Now that’s a bike.

Update: Finally got round to looking it up. A Cannondale Gemini. Yup.

posted by Imshin 21:02

Found it!
Here's my old post about the sand storm in Sinai.
posted by Imshin 17:05

Huh?



Found here (Hebrew link).

Afterthought: It is, of course, inconceivable that anyone should want to go in any direction other than Yaffo D, but just in case, it's nice to know.
posted by Imshin 13:00

Yesterday I was feeling upset all day. You probably noticed – Why else would I lash out at poor, defenseless Gideon Levy? When Alisa mentioned 3rd November I couldn’t for the life of me think what that date meant. I racked my brain. Rabin was murdered on the 4th; the Brits burn Guy Fawkes on the 5th. The 3rd? No, nothing.

I reckoned it must be something to do with Mr. Alisa. So I shamed myself by asking her ‘What happens on Nov 3?’ Oysh.

Now I know ;-)
posted by Imshin 07:54

My heroine


Here is Shoosha guarding the kitchen window ledge that used to belong to those nasty, horrible pigeons.

posted by Imshin 22:43

Gideon Levy: More dangerous than Sinai
It’s not every day you get to expose someone for being a spiteful, manipulative bastard, even if you can clearly see that that is what he is. But there is no pleasure in pointing the finger at Gideon Levy this day, because today his hateful vitriol against the Israeli establishment may have cost lives. Today we get an idea of just how dangerous Gideon Levy can be.

On 12th September 2004, Gideon levy unleashed his usual irresponsible venom, in the warm, receptive pages of Haaretz. This time he was attacking the security forces’ call to stay clear of Sinai during the holidays.

This is not the first time in the past four years that the anti-terrorism unit, with its panoply of officers, has issued similar warnings, though this time the warning is said to be "graver than usual." If Israelis decide nonetheless to spend the holiday in Sinai, as would indeed appear to be the case, it will mark the continuation of a very unusual phenomenon here: Israelis are ignoring the warnings of the defense establishment, casting doubt on its considerations and not being automatically persuaded by its rationale.

[…]

Even if the defense establishment has solid information about Sinai, the timing of its warnings is problematic, after four years of warnings in which not a hair of the tens of thousands of Israelis who went to Sinai was harmed. After all, it's always easier to frighten people, even if it's not certain that it's necessary - what's known popularly as "covering your ass." No one pays for false warnings here, not for the scare campaign about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons, and nor for the warnings about Sinai.

No one pays for false warnings here, says Gideon Levy. What about paying for questioning, belittling, and even ridiculing real warnings, with dire consequences? And Gideon Levy wasn’t the only one. The media was full of it.

On the 22nd September, Juliano Mer, local actor and Palestinian activist (he’s half Jewish and half Arab), called on Israelis (Hebrew link) to travel to Sinai, and launched a paranoid (and hallucinatory, in my view) attack on the fear and panic tactics of the Israeli establishment, aimed, according to Mer, at turning Israel into one big Jewish ghetto.

Among other things, he pointed out that the warnings were not even logical.

The Bedouin in Sinai, a large percentage of whom make their living off the Israeli visitors, are the main smugglers of weapons and ammunition for the Palestinian Intifada. In many cases they smuggle raw material into the territories that the Palestinians use for their economy. Can anyone imagine that the Palestinians or any other factor would harm the delicate texture of the relationship with the Bedouin, or arouse the anger of the Egyptians, who take an important part today in the settlement of differences between the different resistance organizations?

What can I say? Not very bright this guy.

Juliano Mer is actually regarded as a bit of a nut. He’s been arrested a few times for beating people up, most notably, his leading lady, in a play in which he was starring, a few years ago, in Haifa.

The same antiquated 19th century colonialist ideology that negated the (Jewish) exile (= the Jewish Diaspora – IJ), that negated the reality in Palestine and saw it as a ‘Land without a people’, that negated the Arabness of some of the Jews – is returning again and wants to ruin our holiday in Sinai. So, Ladies and Gentlemen: Go to Sinai, and Paris, and Turkey. Don’t let them ruin your holidays. The Palestinians are under complete closure anyway and I presume they will stay that way until the Zionism sees them as a free people in their country. Or maybe the fear sown by the security establishment will serve as a boomerang and persuade many to give up the dream of ‘The Great Ghetto’.

At least 26 dead, more than 160 wounded, a further 20 feared buried under the rubble.

Update: Alisa thinks I'm exaggerating the influence of Gideon Levy and the rest of the Media on Israelis. She's probably right in this case. No one would really have decided if to go to Sinai based on Levy's recommendation, certainly not bsed on that of the unstable Juliano Mer. But I believe there is a cumulative effect of the hateful, manipulative way that Gideon Levy and his ilk write what they write, that is poisonous and harmful, and it does have a detrimental effect on society in Israel, and on the ability of the people to think clearly about what we face. I think that is dangerous.

posted by Imshin 20:30

I’ve been looking at some old photos we took in Sinai on our summer trips way back when. This one is Eldest in Nuweiba in 1998. She must be nearly seven. It always amazed me how happy she was to just hop on camels and horses there. She wouldn’t hear of going on them with a grownup. If you’ve ever been on a camel, you’ll know that the really scary bits are when the camel gets up and sits down. But even as they lunge along clumsily, they’re so tall, you feel like you’re a mile high, and Eldest was particularly teeny.


And this is Youngest in Nuweiba, the following summer, 1999. She’ll be four and a half here. I’m taking the photo from our straw hut, just on the water’s edge.

I think this was the time we got stuck in a sand storm. I remember telling you about it.

posted by Imshin 10:27

First rambling thoughts of the day after
The only thing I could think about was that M, one of Eldest’s oldest and best friends, was in Sinai with her father. She’d come over for our snorkeling equipment just the week before. Her father’s girlfriend is a travel agent, so I reckoned they wouldn’t be staying in one of the beachfront straw huts we used to stay in. They’d be in a hotel.

I didn’t dare to ring J, M’s mother, till about an hour later. ‘She walked through the door half an hour ago,’ J reported, breathlessly. ‘They went through Taba five hours ago. I hadn’t heard about the terrorist attack, M told me herself. It’s a good thing. I would have had a heart attack on the spot.’ I was relieved I hadn’t rung before.

It had aggravated me that people had ignored the warnings not to go before Rosh Hashanna. People had said it was all just a scare by hoteliers in Eilat, so people would come to them instead (not that Eilat wasn’t just as packed). But the reporters in the know are saying that this is not the attack they were warning about; that one was foiled.

People did keep clear of Sinai for about two or three years after September 2000. And then gradually, they started going again. It’s safer there than in Israel, they’d say.

It’s heaven there, you see. It’s hard to keep away. I miss it very much, but I haven’t been since August 2000.

We used to go with the girls for a few days at the end of August every year. It wasn’t the most popular time and was usually quite empty. The sea breeze made it pleasant, even in the summer heat. There is a lovely sea breeze along the coast of Sinai that somehow disappears like magic as you reach the bay of Eilat. The air stands in Eilat in August.

I used to be a bit nervous going, it was a long drive, with or without the girls, and the border crossing was never comfortable. But once in, there was this freedom. I’ve never experienced a holiday quite like Sinai. It really was heaven there.

We used to drive down to the Nuweiba area, to find the hut nearest the water, preferably in a Bedouin resort. They were more laid back, the Bedouin, and their places were usually quieter. The Egyptian places often had loud Western pop music blaring out all day. Mind you, the Egyptians we met were all lovely people, generous, warm; incredibly friendly.

Not very efficient though. Bish once went to look for some eye drops or ear drops, or something, in the so-called hospital in Nuweiba. ‘Not a place you go to, if you’re expecting to get treatment for anything’, was his verdict. It was, like, three rooms. He doubted there was a doctor.

We used to half-joke about our contingency plans. If anything happened that needed emergency attention, we would load the girls into the car and race to Taba like bats out of hell, praying all the way they’d let us through the Egyptian side of the border without the queue.

Israel is complaining that they didn’t let Israeli emergency services through fast enough last night. But that’s just the way the Egyptians are. Slow. They don’t mean any harm. They just take their time about everything.

They let the first Israeli ambulances in to Taba after about an hour. That’s really fast by Egyptian standards, in my experience, especially considering the historic sensitivities about sovereignty in the area.

You have to go to Egypt to realize what an amazing accomplishment Israel is. We maybe don’t compare very well to Europe and the US, but we’re very impressive compared to our immediate neighbors. This is quite incredible when you take into consideration that about fifty percent of the Jewish population in Israel is made up of natives of Middle Eastern countries and their descendants.

Nu. Anyway. I digress, and with good reason.

Anyone who has been to Sinai will understand my ramblings. It is hard to envision such a place amid the chaos of a terrorist attack. Heaven and hell all mixed up together. It doesn’t connect.

posted by Imshin 23:00

A big blast in the Hilton in Taba, on the Egyptian side of the Israel-Egypt border. They don’t know if it’s a terrorist attack yet, or an accident, but security forces here have been warning Israelis again and again not to go to Sinai, for weeks now, and everyone was poo-pooing it and going for the Succot holiday anyway.

I know a lot of people who are in Sinai right now, but probably not at that particular hotel. There is a popular casino in the hotel, gambling is illegal in Israel, and it was probably full to bursting with Israeli gamblers, who cross the border just to gamble. And being Simchat Torah, the hotel was obviously full of families staying there as well.

The Egyptian health services in Sinai are atrocious and they reportedly only let four Israeli ambulances through a few minutes ago, to evacuate wounded. Not enough. Those who can walk have been walking over to Eilat. The border must be hell to get through. They’re dreadfully slow there at the best of times.

No news about numbers yet.
posted by Imshin 22:49

Another day, another Hag (and then we’re finished till Hannuka)

I can’t tell you how upset I am about that thirteen-year-old girl killed in Rafiah on her way to school. My Eldest is thirteen.

The Palestinians are saying that twenty bullets ripped through her body after she threw her school satchel, and the soldiers suspected it was rigged with explosives. Twenty bullets. Talk about overkill, literally.

Can we begin to imagine how terrified she must have been at the moment of death?

How could they do such a thing, I ask myself. How could they make such a terrible mistake? Twenty bullet holes. Horrible.

I suddenly think of a scene in a film I once saw. I didn’t see the rest of the film, I was just zapping. The scene didn’t make me want to stick around for more. I’m a bit vague about the details. It was Bosnia or Serbia, or somewhere round there. British soldiers (I think they were British or maybe American) were in control of a bridge. A young girl comes along (with a baby? I’m not sure. Maybe I’m mixing it up with something else) and wants to cross. I think they’re not meant to let anyone cross. She looks at them, they look at her, and then they nod her across. She walks along and when she gets near to them she blows up, or throws a grenade, or opens fire, or something. Can’t remember exactly, only that it was ‘och and vey’, as Mum used to say.

So how can I judge those soldiers? I understand that the circumstances were such that it could well have been like on that bridge in that film, which I didn’t really see and can’t remember very well. Not much consolation for her family though, is it?

I remember a time, not so very long ago, when I used to be really, really afraid to let the girls go out of the apartment. I used to sit at work all day, tense and fearful, until they rang to tell me they had arrived safely home from school. I used to ride the number five bus home from work with clenched teeth, listening to the guy at the back mumbling the prayer for traveling, over and over again. There always seemed to be a guy at the back.

During that period, a friend said that every day she would wait for the terrorist attack, for it was a daily event at that time, and, awful as this may sound, she would be relieved when it happened. She’d survived the game of Russian roulette they were playing with us, for another day.

Am I happy that tables are turned and now it is other mothers who are afraid? No, I am not. My heart goes out to the tearful mothers and fearful children we see every night on the TV (Do they show our tearful mothers and fearful children on their TV, as well?). I have no vengeful satisfaction. I’m just grateful it’s not so much me and mine at the moment. I’m only human.

A week or two ago, I heard a song on the car radio. I don’t hear much radio these days. I ride my bike to work and I’m too busy to listen to the radio there. I often only hear about important events of the day, when I get home in the afternoon. Anyway, this was one of those quiet, wistful songs, woman and guitar. The refrain included the words - ‘A bit of compassion never killed anyone’. And I thought, God, what a daft song. Compassion could very well turn out to be one of the big killers of our time.

posted by Imshin 18:11

Egg on face
Well it looked like one tube to me. Apparently it really could be two tubes with canvas in the middle – a stretcher. Even the IDF are saying so now. Someone was in too much of a rush to go public with this. Bad publicity mistake.

I admit I started to be a bit nervous about this when I saw this photo in yesterday’s Yediot Aharonot. Bish says he felt the same way.


It’s a UN paramedic showing what a folded stretcher looks like.

Now I feel uncomfortable because a few people linked to what I said. I apologise.

posted by Imshin 20:25

’I don't see that as a crime’

From the Hamas convenant (1988):

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas is an abbreviation of this name - IJ) is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Moslem Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Moslem Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Moslem Brotherhood in 1968 and after.

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

[…]

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.

So the clearly stated goal of Hamas is to rid the Land of Palestine, in its entirety, of the Zionist invaders and kill the Jews. The Hamas has been declared a terror organization by the United States and by the European Union.

Can any of the above be seen as a reason that Hamas members should not be receiving a salary from the UN? Certainly not, according to Peter Hansen, head of UNRWA. Its all just a little, unimportant matter of political persuasion.

I am sure the Hamas members whose livelihoods are secured by the UN, so they can proceed to plan and carry out their clearly stated goal, are very grateful to the government of the United States, for its substantial monetary support of Hamas, via the UN.

posted by Imshin 20:41

'All that glisters is not gold.'

Ah, thank you, Dad. Nice to see you're feeling better.

Update: Joe says that's Shakespeare.

posted by Imshin 20:11

The Guardian parodies itself in its sports pages (what else is new?)

Newcastle United fly out of Israel this morning having negotiated safe passage in a country where the phrase has connotations far beyond football.

On a day of extensive bloodshed 70 miles south of Tel Aviv, the Uefa Cup was of diminished importance, even to the minor miracle that is Bnei Sakhnin, but Newcastle still had a job to do.

[…]

As for Sakhnin, they and their 12,000 fans go back to the hills of Galilee and a life framed by violence. With no stadium and no money, theirs was a romantic tale of over-achievement, though the claims to Sakhnin demonstrating the power of Arab-Jew co-operation were left looking weak when the news came through shortly before kick-off that the Israeli military had killed 28 Palestinians near Gaza City.

The atmosphere was subdued and any chance that it might be aroused by Sakhnin staging one of the great upsets was removed when Kluivert collected a lovely back-heel from Jermaine Jenas and side-footed in the first.

I’m sure Guardian-reading sports fans (an oxymoron?) are very grateful for this highly politicized report of an international soccer game.

Scroll down to the photos of little Dorit and Yuval for balance.

posted by Imshin 19:11

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