Nelson Ascher looked out of his window in Paris. Look what he saw (and sent Alisa).
posted by Imshin 22:17

I'm sorry, this happened this morning and I forgot to tell you about it. A tank drove over a 25 kg (55 pound) bomb in Gaza. 4 soldiers were killed.
posted by Imshin 21:13

Overhaul suggestion
The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland has an article in Yesterday’s Haaretz. He suggests the Israeli Labor Party rehabilitates itself by learning from the British Labour Party. Makes sense, actually.

posted by Imshin 20:14

Fame at last. Sort of.
Popular Israeli news site Ynet picked up on Salam’s interest in the IDF Home Front Command site, via yours truly’s Hebrew blog (See? I told you the Hebrew blog was a good idea, didn’t I? I didn’t?). Anyway the whole story is told on Ynet’s online web news magazine. So far I’ve had about three visits through them, and one of them was my dad. I know this because he was on the phone to me at the time. Oh, well.

posted by Imshin 20:04

My bags are packed, I’m ready to go
Our Sis, probably the most efficient person to ever walk this planet, has been a bit worried that her baby sister isn’t yet ready for the war. Needless to say she has a state-of-the-art “safe room”, albeit a bit small for three full size humans, one nearly full size human, one canine and one feline (both smallish), but fully fitted, stocked and operational nevertheless. I’m sure she’ll be happy to be informed that we are now also prepared and ready for every eventuality. The already cluttered entrance to my apartment is now even more cluttered (yes, it is possible, Our Sis) with the essentials, all set and ready for swift and easy conveyance to the security room.

Now that’s sorted out, I really do feel much better. In fact I would now like to point out that I believe the chances of a missile attack on Israel from the direction of Iraq, conventional or otherwise, to be decidedly slim. Of course, there are always other directions and other modi operandi from where and with which our not so neighborly neighbors can lash out at us, but then, wouldn’t life be boring if it always unfolded just as we expected?

And then again, I could be wrong.

Whatever happens, we can take it. And more than that, we’re ready to take it (which doesn’t say we won’t respond). Not just because of what Israel stands to gain. That’s part of it, but not all of it. People who think that that is the reason for ordinary Israelis’ almost wall-to-wall support of this war (yes, even most of the lefties) are completely missing the point, in my view. I personally believe, and I don't think I'm alone in Israel in this belief, that the world stands to gain. And yes, like it or not, Israel is part of the world.

So, USA, this is it. The moment of truth has come. It’s time to show your detractors the stuff you’re really made of. And I’m not just saying this because I’m all ready with my plastic sheeting, my bottled water and my gas masks, but because Steven Den Beste thinks so, too.

posted by Imshin 18:14

Well, Shabbat Shalom, folks.
If I’m not back blogging tomorrow evening, that’s round about lunchtime US Eastern Time, you’ll know:
a) It’s started and we’ve fled in terror.
b) It’s started and we’re holed up in the security room, our gas masks on and no computer.
c) I got fed up waiting for it to start and threw the computer on the floor in frustration.
d) My computer has crashed.
e) I have nothing of interest to say.
f) All of the above.
g) None of the above.
h) a +d
i) b + c
j) c + e
k) f + g

In case any of the above happen, I just had to make this public before I go:


You are a Dubliner.


What's your Inner European?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yes!

Via Religious Left Watch

posted by Imshin 17:43

Important message: Don’t read the following if you want to keep the sweet and demure image of me.

I am not a human shield or Confessions of a recidivist war tourist
Look what Charles Johnson came up with. A blog written by a “Peace Activist” in Baghdad. He says he’s not a human shield and explains that those cute little Iraqis just “don’t quite understand the idea of apolitical peace activism”. He says this after being manipulated into taking part in a get together of Yemenite students, which turned out to be a militaristic hatefest with three year-olds toting guns and chanting war slogans. He says his new “friend” Mahmoud translated the chants for him, but I strongly suspect he didn’t get a very accurate translation. He realized he was being exploited (sharp as a knife, that one) but took solace in the fact that his group “is such a non-issue to the US press”, that no one will know of his disgrace. Unfortunately for him, I actually did see a newsreel about this and wondered how the Westerners present, who were introduced to the viewers as human shields, weren’t totally disgusted with themselves.

He says he belongs to something called IPT. I suppose I’ll have to read the whole blog to discover what this stands for (or google) and it’s just time for my Friday afternoon shloff, so I’ve got some hypotheses of my own:
I’m a Perpetual Troublemaker? Idiotic Presumptuous Twits? Interfering Pietistical Terrorist-appeasers? I-love Predacious Tyrants? Indian Pteridology Trekkers? Isn’t Psoriasis Terminal? OK, now you’re being silly, Imshin.

It’s probably something unimaginative like International Peace Troops. No sense of humor this lot (Humor? You call that humor?).

Silly me. It’s on the right side column: Iraq Peace Team.

As I see it, the real Iraq peace team is building up forces in neighboring countries right now.

posted by Imshin 13:21

War games
One of the things I like about being ill is that I have time to read Steven Den Beste. I type his latest post out and read it curled up in bed. I can’t click through to the links, but I can always go back to them later. I loved his Clash of Cultures post. Even if it’s not on the mark, and Steven has his doubts himself, it was such a very intriguing and fascinating read. But his War Scenario had me worried. Isn’t he being just a bit too complacent and optimistic here? I really shouldn’t be bringing this up at all. I find it impossible to be excited about military lore and all that sort of stuff. I’m bored to tears when reading battle descriptions and usually skip them, and I go off to make myself a sandwhich during battle scenes in movies Bish and I see on TV (these are always Bish’s choice, I would rather watch something else). So I really have no idea what I’m talking about, I confess. However, Steven made it really interesting and I read the lot and I think I even understood most of the ideas. I just feel a bit uneasy about his assertion that taking the cities will not be necessary, other than in a few situations, and I can’t see how he’s so sure that Saddam and his top advisors and officers will be killed by precision bombing. This sounds worryingly familiar (i.e. Afghanistan).

In today’s Haaretz, Zeev Schiff gives a list of possible things that could go wrong. I suppose the US military is taking them into account. I hope so, anyway.

I tend to be suspicious of people very assuredly saying: “This is how it’s going to be”. Professor Yaavetz, sitting in an Israeli TV studio in January of 1991, told us quite clearly that there would definitely not be any missile attacks on Israel. I think it was less than 48 hours later that we were sitting with our gas masks on, in our pathetic sealed room (the first and last time we used it before we decided that spitting distance from IDF headquarters was not the safest place to be, under the circumstances, and made a swift retreat to an air-raid shelter in the suburbs), listening to the sound of the missiles not attacking all around us. Needless to say, Professor Yaavetz’s career as a TV analyst was over.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I will go, flu or not, and wash the floor in the security room.

posted by Imshin 10:24

Waiting in line to have their gas masks checked and "freshened". Haaretz

posted by Imshin 22:57

Go read the "French" jokes on Gil's blog, Dad. He got them from the Sun.
posted by Imshin 21:52

Between the two poles of Baghdad and Paris
Haaretz’s weekend magazine has an interview with an impressive Israeli artist called Mosh Kashi, whom I find connected to a previous post of mine, because he is of Syrian and Iraqi parentage. You can see some of his art here.

He says something I liked in the Hebrew version of this article, which they cut in translation. Why do they always cut the passages that strike me the most?

“Provinciality,” he says (my own flawed translation), “is not a place, it’s a characteristic. … If you live a life of quality even in a place that is very limited and even if it is regarded problematic socio-economically, you learn to identify quality … Therefore I find all this talk of sectionalism and ethnic discrimination repulsive, because I believe you can make a detour around all of that out of choice. The problem is that not everyone can or wants to hear that choice, as a value, is the supreme value. You can be very wealthy and live in the center of New York and still be provincial, and you can go around the Valley of the Cross (in Jerusalem) and feel that you are walking in a valley of princes and kings.”

posted by Imshin 15:57

Belgium
During WWII, my great aunt met, and married, a Belgian naval officer. He was an adventurous, handsome young man and I was told many exciting stories about him and my great aunt, like when his ship was wrecked and he drifted on a plank in the ocean for two weeks until he was rescued; like their life on the farm near Charleroi; like the years they lived in Africa in the Belgian colony of Congo, after the war.

At 18, just before I went into the army, I went over to spend some time with my great aunt and her sons and their families. My first experience of Brussels was rather alarming. Not being able to speak a word of French, I got lost and found myself in a small street full of men sitting at little tables, drinking coffee, playing backgammon and speaking Arabic. I was sure they could all clearly see I was Israeli and felt very threatened. My great aunt, however, lived in a little olde worlde village in the south. A widow with a very common French-Belgian name, she knew everyone there, but she told me no one in the village knew she was Jewish.

My relatives were wonderfully hospitable and showed me all round Belgium. I ate the most delicious tomatoes I’ve ever tasted, fresh from my cousin’s garden, and I also ate rabbit. First and last time ever. It was a bit dry. I bravely tackled an enormous bowl of some slimy stuff, which made me feel rather nauseous. I think it was mussels. I saw the statue of the little peeing boy (a bit of a disappointment considering it's regarded as a national symbol). I saw a hill with a statue of a lion on top, where, nearly two hundred years ago, the world powers of the day, that happened to be passing through, staged an important, decisive and terrible battle. I also saw some castles and lots of countryside. And, most exciting for me at the time, I got to see NATO headquarters from inside. It was a memorable holiday.

What I liked about Belgium was that it seemed so unassuming. The Belgians seemed to me to be quite content to be a quiet European backwater, busy working out their own inner cultural differences (between the French and the Flemish). Very wise. Why look for trouble?

But all that was twenty years ago. The little boys, my cousins, with whom I couldn't exchange a word because I chose Arabic and not French in high school, are now long married with children of their own and successful careers. And it seems the Belgians, as a people, have also changed and tired of their inconsequential role in the world arena. They want us to sit up and take notice. They want us to be afraid of them.

Some countries would give anything to be a quiet European backwater. Others, it seems, have nothing better to do than go poking their noses where they don't belong.

______________________________________
[I would like to point out that I do not wish to offend my Belgian relatives in any way. For them I have only the warmest of words and I apologize if they happen to read this post and find it offensive]

Update: Haaretz editorial: “Belgium's status is no different from that of any other sovereign state, and it is entitled to enact laws and judge its own citizens, or anyone who commits crimes against them. But the Belgian legislature has elevated its country's justice system above those of every other nation, and is trying to impose its rule on the citizens of countries with no connection to Belgium.”

posted by Imshin 11:56

Back to plan A
Bish says the treasurer of our building's resident committee asked him (as a well known world expert on chemical warfare) if he thought the security rooms on each floor were the safest places to be in the event of a missile attack. Well, if she's going to seal the security room on the third floor, I'll be damned if I'm not going to seal the security room on the second floor. Evacuation route, shmevacuation route, let them use the regular staircase to evacuate.

posted by Imshin 11:41

Peace begins inside
Lynn Sislo found an anti-war statement she could respect. Even before I clicked through, I knew it was written by a Buddhist.

As someone who is familiar with this Buddhist way of thinking, I agree wholeheartedly with Lynn’s comment about it.

posted by Imshin 08:54

Paine answers a pain (groan)
Tom Paine has something to say to one of the esteemed argumentators at the esteemed UK Independent (I have in the past pointed out that while other publications offer Comment and Opinion the Independent gives us Argument. Makes you want to disagree even before you’ve started reading.):

“So the question I am going to ask,”, thus the esteemed Independent argumentator, “at the risk of causing great offence, is this: when is the US going to get over the events of 11 September?”

Tom Paine: “I can't answer for the United States, I'm not an American, But I am a Westerner, a Jew, a citizen of a democratic state and a free man, and here's my estimate of when I'll be over September 11th.

Never.”

posted by Imshin 08:31

The flu is back.
Eldest and I stayed home. Mum would have said I went back to work too soon (At one time she'd also have said it was because of all this vegetarian business and not drinking my chicken soup like a good girl, but she eventually gave up on that). Eldest has actually been off school for a while. Bish is not very well either, but he had to go to work because his boss is a slavedriver (he's self employed). My boss wasn't too happy either, although I did go in for an hour, this morning, to get some urgent stuff out, which I think is very nice of me. Our Sis's lot are also under the weather and so was R.T., but he went back to work today. Our Sis wonders if it isn't biological warfare. Maybe the Hizbullah have been spitting into the Wazzani River up in Lebanon instead of pumping the water away. How's that for sophisticated warfare? Give us all the flu, instead of organizing us to die of thirst. Brilliant.

The Shabak (General Security Service) caught a terrorist that was allegedly planning terrorist attacks (Hebrew link) including an attack on a tourist bus in Mitzpe Ramon. Well, tourist buses are few and far between in Mitzpe Ramon these days, although some stop there on the way down to Eilat for a bite to eat and a glance at the scenery. Mitzpe Ramon is such a sleepy place. I can't imagine a terrorist attack there, but they have security guards there just like everywhere else.

We were planning to go down this weekend, but I can't see Eldest being well enough, so it looks like Bish will be going on his own again. I hope they don't try to blow up our apartment building there. Mind you, it's so run down, it could be very cost effective for them. They wouldn't need any explosives, they could just send the big bad wolf to huff and puff a bit, and it would come down on it's own. What if the Iraq offensive starts on Saturday? If it does, should we be joining him there? Should we stay home? The way I feel right now, I just want to stay in bed. Maybe we’ll just huddle together in Youngest’s bed, until it’s all over.

The other night they showed on TV the "secure area" of one of the big hotels in the Tel Aviv area. They've turned a big underground car park into a giant shelter. I suppose they have it all fitted out with air pumps and everything. And they said it was going to be all set out with mattresses and sheets and blankets and everything. Made me feel dead jealous. Definitely the place to be. I wonder if they'll put those little chocolates on the pillows of the camp beds. Not that you can eat them with gas masks on. But then again, they won't need to put on gas masks if they've got air filters. They said it was the hotel the foreign press is going to use. What a waste. Those guys will all stay on the roof to get the good shots. Maybe they'd like a well-behaved Tel Aviv family of four to come and fill up one little corner? Just so it won't look empty in that big old shelter, what with all the brave reporters on the roof? Please? You can even take our photos and put them on CNN (we may even consider starting watching it again). We're very photogenic, honest.

I remember hearing stories in 1991 that the place to be was Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which was said to be fitted out with a whole nuclear shelter, where they put all the works of art. Nice to spend the war with Picasso, Van Gogh, Modigliani, Monet and the likes, what?

posted by Imshin 22:03

It’s true!!!!!! Does that mean I’m a…gulp…muggle?
I don’t know how to break this news to Eldest. I think she was secretly upset that her eleventh birthday came and went with no letter from Hogwarts. If it’s true it makes it much harder to swallow.

Via the Pandavox.

posted by Imshin 17:38

Word of the day: Imbroglio
I love Andrea’s vocabulary (although I frequently have to consult my dictionary) and I love it when Diane gets particularly vicious.

posted by Imshin 13:56

Links
The Shaister discusses the Palestinian cult of the Shahid and harsh words for France in Haaretz’s editorial today.

posted by Imshin 13:36

Similar worries
Salam, whose blog I’ve been having difficulty accessing all day, found the IDF's Home Front Command webpage through me and has found it helpful. I’m very moved by this. I hope he manages to implement some of the suggestions. And I hope neither our families need to make use of them.

He wonders “how the proprietors of that site will react if they know an Iraqi is finding their information very useful”. Well, Salam, if they knew what use you were going to make of the information, I am absolutely convinced that they would be just as moved as I am.

It makes me sad that Salam's source for information on how to protect his family and himself in the coming war should be a site set up by the military of a country that his country sees as its enemy.

It's sad, but it also gives me hope.

Diane suggests that Israelis and Iraqis have quite a lot in common these days, on a day-to-day level.

I don’t think of the people of Iraq as my enemies. For me, Iraq and Baghdad have a strangely familiar air to them. I feel as if I have memories of Baghdad, which is weird considering I’ve never been there. It was a romantic childhood fantasy of mine, in a time before the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem and before peace with any Arab country seemed even a remote possibility, that I would one day visit Baghdad.

Iraq’s Jewish community was very ancient. It was believed to have dated back to the destruction of the first temple, when the Israelites were exiled to what is now Iraq and those who remained there must have been those who wrote the Babylonian Talmud.

Israel is now home to the great majority of that community. They left Iraq in a hurry after the state of Israel was established. This was (and still is) a relatively highly educated and well-to-do community and on the whole they have done very well here.

As a child, I heard a lot of stories about Iraq and Baghdad firsthand, from parents of friends of mine who told us of their lives there, when they were young. I couldn’t get enough of those stories. Everything sounded so romantic to me. There always seemed to be an exciting mixture of east and west in them. I suppose this is because the parents of my friends were part of the Intelligentsia and actually did live in a world of both east and west, as maybe Salam does.

We have wonderful writers, such as Eli Amir and Sami Michael, who have also told us about life in Baghdad in their books, often with a combination of fondness, longing and rejection. From them I learnt about the Farhud (massacre) of Baghdad Jews in 1941, which has been a lasting memory for this community and was one of the first steps in a process, which eventually led to their mass exodus, just a few years later.

I am told Iraqi music suffered somewhat from this exodus because some top Iraqi musicians of the day were Jews. These giants found it hard to reach the same fame and fortune in Israel, which at the time had different ideas about music. Today things are changing in this respect. One of their descendants, oud player Yair Dalal, has gained international recognition in his field. Israeli popular music is also becoming more "eastern" although I don't think it has quite the same quality as the stuff I’m told those guys were creating in Baghdad in the1940's.

The story is told of a Jewish family to whom Saddam Hussein owes his life. I heard one of the sons of this family, who wished to remain anonymous, although the family's name is known, telling the story on Israeli radio a few weeks ago. This family apparently had business connections with the Hussein family in Tikrit. When Saddam's mother was pregnant with him, they took her to stay with them in Baghdad, where they tried to help her receive medical help. She was grieving over an older son who had died. One day, she was so distraught that she tried to throw herself under the wheels of a car passing in the street. The father of this Jewish family caught her and pulled her back to safety.

All this didn’t help the city of Ramat Gan, just east of Tel Aviv, in 1991, which absorbed most of the missiles Saddam sent our way. A high proportion of “Iraqi” Jews has traditionally inhabited Ramat Gan (including the same Zilcha family, if I’m not mistaken).

I don't think I'll ever get to see Baghdad with my own eyes. I'm not sure I want to, any more. I'm sorry that so many Arabs, including Iraqis, harbor such intense hatred for us Israelis. I'm sorry that there are Israelis that also hate the Arabs. They don't represent me. I wish we could all just work it out.

* * * *

Eldest will have to choose if to study French or Arabic as her third language, next year. I would really like it to be Arabic and have been attempting to interest her in the beauty and richness of the language (which she can't see), besides it being important for her to study it, and it's being the easier language for her, as a Hebrew speaker. Beats me why Arabic isn't compulsory.

posted by Imshin 18:03

War again.
The thing is, this time around, and I think I’ve said this before, my personal feeling is completely different. If New Yorkers, and maybe Americans on the whole, lost something in the way of personal security, or more accurately, the feeling that personal security is something to be taken for granted, on September 11, 2001, here in Israel, this happened to us in January and February 1991. This lack of personal security has deepened since, with the rampant terrorism, which we know is currently not happening only because of the relentless work of the security forces. We are informed daily of terrorists being apprehended on their way to perpetrate terrorist attacks.

You know, missile attacks come and go, terrorist attacks come and go. If we’ve got our name on someone’s explosive belt, lovingly embroidered on by his or her Mom or Grandma, there’s little we can do if he or she have got past the security forces. Likewise, if a rusty missile misses Ramat Gan this time, heads straight for my building (right a bit, up a bit, bullseye…) and decides that the second floor is a good place to land, there will be little to do except kick myself (if I have time) for not going off to Mitzpe Ramon when I could have. So why worry? I’m mainly peeved about all the bother of having to tidy up Youngest’s room in preparation as a sealed room, and pack evacuation bags (It says we have to in the booklet. I’ve read it at last, well, skimmed through), when some of the girls’ winter clothes are getting too small for them already and if I pack part of what’s left they won’t have enough to wear every day, the laundry situation being what it is. I’m far too lazy for all this hassle.

Who am I kidding? I’m not doing anything because thinking of it makes my heart beat faster than is healthy.

* * * *

I’m back from picking Youngest and her friends up from their dance lesson. I worked it all out on the way. What I’ll do is I’ll make a list of things I have to do to get ready. Then I can cross each one out as I go along. Ok, now that’s sorted out I feel much better. I’ll just make a note to remember to make a list.

This is hopeless. Maybe we could all just go to sleep and wake up when it’s over?

Update: Thank you Alisa for noticing the dates mix up. All fixed now.

posted by Imshin 18:23

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