Starhawk’s quote of the day (Jan. 25):

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Sir Winston Churchill
posted by Imshin 22:41

MEMRI’s got the list of the beneficiaries of Saddam’s oil vouchers, as published in Al-Mada, an Iraqi newspaper. Guess who is head of the list. You got it – George Galloway. No surprises there. He got 1 million barrels. I wonder where he put them all.

He’s in good company.

An excerpt from the article:

"Since the deposed regime endorsed the 'Memorandum of Understanding,' also known as 'oil for food [program],' it turned it into a despicable political and commercial game, and used it to finance its clandestine acquisitions of arms, expensive construction materials for the presidential palaces and mosques, and frivolous luxury items. It turned the oil sales agreements into the greatest bribery operation in history, buying souls and pens, and squandering the nation's resources.

"Since then, rumors were abound about vouchers that Saddam gave to certain Arab and foreign dignitaries, providing them with crude oil in exchange for their support to the regime in a period of international isolation, and as a way to finance the campaign to lift the economic sanctions against it and to whitewash its image.

"However, the regime itself tarnished the moral and humane ethics of the international campaign to lift the unjust sanctions, because by the end of the day the sanctions did not harm it [the regime], but harmed our poor people and the middle class. We saw that whenever the international campaign to lift the sanctions got closer to its goals, the regime – by its behavior and insolence – shoved it again into a dark tunnel, and at the same time turned our country into a free-for-all richly loaded dining table, awaiting a stream of hearty eaters and obedient servants.”

Disgusting and sad at the same time.

I know I should be giving a nice summary of all the other dignitaries who were in on the feast, but I can't be bothered. Go read for yourself and make your own nice and amusing summaries on your blogs.
posted by Imshin 22:16

My old pal Igor thinks that if Arafat or Rajoub just smile sweetly at me, one more time, I’ll be running straight back into their arms, ditsy Yafat Nefesh ("beautiful soul"=bleeding heart liberal) that I am. Well, I’m not that ditsy, or Yafat Nefesh!

So I was wrong. So take me out and shoot me!

You know, the other day I was telling a friend at work, a right-wing guy who was eventually persuaded to vote for Ehud Barak, about Efraim Karsh’s "The Oslo War: A Tale of Self-Delusion" (Hebrew link), and he said he remembered watching Benny Begin (son of) in the Knesset saying exactly the things Karsh says in his paper, when it was still relevant, when it was still possible to stop it before too much harm was done, waving the reports with the evidence in the air, and my friend said he remembered thinking, “What’s he talking about? Why doesn’t he just shut up and go home.” And this was a right-wing guy, the son of Herutniks, the grandson of Revisionists, early settlers of the Emek (the Jezreel Valley). It wasn’t just the bleeding hearts that were swept away by Oslo, Igor.

Well Benny Begin did go home. He was probably the most honest, upright, decent politician we had and we knew this, but we still wouldn’t listen. Now he’s researching earthquakes or whatever it is Geologists do.
posted by Imshin 21:43

It turns out there were eleven murdered in the no. 19 bus terrorist attack last week.
posted by Imshin 18:37

A wall so high
I’ve finished reading Efraim Karsh’s "The Oslo War: A Tale of Self-Delusion" (Hebrew link). I really want to find it in English. I think it’s important for everyone to read it, all of it. I’ve written to BESA and await their answer.

As I read Karsh, it crossed my mind that one of the reasons that so many left-wing Israelis refuse to “get” the Terror War and see it for what it is, or realize the true aims of Arafat and the Palestinian leadership (the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state on its ruins) is that it is too terrible. They must have their hope for peace or they have nothing. This realization of the Palestinian leadership’s true aims rocked my own belief system so severely that I was in shock for about a year and a half, starting around October 2000. By the time I snapped out of it, my mother was dying of cancer. And we were celebrating our last Pesach Seder Night with her. It was 27th March 2002, the night of the Park Hotel Massacre.

My mother lived for another eight months. On her deathbed, her mind and clarity already irreversibly damaged by the morphine, we watched the pictures on TV of ambulances and rescue teams dealing with yet another murderous attack, one of many, many that had taken place since the Park Hotel. I noticed my mother shake her head in sorrow. She hardly understood what was going on around her anymore, and she herself had only a few more days of life in her, but she seemed to understand the pictures on the screen only too well.

You may not see the connection of my mother’s illness and death to all of this, but I do. For me, the last months of my mother’s life and this Terror War will be forever interconnected. For during those months (most of them spent blogging with a vengeance) I learnt more about life than in the thirty-seven years before them. About life, about death, about what is important.

We still want peace with our neighbors, more than anything. We're still prepared to pay a price for peace, even a heavy one. But if there is no peace to be had, we’ll do without it. Strong and tough. Stronger and tougher. Strongest and toughest.

What was it that Martin Van Kreveld said? “A wall so high that not even the birds can fly over it”? So be it.

(Steven Den Beste is even quite optimistic about it.)
posted by Imshin 15:48

Because, if you don't cry, who will?

By Chezi Goldberg

The scene: 7:30 a.m. Israel time, Sunday December 2, 2001 --- Eight hours after the triple terror attack at Jerusalem's popular Ben Yehuda Pedestrian Mall.

He walked into shul, synagogue. I nodded my acknowledgement, as I always do. He made some strange gesture, which I didn't comprehend. I continued praying.

A few minutes later, he walked over to me and said: "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear about what?" I replied.

He grew impatient, almost frustrated. "Didn't you HEAR?"

I understood that he was talking about last night's terror attack on Ben Yehuda Mall, a trendy night spot frequented not only by Israelis, but also Western tourists.

I assumed that he obviously was intimating that someone we knew was hurt or killed.

I replied: "About who?"

He looked at me as if I had landed from another planet. "About who? About everyone who was attacked last night."

I nodded. "Yes, of course I heard."

"Then why aren't YOU crying?"

His words shot through me like a spear piercing my heart. Our sages teach that "Words that come from the heart, enter the heart." He was right, of course. Why wasn't I crying?

I could not answer. I had nothing to say.

He pointed around the shul. "Why aren't all of my friends crying?"

I could not answer. I had nothing to say.

"Shouldn't we all be crying?"

I could not answer. I had nothing to say.

What has happened to all of us, myself included? We have turned to stone. Some would call it "numbness." Some would call it "collective national shock." Some would say that we all have suffered never-ending trauma and it has affected our senses.

Frankly, the excuses are worthless. All the reasons in the world don't justify our distance from the real pain that is burning in our midst.

When an attack happens, in the heat of the moment, we frantically check to see if someone we know has been hurt or killed. And then, if we find out that "our friends and family are safe," we sigh a deep sigh of relief, grunt and grumble about the latest tragic event and then, we continue with our robotic motions and go on with our lives.

We have not lost our minds, my friends. We have lost our hearts.

And that is why we keep on losing our lives.

When I left shul, my friend said to me with tears dripping from his bloodshot Eyes: "I heard once that the Torah teaches that for every tear that drops from our eyes, another drop of blood is saved."

We are living in a time of absolute madness. It is obvious what is going on around us and yet, we detach ourselves and keep running on automatic in our daily lives.

Last night, when it was only ten people who were known killed and just 200 injured, even MSNBC.com referred to the triple terror attack as a "slaughter." (More tragedy, it turns out, awaited us a few hours later.)

And yet, we are not crying.

I know a woman who lost sensitivity in her fingers. When she approaches fire, she doesn't feel the pain. That puts her in a very dangerous position because she might be unaware she is burning herself.

If we are being hurt and we don't feel it, then we are in a very risky position. A devastating three pronged suicide attack on Jerusalem's most popular thoroughfare should evoke a cry of pain and suffering from all of us, should it not? Unless of course, we have lost our senses.

And if we have lost our senses, then what hope is there?

When our enemies pound us and we don't react because we no longer feel the pain, we are truly in a dangerous and precarious position in the battle and struggle to survive.

Perhaps, my friends, we are being foolish to really believe that the nations of the world should be upset about the continuous murder and slaughter of Jews --- if we ourselves are not crying about it. Am I my brother's keeper?

The most effective way for us to stop the carnage in our midst is to wake up and to react to it from our hearts. How can we DEMAND that the Creator stop the tragedy when most of us react like robots when tragedy strikes?

If WE don't cry about what is happening around us, who will?

If YOU don't cry about what is happening around us, who will?

If I don't cry about what is happening to us, who will?

Maybe our salvation from this horrific mess will come only after WE tune into our emotions and cry and scream about it.

As King Solomon said, "There is a time for everything under the sun." Now is the time for crying.

May He protect each and every one of us from our enemies so that we will not have to cry in the future.

Chezi Goldberg, a social worker who specialized in helping American immigrant children at risk, and father of seven, was killed in yesterday’s terrorist attack.
posted by Imshin 18:32

The blast was so powerful that they found a large piece of the bus on the roof of a building.

Shabbat Shalom.

posted by Imshin 17:30

Re Jenny Tonge
A hedgehog asks

Where does Dr Tonge stand on the issue of Israeli desperation?

Because if my child/mother/father/sister/brother/husband/
wife/friend and so on had been blown into tiny pieces while engaged in the deeply offensive and provocative act of taking a bus to school or work, I'd be pretty desperate. If my family or friends had been shot down in cold blood carrying out such oppressive actions as lighting their Shabbat candles, or reading a bedtime story to their kids, I'd be pretty desperate too. If most of the world said my country (and therefore I) had no right to exist, and the UN, who had voted for my country's creation did little or nothing to stem the tide of hatred, I'd be pretty desperate. Yet Israel's every act of self-defence is decried as oppression by such 'liberals' as Dr Tonge (and I vote for her party. Hooray for CK for showing her the door). Individual Israelis have resorted to violence. And Israel punishes them with the full force of the law. Israel doesn't believe that her citizens' desperation excuses violent or criminal acts.

posted by Imshin 09:03

Better late (I wanted John's approval before I used this but he seems not to be getting my e-mails):
John Williams’ son went to a football (soccer) match on Saturday. Liverpool FC (Football Club) was playing Newcastle in the FA Cup (UK Football Association Cup Tournament). The programme (program) included a statement from Louise Ellman, a local Member of Parliament, about the importance of commemorating the Holocaust, about the fourth British National Holocaust Memorial Day, which was to be held a few days later, on Tuesday, 27th January, and about the ills of racism, hatred, and prejudice.

Goodness me!

You can see it here, as kindly scanned by John.

Okay, okay, you say impatiently, but who won? I wonder how many of the football fans read further than the title.

You may remember that Labour MP Louise Ellman attacked British Muslim leaders, in Parliament last month, for their open support of terrorism. The British Muslims in question were not amused. Harry’s Marcus discussed it at the time.

Also Melanie Phillips informed us, on the 27th, that

The Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster have joined the Chief Rabbi in warning against resurgent antisemitism and drawing attention to its link with anti-Israelism. They say: 'Criticism of government policy in Israel . . . is a legitimate part of democratic debate. However, such criticism should never be inspired by anti-Semitic attitudes, extend to a denial of Israel's right to exist, or serve as justification for attacks against Jewish people.'

But that

It is more than a pity, however, that the clerics' statement was not also signed by Muslim leaders.

Update: John informs me that "these people pay 24 shekels for their programmes so I think you can bet that they read it from cover to cover."
posted by Imshin 08:45

Body parts
You can click through to see the video of this morning’s terrorist attack from the Israeli Foreign Ministry site. It’s really horrible. I decided to force myself to watch it, but it was too much for me. I think everyone should have access to it though. Spread it about.

posted by Imshin 21:26

Ron stays young

I saw an interview with a friend of Ron Arad, someone who was in pilots’ course with him. Middle aged guy.

In our mind, Ron remains young, but if he comes home, he’ll be middle aged too. A life missed. Too painful to think about.

In the meantime, my heart is with the families of Benny Avraham, Omar Sawayid, and Adi Avitan. One ordeal is over, another is just starting - now they begin the difficult work of grieving. At least they now know that their sons didn’t suffer in captivity.

My heart is also with Elhanan Tannenbaum and his family. Whatever he did, and the police are probably questioning him about that as I write this, he didn’t deserve three years as a captive of the Hizbullah. No one deserves that. Well, maybe Hitler. Or (now that I’m reading the horrors Efraim Karsh spells out) Arafat.

Moreover, Tannenbaum will have to cope with what I sense is a quite negative attitude towards him in Israeli society, which will probably be intensified should he be indicted for crimes he is suspected of.
posted by Imshin 20:58

Lately I’ve been listening to Randy Newman a lot. I find myself feeling increasingly gleeful about Political Science. I do know it’s satire, but the satire is lost on me right now.

They all hate us anyhow; let’s drop the big one now.

Yup.

Jerusalem: A bus. 10 murdered. Around 50 injured.

Today was not a Political Science day. Today was a God’s Song day.

Cain slew Abel, Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

Man means nothing, he means less to me
Than the lowliest cactus flower
Or the humblest yucca tree
He chases round this desert
’cause he thinks that’s where I’ll be
That’s why I love mankind

I recoil in horror fro the foulness of thee
From the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That’s why I love mankind

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said, Lord, a plague is on the world
Lord, no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won’t take care of us
Won’t you please, please let us be?
And the Lord said
And the Lord said

I burn down your cities-how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That’s why I love mankind
You really need me
That’s why I love mankind

I don't really mean it (about dropping the big one).
posted by Imshin 18:39

The prisoner swap got the okay from our High Court of Justice.

Fantasy time: The night before last, I woke up round 2 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. You know how thoughts get distorted in the wee hours? It suddenly crossed my mind that maybe there was a connection between the timing of this Hizbullah deal and the talk about the US planning to target Hizbullah.

Hizbullah, running scared, desperately needs accomplishments to show the Arabs, while at the same time may want to suck up to the West without it seeming like that to the Arabs, so as to maybe halt US offensive; the Israelis, may be worried that if they don’t do the deal now, there might not be any Hizbullah to negotiate with, not to mention prisoners or even bodies. Although I don't see why Israel should be so keen on the deal, as I've said before.

Or maybe it’s the other way round and the publication of the US planning to target Hizbullah was a ploy by someone or other to put pressure on one of the sides (or both) in order to get this deal going.

Most likely I was just imagining things, trying too hard to make sense, and seeing conspiracies were they are not to be found.

Just some hazy nighttime musings.
posted by Imshin 21:11

The Head Heeb:

This is one of the reasons why I reject the analogy between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and apartheid-era South Africa. Implicit in the definition of apartheid is the notion of a stronger population oppressing a weaker one as part of a program of racial supremacy. To call Israel an "apartheid state" is to argue that it is occupying the West Bank and Gaza simply because the Palestinians are Arabs - an argument that implicitly renders the intifada, terrorism and Palestinian nationalism irrelevant to the conflict.

The apartheid analogy therefore promotes an inaccurate understanding not only of the causes of the conflict but of the factors that keep it going. It also unreasonably narrows the range of possible solutions, given that compromise between nationalisms is morally and politically possible while compromise with racism is neither. If the apartheid analogy is accepted, then the Palestinians cannot legitimately be asked to make concessions in return for peace and statehood - a position which gives aid and comfort to Palestinian maximalists but does little to advance the cause of peace. In a conflict as politically sensitive and morally complex as this one, such analogies are profoundly unhelpful.

posted by Imshin 19:52

It was not that they were such good liars, they actually weren’t at all coy about their true aims, even if they neglected to share them with us in English and in Hebrew, keeping it for their own audiences, in Arabic, it was more that we wanted to believe them so very much. We wanted peace so desperately that we didn’t want to see that the Palestinian leadership was taking us for a royal ride. I’ve been reading "The Oslo War: A Tale of Self-Delusion", by Dr Efraim Karsh (Hebrew link). I can’t find it in English, but here are some reviews and here is something Karsh wrote, along the same lines (and here is his book about Arafat, with editorial and reader reviews).

So far I’ve read the introduction and part of the first chapter, and it’s depressing the hell out of me. The sad thing is, it’s nothing new. I knew all this, but chose to ignore it all. We all did. We were such suckers. It was all there, staring us in the face, and we decided to ignore it. We just didn’t want to know. I can feel my face reddening with embarrassment as I recall arguments I had with right wing friends who spread out the evidence clearly for me to see, and I refused to listen. They were right and I was wrong. But my point of view was in power, and we were had, taken for a ride, conned. And, oh, so willingly. Never did a gang of swindlers have such compliant, enthusiastic fools for victims.

I can clearly remember watching Arafat, freshly arrived in Gaza, standing on a balcony and saying horrible, hateful, inciting things to a cheering crowd, and I remember feeling very humiliated and worried at the time. Don’t worry, everyone said, the Palestinian people will soon be having such a ball, they’ll just love their independence and newfound affluence so much, that it will have to work. So I didn’t worry. More fool me.

Because it didn’t work, did it? Those bastards stole all the money and what they didn’t they spent on arms and on teaching hatred. Terrorist organizations flourished. No independence for the Palestinians. No affluence. (And no peace for us). Conned by their leaders. Again. And so were we.

The crazy thing is that we’re still the bad guys at the end of it all. It’s us that are the Zionazi hate mongers. It’s us that are the danger to World Peace.

Even some Israelis still don’t get it.

How can we possibly make people understand, when we ourselves, couldn’t, wouldn’t see it for so long? We only saw it when it came crashing down on us, literally.

How can we possibly make people understand, when these are people who don’t have access to the facts that we did have access to; when these are people who, on the most part, only have access to the clever lies, to the devious disinformation, to the unabashed distortion of history.

With little chance of persuading the world that we are the underdog here, that we are the endangered species, that we’re not paranoid, they really are after us, what choice do we have but to be strong and tough, stronger and tougher, strongest and toughest? We have no choice, and that’s the sad truth.

There’s no peace on the horizon.
posted by Imshin 19:05

From the Jerusalem Post’s Letters to the Editor:

Sir, - I am CEO of Scandinavia's largest Classical Music Record Company, BIS Records. I visited Dror Feiler's "Snow White" installation and was deeply disgusted with it.

An integral part was the use of an aria from Bach's Cantata No. 199, Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut (My Heart Swims in Blood), which had been "arranged" (read: "distorted") by Feiler and went on and on in a loop at the site.

Since I thought I recognized my recording (BIS 801) through the mess, I called Feiler up to ask whence he got the music he was using. The answer was that he had no idea since he had tanked down the music from the Internet. I asked him to try to check up on it and get back to me. He refused.

The Swedish Copyright Act clearly states that the rightholders - in this case the record company and performing artist, since Bach is in the public domain - have the exclusive right to decide about the work recorded. No one else has the right to copy, arrange and/or make publicly available such a work without the rightholders' prior consent. Not only did Feiler not seek any such permission, he didn't even care enough to know whose recording, with what artists, he had stolen, mutilated and unlawfully exhibited; odd behavior from someone who so vehemently defends his own "art."

I therefore went to the Swedish police and brought charges against Feiler for his theft, and against the Museum of National Antiquities for playing unauthorized music on its premises. The museum, after consultation with its lawyers, had to give in and closed down the music part of the installation as of January 22. Rumours are Feiler is now searching high and low for a recording older than 50 years, so he can stamp on the artists' droit moral with impunity.
ROBERT VON BAHR
BIS Records
Stockholm

posted by Imshin 20:00

It looks like the prisoner swap deal is on again. Here are the details.
I still don’t like the sound of it. It's very worrying. I’ve discussed this before. I’ve also spoken in the past of the detrimental effect a previous unwise swap deal had on the region. I still believe it ultimately led to the so-called first Intifada, (I call it the second Intifada, the first being the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, while what is now being called the second Intifada is not an Intifada at all, it’s a war, the Terror War).


posted by Imshin 18:54

home