What am I talking about earplugs? How can I not watch? The excitement is bursting out of the TV. You should have heard the crowd burst out with their unofficial rendition of HaTiqva, the national anthem.

I’ll just go hang up the washing first.
posted by Imshin 21:55

A time for humility?
Helena Cobban on Israel killing Rantissi:

What follies, follies, follies!! How can anyone imagine that actions like that … will bring peace??

The one thing you can say in favor of Hamas, and its recently departed leaders, Yassin and Rantissi, is that, unlike the Palestinian Authority, it has never pretended to be interested in making peace with Israel. It has always stated its goals quite clearly – the destruction of the State of Israel, the extermination of the Jews residing therein, and the establishment of an Islamic entity in its place.

We Moderns, with our superior knowledge and understanding, believe that it is legitimate and acceptable for an organization like Hamas to strive bravely on towards its declared goals, which must be worthy and just, because they grew out of the suffering of the downtrodden. And we Moderns know for a fact that Israel is currently the only thing standing between the world and real, eternal peace. There was a poll.

We Moderns believe it is possible to do away with all the unpleasant aspects of life. We have the technology. We will eliminate war; we can cancel suffering; no one has to be hungry; no one need be ill; we will extend life indefinitely; we can bring happiness to everyone, for eternity.

Again, Kohelet comes to mind:

A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven:
A time for being born and a time for dying,
A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted;
A time for slaying and a time for healing,
A time for tearing down and a time for building up;
A time for weeping and a time for laughing,
A time for wailing and a time for dancing;
A time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones,
A time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces;
A time for seeking and a time for losing,
A time for keeping and a time for discarding;
A time for ripping and a time for sewing,
A time for silence and a time for speaking;
A time for loving and a time for hating,
A time for war and a time for peace.

Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3, 8 (From the new translation of the Holy Scriptures according to the traditional Hebrew text).

I suddenly notice something about this passage. Something is missing. Do you notice it too? It is something that is so much a part of modern life that it seems like we can’t do without it. Read it again carefully. See if you can guess.

The thing that is missing in this passage is judgment.

Kohelet isn’t saying that one is good and the other is bad. He isn’t saying that this is desirable, while that is to be avoided. He is saying that there is a time for all these things, yes, for death, for sadness, even for destruction, for hatred, for war. He is describing the way the world works. He is telling us what to expect.

Israel didn’t kill Rantissi and Yassin as part of its quest for peace. It killed them in self-defense. ‘If he comes to kill you, prevent him by killing him first’*.

This is a time for war. We didn’t ask for this war, we didn’t instigate it. On the contrary, I believe we did our best to prevent it. But make no mistake - however unpopular it makes us - we have no intention of losing it. Defeat is not a luxury we can allow ourselves.

We are the canary in the mine. Given the nature of terrorism, the future is quite clear: if we lose, be prepared, so do you. But let me tell you a little secret: if we lose, I really couldn’t care less what happens to you.

_________________________________

* ‘If he comes to kill you, prevent him by killing him first’ - a popular quote in Israel. It is from the Talmud, explaining something from the Torah - Exodus 22, 1:

If the thief is seized while tunneling, and he is beaten to death, there is no bloodguilt in his case. If the sun has risen on him, there is bloodguilt in his case.

(From the new translation of the Holy Scriptures according to the traditional Hebrew text).

Jewish sages discussed this:

The commentators explain that the somewhat ambiguous phrase, “There is no blood for him” (“there is no bloodguilt in this case” – I.J.) …, means the thief’s killer bears no guilt of manslaughter (as discussed by Ibn Ezra, Rashbam). The Mishna provides the basis for this case: “The one who comes in a tunnel is judged by his end [i.e. final intention]” (Sanhedrin 8.6). In the Gemara, Raba outlines the thief’s thought-process: “If I go there, he [the owner] will oppose me and prevent me; but if he does, I will kill him” (Sanhedrin 72a).

The Talmud then summarizes the general rule for this situation: “Therefore the Torah decreed, ‘If he comes to kill you, prevent him by killing him [first]’” (Sanhedrin 72a). …the Talmud is offering a synopsis of the verses quoted above – although the specifics deal with a thief and a tunnel, the essence of the lesson is to establish justification for murder in self-defense.

(My emphasis).

posted by Imshin 20:50

There is freedom in underachievement!
I love Allison’s crude analogy about blogging.

I confess occasional frustration in having finally found something I can do reasonably well, without being able to translate it into money. According to Allison, to do so would be whoring myself.

And I feel much better about my dreary job, which consists mainly of moving pieces of paper from one side of a very small room to another. After all, someone has to do it, at least until the new computer system is ready, and it might as well be me.

I have always been slightly suspicious of our highly intelligent, obviously talented, and very talkative supermarket delivery-man. He claims repeatedly that he prefers to remain a delivery-man, because it means he doesn’t have to sell out (or various things to that effect). Finally I am starting to grasp his meaning.

Easy for me to say, moving pieces of paper around, dreary as it may be, probably pays far better than schlepping groceries, although I have no idea why.

posted by Imshin 10:18

Yasser X
French launch investigation against unnamed chairman of Palestinian Authority.

Teehee.
posted by Imshin 23:32

The Facts Of Life
An excellent article by Melanie Phillips explaining THE FACTS OF LIFE. Do you think that emphasis was strong enough? How about - The Facts Of Life!

For one thing

The first major error is the idea that Israel is torpedoing a political settlement. There is in fact no political settlement on the horizon. For all Tony Blair's insistence otherwise, the road map is dead in the water because the Palestinian Authority refuses even to attempt the map's first and most basic requirement, that it dismantle the infrastructure of terror.

Not only has it refused on the grounds that to confront Hamas would mean civil war, but Yasser Arafat's own militias — and even the PA's own policemen— are repeatedly involved in the human bomb attacks which are being regularly attempted (and mainly thwarted). You can't negotiate a settlement if there is no-one committed to peace with whom to negotiate.

And more importantly

And here lies perhaps the biggest — and most bitterly ironic — error by Israel's critics. For to its Arab enemies, far from representing strength Israel actually embodies a terrible weakness.

[…]

The danger lies in not recognising that terrorism is encouraged by weakness, not strength. Al Qaeda attacked America because it perceived the west was decadent and so assumed it was not prepared to fight. It made a big mistake over America, but it got Europe (with the exception of Tony Blair over Afghanistan and Iraq) dead right.

The history of modern terrorism is a history of appeasement. From the first Palestinian plane hijacking in 1968, the response of the west was to assume there were legitimate grievances that had to be addressed. From that point, terrorists had every incentive to continue.

In a roundabout way, Melanie Phillips is one of the people who brought about the creation of this blog, back in the dark, desperate days of the spring of 2002, when simple, everyday events, like sending the girls to school in the morning, were traumatic.
posted by Imshin 23:08

Activism
I had a brief chance encounter with an English peace activist. At first she was uncomfortable to tell me she was a peace activist. What did she think I would do to her?

She told me that West Bank settlements were growing like mad.

Once upon a time, nearly every young couple I knew, secular and religious alike, was considering moving to this West Bank settlement or the other, lured by the promise of affordable, palatial dwellings. “Five minutes from Kfar Saba” was the catchphrase. Ancient history.

I no longer know anyone even contemplating leaving the relative safety of pre-1967 Israel for a hazardous existence in a posh villa in the territories, however cheap, and however near the Green Line it may be. Bish doesn’t know anyone either and he knows a lot more people than I do.

Back in the days when everyone was moving there, the newspapers were full of attractive advertisements and the construction contractors were having the time of their lives. Not any more.

It doesn’t add up, what she said about this uninhibited settlement growth.

I admit that I haven’t been anywhere near any West bank settlements in years. I haven’t seen any bulldozers. I haven’t encountered, first hand, the alleged droves of vehicles taking alleged hoards of fervent, ideological youngsters, their families, and all their worldly goods, to allegedly inhabit their shiny new homes on remote hills. This doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Allegedly.

It just means I don’t think it makes any sense.

Maybe she was talking about Jerusalem neighborhoods.

I asked her how she would feel if Sharon went ahead with disengagement from Gaza. She said she’d never been there but from what she had heard Gaza was just a big prison and disengagement wouldn’t change that, but only make it worse. I didn’t get it. What she was saying was: Building settlements = bad; dismantling settlements = even worse. At this point, I could clearly feel my old pal fuzzy brain setting in. This type of reasoning is way beyond my humble mental abilities.

I am concerned about her hesitance to reveal her being here as a peace activist to an Israeli, concerned and suspicious. What does that say about how she sees us as a people? I am left with the feeling that she would be happiest if we just ceased to exist, you know, by magic or something.

I’m sorry we can’t make her happy, but that’s just the way it is.

The other day I said that “Justice is always about justice for one side. Someone always loses.” Maybe I should call the people who come over here to help the Palestinians, not peace activists, because they don’t really seem very interested in peace for both sides, but Justice (for one side) Activists. Justice Activists has a certain sanctimonious ring to it. Much more appropriate.

Shabbat Shalom.

posted by Imshin 16:50

The vet’s waiting room is something straight out of a Roald Dahl children’s book. It’s the coolest place I’ve ever been in. Honest to God. I can’t explain it. It’s full of…sort of… things, cool things. It looks just like you imagined a vet’s waiting room would be like, in the land of your dreams, back when you were innocent enough to still daydream about what the world would look like, if it were perfect.

I hadn’t noticed it when I first went to pick up Shoosha. I just rushed through into the surgery. You see it was the vet’s assistant who called us, ten days ago, to see if we would be interested in having Shoosha adopt us. So they were very happy to see her again, when we brought her back to be inoculated this morning.

Shoosha got a little inoculation booklet, like the girls have, but much nicer. And the best thing is that now we know what type of cat she is. It’s written there, right underneath her name.

Cat’s name: Shoosha.
Type: Israeli cat.

Israeli cat.

While we were waiting for our turn in the coolest of waiting rooms, Bish noticed the vet’s name. Isn’t that Efraim Kishon’s son? He said. What was it someone Meryl quoted said about people here being unassuming?

Actually, the cat lover directly responsible for the vet’s assistant calling us, and our getting Shoosha, was also the offspring of a famous Israeli figure, but enough name-dropping.

posted by Imshin 16:19

False perceptions.
The funny thing was that I was certain they had lost. Round about the middle of the game there was a lot of noisy excitement, but towards the end, there was this tense quiet. Well, quiet-ish. It sounded to me, from where I was, like they were taking a beating.

I had been interested to see if Maccabi Tel Aviv would win the game, but not enough to actually watch it. I was tired, so I had gone to bed. I can hear about the game tomorrow, I thought.

But going to bed on the night of a big game does not necessarily mean sleep. I think I could have slept better had I snuggled up next to a reluctant Bish, in front of the TV. The commotion coming in through the bedroom window from apartments all around was something that could have wakened the dead. Men become very vocal when watching sports.

The whole country has been obsessing about the Euroleague Basketball Final Four, for weeks now. Bish has been very excited about it. He’s been an avid supporter of Maccabi Tel Aviv since childhood, as was his father before him. I even mentioned the Final Four myself here when the pressure was on to have it moved away from Tel Aviv, during the general silliness that followed the Ahmed Yassin killing.

So while I was in this not-quite-awake-but-definitely-not-asleep/not-watching-the-game-but-not-managing-to-avoid-it state, secure in my belief that the game was lost, I started having those worrying late night thoughts that make it even more difficult to get to sleep. If they lost, I hallucinated, there would be few spectators at the final, because of people being bad losers, and because the foreign supporters (A.K.A. “The Chickens”) hadn’t dared come to ever so dangerous Tel Aviv. I was afraid of international embarrassment.

But what do you know? They won. Saturday night’s the final. I’ll be ready with the earplugs.

posted by Imshin 08:53

A new blogger emerges
Vvvvvvvvvvvv11111111111111111111111111
ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd vvvvv
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvgooooooooo
oooooooooooooo jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjv
vvvvllllllvvvvv 00000000000000000000000000000-,
m((((((((((((((((((((((((???????????????

Posted by Shoosha

posted by Imshin 08:22

Goodness gracious me!
I haven’t had this many hits since before the world lost interest in Israel, a year ago, when it became apparent that Saddam wasn't going to launch any chemical missiles at us.

Thank you, Roger.
posted by Imshin 19:55

A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven:
A time for being born and a time for dying,
A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted;
A time for slaying and a time for healing,
A time for tearing down and a time for building up;
A time for weeping and a time for laughing,
A time for wailing and a time for dancing;
A time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones,
A time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces;
A time for seeking and a time for losing,
A time for keeping and a time for discarding;
A time for ripping and a time for sewing,
A time for silence and a time for speaking;
A time for loving and a time for hating,
A time for war and a time for peace.

Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3, 8 (From the new translation of the Holy Scriptures according to the traditional Hebrew text).

For Barbara,
with whom I was silent
and with whom I spoke
of loving and hating,
of war and peace.

posted by Imshin 20:38

Dear Amanda,
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I know it is very difficult to read opinions that differ greatly to your own. To do so requires remarkable openness.

Last summer, my mother-in-law traveled to France for a wedding. She stayed at a remote farm in Brittany. Staying with her there, among others, was a close friend of the bride and groom, a young Palestinian man. He had been born in Lebanon and had spent most of his life in France. He knew my mother-in-law was Israeli and he avoided her.

Wishing to contribute to the preparations for the wedding, my mother-in-law made ma’amouls (you can read about her ma’amouls here) to be served at the wedding reception as appetizers. The young Palestinian tasted them, not knowing who had made them. He was probably the only one who could really appreciate them. They must have brought forth dear memories, because he made the effort of finding out where they came from.

Then he came up to my mother-in-law, an act that must have required a lot of courage, and complemented her, telling her that they were better than his mother’s ma’amouls, praise indeed from an Arab man.

And they talked. And while they talked he realized that he had more in common with this elderly Israeli woman, his sworn enemy, than with all the other people at the wedding. He asked her about his homeland, which he had never seen and knew little about. And she told him. She described the sights and the smells and the sounds.

And she said something else to him. She said to him that she was more of a Palestinian than he was. She was born in 1932 in a land that, at the time, was called Palestine. And so was her father.

She told him of her childhood in Tel Aviv, and of her father who had worked in the port of Jaffa, and of the Arab children she had played with as a child.

She had lived all her life in the land he called Palestine. She had given birth to her children in Jaffa. She had walked with the groceries from Tel Aviv's Carmel Market, through Jaffa, to her little apartment in Bat Yam, to prepare food for her family. In 1967, she had put black paper on the windows of that little apartment, in the days of waiting, to prevent enemy planes from seeing it, should they come in the night. And she had sat there, hugging her two small sons, her husband away at war, fearing that the end was near.

But still, in his eyes, he was a Palestinian, he who had never set foot on the land, had never smelt its smells and had never felt its sun on his back. And she was a foreign occupier.

She invited him to come and visit. She promised to show him the country he called home, to give him an opportunity to smell the smells and hear the sounds. I have no quarrel with you, she told him. We love the same country.

On both sides of this conflict there are people, Amanda, real people. No one asked the Native Americans how they felt about the establishment of the United States of America; no one asked the people of Andalusia in Spain how they felt about the Muslim invaders in the Middle Ages, and no one asked them how they felt about the Christians who came after, with their cruel Inquisition.

No one asked the Jews of Poland if they would prefer to die of starvation in Warsaw Ghetto or in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

The UN commission that checked the situation in Palestine and came up with the 1947 Partition Plan probably did confer with leaders of both sides. And it made an effort to come up with a solution that would solve the problem relatively fairly for both sides.

The Jews of Palestine, at the time, saw the Partition Plan as horrendous. It gave them a tiny country, cut up in the middle, most of it arid desert. Beloved Jerusalem was to remain international, and difficult to reach. Hebron, holy burial place of the Fathers, was on the other side of the border.

But still they rejoiced, because they were ready for compromise and because they knew there were hundreds of thousands of shells of human beings, waiting in Europe, remnants of the death camps, that were desperate for somewhere to go, somewhere safe, somewhere that they could, at last, call home.

Justice is always about justice for one side. Someone always loses. Life is not about justice. Life is about muddling through and trying to get along with one another. And surviving.

posted by Imshin 20:35

Nu
Israel is 56 years old today. Fifty six, that’s ‘nun vav’ in Hebrew alphabetical numbers. Nu.

So I know that on this festive day you are all dying to ask, ”Nu, so how’s the cat?”

Well, there’s something wrong with the focus on our camera. Also, Shoosha really wasn’t interested in posing on the flag. These are the best I could do.




The arms are Eldest’s, by the way. This is a very tiny kitten, although she's grown quite a bit during the week she's been here.

The fireworks in Tel Aviv were really good last night, better than usual. They had a new kind that were amazing. Just in case you were wondering.

posted by Imshin 15:24

Terrorism is cancer
If we are gentle to cancer, if we say, ‘We should give our cancer love and compassion, and then it will change its mind and go away’, then our cancer will laugh in our faces. This victim is an easy one, it will scorn.

To survive cancer we must be very strong and determined. To survive cancer we must inflict unspeakable agony on ourselves. Sometimes, we have to cut out parts of our bodies. Other times, we have to pour poison inside us, again and again. Often, we must destroy parts of our body that are not cancerous, just because they happen to be adjacent to parts of us that are. We have no choice but to be very cruel.

The alternative is to endure slow torture, a hell on earth, followed by annihilation.
posted by Imshin 05:06

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