changed the header to: “The lioness tourist attraction in Kenya ended in tragedy: The lioness that adopted oryxes killed and ate one of them”. This is not what happened at all, but the editors obviously didn’t read the story to the end (if at all). And anyway, since when is a lioness doing what lionesses do a tragedy?

More strike stuff.
This is what I wrote about the subject in August, when it was only a warning strike. I had no doubt at the time that there would be a full blown strike after the "Hagim" (which is now). These guys have to show they're doing something if they want to be reelected. And they do, more than anything. The country can go to h&#l, for all they care.

This is just what I was telling you about: Haaretz is hardly a left-wing publication with regard to the economy, while at the same time being fanatically dovish. I happen to agree with every word of this editorial about the strike that began today, which frankly disgusts me, although I stand to gain from it. They can take any gains of this strike and stuff them, for all I’m concerned. Money has no smell, they say, but any money ill gotten as a result of this strike, stinks to high heaven.

If you are interested in Jewish heritage in Central and Eastern Europe, you might like to visit Centropa, which is a new online archive of photos and oral histories.

I read about it in Haaretz's print edition, but I'm too tired to look for the Haaretz link right now, if there is one. G'night.

Who gassed Gaza?
Chemical weapons have been used before in the Middle East.

Guess who Saddam’s predecessors were. I’ll give you a hint. It was in Gaza. And it wasn’t Israel.

It was the British, against the Turks in 1917. It seems they didn't manage to do much harm with it, though.

The Culpepper Log managed to bait me with this story of how Arafat tried to assassinate Colin Powell this April. The source is Yossef Bodansky’s new book. I’m not sure how reliable he is as a source, but it requires a lot of gall for someone described here as “director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare” to publish such a claim in a book if it is a complete fabrication.

The story of the attempted assassination is interesting, although, if true, doomed to fail because the Shabak (Shin Bet) routinely “cleans” areas that such possible targets as Powell are going to pass through. I was witness to such a “cleaning” operation myself around the same period, which was a very tense one, if you remember, when I found myself at a location soon to be visited by Defense Minister Ben Eliezer.

The Palestinian Authority has the ability to fight Hamas when it kills one of their own. When asked to curb Hamas’ terrorist activity against Israel they claim they can’t because Israel has destroyed the infrastructure. It seems they can but won’t. Why is this being ignored by the world? (Rhetorical question).

Farid Lancheros left me a comment suggesting I linked to him, as a Palestinian blog. I visited his blog and I really enjoyed reading it. He seems to be a lovely person. His blog is a far cry from pro-Palestinian blogs I have visited in the past, most of which have managed to deeply offend me personally after about thirty seconds. Farid’s blog is nothing like that. It is a pleasant and gentle place to visit, very peaceful.

I understand that Farid suggested I link to him to show that Palestinians are not only the conflict, which is something I wrote yesterday. But the thing is, reading his blog, I initially thought he’d given the wrong URL. I could find nothing to suggest that a Palestinian wrote this, apart from the fact that he had attended an anti-war rally and made some pro-Palestinian comments. Delving further, while enjoying Farid’s description of his life as a New Yorker, I found that Farid is of mixed Palestinian and Colombian descent. I found his poignant and frank descriptions of his life as an openly gay man and a rehabilitated alcoholic moving. But Farid is first and foremost an American. This is quite evident from his writing. Describing his blog as a Palestinian blog is misleading. A few pro-Israeli bloggers are Israeli-born or have lived in Israel, some grew up in Israel, but they don’t describe their blogs as Israeli blogs.

I was elated with the Oslo Accords. I fantasized about Peres’ “New Middle East”. I could envision Israelis and Palestinians evolving together as a confederacy, two independent states working together to create an economic and cultural heaven. I read excitedly about development projects in the Palestinian Authority. I hoped I would soon be able to spend my holidays in the lovely new Palestinian hotels. I once went shopping in Kalkilya and was excited to see Palestinian policemen directing the traffic and Palestinian taxi drivers waiting for fares. It reminded me of the stories of the early days of the state of Israel when every little thing was a great achievement. I thought the Palestinians should surely succeed economically. The merchants were growing rich. Israelis queued for hours (literally), every Shabbat, to get to a West Bank town called Bidya, known mainly for its cheap furniture. Israelis flocked to the casino in Jericho. I know of the universities, the schools and the hospitals. I’ve seen the high-rise apartment buildings in Gaza (sadly only on TV) and the Gazan families sitting at cafes on the beach. I had been to Gaza City before Oslo, so I could appreciate the difference. I know that Palestinians are not just the conflict, Farid.

But why, oh, why are the Palestinians so wrapped up in their anger and vengefulness that they would rather side with the hate-filled fanatics and bring this whole delicate pack of cards down? As anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to be part of that rare institute, a happy marriage, even for a short while, knows, building a life together requires endless patience and compromise, giving each other time and space to grow, side by side. I accept that Israel also has a lot to learn in this respect. But the Palestinians seem set on murdering the spouse.

Farid, all this has very little to do with your life. You live somewhere else, in a peaceful place, where you are free to pursue your personal goals, and even your sexual preference. I very much doubt you will be coming to live in the Palestinian State when it is established (and may we all see it established in peace in our lifetime). Yours is not a Palestinian blog.

I will link to your blog, Farid, not as a Palestinian blog, but as an interesting blog I would like to visit again, written by an American Palestinian.

Five dead in Helsinki explosion. They’re not sure yet if it was a bomb or a gas leak.


Another suicide bombing prevented. This time in Tel Aviv.

Did Sharon visit Moscow disguised as
Abu Mazen????
Maariv reports that Palestinian Authority no. 2 Abu Mazen attacked Arafat with harsh words, using phrases usually used by US government heads and Prime Minister Sharon. The source – “a confidential report sent by top Russian government officials to their Washington colleagues following Abu Mazen’s visit to Moscow last week.

The report adds that Abu Mazen and other Palestinian top officials are very close in their views to the standpoint of the Israeli government and that there is a nearly complete correlation between the views presented by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the viewpoint presented by Abu-Mazen a few days later.

Following Abu Mazen’s visit to Moscow, which took place immediately following Sharon’s visit, the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov phoned his American counterpart Colin Powell and reported the developments, called by some diplomatic sources “dramatic”. A wider and more detailed written report was later transmitted from Moscow to Washington, and part of it reached the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem

The reports pointed out, among other things, that Abu Mazen convened the Arab ambassadors and conducted a discussion with them described as “sharp and genuine”. Abu Mazen said, among other things, that Arafat made a grave mistake when he didn’t prevent the outbreak of the Intifada and headed it. He said that he and other top Palestinian officials warned Arafat, time and time again, but he didn’t heed them. According to Abu Mazen, the Intifada has brought the Palestinians very harsh results, to a severe failure in all fields, to a loss of purpose and to a dead end.

Abu Mazen pointed out that he and other Palestinian leaders have come to the understanding that they must accept Israel’s demand: A complete cessation of the violence, of all kinds, as a first stage. Only after complete quiet returns can the political process be rehabilitated, he said.

According to the Russian report, the secret negotiations between PM Sharon and top Palestinian officials led to a complete acceptance of the layout offered by Sharon: First a cessation of violence, then a renewal of the political negotiation towards the establishment of a Palestinian state within temporary borders. Abu Mazen said that in the current situation it would be very difficult to calm the field and to impose its authority over the rejectionist organizations."

HALLELUYA!

Sorry there’s more, but I’ve got to go over and see my Mum, now.

(My translation, by the way).

Shabbat Shalom!

Not a Fish
is just me being me. Everyone who reads this and knows me personally can see that.
It has evolved quite a bit since I began in June. I go where my fancy takes me. I have something to say I say it. Stories I write about often have continuations but I’ve lost interest. I’ve said what I had to say. I am not a journalist.

Israel is much more than the conflict with the Palestinians, as Our Sis pointed out back when I was writing about that alone. (I wish I could say the same about the Palestinians, but that’s besides the point). Most Israelis take this country, and all the amazing accomplishments of the last hundred years, for granted. This war, threatening our very existence, has given us a rare opportunity to be aware and appreciate. With all its faults, this is a really amazing place to live.

For Dad.
A new addition to the "Yellow Belly Custard" collection. And another one.

Guess what Imshin is. I bet you didn’t know that. I didn’t either. Imshin J, however is a completely different. Not a Fish is smelly, but not in a fishy way. Yuck.

This is fun. Let’s try some more. They must of heard about Bish’s diet. (Oops! I promised myself I wouldn’t mention Bish’s diet).

This is interesting. And this. Freddie, this is for you.

Now you try it.

I’ve been waiting for the English translation of this – The monthly “Peace Index”.
Some highlights:

The findings of the Peace Index survey for this month point to a disparity between the poor condition of Israel's economy and the ongoing clash with the Palestinians, on the one hand, and the general sentiments of the Israeli-Jewish public, on the other hand. This is despite the fact that the issues are extensively, and for the most part pessimistically, covered in the media. Therefore, the overall mood, assessments of the economic and personal situation, and feelings of personal security are not as negative as might be expected. The majority of the public characterizes these issues at a medium level. In fact, despite the difficult economic and security situation and prospective future developments, an overwhelming majority is not realistically considering emigration.

[…] The general picture that emerges is that taking into account the difficult objective conditions, the "national morale" is by no means at a nadir. This is consistent with findings we have presented several times over the past two years - the public believes in Israeli society's resiliency even should the present situation continue for the foreseeable future.

With regard to infant mortality, it seems Israeli is one of the less unequal countries.
Amnon Rubinstein invites us to take a look at infant mortality rates between Jews and Arabs in Israel and compare them with those who call us racist.

In rich and developed France, the infant mortality rates among Arabs (most of whom speak the language of the country, and some of whom are already second, third and fourth generation natives of France) are not only much higher than in Israel - the gap between the minority and the majority there is considerably larger than in "racist Israel."

More info on the subject.

So it's looking like it's a sociopath, not an "ordinary terrorist"?
I am sorry Americans are being terrorized like this. I hope whoever is doing this is caught soon.

Oh, thank you, Diane for this fun. Bish explained to our youngest that this is why he is so unhappy :-)

Tenderness
I am driving along in my car. The car in front of me stops in the middle of the road. I can’t see why he has stopped and I lift my hand to give the horn a little toot. Then I notice a lizard crossing the road, between the tyres of the car in front of me. It’s too late to stop my hand. It’s already pressing the horn. I toot and feel bad.

The social worker comes to visit the bedridden cancer patient at home. She asks the patient to tell her who all the people in the photos are.

I’m late returning library books again. I ask the nice librarian what the fine is, hoping she will let me pay this time. No fine. ‘You can ring and extend, you know.’ She explains patiently, for the umpteenth time.

A street cat sniffs at the plastic cheese containers someone has left out with cat food inside. Another cat has been there before him.

I don't think I'll be buying those sandals, after all. I'm sorry for the salespeople and the shop owners with their empty shops. I just don't have the heart for shopping, cheap or not.

Letter from Gotham: If I were a British Jew, I would emigrate. Not sure where I would emigrate to, though....

Is there any question? I don’t think the answer to that has been so apparent since the nineteen forties.

Yes, Meryl, morons.
All that brain power, Zero common sense.

See also OCCAM'S TOOTHBRUSH and The Harvard Crimson Online.

A bus stop under the pedestrian bridge leading to Bar Ilan University, near Bnei Brak. A busy road.
A man tried to enter the back door of a crowded bus this morning just as the driver was closing it. The man fell and started bleeding. The bus driver stopped the bus and went to tend to the wounded man along with another. Someone said a woman gave the man mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When they opened his shirt they saw wires and a device. They realized he was a terrorist. They got hold of his hands and pinned him down to prevent his detonating the device. At the same time they yelled at everyone to run away. Then they noticed he was starting to move his legs, and were afraid he would blow himself up on them. They made sure all the people that had crowded round were well away and then they made a dash for it. The terrorist got up and started running towards the people. Then he blew up. 71 year-old Saada Aharon was killed. Thirty others were wounded.

Attorney Shamai Leibowitz lives very near to where this happened. Is this terrorist also Moses?

In reaction to a comment by Alis, I have added an update to my somewhat loose rambling about welfare (it's right at the end of the post). I seem to be in one of my more fuzzy brain days.

This is brave, but is it wise?
…classroom time devoted to the events of October 2000 will soon be incorporated in secondary school curricula for students in Arab language schools in Haifa and northern regions.

[…] Tirosh asked teachers and principals to encourage students to "express their anger, pain, frustration, disappointment and anxiety about the situation." The new initiative would provide room for "an array descriptions of reality provided by teachers, pupils and parents, all based on different standpoints."

Although this intiative could easily serve as a boomerang, having the opposite result of that hoped for, the Ministry of Education is going ahead with it. I think this says something about the fairness and openness with which the Ministry regards the Arab students.

Left and right in Israel
I liked the comment on Southpark Republicans that Nancy B. King posted.

Israelis tend to confuse the right-left economy continuum, with the hawk-dove continuum. Israel is unique in such abnormalities as the Israeli financial elite being identified with the left, even as they advocate free economics. This is because they made their money under the wings of the socialist founding fathers and maybe also because they were drawn to Shimon Peres’ tempting vision of the “New Middle East” and its economic possibilities. Haaretz newspaper is a good example of a radically dovish publication that caters to the Israeli heads of finance and industry.

Another uniquely Israeli paradoxical phenomenon is “Shas”, an ultra-orthodox political party that aligns itself with the political right, while representing a way of life that is ideologically non-productive and is financed by handouts.

The recession and the media
In view of the deepening recession, the press is discussing hunger incessantly. Statistics show that unemployment and poverty are highest in Arab towns and villages (That’s a “laugh” isn’t it? The Palestinians rejoice in Israel’s economic hardship and it is their brothers who are hardest hit). But times are tough in Jewish areas, as well, especially in the already impoverished “development” towns in the South. There have been reports of government ministers lavishly spending taxpayers’ money (mainly Shas ministers – this is ironic because Shas represents the poorest of the poor), while some schoolchildren go hungry.

Welfare
Someone I know voluntarily activates a food project in her town. She feeds those who would be hungry without her help, according to a list she receives from the municipal welfare department. She says the list has been getting longer lately.

On the other hand, I have quite a few friends and acquaintances that live in blue-collar neighborhoods. They tell me that many of the so-called welfare cases drive flashy cars and wear an offensive amount of gold and diamonds. My fiends complain that these people get all the subsidies and refuse to pay any dues at the school or kindergarten, but don’t even bother to look for work. They say that the real poor are sometimes too embarrassed to ask for help and are busy scraping by and keeping up appearances.

I have no doubt that my friend, with the food project, feeds people who really need this help. She and her helpers bring the food parcels they prepare right into the people’s homes, and she therefore knows how they live. But I ask myself how many undeserving frauds are being subsidized by our welfare system, along with the deserving.

A social worker I know says that government cut backs are making things very difficult. Children who have been taken out of abusive homes and put into care are being sent back home. Many more are not being dealt with at all.

But it seems people are still turning down work in agriculture and construction, maybe because the employers prefer to import cheap labor and pay them starvation wages.

But
The municipality has been changing the asphalt in our road for three nights now. The noise is horrendous, but I’m happy. What can I say? I’m an infrastructure freak. If the municipality can still afford to fix the roads and sidewalks, and pay nighttime fees, we haven’t hit rock bottom yet.

Social and economic inequality is not necessarily caused by a conspiracy of the affluent
A friend recently took on a new employee with a rather questionable past. The new employee was extremely grateful for being given such a wonderful opportunity and worked hard and long for a few weeks.

Then this person began to disappear for days on end, leaving work unfinished, and was soon given the boot. The process of sacking the employee was very unpleasant. The employee apparently yelled accusations at my friend, blaming him for the employee’s own shortcomings, threatening to sue, and so on.

My friend, who initially had been happy to give this person a chance, was frustrated at his inability to help this person, who, it seems, just couldn’t deal with the requirements of a holding a steady job.

Life is more complex than black and white/left and right
Igor B., whose regular feedback I enjoy and appreciate, sees me as a leftie. Does he mean leftie on the economy continuum, the hawk-dove continuum, or both?

These days, I fail to identify myself as left or right. Both sides seem to put such a lot of values into one basket. If one’s a leftie then one is in favor of 1,2, 3 and 4 and is opposed to 5, 6, 7 and 8. If one’s a right-winger he’s in favor of 5, 6, 7 and 8 and is opposed to 1, 2, 3 and 4. Since when were things so simple and clear cut?

I feel compassion for those who haven’t been as lucky as I have been and I donate as generously as I can afford to charity, but I refuse to feel guilty or to be trodden on by those who have less than me, materially.

I believe the state should supply all its citizens with the best education and health care possible and that children, old people, the handicapped (physically and mentally) and those who really cannot work should be looked after. But I also believe that those who harm others should receive much longer prison sentences, with rehabilitation programs only for the few convicts who can really benefit from them.

I believe we should take more care of the environment, but not at the expense of human lives.

I fail to see anything wrong with Macdonald’s, Coca Cola and other multi-nationals. It is my responsibility, as a parent, to make sure my children get a balanced diet and I see no harm in these companies offering their wares, as long as they don’t force me to consume them. Living as I do, in a little country, far from the affluent centers of “modern civilization”, I am grateful for the considerable material (and even spiritual) improvement in my life that Globalization has brought about. Moreover, I fail to see how it is possible to globally solve global problems without Globalization.

I am a vegetarian. I haven’t knowingly eaten an animal for six years. I believe that killing animals for food is wrong, when there is an abundance of available food and it is relatively easy to reach a balanced diet without eating animals. But I am strongly opposed to forcing such views on others, including my own children.

I think abortion is murder, but I am pro-choice.

I feel that for there to be a future for Israel, we must be strong and win this war at all costs, but I have compassion for the suffering of the Palestinians who hate me, and believe that the army should do the utmost to avoid unnecessary civilian deaths.

If I am a leftie because I see those who would rather see me dead as human beings, so be it.

Update: Alis wrote something that is worth posting here and not leaving on the comments:

"A social worker I know says that government cut backs are making things very difficult. Children who have been taken out of abusive homes and put into care are being sent back home. Many more are not being dealt with at all."

"If the municipality can still afford to fix the roads and sidewalks, and pay nighttime fees, we haven’t hit rock bottom yet."

Does this really have a greater priority than protecting children from domestic abuse? IMO, not being able to afford the latter IS hitting rock bottom.

I quite agree. This was rather thoughtless of me. I would like to point out that not all kids are being sent home to abusive homes. There is a shelter for kids near us, and as far as I know it hasn't emptied. I happen to know one of the kids, and he's still there. Moreover, there is a shelter for teenage girls near my work place that has recently been renovated with great love and care and this last week has been reopened and reoccupied.

A class celebrity – at last!
I have just noticed that a classmate of mine is reporting for a major Israeli newspaper. I haven’t heard his name for 19 years. I actually think of this guy every time I see Egyptian president Mubarak. I used to think they looked similar, except my classmate has enormous blue eyes. There’s an idea for a children’s party game, educational, too – blow up a photo of Mubarak and get the kids to stick on different features: big blue eyes; a moustache, long blond hair… Do you think it will cause a diplomatic incident? I wonder if my old classmate has aged as well as Mubarak has. Do you think Mubarak dyes his hair?

Ah, the joys of being 37 and gainfully employed
On the way to work I pass a shoe shop with lovely shoes on display, but a bit expensive for me. I’ve had my eye on, more or less, all the sandals they’ve had in the window this summer. Today I noticed that the prices have come down a lot, now it’s the end of the season, and they’re much cheaper. Time to go shopping!

Now if I was still in my early twenties, I would…
a) worry that if I bought them now, they would be terribly out of fashion by next summer.
b) not be able to afford them even at the cheaper prices.

Reshet Bet in English
You can now read some of the Israeli radio station Reshet Bet updates in English.

But let’s renew talks, by all means.
Evelyn Gordon also discusses why the Palestinians think their war against Israel is a great success in today’s Jerusalem Post.

But it is time for Israel and the world to face up to what the Palestinians are really saying: that for an overwhelming majority of them, the "achievements" of undermining Israel's economy, security and international support are worth the steep personal and national price they have paid.

And as long as this is so, the idea that a Palestinian state would end the conflict is a pipe dream -- because the Palestinian goal is not a thriving Palestine alongside a thriving Israel, but a dying Israel, even at the price of a dying Palestine alongside it.

Update: Gil has posted a letter by one Palestinian who sees things differently. The heartbroken father of a suicide bomber bitterly challenges the religious leaders who sent his eldest son to die killing.

More on St. Francis of Assisi.
Alifa Saadya, from the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was kind enough to update us:

Apparently the Prayer of St. Francis is probably not actually by
him, so some Catholic sources say that it's "in the spirit of St.
Francis." I once read a book about the role of the clergy in the
town of Assisi, and what is really remarkable is that many of the
townspeople also took part in rescue activities. One printer and his
son made some of the best false passports and documents that you can
now see at Yad Vashem. Students in Assisi went to the post office
(which also provided telephone service) and looked up names from the
directories of cities that were at that time occupied by the Allies
in order to use them on the false documents (names from those places
would have been harder for an official to check in the chaos of
war). For some reason, that little detail about finding names in the
directory has always stayed with me. Sometimes the most unobtrusive,
simple things can be lifesaving.

St. Francis did write other hymns and prayers, but today, most
scholars think the popular Prayer was actually written by someone
else.

Are we to expect a full scale Gaza invasion in the event of a large scale terrorist attack?
Haaretz thinks so: “Israel has told the U.S. that an IDF invasion of Gaza "is a matter of statistics and time," because as terror attacks mount in the Strip - mostly against settlements - "Israel will be forced to act."”

There have been a lot of mortar attacks and Kassam rocket attacks, lately, not just on settlements and military outposts in the Gaza strip, but against towns and villages inside the "Green Line" (pre-1967 Israel) as well – Sderot, for instance. A factory was destroyed there, recently, by a mortar attack. Luckily no one was hurt.

Jenin
Tal G. summarizes an Israeli TV documentary about the Jenin battle, from the point of view of Israeli soldiers.

A chip on this Jew’s shoulder
Last Friday morning, my youngest daughter attended a school ceremony at one of the local synagogues with the rest of her classmates. The synagogue’s Rabbi presented her and her friends with her second grade version of the Book of Genesis, covered nicely with blue velvet with gold lettering (supplied by the parents, of course!). This ceremony marks the beginning of Bible study. It is a symbolic ceremony and has no religious significance. The Rabbi, who just happens to be an influential national figure, spoke at length about the “People of the Book”. I doubt if the seven year olds understood much of it. The parents seemed to be too busy excitedly taking photos to notice or care.

One of the young recipients of the book was a non-Jewish classmate of my daughter, who, I think, is from a country in East Asia (I’m not sure which one - my daughter can’t remember; I’m too shy to ask his mother and don’t like to gossip by asking other mothers or the teacher). He looked very cute with a big white kippa clipped on his head, along with the other boys.

I commented to Bish that I would have refrained from sending my daughter to a similar ceremony in a church, had we been living abroad. Bish replied that this is mainly a social event for the (largely secular) children. He added that the child’s parents obviously don’t feel as threatened by Jewish symbols, as we feel by Christian ones.

Some years ago, an Israeli balladeer with a wonderful voice, called Ahinoam Nini (her name is a bit difficult for Western ears so in the West she goes by the name of Noa), sang “Ava Maria” to the Pope and an audience of a hundred thousand Catholic worshippers, in the Vatican. My first impression was WOW. But then I began to feel uncomfortable. Something I heard her say on the radio, recently, has led me to understand that her rendition of “Ava Maria” has, by now, become her trademark.

I really love Ahinoam Nini’s work. Many years ago, I lost an unborn child. Around the same time Ahinoam Nini released her version of the beautiful Hebrew poem, “Uri”, by poetess Rachel, about the son she never had. I still cry when I hear her sing this song. (The real name of the poem is “Barren Woman”, by the way. I couldn’t find an English translation).

But the “Ava Maria” thing offends me. I’ve looked up the words. They are very beautiful. I am sure they have given great comfort to countless Christians the world around for centuries, in times of pain and suffering. But for a Jew and an Israeli to sing a prayer to the mother of God (which to a believing Jew is the worst kind of sacrilege) in the Vatican, displays a lack of understanding for the terrible suffering endured by millions of Jews at the hands of Christians, in Europe, for centuries, in the name of Mary and Jesus.

I am not saying not to forgive. I think we already have done. I am not saying things have not greatly changed in this respect. They have, even given reports of a recent awakening of some anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe and elsewhere. I am not saying we should not strive to live in peace with the descendants of our historical tormentors. Of course we should. There is no question of that. But I am saying that it would do to be more sensitive. There are other beautiful songs she could have sung that are not prayers to the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus.

It seems she wasn’t very sensitive when she performed for the Pope at a later date, either. This time she apparently embarrassed everyone by wearing provocatively revealing clothes. The Pope reportedly averted his eyes. A beautiful voice does not automatically guarantee its owner the gift of tact, it seems.

The reason I have brought all this up is a beautiful prayer that Jen posted a few days ago. I have read and reread it many times. I find it very moving. But I have been dithering about posting it. This is because it is attributed to a Catholic saint. And not just any Catholic saint. I am understandably rather ignorant of the legacy of Saint Francis of Assisi, besides his liking animals and helping the poor.

Isn’t it strange that I should have no such qualms about the teachings of the Buddha? Maybe not. Buddhism, in its purer form, has nothing to do with the worship of a deity. It is quite possible for a religious Jew to practice Buddhism. I know a number of people who do this. Furthermore, Buddhists have never persecuted Jews or tried to convert them forcibly, to my knowledge.

Back to St. Francis: Searching the net, I discovered that the clergy of Assisi saved many Jews during the Holocaust.

Please allow me to share this beautiful prayer with you. It has wisdom far beyond the beliefs of this religion or that:


Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

More:
Eric Hoffer on weakness:
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
_________________________

It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.
_________________________

The weak are not a noble breed. Their sublime deeds of faith, daring, and self-sacrifice usually spring from questionable motives. The weak hate not wickedness but weakness; and one instance of their hatred of weakness is hatred of self. All the passionate pursuits of the weak are in some degree a striving to escape, blur, or disguise an unwanted self. It is a striving shot through with malice, envy, self-deception, and a host of petty impulses; yet it often culminates in superb achievements.
_________________________

Thus we find that people who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossible. They become responsive to grandiose schemes, and will display unequaled steadfastness, formidable energies and a special fitness in the performance of tasks which would stump superior people. It seems paradoxical that defeat in dealing with the possible should embolden people to attempt the impossible, but a familiarity with the mentality of the weak reveals that what seems a path of daring is actually an easy way out: It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings. For when we fail in attaining the impossible we are justified in attributing it to the magnitude of the task.
_________________________

When people revolt in a totalitarian society, they rise not against the wickedness of the regime but its weakness.
_________________________

Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.
_________________________

When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

A wise man.

This was on Middle East Realities:
ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer, Los Angeles Times
May 26, 1968

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese -- and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.

Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him. The Swedes, who are ready to break of diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway. The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the next Holocaust will be upon us.

Eric Hoffer 1968

[Eric Hoffer, 1902-1983, was an American (non-Jewish) philosopher, this article was published in the LA Times.]

This was published on my third birthday. Thirty four years later nothing has changed.

No longer welcome in synagogues
Yesha News gleefully reported, last night, that Attorney Shamai Leibowitz, advocate for Marwan Barghouti, was thrown out of two synagogues during Shabbat. Besides being Marwan Barghouti’s advocate he is also known to be one of the more vocal refuseniks (he’s currently number 50 on the list). You can read his beliefs here. But the worshippers didn’t refuse to pray with him because he is defending Marwan Barghouti nor for his refusing to defend his country in a time of war. What really offended them was his reported comparison, in court, of Marwan Barghouti with the biblical Moses.

You can read about the incident here: “The relative tranquility inside the courtroom was at one point punctuated by loud guffaws from the audience when Leibowitz compared Barghouti, accused of orchestrating attacks in which 26 Israelis were killed, to the biblical Moses. "Moses, too, did not recognize the Egyptians' jurisdiction to try him and fled the country," said Leibowitz, a grandson of the late biblical scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz.

Quoting Exodus, he continued: "Moses saw cruel occupation and he killed the Egyptian and left him in the sand." A patient (Judge) Gurfinkel carefully retorted "but Moses killed an Egyptian taskmaster who was beating an Israelite, not just any innocent Egyptian."”.

Jews know Moses as Moshe Rabenu, Moses our teacher. I think you could say that if Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are regarded as the biological forefathers of the Jews, Moshe is our spiritual father, God’s vessel for teaching the Jewish people what was required of them. For a religious Jew (and Shamai Leibowitz is a religious Jew) such a comparison of Moshe Rabenu with the guy that Bish always used to call “whatsisname, the little one with the moustache”, a little schneck of a terrorist turned politician turned terrorist, is going way over the line.

Now, Jews aren’t into idolizing spiritual teachers. This is widely regarded as sacrilege. Although Moshe freed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, led them out of Egypt, and to the Promised Land, supplying them with a whole new set of beliefs and laws on the way there, he is not mentioned even once in the Passover Haggada. This is the book the Jews (even the secular ones) read together every Passover, which tells the story of the Israelites’ exodus out of Egypt. The reason for this is to emphasize that it was God who freed the Israelites and Moshe was only His helper.

So it looks like the worshippers difficulty with Leibowitz’s comparison is essentially the same as Judge Gurfinkel’s. Moshe’s killing of an Egyptian taskmaster, who was beating an Israelite slave, cannot be compared to Barghouti’s sending suicidal mass murderers to indiscriminately slaughter innocents, many of them children.

In his much quoted explanation of why Israeli Jews should refuse to serve in the territories, he maintains that what we are doing there is collective punishment of innocents. He brings a few examples from the Bible to prove that Jewish sources view collective punishment as wrong. Among other things, he quotes Deuteronomy: “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” (Deuteronomy 24:16); and the prophet Ezekial who said: “The soul that sins, it shall die. The son shall not hear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself alone.” (Ezekial 18:20)

In this case, the bringing to trial of Marwan Barghouti is what Leibowitz himself has been demanding: Punishment of those responsible.

I believe that every person has the right of a decent defense, when put on trial (not a right automatically granted to Palestinian defendants in Palestinian courts, by the way). But by offering himself as Barghouti’s defense lawyer, and by claiming that the Israeli court has no jurisdiction to try Barghouti for the mass murder of innocents in Israel, Attorney Leibowitz contradicts his own explanation for his refusal to serve his country. I’m not saying that Barghouti’s defense lawyer should not use this line of defense. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know. I’m saying that Attorney Shamai Leibowitz, personally, has no moral right to use this claim.

Moral right? What am I talking about? The man’s a lawyer!

By the way, with regard to Shamai Leibowitz’s grandfather, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, I highly recommend reading anything written by him, you can get your hands on. I know he is known to have said some things that annoyed a few people (well a lot of people), but everything I’ve read of his has been exciting, inspirational and thought provoking.

Bish rephrased the Talmud and commented on Shamai Leibowitz: “The vinegar is the grandson of the wine”. (The original is “vinegar son of wine” in the Gemara, Bava Metziya, 83b, meaning something on the lines of: a ne'er do well son of a righteous father).

If you understand Hebrew, you can listen to Moshe Gantz, from a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and furthering Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s philosophies, explaining why Shamai Leibowitz does not represent his grandfather’s way of thinking.

Update: Yisrael Neeman from Mideast: On Target discusses Shamai Leibowitz here. He is less fond of Grandpa Leibowitz than I am.

This is all over the place in Hebrew, but I’ve just found it in English:
Israeli head of military intelligence said on Israel TV’s channel two, today, that there are no missiles in West Iraq. Phe-ew! What a relief.

He said Saddam might try to send some nasty stuff in a plane, but I don’t see that as a serious threat.

He also said Iraq’s four years from nukes.

Here’s another “Believe It or Not” item:
I’ve just tidied my side of our bedroom! Gasps of disbelief can be heard in different corners of Israel, right now.

OK, I’ll come clean. There is still a small pile of socks on the floor, waiting to be sorted. But that’s it. I promise!

What???
It says here that Frankfurter Allgemeine writes in this morning’s edition that Israel has agreed to the King of Jordan’s request to annex the Sunni West of Iraq to Jordan following the fall of Saddam Hussein in the coming US attack.

Update: I'll rephrase that and remember to put in some dots and commas, this time: King Abdullah of Jordan has asked Israel's permission, to annex the Sunni West of Iraq. This annexation is scheduled to take place following the U.S. attack of Iraq, which should result in the fall of Saddam Hussein. Is that any better? I don't know, it still sounds just as weird.

Friends
Fred Lapides, who is doing great stuff on Israpundit, sent me this update on the activities of what he calls my “not friends”. Now where did he get that idea? I’ll have you know, I have some very dear friends who can be seen regularly among the ten to twenty people attending pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

This lady, whom I don’t believe I’ve ever met, sounds very sweet, but a bit confused about the facts. She says: “Despite these difficult times, more and more people on both sides have come to understand that violence is not a solution”. We obviously haven’t been reading the same opinion polls. She’s also not very knowledgeable about history: “Like every occupation in history, the Israeli occupation too is doomed to failure, and will come to an end sooner or later”. You see, Bish, this is why they should be teaching more general history in Israeli schools. She sums up: “And at the end of that occupation, two vibrant states - safe, secure, independent of each other, and cooperative for the benefit of all - must inevitably emerge”. So optimistic. So naive. I pray for your vision to come true, Gila. It is also my vision. But it’s just unrealistic right now.

Bzzzzzz. Wrong answer.
The Iranian parliament commissioned an opinion poll about how people feel about dialogue with the USA. But when the research institute commissioned came back with the wrong results, the judiciary shut down the state-run polling institute and is taking both its director and the head of the state news agency to court.

Operation S.I.C.K
Opposed to the exploitation of children in armed conflicts? This site has information about it, including about the exploitation of Palestinian children.

There's a petition to sign, if you like.

When does he have time for linguistics?
This article that appeared in a university rag was spotted by Israpundit at Instapundit. The article apparently appeared after Noam Chomsky, a linguist, spoke at that university. Am I right to suppose that the linguist wasn’t talking about linguistics? By the way, the article is not written by a fan of the linguist.

Chomsky's flunkies
Israpundit has the list of professors in Israel who have signed the Harvard MIT petition to boycott Israel. Five out of six are -- you've guessed it -- linguists!

The sad truth about Saudi prohibition of alcoholic beverages.
11 Saudis die (and another is blinded) after drinking cheap after-shave for it’s alcoholic content. Saudi newspaper calls for cheap after-shave to be taken of the shelves. Anticipated result: Only rich Saudis will be allowed the pleasure of dying after drinking expensive after-shave.

I’m sure an aging porn star, who is also an unsuccessful politician, is just what will make Saddam a much better person.
Pathetic.

Israeli radio station, Reshet Bet, quoting an interview to a Danish newspaper, says senior Hamas guy in Gaza, Abd el-Aziz Rantisi, admits that the IDF has halted suicide terrorist attacks and has made Hamas activities very difficult. He says Hamas will return to widespread terrorist activities once they get used to the new situation. He said the IDF is not entering Gaza city for fear of heavy soldier casualties and will probably enter with tanks.

A poll
Thank you Renathina for pointing to this: “Sixty percent of Israelis believe Israel is fighting for its existence in the now two-year old Palestinian war, according to a poll conducted for The Jerusalem Post by Smith Research and Consulting. The poll covered a random sample of 500 Israeli adults.

Twenty percent of Israelis believe that the war is being fought to determine the borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, and only 11% of Israelis believe that the war is being fought over the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”.

The 20%, who think this is a war to determine the border, are disproportionately loud. They are also extremely derisive of the stupid, uneducated, ignorant people who see things differently.

A random sample of Israelis, BTW, includes Israeli Arabs, in case you were wondering.

Another poll, also given here, shows that the Palestinians don't get it yet.

Go read on Tal G what Arnold Roth, has to say about the events at the Marwan Bargouthi trial. Roth, whose 15-year old daughter Malki was killed in the Sbarro bombing in Aug 2001, has been in attendance at the trial.

[The previous post seems to be in some sort of bloggy black hole and I can't edit it. Please disregard]

Go read on Tal G. what Arnold Roth, has to say about the events at the Marwan Bargouthi trial. Roth, whose 15-year old daughter posted by Imshin @ 11:34   0 Comments

Is Israeli Arab support for their elected leaders waning?
An article in Yediot Aharonot’s “Shabbat Supplement”, this week, takes a look at a new Arab Israeli political movement called “A-Nahada”, which the newspaper translates as revival, but according to my dictionary also means, awakening, uprising and repudiation. This is a group that claims to be fed up of the Israeli Arabs’ elected leaders who are only interested in the Palestinian struggle and are not at all interested in the status of Israeli Arabs. Many of the activists involved in this new movement were formerly active in Arab political parties and are disillusioned. One of them says he believed that solving the Palestinian problem would ultimately solve the Arab Israelis own problems of inequality. Although hardly an excuse for the Israeli Arabs’ widespread support of the war the Palestinians in the territories are currently waging against Israel, this is probably true.

If there was a peaceful Palestinian State along side Israel, right now, established on the basis of Ehud Barak’s offers in the Summer of 2000, and Israeli Jews could see that the Arabs are were no longer a threat, Israeli Jews themselves would be fighting for equality for Israeli Arabs. So up till two years ago, the Israeli Arabs support for the Palestinians was logical. Two years ago it ceased to be. The Israeli Arabs were shocked and horrified when 12 Israeli Arabs (the 13th was from Gaza) were killed in violent demonstrations staged by thousands of Israeli Arabs in October 2000. Their anger and indignation led to the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the events.

What they don’t seem to realize is how shocked and horrified Israeli Jews were. The inside of Israel became like the West Bank. Main roads were blocked and became dangerous. A man was killed on the main road from Haifa to Tel Aviv by a stone thrower from an Arab village. People were actually afraid to go from Tel Aviv to Haifa! Can you imagine such a thing? Roads to the north became dangerous and the north was actually cut off from the rest of the country, for a short while. I remember my father couldn’t go visit his friend from Deganya on the shore of Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), because roads were closed. Jewish inhabitants of the Galilee found the roads to their villages cut off by angry mobs, made up of their neighbors in villages they’d been on friendly relations with for decades. Jewish Israelis suddenly understood that Israeli Arabs are a potential danger.

The thirteen deaths shocked the Arabs into ending the hostilities, but left them angry and hostile. The Jews have also been slow to forgive. In the summer of 2001, I took my family north to Mount Meron for a few days. It is nice and cool there, even in the heat of August. I did my homework, and checked all the nice places to visit in the area. I decided that on the way up, we should eat in a restaurant on the road, in Ma’iliya, an Arab village near Ma’a lot. This restaurant was highly recommended in all the best books and I hoped we’d have a table. After all, it was the height of the summer vacation and lunchtime. The restaurant, run by Christian Arabs, and bearing the same name as a very famous Lebanese Jewish singer, was empty. That summer, I also took a nighttime tour of Yaffo (Jaffa). It was a Thursday night, usually a night many Israelis spend out on the town, because many people don’t work on Friday. We went past the popular Abu-Lafiya’s bakery. In normal times people would have been queuing up there. They had one or two clients that evening. I think business has picked up in Yaffo, but few Israeli Jews dare venture into Israeli Arab villages these days, even after two years of quiet.

Back to the Yediot Aharonot article, this group has decided to leave the Arab parties and join the Labor Party. They say the only way to make a difference is to be part of a large influential party. The interviewer suggested that maybe they’re backing the wrong horse, the state of the Labor Party being what it is. But it seems they are not backing the party as much as Mitzna, personally. One of them told the interviewer that without Mitzna as head of the labor Party, many of the 1,500 new Labor Party members who joined the Party through this new Arab movement, would not vote for the Labor party in the elections.

An interesting passage: ““I would rather cut off my hand than vote for the Arab parties” says another interviewee, “Arab parties that represent Arafat, do not represent me and my problems. Azmi Bishara who traveled to Damascus and sat next to Nasrallah, did not go to represent me or to deal with my problems. He represents himself and I have no problem with his standing trial for it. Abie Nathan was also tried for flying to Egypt. We elected them, we sent them to the Knesset, we expected them to deal with our problems, and in the end they are representing Arafat there. They say that that is what’s important? I say no. I voted, as others did, for representatives who would look after problems of education, unemployment, health and housing. We can’t sit quietly and listen to them talking all day about what is happening in the territories””.

Bish and I can’t remember if Abie Nathan was tried for flying to Egypt. He didn’t go to prison, that’s for sure. Anyway, it’s not a relevant comparison. Abie Nathan flew to Egypt to promote peace, not to give his support to terrorists.

It is hard to tell, from the article, how much support this way of thinking has among Arab Israelis. I think that it’s paramount for the state to invest in Israeli Arabs. There is no justification for less investment in infrastructure and education in Arab towns and villages. Many Arab Israelis seem to truly wish to be more involved in Israeli society. They may wish to support their Palestinian brethren but have no wish to join them in the Palestinians State. It seems foolish to drive them away. Serving in the army may be problematic for them, because they do not wish to fight their brothers. Why not organize civilian national service for them, like many Jewish religious girls do? They could work in hospitals, clinics, schools; they could be used to develop social projects in their villages and towns. I’ve read about Arab girls applying for national service and being turned down because they are not religious Jews. This is wrong. But isn’t this is the sort of project the Israeli Arab leaders should be promoting instead of screaming about Arafat in the Mukata’a?

Maybe it would be wiser for A-Nahada to join the Likud and fight for their rights from within the ruling party. I understand their difficulty in doing so. But it would be wiser.

Exciting stuff.
According to Haaretz, Thomas von der Osten-Sacken is a journalist, German human rights activist and intellectual, and leading German authority on human rights in Iraq. It mentions somewhere towards the end of the article that he is a marxist, but you wouldn’t think it to read most of what he says. He has some extremely interesting insights on Iraq, the Kurds and the middle East, but also about German society.

Just a snippet of what he has to say about Iraq: "The Ba'ath ideology mixes pan-Arabism with admiration of Mussolini and Hitler, some ideas of state socialism and the notion of an Arab supremacy which will be realized after the Arabs have liberated themselves from foreign - that means mainly Jewish - influence and British and American imperialism. Ba'athism is strongly anti-communist and anti-imperialist, and it is anti- Semitic from its beginning. Everything in Iraq is explained through this huge conspiracy theory against the Arabs, in general, and Iraq, in particular. Iraq is thought to be the greatest Arab nation and the natural leader of Arab unity.

[…]

Saddam Hussein dreams of ruling a united Arab nation that would become a superpower confronting East and West. Iraqi children are taught in kindergarten that they have to be strong Arab fighters.

[…]

Pan-Arabism has always said that Mohammed is the forefather of pan-Arabism and that Islam was spoiled when it crossed the borders of the Arab world to Iran and Turkey. The task now is to `re-animate' the real Islam that was taught by Mohammed as an Arab ideology. Especially during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iraq had to face the Iranian revolution, they loaded their own ideology with Islamic content. The Iranians and the Zionists, they said, are part of a 2,000-year-old plot to smash Iraq and divide the Arabs. `We are fighting for the real Islam' the regime said, not the kind of spoiled Islam that Iran represents. I think it was a mistake for the Americans to believe, as they did, that Iraq was a stronghold against Islam.

[…]

The most regressive and dangerous elements in the Arab and Islamic world depend on Saddam Hussein. Really toppling Saddam Hussein means uprooting the Ba'ath regime, with the help of the Iraqi people. This would give the final blow to pan-Arabism in the Middle East. Syria and a lot of very radical factions in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and the Gulf states would be affected. These factions look up to Saddam Hussein as a pan-Arabist, anti-imperialist hero - although he is anti-imperialist in the tradition of the Nazis, not the left. Also, Saddam is financing organizations like the Arab Liberation Front in Palestine, which is a Ba'ath organization. He is paying the families of suicide attackers. He is directly and indirectly responsible for a lot of terrorism in the Middle East."


About Germany: "Anti-American and anti-Israeli-anti-Semitic. At the moment, you can hardly distinguish between the very far right wing and the very far left wing. The far right openly supports Saddam Hussein, saying that he is fighting the Jews and the Americans and thus supporting the German battle. And certain left-wingers from an orthodox left-wing tradition think that Saddam Hussein is anti-imperialist, anti-globalization, that he is fighting for the rights of the Arabs to self-determination. Others on the left say that Saddam may be horrible, but another American war will not solve any problems. The war will just help Israel's interest, so we should oppose it. This is also the governmental policy at the moment."

And a word of warning to Israel in the event of Scud missile attacks: "Seventy percent of the Iraqi people are allies of the Americans. If the war is waged correctly, it will focus on the regime, on the leaders, on the security apparatus and on this horrible Ba'ath Party, but not on the Iraqi people. So if Israel is attacked, it should consider this point: This is a war against the regime, and the Iraqi people are allies in fighting Saddam Hussein. So it is very important to refrain from attacking civilians. There has been a debate about Israel nuking Iraq if attacked with weapons of mass destruction. That would be a disaster - the end of the democratization of the Middle East. Everyone would be against the Iraqi opposition and against Israel. If there is a need for Israel to strike back, it should only be against military targets. Israel should openly declare that it is not conducting a war against the Iraqi people, and that it is ready to support a multi-ethnic democracy in Iraq, friendly to the Iraqi people and only hostile to this government."

What Obscure Animal are you?

This looks fun.
If you have to flee a burning building in a hurry, you might as well enjoy yourself on the way down.

Jen from What's Brewing has a brother.
Here’s an article he wrote about ”the Intifada's anniversary of failure”.

Yahoo: Poles May Shun Guinness if Irish Reject EU Vote
None of my business, whatsoever. I have no relatives left in Poland, they were all killed by the Nazis and I couldn’t care less which beverages the Poles consume. I don't suppose it will be such a crippling blow for Guinness either. But I do hope this doesn’t negatively affect any Irish Guinness representatives in Poland. Don’t ask. The one and a half people who know what I’m on about, know what I’m on about.

It rained today.
I read, one year, that statistics show that if October is very rainy, the whole year will be very rainy. That year happened to have a very wet October, but the rest of the winter was completely dry. So much for statistics!

I hope this year fills the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), at last.

Bish would prefer they got on with desalination.

Update: I have been advised that this post is not clear. Suggested rephrasing: I read that statistics show that if October is very rainy, the whole year will be very rainy. One year happened to have a very wet October, but the rest of the winter was completely dry.

This is an eye opener. It’s written by a homeless guy. Via
The Pandavox. Anticipating the inevitable question – the answer is: the public library.

Meryl Yourish on the U.N.’s longtime radical anti-Israel bias. She’s got the statistics of anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolutions. Did you know that 210 of its 1436 resolutions are anti-Israel? That’s 15%. We’re infamous!

Ben Gurion had it right. Most of you probably know of the contempt he felt for the U.N. (which he called “Umm Shmum” – Umm being Hebrew for U.N.).

When I was a child in Haifa, my family and I regularly drove down U.N. Blvd on the way to our favorite falafel stand (the Arab-owned King of Falafel). One evening, U.N. Blvd. was no longer U.N. Blvd. As if by magic, it had become Zionism Blvd, overnight.

It wasn’t really magic. It was the U.N. equating Zionism with racism, of course. So at quite a tender age I discovered that the U.N. was more than a big building in New York where they sold “baboushka” (“matroushka”?) dolls from the USSR.

Look who's started his own blog.
It's Haggai, famous for his interesting comments. Looking good so far. And I'm on his links, hurray.

I just heard British Ambassador to Israel, Sherard Cowper-Coles, being interviewed on Israel television in very nice Hebrew. According to his biography, on the British Embassy site, this is a newish effort, on his part, although he has been studying Arabic since 1978. I’m very impressed that an ambassador should take the time to learn the language of a tin-pan country like Israel.

What did he say? Oh, the usual ambassador stuff: Prime Minister Blair is Israel’s friend blah blah blah.

The British Embassy site is very polite, pleasant and bland, as only a British Embassy site, could be. You wouldn’t believe the embassy has any connection to the British Foreign office. It’s informative, too. Here is Tony Blair’s speech at the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool, yesterday, for those who missed it.

He said: “Some say the issue is Iraq. Some say it is the Middle East Peace Process. It's both. Some say it's poverty. Some say it's terrorism. It's both”.

Now that I’m doing a bit of writing, on a regular basis, I find myself sometimes writing things that sound great and that I really love. Often, when I reread them, I find that their content is utter tripe. (I know what you're thinking! You just watch it!). The thing is that I’m so in love with the way they’re written, I find it sad not to use them. It’s very upsetting having to rewrite them to make them less idiotic. It’s like … er… cutting your child’s long hair short (I think. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had the urge to shorten my daughters’ hair, I love it long, and so do they) or … or… I can’t think of any other example, sorry (not that the first one was so hot. OK, I'll come clean. This was just an attempt to prove my point. Please disregard.). Anyway, doesn’t it look like this is what happened to Mr. Blair’s speechwriter? He must have thought: “It sounds so good. No one will notice it’s a load of meaningless demagogic rubbish”.

And then there’s the passage devoted solely to lucky old us: “And yes what is happening in the Middle East now is ugly and wrong. The Palestinians living in increasingly abject conditions, humiliated and hopeless; Israeli civilians brutally murdered. I agree UN resolutions should apply here as much as to Iraq. But they don't just apply to Israel. They apply to all parties. And there is only one answer. By this year's end, we must have revived final status negotiations and they must have explicitly as their aims: an Israeli state free from terror, recognized by the Arab world and a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967”. (Duh!)

“UN resolutions should apply here as much as to Iraq”???? What is this horrible comparison? Is he insinuating that we’re next? I know there are a lot of Brits out there dying for the US to invade Israel, remove the cruel totalitarian ruler, who regularly maims his most loyal subjects (after his son has finished raping their daughters), having gassed and massacred the opposition and install a puppet government until norms of democracy and freedom can be instilled in those nasty Jews. What a great idea. It’s sure to get full backing in the UN as well, that home of such honored Security Council members as Syria, a well-known upholder of democratic norms.

Yes, Mr. Cowper-Coles, Mr. Blair is our friend. He went out of his way to be nice to us in this speech, on the whole, and we are grateful. But I think we’d better not turn our backs on him, lest he borrow a nice big sword from his oil-producing pals, (the one on the Saudi Arabian flag would do nicely) and stab us in the back with it.

Update: Oops! Two people have corrected me. Israel is apparently a TIN-POT country and not a tin-pan country. Well, actually, Diana was polite enough to say it isn't either - see comments. I know for a fact that the other person to correct me is British born AND has actually met the aforementioned ambassador in person, so he must know what he's talking about.

I was going to write TIN-CAN at first, so tin-pan isn't all that bad!

In what way does a Prime Minister appointed by Arafat constitute a reform?

God bless the Phillipines

And the nice people that live there.

So frustrating
I can understand why people would decide to keep watching the news to a minimum. I know a lot of people who do that. Most are just fed up to the back teeth with the hopeless situation we’re in. Some believe that counting their blessings and taking the time to smell the flowers is much healthier. They also hope it could have a positive effect on others.

Writing that, I had this mental image of my friends walking single-file in blissful meditation, through a green meadow full of lovely flowers. And all around them bombs are exploding, people are shooting and stabbing each other and tanks are rolling past making that screechy noise they make.

It would be lovely to be able to see only the blue sky and the green trees. Unfortunately, the sound of violence is louder than the sweet singing of the birds.

Why Palestinians are celebrating.
Danny Rubinstein, in Haaretz, explicates why the Palestinians are celebrating and overwhelmingly wish to see a continuation of hostilities. He quotes Dr. Ali Sha'ath (son of PA cabinet member Nabil Sha'ath), who offered a possible answer at a conference held last week in Abu Dhabi “The intifada (has) undermined the security of Israel, weakened its economy and caused the exodus of Jews abroad. In other words, we Palestinians are suffering, but we mustn't forget that the Israelis are suffering no less than we - and maybe more”.

I doubt if Israelis are suffering more than Palestinians.

I’m told the Palestinian press discusses the fabled exodus of Jews in great length. I see little evidence of such an exodus. Reports of rising antisemitism outside of Israel hardly make it a tempting option, for one thing. Even unemployed hi-tech people, who surely have better job options abroad, do not seem to be rushing to leave.

I have finally finished Bernard Lewis!
He explains clearly here, why the two main reasons commonly given for not waging war against Saddam Hussein are mistaken.

"The conflict with Israel certainly receives overwhelmingly major attention in the Arabic media, but since this is the only specific grievance that may be publicly expressed in a region of numerous and painful problems, that is hardly surprising. One may therefore wonder whether Middle Eastern governments would indeed wish for a peace settlement, which would deprive them of this valuable safety valve, leaving them to face the undeflected anger of their subjects, including those who live under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. From the almost monotonous regularity with which a series of promising peace processes have failed at the moment when they seemed most likely to succeed, one may be driven to the conclusion that they prefer to keep the conflict unresolved, but at a low level--simmering not boiling, and usefully controllable".

Eleven today!
Happy Birthday, eldest daughter.

Five year-old Danielle Shefi.

Murdered on April 27th, by a Palestinian who shot her in the head as she huddled terrified in her bed at home .

In a new document, Amnesty International addresses the issue of the children on both sides who are victims of this conflict. Amnesty International can hardly be seen as an unprejudiced observer. They appear to be attempting impartiality in this new document, but you only have to skim through to catch them out. Why do they make a point of saying that “some 7000 Palestinian children were injured in attacks by the IDF and Israeli settlers”, for instance, but only that “hundreds of Israeli children were injured by armed Palestinians”. Are there no accurate numbers for Israeli children wounded? And why does the IDF attack but the Palestinians are just armed (it sounds like they hit the kids with the butts of their rifles by mistake, doesn't it?).

And take a look at this highly judgmental description: “The overwhelming majority of Palestinian children have been killed in the Occupied Territories when members of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) responded to demonstrations and stone-throwing incidents with excessive and disproportionate use of force, and as a result of the IDFs reckless shooting, shelling and aerial bombardments of residential areas. …”.

As opposed to this far more forgiving account: ”Israeli children have been killed in direct and indiscriminate attacks, including suicide bombings, and shootings by members of Palestinian armed groups and by Palestinian individuals who may not belong to armed groups…, both inside Israel and in settlements or on roads leading to settlements in the Occupied Territories”.

I could go on, but what’s the point?

Amnesty International accuses the IDF of failing to investigate Palestinian children’s deaths. How can this be? I know this is a war. I know the Palestinians are committing horrific atrocities and purposefully targeting and murdering civilians, preferably women and children. I know they are putting their own children in the line of fire. I know we must stand by our soldiers who are in impossible situations, bravely fighting to protect our lives. But if this accusation is true, it is wrong. The least we can do is check ourselves. How can we learn from our mistakes if we do not even bother to check ourselves?

While I agree with Tal G. who says that “The Amnesty report is itself disturbing because it implies a moral equivalence between Islamikaze bombings and cases where children have been killed by the IDF in the course of dealing with violence by Palestinians”, there have been, of late, far too many mistakes and mishaps, taking innocent Palestinian lives. How could the IDF have used Flechette shells again, for instance, given how unsuitable they seem to be for urban warfare and having specifically promised not to? I am disturbed by the possibility that no one is looking into these occurrences and learning from them.

Temple Mount May Collapse During Ramadan Prayers
At a secret meeting on Sunday, the prime minister heard reports of fears that the Temple Mount might collapse on hundreds of thousands of Muslim worshippers during Ramadan prayers. Due to unsupervised construction on the Temple Mount by the Muslim Waqf (religious authorities), an increasingly dangerous buckling of the southern wall now extends a meter beyond the surface. "If Israel decides to repair the wall without a prior agreement with the Waqf, this could lead to riots and bloodshed. But if the Temple Mount collapses on a crowd of Muslim worshippers, this would be ten times worse. We'll be held responsible, whatever we do," said one Israeli source. (Maariv)

Jews are not a foreign presence in the Middle East.
While nearly half of Israeli Jews originate in Arab countries, even Ashkenazi (“European”) Jews appear to have a close genetic relationship to peoples living in this region.

Many people who see Israel as a “Western” colonization project (like South Africa) are probably not aware of the extensive genetic research into this apparent genetic relationship.

Palestinians, sadly, seem particularly eager to ignore the scientific evidence to this effect. Funnily enough, they could actually also be descendants of the ancient Judeans themselves! (Well, maybe not Arafat. I’m told he’s really Egyptian).

General Arafat... (that's what he called himself, what can I say?)

...blowing his top at a reporter who asked him a perfectly reasonable question. I'd say he's not quite right in the head.

More on NJ state poet from Stefan Sharkansky on his blog AND on Arutz Sheva site. Nice to see a familiar face there :-)

I love this state poet thing.
Now I think on, I once had a neighbor who was awarded a state prize (I think it was named after the late Israeli PM Levi Eshkol), which entailed receiving a salary for a year, so she could just sit around and write poetry (which is what she did anyway).

Cool.

OK, all I have to do is learn how to write poetry. Then again, maybe I should work on understanding the poetry other people write first. Oy, Gevald! Who let this lowbrow into Blogistan?

In Israel the judge would probably have thrown it out of court and told them to stop wasting his time...
But, it's a good story even if it isn't true. Via Insignificant Thoughts, who, BTW, is very brave to announce his current reading online. I'm usually reading about five books at the same time, and I rarely finish any of them, unless they're fiction. Would you believe I've got two pages left of Bernard Lewis but I keep falling asleep before finishing them?

When I was bringing my youngest home from her dancing class at 17:30 three ambulances raced past. I can't see anything about this. It must be an *ordinary* fire.

Listen to me!

So what’s the plan?
I am a bit confused about government policy lately. It doesn’t look like decision makers are learning from experience.

The first siege on Arafat’s compound could hardly be called a success. To do it again seems foolish, even self-defeating. Now we’re crawling out again with our tail between our legs.

Targeted killings of terrorist kingpins may be justified, but what about bombing them in crowded urban areas? Even if direct and accurate, innocent bystanders get injured and sometimes killed. As I’ve said before, Palestinians probably exaggerated the numbers of wounded in the attempted killing of Muhammad Def, but we still have to be careful with human lives.

The army says they learnt from the killing of Sallah Shehade and this time used a less powerful bomb. But maybe the conclusion should have been to change the method altogether.

It’s difficult to accept that there are no miracle solutions. All we can do, it seems, is walk the tightrope of, on one hand, not losing our humanity, and on the other, not buckling in to exterior pressure which will be suicidal.

Seeing as I have little or no influence on policy, all that I can do, as a private citizen is be strong and live day by day. Life is a gift, not to be taken for granted.

It would be nice, though, to have the feeling that the government knew what it was doing.

Haaretz perpetuating false propaganda of the other side, as usual.
Haaretz says: “Disagreements over the future of Jerusalem were among the key points that stalled earlier peace negotiations with Israel before the outbreak of the uprising on Sept. 28, 2000”. I really can’t understand why they should say this. As far as I understood it, Barak more or less caved in to Arafat’s demands vis a vis Jerusalem (or at least offered a very generous and respectable compromise). The breaking point was the demand for right of return for all Palestinians and not Jerusalem.

Israel lets 33,000 Palestinians into Israel to work, although it could make it easier for a terrorist or two to slip through as well..

The Palestinians celebrated the colossal failure of their two-year terror campaign, yesterday, as if it were a great success. They really are pathetic.
Gil Shterzer puts it best.

I am prepared to be the price
Gad Ezra writing to his girlfriend Galit:

My dear Galit,
If this letter reaches you, it means that something has happened to me. My love, on one hand there is nothing in the world that I want more than to be with you, to love you and to build a home and a family with you. But on the other hand, there is nothing I want more than to go out on this operation and hit these bastards, so they won’t think of doing another terrorist attack. So that they will know they are paying a price. I am prepared to be that price… I will always think of you, wherever I will be and I’ll make sure you meet a person who will make you happier than I have… Promise me you will carry on. That is how it should be, that is right.
Gadi

______________________
March 2002. 23 year-old reserve soldier Gad Ezra, wrote this letter to his girlfriend, whom he was about to marry. About a month later, on 4th April, he was killed in the IDF operation in Jenin.

“Ha’ir” local Tel-Aviv paper, 26th September, 2002.

New Jersey has a state poet? Wow! Is this normal in the US?

Jane's Foreign Report newsletter says Israeli "Sayeret Matkal" commando unit is operating inside western Iraq, pinpointing locations where Iraqi missile launchers might be positioned. Via Haaretz.

It's not a revolt or an uprising, numbskulls.
It's like talking to the wall.

THEY WERE OFFERED THE REST OF THE WEST BANK AND THE GAZA STRIP ON A PLATTER (with an offer so generous it probably would have sparked civil war among Jews in Israel) JUST A SHORT WHILE BEFORE THEY ATTACKED. I REPEAT, ATTACKED. BUT THEY DECIDED THEY DIDN'T WANT IT. IT WASN'T ENOUGH.

But you're quite right. We're the rogue state.

Idiots.

Israel is apparently less corrupt than Japan, France and Italy and most other countries, for that matter. So there.
According to Miami's Jewish Star Times, Transparency International ranked Israel as the 18th least corrupt country out of 102 countries.

“Israel scored 7.3 out of a highest score of 10 for the least corrupt country. Israel was ranked at 16 in 2001. Finland led with a score of 9.8. The US ranked 16th with a score of 7.7. Israel lead Japan (20), France (25) and Italy (31)”.

Not bad, huh? I’d have expected corruption to jump, considering the recession here, but it hasn’t. Israel's score for 2001 was 7.6, so it's down just 0.3.

This is the report for 2001 (in PDF). Couldn’t find 2002.

Update: Harvey Fish has found the 2002 report for me.

Hag Same'ach and Shabbat Shalom. (A little later than usual, but we were out and then blogger was down).

Fireworks for Bish’s birthday, care of Silflay Hraka.

Happy birthday to Bish. Happy Birthday to Bish. Happy birthday to Bi-ish. Happy birthday to Bish.

It says here (Hebrew) that 16 children were wounded in the attack on Mohammad Def (is he dead yet or what?).

I saw an interesting thing on the TV coverage of this (attempted?) killing. As they often do, they showed the footage again and again, so I’m quite sure I’m not mistaken. Abu Dhabi TV apparently got to the scene of the burning car of Mohammed Def first. They showed a wounded man being taken out of the car. It was not possible to see his face. There is some suspicion that this is Def, and this is why they’re not sure that he is dead.

The footage continues. A few scenes later, you can clearly see a young boy, in a bright yellow T-shirt, very actively keeping passers-by from coming near what looks like part of the car-wreckage. I got the impression someone had told him to do this, and he, proud of his mission, was fulfilling it most conscientiously, very cocky and full of himself. A few scenes later, I could see the same boy, wearing the same bright yellow T-shirt, being helped towards an ambulance, as if he were wounded. Now, if it weren’t for that bright yellow T-shirt I probably wouldn’t have made the connection, but I saw it about three or four times and it was definitely the same boy.

So 16 kids were injured, were they? I wonder.

99% dead?
Could Israel's most wanted terrorist, Muhammed Def, have been killed by missiles dispatched from Israeli helicopters today?

Def has been wanted for ten years and more and was responsible for many murderous terrorist attacks, including the particularly horrific wave of terror following the killing of Hamas master terrorist known as "the engineer", Yihya Ayash, in 1996. This wave of terror was one of the main reasons for Peres losing the 1996 election to Netanyahu.

Def became a Palestinian symbol, because of his remarkable ability to stay alive. Following the recent killing of Hamas head, Salah Shehada, he was made his heir. This forced him out of hiding.

I just saw Professor Shaul Mishal, who I was very taken with when he taught me in university during the first Intifada, discussing the killing or attempted killing, on Israeli TV, channel 1. Still a PhD in those days, Dr. Mishal was known as the most boring lecturer ever and notoriously nasty to 99% of his students. But once those 99% had fled in terror, he was thrilling. A year-long course I took with him, about Arab society and politics in the West bank, was the high point of my studies in the Political Science faculty of Tel Aviv University.

Mishal sees the killing of Hamas heads as a mistake, coming without a coherent plan and warns of a wave of terrorism like that followed the killing of Ayash in 1996, which will be necessary so the Hamas can rebuild its reputation. I didn't really understand what alternative action he suggests, but this was probably because I had to go make the girls an omelette and missed much of what he had to say. I could probably remedy this by reading his book about the Hamas, which is lying unread, on Bish's bedside table. I've nearly finished Bernard Lewis. Maybe this should be next.

If Mishal's writing abilities are any better than his remarkable lack of talent for public speaking, I may get back to you on this in a few weeks (I told you I was a slow reader).

A massacre in Lebanon
The following account is not suitable for children or for the faint of heart:
“An entire family had been killed, the Can'an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms.

[…]

Many of the bodies had been dismembered, so they had to count the heads to number the dead. Three of the men they found had had their genitals cut off and stuffed into their mouths.

The horror did not end there, the old … cemetery was also destroyed, coffins were dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the grave yard”.

Sabra and Shatila, September 1982?

Not quite.

Actually it’s part of Father Mansour Labaky’s eyewitness account of the Damour Massacre, perpetrated by Yasser Arafat’s PLO in the January of 1976. Following the massacre the town was ruined, and was turned into a Fatah and PFLP terrorist stronghold, the local church serving as a repair garage for PLO vehicles and also as a range for shooting-practice. According to Father Labaky, who went back with the Red Cross to bury the dead, 582 were killed.

Some apologists for the Palestinians give the number of 200 dead. Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, who, strangely enough, seems to think his views on subjects unrelated to linguistics are of value, apparently believes that Damour was an example of Israeli propaganda. He is sceptical as to estimates of those killed, and claims, surprise surprise, that the massacre was taken out of context.

But a search via Yahoo reveals that Father Labaky is a highly respected Maronite priest and writer who went on to look after Lebanese war orphans, and has published a collection of hymns and other books.

At the beginning of the massacre Father Labaky tells of frantically phoning influential people to try and stop it: “Then he telephoned Kamal Jumblatt, in whose parliamentary constituency Damour lay. 'Father,' Jumblatt said, 'I can do nothing for you, because it depends on Yasser Arafat.' He gave Arafat's phone number to the priest.

An aide answered, and when he would not call Arafat himself, Father Labaky told him, ‘The Palestinians are shelling and shooting at my town. I can assure you as a religious leader, we do not want the war, we do not believe in violence.' He added that nearly half the people of Damour had voted for Kamal Jumblatt, 'who is backing you,' he reminded the PLO man. The reply was, 'Father, don't worry. We don't want to harm you. If we are destroying you it is for strategical reasons’.”

So Arafat had the power to stop the carnage, but chose not to.

This January was the 27th anniversary of the Damour massacre. I don’t remember reading any commemorative articles.

My Bish has done some research:
“A Google search for: Damour and massacre finds 525 results.
A Google search for: Shatila and massacre finds 9040 results.
A Google search for: Damour and massacre and Shatila finds 118 results.
That means that there are approximately 407 pages on the Damour Massacre, 8922 pages on the Sabra & Shatila Massacre, and 118 on both”.

He wonders why some massacres get more PR than others.

”It cannot be because in one massacre Muslims slaughtered Christians and in the other Christians slaughtered Muslims, can it? Most of the Internet users are Christians not Muslims.

I’ll have to guess then that only one of them can be pinned on the bloody Jews!”

Genocide? Massacre of millions? The Belgians? Those well known champions of world justice? Could this be? Never!
Of course! Now I get it. That’s why they think they’ve got the moral right to judge the rest of the world! They know exactly what genocide and crimes against humanity are. All they have to do, if they’re not sure what these consist of, is read their own state records!

According to this New York Times article about a new exhibit in a Belgian museum, “In 1919, a Belgian commission estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879”.

In “… Adam Hochschild's " King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa " (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), which appeared in translation in Belgium in 1999 …

… Mr. Hochschild describes how, along with the uncounted thousands who died of disease and famine, many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber, the territory's principal sources of wealth before its diamonds, copper and zinc were discovered. Mr. Hochschild estimates the total death toll during the Leopold period at 10 million”.

Now all we have to work out is why the New York Times saw fit to bury this in the Arts section and not on the front page? Oh, of course, they haven’t managed to pin it on Israel yet. How silly of me.

Janet Daley tells UK telegraph readers that the “moral case against war is at best naive, at worst idiotic”:

“When the obtuse camp pleads for concern about the innocent Iraqis who may suffer in an American attack, I wonder about the innocent Kurds who have suffered under Saddam's homicidal persecution. When the obtuse-niks plead for more time for hapless United Nations weapons inspectors to be fobbed off and obstructed, I wonder if they would be so blithely passive about racist mass murder in other countries? Would George Galloway have spoken so assiduously against military intervention if the old white regime in South Africa had gassed Soweto?”

“…the Palestinian leadership, and behind it the Arab political and media atmosphere, have not risen to the level required in order to make a [correct historic] choice.”
MEMRI has translated excerpts of an article by liberal Egyptian author Amin Al-Mahdi, that was published in London-based, Arabic language Al-Hayat. He discusses the mistake Arafat made in not accepting the deal offered him in Camp David in the summer of 2000:

"When Arafat returned from Camp David, his masses carried him on their shoulders as a symbol of respect for his achieving nothing. The Arab propaganda apparatuses and the statements by top officials in some Arab countries played a significant role in these strange festivities. It was the right moment to add conditions making the problem irresolvable, such as adherence to the refugees' right of return to Israel – meaning, simply, the establishment of two Palestinian states. Furthermore, a demagogic attack lacking any objective basis [was launched] against Clinton and the U.S. policy (there are many reasons to criticize American policy, but I do not think that Clinton's peace plan was one of them)."

Al-Mahdi ties Arafat’s failure in with the bigger picture:

"...In my personal opinion, no matter what peace proposal Clinton presented to the Arab side, it was sure to be rejected. This is because the Palestinian issue was always the main source of legitimacy for the revolutionary [Arab] regimes that established rural or tribal military republics. The Palestinian issue was always the subject of 'Announcement No. 1' of all these [Arab military coups]. More important, it was the prop for the war declared on democracy and modernization [by the Arab regimes], an eternal pretext for the bill of divorce from the free world and for imposing various laws, from emergency laws through military laws."

What Lunch Meat Are You?

Chicken????

I hope I'm free range.

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.