Self Important Cant

Most Fridays, Ha'aretz's Mosaf (magazine supplement) runs an extended, "hard hitting" interview with prominent personages from the the public sphere (the Army, Politics, the Judiciary and Diplomatic affairs, basically. Some argue that the second is merely an extension of the first, and that the only function of the other two is to clear up the mess made by the others...)

Occasionally, the interviews are genuinely enlightening - one recent example was that with Zehava Gal-On, until recently a member of the Knesset for the left wing Meretz Party. More often, they are - unintentionally, one presumes - laugh out loud amusing, dominated by the self-importance of the interviewee.

With these, the common denominator tends to be the presumption on the part of the interviewee that they, and they alone understand the existential threats faced by Israel and that if given a free hand, will restore peace and order within a fortnight, to the point that they'll even have the Israelis and the Palestinians dancing the Hora together etc etc...

This week's interview is with National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, and at times veers into the latter territory. My personal opinion is that the National Security Adviser ought to be keeping a low profile; others may disagree.

Anyway...

A couple of highlights:

On the relationship between Israel and the current Palestinian regime of Mahmoud Abbas: "...on the contrary, he is preserving eternal greviences against us and intensifying them. After (Tricky Udi) offered him almost everything, he says wide gaps remain..." (italics mine)

Lets turn this around slightly. So Olmert offered Abbas almost everything. The implication is that what remained was, in Israel's eyes, relatively trivial. So why not offer it to the Palestinians too?

(Of course, my take on this is that what does remain - the right of return for Palestinian refugees from '67, and sovereignity over parts of Jerusalem - are not trivial matters at all. But, somehow, Arad appears to believe that they are.)

Or, on the Golan Heights:

(Interviewer)...that even in peace, we must ensure that a large part of the Golan Heights remain in (Israeli) hands

(Arad) Yes...for strategic, military and land-settlement reasons. Needs of water, wine and view. (again, italics mine)

I think only the hopelessly naive would suppose that Israel could, under current circumstances, achieve an accomodation with Assad's Syria. For as long as the Syrians provide succor and more to Hezbollah and Hamas, and for as long as they continue to break bread with the Tinker from Tehran, the opportunities for a lasting settlement seem pretty slim. Most people accept this. Doesn't deter them from trying to effect a change in the status quo, but at least they know where the goalposts are. However, Arad places equal emphasis of the Golan vinieries

(The Gamla Merlot from the Golan Heights Winery is absolutely delicious, b/t/w: but that's another matter altogether)

...and the view

(equally breathtaking: but I need to stick to the point)

...seem, shall we say, a little eccentric. I mean, it is kind of him to think of my wishes, to be able to have a lovely evening picnic in Katzrin, a few bottles of decent Red to hand, but I would like to think that there are, like, more pressing reasons for keep control of the Golan...

Or perhaps not.

What is interesting - and isn't mentioned at all in the interview - is that Arad was until recently barred from the United States as a security risk. He was a long time Mossad agent (common knowledge, not giving away any state secrets here), and was implicated - fairly, unfairly, who knows? - in the AIPAC spying case. As such Shrub's people deemed him a security risk and revoked his entry visa into the United States.

The AIPAC two have now had the case against them dropped; for this, and perhaps other reasons, the objections to Mr Arad visiting the United States have been allowed to go away. Good to know it, it would have been just a bit embarrassing to have the Israeli National Security Adviser unable to enter the United States, no?

Mind you, this all happened rather quietly; for the information in the last paragraph, my thanks to the Tikkun Olam blog of Richard Silverstein.

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Right, enough of this bollocks.

Goy will be at Ganei HaTarucha in Tel Aviv this evening, boogie-ing down (if one can correctly use this optimistic phrase and my name in the same sentence) to my country-woman, Nneka, performing with Reggae outfit Groundation tonight. Which leads me to another question...How is it that, after two years of being starved of quality live music, suddenly everyone and his uncle have decided to peform in Tel Aviv? Depeche Mode, Suzanne Vega, Calexico, the Pet Shop Boys, Madonna (ok, so I stopped caring about Madonna round about 10 years ago, but still...)?

Very odd indeed. But I'm not complaining.

(ps - if you aren't familiar with Calexico's music, check them out. They are bloody fantastic!)

(pps - there is lots of quality live music in Israel. Much of it Israeli. I'm just being silly...)

Have a good weekend, y'all!

Vitamin P

Okay, unscheduled break over.

Sometime last year, I posted a message on an online forum, asking for the contact details of a (potential) professional contact.

Someone kindly obliged; but in a postscript to her message, warned that I'd need "Vitamin P" if I hoped to make any headway.

"Vitamin P?"

Israel, many argue, was built upon the premise of what we call in Nigeria "man know man": Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours back. In short, the act of granting favours and preferential treatment to either (1) people whom one knows personally - by blood, marriage, friendship or other, less immediately tangible connections or (2) People in a position to reciprocate the favour in due course, in short providing a reason to tilt a decision in one's favour.

Some call it nepotism; others, less kindly, describe it rank corruption. Everyone, apparently, refers to it as Protekzia or Vitamin P.

Why is it so prevalent in Israel? Who knows. My guess is that, given the heavily centralised organs of state pre and post independence, combined with a natural (?) dichotomy between the participants in successive waves of Aliyah and the differing "ethnic" origins of each wave, this was pretty much inevitable. You know: The Russians viewed the Poles with suspicion. The Poles thought the Yekkes, with their ties and jackets in the noon-day sun, insane. The pre-1939ers felt a combination of pity and condescension to the post 1945ers. And as for the post-1948ers from Norht Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East...

But that's off the top of my head. The point is, the prevailing belief is that nothing is completely straight in Israel, and that people habitually call upon ties of kinship and friendship willy-nilly in order to get ahead in life.

(Digression: One interesting fact I came across once was that, up until just before he left the Army for politics in the early 1970s, Arik Sharon was a card carrying member of Mapai/Avoda - the presumed pre-requisite for getting along in life and in politics, back in the day...)

Yesterday, the main newspapers reported that Alon Hilu, the winner of this year's Sapir Prize for fiction had been stripped of the award because of an undeclared connection; Yossi Sarid, the chair of the judging panel is an uncle (by marriage) to Hilu's editor, and furthermore had business connections with Yedioth Books, Hilu's publishers.

(It says something that this made the news, whilst the award itself was very scantily reported; but that's another matter altogether...)

Of course, responsibility lay with Sarid to declare the connections right at the beginning: the failure to do so caused this embarrasing affair in the first place. But I can't help thinking that more is being made of the affair than is necessary.

Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that Sarid did declare all relevant relationships at the onset. Would that mean that he should have been obliged to recuse himself from the judging process? I think not. The overlaps in certain areas of public society, in this country - Politics, the Arts, Public Punditry, Journalism and so on - are significant enough as it is, without taking into account the fact that, really, Israel is a very small country indeed.

But I'm not sure that people are that forgiving. The immediate insinuation is that Hilu's "triumph" (now turned to ashes, of course) was a result of Vitamin P: with such impeccable connections at the top of the tree, how could he not win?

Pity, that. Needless suspicion. Look at it another way: Another member of the jury, Ariel Hirschfield, has had similar suspicions levelled against him, this time for an undisclosed connection with another nominated writer, Ronit Matalon. In this case, the book in question was actually dedicated to him. Let's face it, it would be pretty hard to be more transparent than this. I mean, his name is on the bloody fly-leaf...

But then, who believes in transperency in this country? I guess everyone is just afraid of being stitched up, of being a Frier. Shame. Life doesn't need to be so full of suspicion.

Daughters for Life

Every so often, something happens; a gesture or an action so utterly transparent in its authenticity, its genuineness, that it humbles us all, reminds us that beneath all the cant and rhetoric we still possess a human core; a core that respects, instinctively, the rights of our fellow man.

Dr Izzeldein Abuelaish is a gynacologist by training and a researcher at the Gertner Institute for Epidemiology, just outside Tel Aviv, as well as at hospitals in Gaza, where he lived. He was brought, painfully, to the attention of the wider world when his home was shelled by a tank during the Gaza offensive earlier this year. A Hebrew speaker, he had been interviewed several times by journalists unable to get into Gaza themselves during the campaign; he was telephoned by Shlomi Eldar just after the shell struck, killing his three daughters and a niece. The conversation was broadcast live to the nation on Channel 10 (the clip has English subtitles, if you need them), and for a short moment the abstractions of Israel's actions were crystallised, given human form.

Dr Abuelaish has set up a website in memory of his daughters, and as personal testimony to his belief that a peace can still be achieved one day.

"Every war has its symbol. Now that my three daughters are gone, I hope they will become the symbol of this war. A positive symbol that will strengthen the thought that one day we will reach peace."

www.daughtersforlife.com

Books etc

There's a lot of stuff in the press and the blogosphere at the moment about Iran. Some of it is interesting, some of it is (I suspect) woefully uninformed

(here's a test for any prospective pundit, irrespective of medium: name five cities in Iran, other than Tehran. No? I thought not. Please raise your hands and back away from the microphone/television camera/computer keyboard slowly...)

..and some of it just plain wishful thinking.

Despite - or, perhaps, because of - 24 hours rolling news, twitter and citizen journalism, I'm still a big fan of old school journalism, writing and reportage: I favour research, consideration and cautious but informed assessment over hyperbole and the rush to get the account out first. I suppose that it's a bit like Chou En-Lai when he was asked, sometime in the 1970s, about the historical impact of the 1789 French Revolution. "It's too soon to tell," was his response.

Why do I think about this? Because, no doubt, in the next year or so loads of books - fiction and non-fiction - are probably going to be written about the antecedents, causes and consequences of the current spot of bother in Ahmedinajad-Land. Some of it, no doubt, will be well informed if a bit behind the curve. Others will be a long way behind the curve. And some of it will be as embarrassing as (to paraphrase my favourite book review, ever) catching your uncle wanking in the school playground...

One book about Iran that I suspect will be very good - and, since it was completed a while ago, ahead of the curve - is the forthcoming title from Ron Leshem, author of the excellent Beaufort. A couple of months ago, Leshem talked publicly about the book for the first time at The Studio. It isn't about politics per se; it is about the country itself, about its people, their hopes, their aspirations and fears...

(How did Leshem do his research? Clearly, visiting Iran is out of the question as an Israeli and a Jew, best-selling international author or not. So he did the next best thing and started off by making friends in the country. Thru' Facebook. So 21st Century...)

Anyway, the book, still officially untitled, is due out in August: another reason for me to work on improving my pathetic Hebrew. God, I hate being illiterate...

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Talking about reading and writing and speaking Hebrew:

Last week, I stayed up after my bedtime to watch the live presentation of the 2009 Sapir Prize. Often described as the Israeli Booker

(despite the grumblings of assorted types each year that it (gasp, shock, horror!) considers books impertinent enough to be [hold your nose] commercial successes [the best art coming from starving writers of course, etc etc...whatever]

...the award ceremony takes place during Hebrew Book Week. Generally speaking, it is a big deal. Or so I thought.

Anyway, after half an hour of trying very hard to follow proceedings, I surrendered. I was just about able to follow the compere as he introduced the five nominees and their books; when a classical actor type with a rich baritone started to read from each work, I acknowledged that I was out of my depth and gave up on the Hebrew language for the night.

Not to worry, I thought: the winner will be in all the papers the next day.

Not unreasonable, no?

Well...

Jpost - nada. Ha'aretz.com - zilch. Ynetnews.com - a big fat zero.

As far as the three main English language newsportals in Israel were concerned, the Sapir Prize didn't happen.

So I summon Mrs Goy to perform her wifely duty and check the Hebrew websites for me.

She did find out, but it took quite a bit of hunting.

How strange - I always thought that Israelis liked their literature.

(The winner, by the way, was Alon Hilu, for The House of Dajani).

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The consolation - if one can call it that - for trying to avoid being fucked over royally by Steimatsky's and Tsomet Sfarim whenever I want to buy a book in English, in Israel (these are the two big bookshop chains in Israel; they have an immoral - and I use the word without qualification or exaggeration - hold over the book trade in Israel) is that I get to spend more time in second hand bookshops.

Melchett Mike writes here about Halpers, on Allenby in Tel Aviv; there is nothing to add other than that I agree wholeheartedly. Excellent place...

World Refugee Day

Saturday is World Refugee Day. Assafaid - The Aid Organisation for Refugees & Asylum Seekers in Israel (no functional website, unfortunately, but a facebook page here) have arranged an event at Levinsky Park in south Tel Aviv, just by the Central Bus Station. There'll be food, fun, information and the opportunity to learn a bit about one of Israel's invisible communities...

(actually, I'm told that the music is going to be pretty good - aside from dj Yano spinning Reggae, Funk and 'African' music, they'll be PAs from Asaf Avidan and the Mojos, Keren Ann and Alma Zohar)

For what it's worth, my opinion about the refugee issue in Israel is that it is lethal to pretend that it doesn't exist - and the relative silence in the media and from the charlatans in the Knesset, after all the hoo-hah last year is the equivalent of hiding one's head in the sand and exposing one's thinking parts.

Incidentally: Is there anyone that can tell me about the Vilna'i Bill apparently passing through the Knesset at the moment? I can't find any information about it (in English) anywhere...

Yitzak Aharonovitch

...is a Member of the Knesset representing Yisrael Beitenu, and the Minister responsible for Public Security. Yesterday, he was taken on a tour of the old Central Bus Station in south Tel Aviv. These days, the derelict complex is the haunt of pimps, pushers and professionals - not a very nice place.

Aharonovitch was introduced to two undercover cops who had just carried out a bust. One apologised for his appearance - to fit in, he'd scruffed himself up a little.

Precisely what Aharonovitch said in reply depends on how you translate the word Araboush: Ha'aretz go for "Dirty Arab", whilst Jpost deescribe it as a "derogatory Hebrew term for Arabs": Ynet go a bit sensationalist, describing the the word as the "Hebrew equivalent of 'Sand Nigger' ".

In a sense, it doesn't mater how you translate it; no-one uses the word benignly, a point belated recognised by Aharonovitch when he issued a statement later, clarifying that the word was "uttered in a moment of jest", and "does not express (his) worldview".

I see.

One can't - shouldn't - try to control how people think: It's an exercise in futility. Perhaps Aharonovitch doesn't like the Arab population one little bit: there isn't very much that I can do about it. But as a citizen, he has a basic duty of common courtesy towards his fellow man, regardless of ethnicity. As a minister, as a representative of this country, as the minister responsible for public order, this duty heightens significantly. I do think that Aharonovitch's use of the term, whilst on official duties and in the presence of various radio and print journalists, is really worrying.

The argument about Yisrael Beitenu being full of out-and-out racists has been made many times before. Correct or not, the casual use of this ugly word - given the circumstances and his position - demonstrates, to my mind, the influence of their policies upon the broader public discourse concerning race relations in this country.

In case you think I'm being hysterical, consider this: Jpost point out that when a police officer used the same term, on internal police radio, to describe demonstrators in Umm el-Fahm, he was sacked by Avi Dichter - Public Security Minister at the time, oddly enough.

I don't think MK Aharonovitch is worried about his job this morning, skewered worldview or not. Do you?

Street Art

A couple of pictures taken by my friend A during his visit to Israel earlier this month



I think this was by Kikar Dizengoff, on the old building that used to be a gym but now lies empty, forlorn. Technically, I suppose it is still a work in progress. Perhaps the horse was/is trying to get away from the artist...


Bethlehem.

The first thing our driver asked us was if we wanted to go to Manger Square (we did); the second was if we wanted to see 'Banksy'. It took a while for the penny to drop. We didn't, but he insisted, so eventually we allowed him to make a small-ish detour to keep him happy.



Sderot Rothschild, Tel Aviv. Answers on a postcard, please; I have no idea either. (I'd be pretty pissed off if I had to share my balcony, on one of the nicest streets in Israel, with three lumps of concrete; but then, I am a Philistine so that doesn't surprise.)


Neve Tsedek.

If you live in Israel and have basic Hebrew, you'll get it.

If not...

(nb - this picture does not in any way represent the opinions of the author, etc etc)

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Performance Art: Apparently, Bibi made an important speech the other night. I watched a bit of it, with the sound off. He had on a nice tie.