What side is Haaretz on?
‘Did you hear’, Bish asked me, ‘that Defense minister Mofaz told Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting today that in May alone 18 suicide (homocide) bombings had been thwarted in Israel’. ‘Where did you read this?’ I asked. ‘In Haaretz (Hebrew link)’, was his answer. So, as usual, I looked up the English version, thinking of sharing this interesting and important piece of information with you.

But what’s this? Nothing about thwarting terrorist attacks in the English translation. More than half of the report in English is given over to scathing criticism of Mofaz’s appearance by various Knesset members (In Hebrew this criticism is far less prominent), but not a word about suicide attacks being prevented.

A quick count revealed that the English language editors had completely ommitted a whole three paragraphs of the first part of the original Hebrew article*. Makes you wonder.

Well that’s what bloggers are for. The annoying-but-gripping thriller I’m reading will have to wait, I thought, and got right down to work.

Here’s what Haaretz thought wouldn’t interest their English language readers (you’ll forgive my hurried translation, it’s nearly bedtime for me):

Mofaz further said to the Committee that “Terrorist organizations wish to take revenge for the elimination of their top people and they also wish to harm Israel in view of the upcoming disengagement.” He said that there have been successes in the war against terror: There have been no suicide bombings inside Israel since 13th March. He said that in May alone 18 suicide bombings in Israel have been thwarted.

The Head of Research in Army Intelligence, Brigadier General Yossi Koppervasser, said during the meeting that the first signs could be seen of efforts by terrorist organizations, to move smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Israel away from the Philadelphi route to other areas. He said that the smuggling layout in Rafiah is made up of about 10-20 people, some of them Palestinian Security Personnel.

Brigadier General Koppervasser added that the Palestinian leadership, headed by Arafat, was following the disengagement plan with concern and was worried that after Israel cut itself off from Gaza, the (Gaza) Strip would remain a big prison of Palestinians. Answering a question by KM Haim Ramon (Avoda), Brigadier General Koppervasser said that terrorism coming out of the (Gaza) Strip would lessen as a result of the disengagement.

So, what do you think of Haaretz’s editing out one of the most interesting and informative parts of the article, while still managing to fit in Yossi Sarid saying that Mofaz was an insult to intelligence? Do you know what I think? I think Haaretz is an insult to intelligence.

By the way, the stuff they didn't edit out of the article is interesting enough. Apparently, Egypt has been smuggling large amounts of Egyptian-made RPG launchers into the Gaza Strip through the tunnels. Good thing we're at peace with Egypt. Can you imagine if we weren't?

______________________
* In all fairness, I must point out that Haaretz also changed the last few paragraphs of the article, cutting out petty details that really would not be of interest to the foreign reader.

Good post by anglosaxy about driving in Israel. I've rarely driven anywhere else, so I thought all the things he described were quite normal (what? You're meant to indicate on a roundabout?).

Actually, I do remember driving in the center of Paris once and feeling quite at home. Couldn't find anywhere to park though. I just kept going round and round the Arc De Triumphe...

'We only want to hurt the Westerners. Where can we find them?'
Headline in the UK Independent, referred to me by John. He also sent me the Guardian article about it:

According to another survivor, Abu Hashem, an Iraqi with a US passport, they demanded: "Are you Muslim or Christian? We don't want to kill Muslims. Show us where Americans and westerners live."

He said there were four gunmen aged between 18 and 25 wearing military fatigues. "Don't be afraid. We won't kill Muslims, even if you are an American," he said they told him.

The four gunmen had been polite and calm, he said.

"They gave me a lecture on Islam and said they were defending their country and ridding it of infidels.

Two nice lefty newspapers.

Do you think they get it yet? Naaah.

(BUT IT’S THE ISRAELIS WHO ARE THE RACISTS)

I tell you, I’m having such fun with this little camera


This road is completely straight in real life, honest (click photo for larger image). Please don't e-mail me to explain why this happened. I don't want to know. I'd rather continue believing it was magic.


More inner city nature (click photo for larger image).

Yes!
She's back at last, and interesting as ever, writing about the use of children in war.

Okay, so I have to vent sometimes. Makes me feel much better. The nice thing about blogging is that even if I write the occasional drivel, you don't like me any less.

Erm, you don't, do you?

The (used to be) White City


I don't live here either.

More ambulances
Apparently the army has caught two fake Palestinian ones that were being used for no good.

Shabbat Shalom.

Losing the Big One
Maybe this is God’s way of saying, “Life sucks. Get over it. Who the @$%! do you think you are?”

And why should we win? Where is it written that people deserve to be happy, and fulfilled, and safe, and well fed, and dry? And alive? Where is it written that life on Earth just has to get better and better for all of mankind?

If people are too dense to grasp that there can be alternative ways of thinking, and that not everyone is interested in Compromise, and in Diversity, and in Openness, and in Peace In Our Time, and in Equality, and in Human Rights, and in the Personal Freedom to kill ourselves with overeating and overconsuming and overthinking and overbeing, and that mankind is perhaps not yet ripe to be just one happy family, then maybe they should be conquered by people with less benevolent and less idyllic ways of thinking, and be forced to forfeit their values and happiness and security and satiety, if not their lives. (Phew! I think that was the longest sentence I’ve ever written!)

Of course it’s not a matter of good and bad. Life and death aren’t good and bad. They just are. The same goes for lightness and darkness; wisdom and ignorance; love and hate. So if Western Civilization is destroyed by Islamic fundamentalism, and by the West’s smug and pompous refusal to see this destruction in the making, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would just be a thing. Where is it written that life on Earth just has to get better and better for all of mankind?

Yes, it would be extremely unpleasant for tens of millions of people, at least, should Western Civilization be destroyed by Islamic fundamentalism, but so what? Where is it written that people deserve to be happy, and safe, and well fed, and dry? And alive?

Why oh why didn't Arafat accept Barak's offer at Camp David? Or at least say he'd think about it? Or even try to haggle for a bit more? Why did he say NO? I have this crazy gut feeling that it would have changed everything, and not just for Israelis and Palestinians.

Perhaps this feeling is just something akin to nostalgia, a naive yearning for something that never was, and maybe never will be.

Because I've got this horrible feeling that we're going to lose. Not enough people get it, and we're going to lose, all of us.

what's that called? A premonition?

Update: Bish said it’s not called a premonition. He said it’s called anxiety. He also said that this post is very badly written and I should rewrite it (Meanie). I said it’s good for my ego to have a badly written piece glaring at me from my blog. Anyway, it’ll soon disappear forever into the darkness of my archives.

Bish said it’s like the ten plagues. Pharaoh and the Egyptians didn’t get it after the first one, and even after the tenth most horrible one they raced after the Israelites into the desert on their chariots, to bring them back. Let’s hope it doesn’t take that many for the West to wake up.

John said "Get a grip kid, when the appeasers wake up they'll really go to town on the terrorists bastards. There's no rage quite like that of a suitor waking up to fact that he/she is being two timed." Teehee. I'm feeling better already.

To my query “Where is it written…”, a nice reader pointed out that it is written in Isaiah 2, 4:

Thus He will judge among the nations
And arbitrate for the many peoples,
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks:
Nation shall not take up
Sword against nation;
They shall never again know war.

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

Well, it’s a long time coming, that’s all I can say.

They use children to build the tunnels? Update:
I asked Elliot Chodoff from Mideast: On Target how he knew that the Palestinians were using children to build the tunnels in Rafiah, round the clock and in very dangerous conditions. This was his answer:

“I understand your discomfort about a source. In this case the source is myself. I spent some six weeks in Gaza during "Homat Magen" in April-May 2002 as a reserve officer in Ugdat Azza (Gaza Division - IJ). Without going into details, I was a consultant to the CO of the ugda. I had the opportunity to deal directly with the issue of the tunnels then and my experiences are firsthand.”

I have also noticed that Amira Hass, whom we can’t suspect of being a propagandist for Israel, also says, quoting “a Rafah merchant who ran smuggling tunnels to bring in merchandise from Egypt”, that “Only thin youths… can dig the tunnels and move through them”.

This is extremely disturbing. Can nothing be done to save these children from this cruel exploitation and abuse?

Palestinian combatants with big guns in UN ambulances? Never!
We all saw it on TV. Good quality footage. Very clear. You could even see the UN driver at one point. He didn’t look at all like he was being forced into anything at gunpoint.

Oh well, so what’s new?

Update: More information about UN ambulance drivers helping out terrorists here (Via Naomi Ragen's mailing list).

Tel Aviv is not pretty. Tel Aviv is comfortably ugly. I love Tel Aviv.


It’s going to take a while to get the hang of this little camera, and work out how to focus (try not shaking the camera) and how not to cut off the ends of buildings and the tops of peoples heads. But it sure is fun.



Update: BTW, I don't live in the building above.

‘Happy Birthday To Me’ Post
Here in Israel, we are all living in a dream world. No one seems to realize the scale of animosity towards Israel in the world. Maybe its because the generally left-leaning media here would rather portray it all just as hostility towards Arik Sharon and his policies, for political reasons, and not that Israel’s actual legitimacy to exist is being increasingly questioned.

And maybe it’s because few ordinary Israelis read English well enough for them to be able to experience this animosity firsthand on the Internet. Most people I know stick to Israeli sites.

Melanie Phillips calls it

Israel’s astounding and unbelievable inability or refusal to grasp that the bigger war it is fighting — and losing hands down — is the battle for public opinion.

Gene at Harry's Place said something I hadn’t thought about that is very relevant to the “Are anti-Zionists anti-Semites?” question: Israel is “home to almost half of the world's Jews”.

Sever Plotzker in Yediot Aharonot’s news supplement for Shavuot: “…let’s assume that a person suggested to liquidate the present day Polish state and establish in its stead a non-national German-Polish state, because 59 years ago Poland annexed areas in the west and deported the German population there. Wouldn’t we call that person anti-Polish?”

* * * *

For my birthday, Bish and the girls bought me one of those easy-to-use teeny digital cameras that I can carry in my pocket. This was very sensitive of Bish. I really wanted one but didn’t say anything. Bish noticed my eyes light up when we were discussing something related. Isn’t he sweet?

So you can expect more photos in future, and not just of the cat.

Hag Log: Oh dear! How embarrassing.
I have been approached by a few people, among them R.T., who have gently pointed out my mistake in explaining the meaning of the Jewish festival of Shavuot. And no, it’s not about the ancient tradition of bringing the first fruits to the temple in Jerusalem, either, nor the festival of the harvest. Well it is, but everyone knows that they are just excuses.

Shavuot is, of course, a celebration of the invention of the CHEESE CAKE! Silly me.

And thank you again, Our Sis, for your excellent one last night.

Good analysis of the Gaza situation from an Israeli perspective: The Gaza Paradox, by Michael Oren.

Such is the situation in Gaza today where a commanding majority of the population is no longer willing to risk their--or their children's--lives defending 7,500 settlers from the million Palestinians surrounding them. They do not regard Gaza as part of their spiritual and historical homeland, nor see how Israel can remain within the densely populated strip and retain its Jewish and democratic character. By insisting on perpetuating the status quo in Gaza, then, the right threatens to undermine the implicit pact that binds Israeli society--which enables the state to survive.

The left, on the other hand, holds that the recent deaths of 13 Israeli soldiers in Gaza were a direct result of the government's settlement policy and its refusal to seek Palestinian partners for peace. The 13, however, died not defending settlements but destroying tunnels used to smuggle explosives into Gaza, and the factories that produce Qassam rockets. Those explosives killed 10 Israelis in a suicide-bomber attack on the coastal city of Ashdod, and the rockets have struck Jewish towns and villages outside of the strip. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza will do nothing to lessen these threats--on the contrary, it will almost certainly enhance them, enabling the Palestinians to acquire even deadlier missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

To a Jewish non-Zionist friend
Tonight is the beginning of Shavuot, the Jewish celebration that commemorates the children of Israel receiving the Torah from God at Mount Sinai. This is the defining moment that turned the Israelites from a large extended family into a people.

I was surprised to discover how fearful you were of anti-Semitism, ‘real’ anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism based on religious belief or on racism. Living here in the cocoon that is Israel, I couldn’t quite understand it. Then it dawned on me. Should anti-Semitism, ‘real’ anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism based on religious belief or on racism, rear its ugly face again in a big way, then you will find yourself to have been horribly wrong all along. But this is not the reason you are fearful. Like all fears, your fear is a personal, practical, everyday fear. How will this affect me and mine?

Human society has always been a coming together of individuals because they discovered that together they could achieve things that they couldn’t achieve on their own. As I see it, the main lesson of the destruction of European Jewry, besides the lesson that mankind stinks, was that such a coming together of Jews was necessary, in order for Jews to achieve self-preservation as a people. If you don’t see Jews as a people, but solely as a religion or as some sort of mutual ancestry or as a bit of both or whatever, then this is irrelevant.

As you see it, Israel, being an unnatural aberration, needlessly creates immense hatred, while anti-Semitism, ‘real’ anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism based on religious belief or on racism, doesn’t really exist any more, not in a way that is any sort of danger. Israel has created a new problem instead of solving the old one.

Naturally, you are fierce in your denunciation of any attempt to suggest that anti-Zionism could possibly have any connection with anti-Semitism. And you haven’t said it, but I am led to understand that you believe that should Israel cease to exist, the problem would also cease to exist. This may be true. This is definitely something to think about.

But for the problem to disappear, wouldn’t the Jews who live in Israel also have to disappear? Well that’s okay, because a lot of them will. Should Israel cease to exist, in whatever way, even if it happens gradually and democratically, a large proportion of Israeli Jews will very likely end up being slaughtered by their neighbors. So okay, it has happened before, and not only to Jews. The world will profess its horror and shock, maybe erect a few monuments, build a few museums, and move on.

But what about the ones who manage to get out? A situation will probably arise, whereby a couple of million homeless, desperate, illegal Jews will be wandering round the world with all their meager worldly possessions on their backs, dirty, penniless, hungry; some bobbing up and down in boats in the Mediterranean, turned away at every port; many turning to crime to survive. Europe of 1945 revisited.

I don’t think this situation will make Jews very popular, do you? People love an underdog, an underdog presses all their compassionate buttons, but not when he’s in their neighborhood.

All this is just speculation. My fear, like yours is a personal, practical, everyday fear. How will this affect me and mine?

Berkeley again
My friend Julie made a good point about students in university. She said that when she was studying, her fellow students and herself were all so busy trying to pass calculus and statistics, they didn't have time to hate anybody. This is my recollection of university too. And besides trying to pass their courses, most people I studied with here were busy trying to make a living at the same time.

I guess I should assume that the very political students at Berkeley are both filthy rich and brilliant, because they don’t have to waste too much time on either working or studying, but in spite of these considerable advantages, they are not very sophisticated thinkers, not enough to understand that there are usually at least two legitimate sides to every argument, and that the whole world is not clearly divided into good guys and bad guys, right and wrong.

What I’m trying to say is that I realize that the great majority of ordinary, sensible students there obviously do not engage in such activities.

I am also aware that the United States is a truly safe haven for Jews and that the great majority of Jews there do not have to worry about, say, being beaten up on the way home from the synagogue if they are dressed in an overtly Jewish fashion, just because they are Jews. I believe that, on the whole, this is the case in Europe too.

What Bish meant in his comments yesterday, I think, was that Zionism is a way for Jews to deal with anti-Semitism together on a national basis, and not as individuals dependant on local security forces that, although perhaps well-meaning, may not really understand the sensitivities and dangers.

Allison also links to the article about Berkeley. In her comment section, Jonathan Edelstein refers to what one Berkeley blogger has to say. It’s the comments to his post that are interesting.

One of the commenters called himself Kussemek, which cracked me up, and made the whole thread highly amusing. Kussemek is a common Israeli distortion of an Arabic swear word. Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said.

Anti-Zionism explaining Zionism

As campus police assembled at the entrance to the hall and prepared to open its doors, a kaffiyeh-clad protester hoisted a placard that read: "What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct." The quote was attributed to Mahatma "Ghandi" in 1938, albeit a decade before there was an Israel. A silver-haired man, older than most in the crowd, burst out of the line to confront him.

"Do you know what it's like to be on a bus, and to see that bus blow up and see heads roll down the street?" the older man shouted, arms wild at his sides. "I've seen it -- in Israel."

The sign-bearer stood firm. "Well, they should have been killed," he yelled, his voice rising. "They should have been killed! They should have been killed because it wasn't their land! They should have been killed and it should have been more."

A choice excerpt from “Berkeley Intifada” by Anneli Rufus, East Bay Express. Via Michael Totten, via Roger Simon’s comments.

And there's plenty more.

Later that year, 23-year-old Aaron Schwartz was walking toward the Hillel building as part of an obviously Jewish group celebrating the annual holiday Simchas Torah. According to accounts in The Daily Californian and the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, one onlooker mocked the procession by goose-stepping in place, chanting "Heil Hitler," and performing the Nazi salute. After punching Schwartz in the face and knocking him to the ground, the man and his two companions strolled away.

As I read this, feeling increasingly nauseous, Bish came in and I told him what I was reading. “And you worry about our not having a future here,” He said. “Here we can protect ourselves. It’s called Zionism.”

Carnival of the Cats #10
And representing Israel... Shoosha! (surprise surprise)

[A reader's comment on foolsblog - "You cat people scare me."]