A terrible, terrible tragedy in Iran. I'm so very sorry for all the victims and their families.

We're good at rescue missions, but they don't want our help.
posted by Imshin 21:05

Two books broke my heart when I was teeny. The first was Black Beauty, which upset me so much I couldn’t finish it (and therefore missed the happy ending). The other was Beatrix Potter’s Pigling Bland. The idea that he had to leave his mother and never see her again was unbearable to me.

No one thought to take me to see Bambi, thank goodness. That would have finished me off. I remember watching it as an adult with Eldest and crying my eyes out. I explained to her in a choked voice that his mother had died and that now he would live with his father. Eldest was far more accepting of this than I was.
posted by Imshin 20:05

One-Sided Wonder
Anne Cunningham (new URL, adjust your links):

…I was told that we have a tendency to sanitize war - not face its full horror - and this makes us more eager to engage in it. But I said this is probably an evolutionary or historical advantage, since war is often a necessity, and something you have to get on with and just do, so it's useful not to have to think about how awful it is before you head off to it.

Anne is just one of my most favoritest bloggers whom I neglected to mention in the Israellycool interview.
posted by Imshin 18:42

A lotus flower

For dear Sheema, who has lost her mother, and shares her sorrow with such gentleness.

posted by Imshin 17:18

Not what it seems
I am currently reading a book published in 1999 by Shaul Mishal, a professor of Political Science in Tel Aviv University, who was a great favorite of mine when I was studying there (this will gain me a few raised eyebrows from other former students of his, because he wasn’t the most exciting of lecturers, to say the least). The book is about the Hamas (The link is to the English version. I am reading it in Hebrew). It’s about as exciting as his lectures used to be, so I doubt I’ll be reading more than a few chapters, but there was a sentence I liked in the first chapter (my translation):

It seems that sometimes contradictory perceptions, opposing preferences, and competing interests, are seen as threatening to the social order and the organizational fabric, mainly in the eyes of foreign observers and not in the eyes of members of the community and partners in the collective.

He’s talking about Palestinian society, but I think this holds true for Israeli society as well.

Pim feels bad about having maybe started a blog war, almost single-handedly. Quite the contrary! You instigated a dialogue - between two opposing points of view, for one thing, and also between Imshin and herself, for another. That can’t be bad. And I’m also pleased that Yishay started blogging again as a result.
posted by Imshin 11:00

Sheep
Yishay Mor wrote a lovely response (scroll down, permalink not working – 12/26 2:11 am) to my post. He is a nice guy.

Problem is it’s not the nice guys who dictate how things will be in the world. It’s the not nice guys. It’s the guys filled with anger and hatred and venom. One of the messages of the particular stream of Buddhism I practiced was that if I were a nice guy, my very niceness would have a good affect on people I met, on the world. This is a wonderful idea. I would love for it to work. But it doesn’t. The sheep always get gobbled up by the wolves. Always. It is a fundamental truth. They will never dwell together. The prophet Isaiah used this allegory (11;6) to portray his vision specifically because it was not, and could never be, possible in the world as we know it.

I wish I had kept on meditating in my office during the late shift. I didn’t. I couldn’t. And now the poison penetrates me.

There are people one would rather not be in contact with, but sometimes there is little or no control over this. And it is difficult to protect oneself, not to mention the dismaying inability to spread anything positive.

And here am I saying to people like Yishay don’t give up, don’t move aside out of exhaustion and despair, when it’s me who needs to heed that message.

We’re not so different. The main difference between us is in the solution we have found for ourselves.

posted by Imshin 10:04

Just east of Tel Aviv: Under the Geha bridge on Jabotinsky Street, between Petah Tikva and Bnei Brak. Three murdered, sixteen wounded. A suicide bomber. He was apparently trying to get on a bus. Luckily he didn't succeed.
posted by Imshin 19:40

An apology: I purposefully didn’t spell out the name of my refusenik from yesterday’s post. This was very rude. I’m not even sure why I did it. It’s been bothering me and I wish to make amends. Yishay Mor. There.

* * * *

Fact: Young soldiers often behave cruelly and inhumanely at checkpoints. Proffered solution: Cancel checkpoints.

If our front door proves ineffective in stopping burglars (and it’s ugly, as well), do we decide to remove it altogether? Or do we take steps to improve its effectiveness (and give it a new coat of paint)?

Checkpoints are bad, but right now they are necessary for the security of Israeli citizens. Until the day comes when they can safely be cancelled, they must be improved. How? By teaching the nineteen year olds that man them to behave more humanely. By utilizing conscientious, mature army commanders like Yishay Mor to be there with them as guides. Not hysterical, screeching, hostile peace activists, but people they can relate to and respect, fighters like themselves, with military authority, sent by the army for this specific role (I know military, hierarchic organizations well enough to understand that this has to come from inside, and from above, with a lot of emphasis put on educating officers and commanders that are not officers to ensure that they understand and support the move).

And this could work in other missions, not only at checkpoints - during searches in people’s homes, for example.

I can well understand the exhaustion of people like Yishay, but if they really care, how can they give up? How can they step aside? There are things they can do. We need them. Here, not addressing young people in Dublin.

posted by Imshin 16:08

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY CHRISTIAN READERS AND FELLOW BLOGGERS.

I went to see what I posted last year. I still love it, so here it is again:

King John's Christmas
by A.A. Milne

King John was not a good man-
He had his little ways.
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days.
And men who came upon him,
When walking in the town,
Gave him a supercilious stare.
Or passed with noses in the air-
And bad King John stood dumbly there,
Blushing beneath his crown.

King John was not a good man,
And no good friends had he.
He stayed in every afternoon,
But no one came to tea.
And, round about December,
The cards upon his shelf
Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer,
And fortune in the coming year,
Were never from his near and dear,
But only from himself.

King John was not a good man,
Yet had his hopes and fears.
They’d given him no present now
For years and years and years.
But every year at Christmas,
While minstrels stood about,
Collecting tribute from the young
For all the songs they might have sung,
He stole away upstairs and hung
A hopeful stocking out.

King John was not a good man,
He lived his life aloof;
Alone he thought a message out
While climbing up the roof.
He wrote it down and propped it
Against the chimney stack:
TO ALL AND SUNDRY - NEAR AND FAR -
F. CHRISTMAS IN PARTICULAR.-
And signed it not 'Johannes R.'
But very humbly, 'Jack.'

'I want some crackers,
And I want some candy;
I think a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I don’t mind oranges,
I do like nuts!
And I SHOULD like a pocket-knife
That really cuts.
And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!'

King John was not a good man
He wrote this message out,
And gat him to his room again,
Descending by the spout.
And all that night he lay there,
A prey to hopes and fears.
'I think that’s him a-coming now,'
(Anxiety bedewed his brow.)
'He’ll bring one present, anyhow-
The first I’ve had in years.'

'Forget about the crackers,
And forget about the candy;
I’m sure a box of chocolates
Would never come in handy;
I don’t like oranges,
I don’t want nuts,
And I HAVE got a pocket-knife
That almost cuts.
But, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!'

King John was not a good man
Next morning when the sun
Rose up to tell a waiting world
That Christmas had begun,
And people seized their stockings,
And opened them with glee,
And crackers, toys and games appeared,
And lips with sticky sweets were smeared,
King John said grimly: 'As I feared,
Nothing again for me!'

'I did want crackers,
And I did want candy;
I know a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I do love oranges,
I did want nuts.
I haven’t go a pocket-knife -
Not one that cuts.
And, oh! if Father Christmas had loved me at all,
He would have brought a big, red india-rubber ball!'

King John stood by the window,
And frowned to see below
The happy bands of boys and girls
All playing in the snow.
A while he stood there watching,
And envying them all-
When through the window big and red
There hurtled by his royal head,
And bounced and fell upon the bed,
An india-rubber ball!

AND OH, FATHER CHRISTMAS,
MY BLESSINGS ON YOU FALL
FOR BRINGING HIM
A BIG, RED,
INDIA-RUBBER
BALL!
posted by Imshin 20:32

Refuseniks – Chapter 3
(For those who haven’t read the previous chapters: Chapter 1; Chapter 2)
I seem to have seriously aggravated a refusenik. He takes offense at my calling him a “supposedly enlightened, self-appointed Don Quixote-type who feels superior and therefore above the law” without taking the time to get to know him and hear what he has to say. So I read what he had to say, on his blog and at an Amnesty youth and student conference in Dublin, March 2003, and was once again reminded of a piece of wisdom of Meryl’s: Do not blog when angry (And if we’re on the subject, Bish tells me not to forget this other little gem: Do not shop for food when hungry). The difference between his blog post and the speech he gave in Dublin is amazing. It’s hard to believe that it’s the same person. This is what anger does to us. The guy in Dublin I can relate to. I don’t agree with him, but I can relate, and respect.

I think our refusenik friend (the blog one) may have read my post rather hurriedly and skipped my personal ramblings about floating embroidered velvet. Had he read it carefully he would have realized that I regard myself as no less a “supposedly enlightened, self-appointed Don Quixote-type” than him. Maybe even more. Even in my post-embroidered velvet version. I even ridicule my own feelings of superiority. It seems he hasn’t taken the time to get to know me and my motives, either.

People like myself may be regarded as mainstream in our little puddle, but we are widely regarded as dangerous monsters in the big wide ocean. In that ocean, it is the refuseniks that are the accepted ones, the good guys, the acclaimed heroes. The things I said yesterday about influencing middle Israel are all very well, but I suspect the refuseniks, not each one personally, not our friend here, but on an organizational level, are far more interested in the effect their actions are having outside of Israel. Our friend has actually supplied proof of this (Why doesn’t he supply the translation of the speech he gave in the Youth Center in Dimona development town? Oh, he never gave one?).

So here I am, a little puddle creature, daring to fare the rough seas of the ocean, their ocean, where it is they, not I, that rule the waves and the deep alike. You see, I am quite aware that my Don Quixote days didn’t end when I hung up my meditation cushion (I’ve got it down since, but I’m lapsing again). I do see the futility of spending all this time and energy writing this blog. I know I’m having no affect whatsoever on the tidal waves of hatred and anger, justified or otherwise, crashing onto Israel’s shores from all four quarters of the earth.

I know I will never persuade any refuseniks of this, but in my view, however noble their motives, their actions are contributing considerably to those tidal waves.

I’m a bit tired of this argument and had meant to stop now, and not bring it up again, it is the Sixth Candle of Hannuka and Christmas Eve, after all (There must be some positive floaty energy in that), but I just wanted to mention one more thing. My friend, the refusenik, in his anger, said something in his post that I found extremely unfair, especially coming as it did from one who, just a sentence or two beforehand, admonished me for generalizing and judging him, without first getting to know him and his motives. He said “The mainstream, and we both know it, doesn't know one side of a gun barrel from another. Most able Israeli males don't have to bother about refusal, because if they do any service at all, it’s a 9-5 in Tel Aviv.” He is saying that those who oppose refuseniks are those who do not bear the equal share of the load, with regard to army reserve duty. Well, I don’t know it. This is a gross generalization and besides sounding suspiciously bigoted, it just doesn’t stand up. I personally know far too many people whose lives contradict it. Besides, I thought we were talking of people who were refusing for conscientious and political reasons. I am aware that there are many who object to having to do so much reserve duty, while so many others are exempt. But that is an entirely different matter. I know of a lot of people who complain that they find the burden of their reserve duty unbearable, independently employed people, for instance. Not only their lives, but also their civilian livelihoods, are put on the line with every call up notice. But they wouldn’t dream of refusing to serve for conscientious reasons. It is very wrong and extremely misleading to connect these two issues.

Later: Said refusenik has contributed a recipe for making your own Hummous. All is forgiven.

Update: More on this - Zeev Schiff in Haaretz.
posted by Imshin 20:21

An Amish Hannukiya. For the collection.
posted by Imshin 20:22

Smothering him with love
Lynn has all the story about Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher’s being attacked by Palestinians on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem yesterday (So has Dave). He came to worship there, had shoes flung at him and had to be hospitalized.

As Maher made his way into the mosque, scores of Palestinians, shouting Allahu Akbar ("God is great") converged on him and began berating him for his meetings with Israeli leaders.
"Traitor! Collaborator!" they screamed at him, with some of them pelting him with their shoes, both inside and outside the mosque.
"I'm going to choke, I'm going to choke," a panicked-looking Maher was heard saying, according to witnesses, as one of the shoes – which by Muslim tradition are taken off at the entrance to mosques – apparently hit him in the face.
Striking someone with a shoe is considered a great sign of Muslim insult.

The latest, according to Hebrew newspaper Maariv (Hebrew link), is that Maher is now saying that it wasn’t an attack at all - it was a show of affection! He claims that part of the Palestinians in the mosque wanted him to succeed in leaving the mountain, and the others thought he should have an opportunity to worship like he wanted to. Thus he found himself stuck between the two factions, each one trying to show its affection and interest. And this is what caused him to feel a bit constricted.

His words, not mine. Why don’t we have diplomats like that?

Here is photo of him drinking in all that Palestinian affection and interest.

posted by Imshin 19:53

More on refuseniks
Marjolein has sent me her explanation of why she has the Yesh Gvul refusenik banner on her site:

I have a counter on my site. Not because I think it becomes more socially acceptable in Israel, but because I think it is still not acceptable at all. As you say: the majority of the population does not agree. Standing up for your believes *against* what society thinks is right, getting maybe a few favorable reactions but mainly very aggressive and angry reactions but still following your own conscience is a very very brave thing to do. Admitting that you do wrong things, as a lot of those folks do, is hard to do too. Combining the two, saying that what happens in the occupied territories (as most refuseniks do) is wrong and that it made you do immoral things which you do not want to do anymore and which you do not want your country to do anymore is very very hard.

I think the people who dare to do that are heroes and my counter is only a sign of support. I wish I could do more for them.

I disagree but fair enough.

Once I was a very committed JuBu. I floated round my workplace serenely, adorned head to toe in embroidered velvet, quite secure in my belief that my having meditated peacefully in the office during the late shift the night before had released the negative energies in the room for ever more. I couldn’t quite grasp why everyone began yelling and shouting as usual, when they arrived in the morning. Couldn’t they feel the change?

It wasn’t that my floaty quality was unpopular. I was fondly referred to as the Flower Child and people came to me for advice about alternative medicine, a subject which not only bored me, but about which I was completely ignorant.

It gradually dawned on me that the main effect my spiritual practice had on my workplace was that I was increasingly socially isolated, and not because I was being shunned, quite the contrary, but by my own choice. You see, if you believe that you are on some sort of special path, and no one else is, then you tend to feel a bit superior. You are the only one who has seen the light. That this is completely false is beyond your comprehension. The end result is that, in many instances of your life, you have no one to talk to, at least, not in the same language. It goes without saying that no one else will be affected by your self-perceived personal growth, or in any way benefit from it, besides seeing you as a bit of a weirdo.

Refuseniks truly believe that they are doing the right thing, the brave thing, following their consciences. But besides their personal feelings of gratification and self-righteousness, the immediate results of their brave acts and their reward for their isolation, what real good are they doing?

They are setting themselves apart, separating themselves from the people, and therefore losing their ability to influence. People who live in a society have a responsibility to others in that society, and not only to their consciences. No man is an island and all that. The hard thing is not refusing to man a checkpoint. The hard thing is standing in that checkpoint, day after day, week after week, and behaving humanely. And making sure everyone else behaves humanely. And then, on finishing your army reserve duty, going home and using your power as a citizen in a free democracy, to demonstrate, to write letters, to meet with Knesset members and government ministers, to try to interest the media in your point of view. In short, to try to change peoples views as an equal, as a peer, and not as some supposedly enlightened, self-appointed Don Quixote-type who feels superior and therefore above the law.

Another thing that foreign supporters of IDF refuseniks don’t seem to realize is that legitimizing left-wing refusal also legitimizes right-wing refusal. If it’s okay to refuse to guard settlements in the disputed territories, its also okay to refuse to forcibly dismantle them, when the time comes. Supporting refuseniks could very well be tantamount to supporting a future bloody civil war in Israel (God forbid). Surely, well meaning foreign supporters of peace in this region could not want that.
posted by Imshin 16:33

Zealots
The Head Heeb has posted a most fascinating contribution to the Hannuka debate on the Maccabees. He is certainly far more knowledgeable than I am on the subject. That holds true for most subjects we discuss. I am flattered that he still reads what I have to say and sees fit to respond.

He still maintains he probably would have been opposed to the Maccabees had he lived back then. Based on his learned arguments I’m even more convinced than before that he wouldn’t have. But who knows? Had he lived back then, and been a Jew in Judaea, he could very possibly have been a lowly, uneducated farmer, or even worse - a woman!
posted by Imshin 16:31

A rare treat
The Frog has spoken.

I must be psychic. I haven't checked his blog for ages. I just popped in and lo and behold - he posted just an hour and a half ago.
posted by Imshin 10:12

The first time I saw Paris
In the summer of 1986 I cashed in my Bat Mitzva winnings and took a plane to Europe. On that trip I visited England, France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. But the focal point of my trip was Paris.

I got off the train in Paris at five o’clock in the morning. The first thing I saw was an elderly drunk lady, being brutally hauled out of the station and thrown into a police van. Then I went to the toilets, where I encountered the most elegantly dressed lavatory attendant you have ever seen.

I had a great time there. I knew my way around in no time, and even managed to get along with the Parisians with my non-existing French. I couldn’t hide behind my shyness there, you see. That’s the beauty of travel. I had a little Berlitz phrasebook. Once they could see I was making an effort to speak French, it turned out they could speak English after all. The friends I met up with, veterans of the Alliance school in Tel Aviv, did know French, but were far too self-conscious to use it. So I was the mouthpiece, funnily enough. Not knowing French turned out to have its advantages. I couldn’t understand what some of the men on the street were saying to me. I could tell it wasn’t very nice.

What seemed strangest to me about Paris on that first visit, something that really baffled me, was what I didn’t see, because it wasn’t there: Probably the most important building in Paris, the city’s most significant symbol – the Bastille. I just couldn’t grasp its absence, even though I was aware of the historical facts, having read all the right historical novels.

Today, older and more aware of the vengeful and destructive nature of man, I am far more surprised that the Russian revolutionaries had the wisdom and foresight to prevent the destruction of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

posted by Imshin 09:55

Moledet
Yesterday I met a co-worker in the corridor who told me in passing that he’d just come back from a few days in my homeland, my Moledet (which literally translates as birth land). My homeland? I asked, not understanding. He apparently meant he had been in London. It was crazy, he said. A few days before Christmas, you never saw so many people, you couldn’t move. But I was hardly hearing. I was transformed back to a fourth grade classroom in another century. The teacher Tziona was explaining to a perplexed nine year old that even though she was born somewhere else, this was her real Moledet.

I am struck by the thought that I haven’t been to London for seventeen years. And even that last trip seventeen years ago wasn’t all that marvelous. That’s when we discovered Bish was allergic to aspirin. We were in St. Paul’s Cathedral of all places, and I had given him an aspirin because he had complained of a headache or something. I suddenly noticed his lips were bloated to twice their normal size and the rest of him was covered in red blotches. This had happened once before, at home, but we’d thought it was because of the fish we’d just eaten (we weren’t vegetarians back then). We rushed to nearby St. Barts hospital, and ended up spending most of our time in London in our hotel room, Bish in bed, half alive, me watching TV.

No, London is certainly not my Moledet, that's for sure.

posted by Imshin 08:27

Now Moe has a beautiful Hannukiyah.
posted by Imshin 23:12

Comparisons
Dragan Antulov of Draxblog fame on comparing the war in Iraq to previous conflicts:

All those comparisons miss one important point. Trying to explain present-day events through past examples represents either intellectual laziness or inability to comprehend them. If someone tries to think of present-day Iraq in terms of Vietnam War or WW2 he/she would have to experience, sooner or later, the very same rude awakening as those military experts in 1914 who had all their expectations of major European conflict based on 1871 experiences. In other words, each conflict is unique and history, contrary to conventional wisdom, doesn't repeat itself, at least not with such detailed precision to allow predictability.

Imshin likes (Especially about the intellectual laziness. I thought I was the intellectually lazy one, or just plain limited, for having no patience for such comparisons). He does, however, see striking similarities with the Boer War, and he elaborates. Veeeery interesting.
posted by Imshin 22:54

This is why.
I really wanted to write about this, but as I said, I’m a bit under the weather. Luckily Meryl saw it too: A brother and sister meet again after 65 years. They last saw each other when he was eleven and she was five. Each had thought everyone else in the family had perished in the Holocaust and that they were the only one that had survived.

All these years lived apart, a whole life gone by separately, without them finding each other. This breaks my heart. At least they have been reunited now.

There are so many stories like it in Israel. Meryl says it best.

posted by Imshin 21:37

Free PR
Dave at Israellycool interviewed me. How cool can you get? (er... Israellycool? Groan)

So I have achieved celebrity status at last. Now do I have to start carrying a big stick around to wallop Paparazzi photographers with? (R.T., can I borrow your cricket bat?)
posted by Imshin 20:43

Counters
I was planning to e-mail Yesh Gvul as soon as I got home from work today (no Hannuka vacation for me, sadly) to inquire about the source of the number on their counter (“Where are the names, dammit?”). I’m feeling a bit fluey today so luckily a kindly person beat me to it, and e-mailed me the link to the page that explains that this is actually a fusion of a few refusenik lists. Read all about it here. I don’t really think this is a good enough explanation and I wonder what some of the actual signatories would make of it. You see it mixes up different kinds of refusals. Some refuse to do army duty at all; some are willing to do their duty protecting their country, but only within the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel; others limit their refusal to certain missions that they interpret as amoral. So you see sticking them all together is extremely misleading and renders the number on the counter completely meaningless, in my view.

I think well intentioned but partially informed people who stick counters on their sites, with apparently meaningless numbers of supposed IDF refuseniks, are missing something. They seem to think that if their counter shows an increase in numbers, then refusing is becoming more socially acceptable in Israel, along with a growing opposition in Israel to this government and its policies. But this is just not the case. Not that everyone is crazy about this government, mind you, but the Israeli Left is still seen as far less attractive. I do suspect the drop in Sharon’s popularity has much more to do with suspicions about his corruption, and that of his sons, than to dissatisfaction with his government’s policies, even if such dissatisfaction does exist (and it does, to a point), and is on the rise (and it is, again, to a point).

So what does linking to said counters accomplish in aid of furthering World Peace in Our Time? Beats me. As far as I’m concerned, it just means the linker is less interested in what regular Israelis think, feel, and fear, and has regard mainly for those that in Israel are widely regarded as hallucinatory kooks if not outright traitors (not that this is necessarily what I personally think, but it is hardly an uncommon sentiment). Refusal to serve in the army at all, or specifically in the territories, or on certain missions that they dislike, still an extremely marginal phenomenon (most of the infamous “refusenik” pilots, for instance, were not even in active combat service, rendering their so-called refusal quite meaningless in operational terms), is seen by many as an act that serves to strengthen Palestinian incentive to perpetrate murderous acts of terrorism against Israeli civilians. As if choosing not to participate in the protection of those civilians is not bad enough. This is still not regarded as a legitimate mode of protest, even by most moderate left wing Israelis, I believe.

Pim, however, (who looks very lovely in her photo, by the way) has linked not only to said meaningless counter, but to my blog as well, meaning she is interested in a more mainstream Israeli point of view. I am grateful for this, and pleasantly surprised (I am once again reminded that I constantly have to work on my prejudices). I would like to apologize, in advance, to her and to any of her readers who wander over here, if some of the things I say are less than pleasant for them to read. But she should know that she’s far more likely to hear views similar to mine on the street in Israel than what she might or might not have been reading over at the Yesh Gvul site. (I’m not being arrogant, quite the contrary. The things I say are nothing special).

If you really want to do your little bit to further peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and not just be seen to have trendy opinions, you have to try to really understand the problem with an open mind. This can be achieved, hopefully, by studying different aspects and complexities of both sides, and not just the suitably palatable margins.

And that goes for Israel sympathizers, as well.

(Does this mean I have to read Gideon Levy? No! No! Don’t make me do it! I’ll do anything…)

posted by Imshin 20:28

home