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.

posted by Imshin 23:32

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.

posted by Imshin 22:10

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.
posted by Imshin 21:48

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.

posted by Imshin 21:40

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.

posted by Imshin 14:59

Israeli Arabs miss the point.
How sad.

posted by Imshin 13:59

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.

posted by Imshin 13:51

"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.

posted by Imshin 08:00

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.

posted by Imshin 22:02

Hag Same'ach (Happy Succot holiday) and Shabat Shalom!
posted by Imshin 15:52

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.

posted by Imshin 15:20

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.

posted by Imshin 11:29

Go read Ribbity about what Al-Jazeera has been saying.
posted by Imshin 21:27

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.

posted by Imshin 21:24

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.
posted by Imshin 15:10

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.

posted by Imshin 06:09

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.

posted by Imshin 23:06

Fred Lapides found me this treasure of Israeli artists.

This is by Moshe Hoffman

posted by Imshin 22:54

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.
posted by Imshin 17:55

Another Israeli killed, this time by Palestinian gunmen in the north of the West bank.
posted by Imshin 15:40

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.
posted by Imshin 15:20

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

posted by Imshin 15:06

Arab Israeli leaders continue to alienate themselves and the people they represent from mainstream Israeli society.
posted by Imshin 14:58

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.
posted by Imshin 14:26

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”.
posted by Imshin 13:29

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.
posted by Imshin 12:56

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”.

posted by Imshin 09:34

From what I understand, Marwan Barghouti was never exactly as powerful in Palestinian circles as this commentary suggests.
posted by Imshin 08:51

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.
posted by Imshin 08:38

Be'Hatzlacha, R.T., in your new job today.
posted by Imshin 06:39

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.
posted by Imshin 05:56

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.

posted by Imshin 20:18

????
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.

posted by Imshin 19:59

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”.

posted by Imshin 19:12

Captured terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh has been identified as one of the killers of Daniel Pearl.
posted by Imshin 17:53

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.

posted by Imshin 17:29

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?

posted by Imshin 17:13

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.

posted by Imshin 16:57

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!

posted by Imshin 16:35

No pit of snakes for this robot
I say: Call in Harrison Ford!
posted by Imshin 06:21

Here's the same report I gave yesterday about Israeli security officials believing US-Iraq offensive will be before November. This time in English.
posted by Imshin 06:15

Palestinians stoned Jewish worshippers on Yom Kippur. A child was wounded.
posted by Imshin 06:12

CIA started another course to teach Palestinian Authority security officers to fight terrorism.
Yawn.
posted by Imshin 06:07

Saddam buying time.
Allows the inspectors back.

posted by Imshin 06:03

Take a look at Natalie Solent's rape analogy.
posted by Imshin 23:58

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.

posted by Imshin 20:20

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.

posted by Imshin 20:19

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”.

posted by Imshin 20:18

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.

posted by Imshin 20:16

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”.
posted by Imshin 20:16

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!

posted by Imshin 20:15

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!
posted by Imshin 20:14

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

posted by Imshin 14:43

Now I will go and prepare myself for self-inflicted starvation.
I must be out of my mind.
posted by Imshin 14:28

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.

posted by Imshin 14:28

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.

posted by Imshin 14:27

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.

posted by Imshin 14:25

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.

posted by Imshin 14:23

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.
posted by Imshin 14:22

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