tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31366453583117306302024-02-07T14:30:08.205+02:00The Goy's Guide to IsraelUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-46119427281553049312010-03-02T08:55:00.002+02:002010-03-02T09:30:50.859+02:00Diplomatic niceties<div style="text-align: justify;">Zion Evrony, Israel's ambassador to Ireland isn't the most liked man in the Emerald Isles, it would seem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Putting aside the passport theft business for a moment, he's faced other bits and pieces of local resistance recently. A month ago, a mini row was prompted by the decision of a local council to invite him to a local reception. The moving force appears to be Sinn Fein (just in case you're not up to speed with the politics in that part of the world, the political wing of the apparently defunct terrorist/militant/resistance [take your pick] organisation, the IRA), as this <a href="http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/18053">press release</a> indicates. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, as <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3856384,00.html">reported on Ynet</a> today, the Council have decided to remove Evrony's entry in the council's visitor's book. The Irish Foreign Minister, whilst noting his disapproval of Israeli policies in the territories, does make a useful point about the farrago: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"...However, it is a basic principle of relations between States that we treat each other's diplomatic representatives with civility and respect, regardless of any policy differences. To do otherwise would seriously undermine the ability of states to conduct international relations."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Does anyone think that <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/israel-and-palestine/100114/diplomacy-turkey-israel?page=0,0">Avigdor and Danny Ayalon are listening?</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elsewhere, a local Irish newspaper <a href="http://www.independent.ie/national-news/council-sparks-diplomatic-row-by-snubbing-israeli-ambassador-2083465.html">report likens</a> the 'affair' to an episode out of Father Ted. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You haven't watched Father Ted? Poor you. Here's a clip from Ireland's best export, after Guinness. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT9xuXQjxMM</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unfortunately, I can't embed this link. On the plus side, the whole episode - The Passion of St Tibulus - is available elsewhere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Arial, David, 'Courier New';font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="400" height="330"></object></div><strong><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v1035574f661" target="_blank">Father Ted - S01E03 - The Passion of St. Tibulus</a></div></strong><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-89725759984859364162010-02-19T08:08:00.006+02:002010-02-19T08:39:51.692+02:00Tennis in Dubai<div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israeli female Tennis number 1, Shahar Peer was barred from playing in the Dubai Open a year ago - I blogged about it <a href="http://goysahoy.blogspot.com/2009/02/shahar-peer.html">here</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Following the justified fuss about the matter, the Dubai authorities had no option but to issue her a visa and allow her into the country to take part this year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, if you've been paying attention to the news over the last few days, you might be aware of the fuss that (allegedly) Israeli <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad">Mossad</a> operatives have caused in Dubai, with the assassination of a top Hamas-nik.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Irrespective of all the speculation, Israel's official position - such as it is - can be summed up by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's statement of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1150424.html">"official ambiguity"</a> in relation to the Mossad's involvement - or not - in the matter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fair enough - but this position seems to be wilfully undermined somewhat by a <a href="http://twitter.com/israeluk/status/9277499838/">tweet</a> on <a href="http://twitter.com/israeluk">Twitter by the Israeli Embassy in the United Kingdom</a>: <i>"You heard it here first: Israeli tennis player carries out hit on Dubai target".</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the <i><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/18/israel-dubai-hamas-twitter">Guardian </a></i>story, the tweet apparently refers to Ms Peer beating the No. 1 seed in this year's Dubai Open and proceeding to the quarter finals of the tournament, as the attached <a href="http://www.jewpi.com/israeli-tennis-sensation-knocks-off-top-seed-in-dubai/">link</a> reports.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Apparently</i>. And they wonder why <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara">Hasbara</a></i> doesn't work. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Side issue: I'm I the only person to notice the startling physical resemblance between Meir Dagan, head of Israel's Mossad, and George Costanza, the hapless fictional star of American TV programme Seinfeld? Readers, we deserve to be told the truth...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5zzWSFR-54CJFAeZPEupvExTg0ULTVGXMHEd_tWbR53MMiU_fVt-ZnTZxVO10BsXH31jvzNNL51LTUIbkPrqTKW49unJIqqrUP2i4Q7gy6dw6pYBSWZTC7cvoP1oBdkw5RryOOr67W-uR/s1600-h/Dagan.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5zzWSFR-54CJFAeZPEupvExTg0ULTVGXMHEd_tWbR53MMiU_fVt-ZnTZxVO10BsXH31jvzNNL51LTUIbkPrqTKW49unJIqqrUP2i4Q7gy6dw6pYBSWZTC7cvoP1oBdkw5RryOOr67W-uR/s320/Dagan.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439837874763590450" style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px; " /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1JDsDcgPtX4ZYSufu-P94kLw9_7yr6fDR9Fq8L-oGzoIKUiOFeMJ3dVq5v14M7qK65Mu6qGcdRz-qL3zWM1qvfNgDKhjXpzdSy4rmB0rxHhtNIRWnr4roCyJ2AS6aLILbCxADKcj-CBrc/s1600-h/costanza.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1JDsDcgPtX4ZYSufu-P94kLw9_7yr6fDR9Fq8L-oGzoIKUiOFeMJ3dVq5v14M7qK65Mu6qGcdRz-qL3zWM1qvfNgDKhjXpzdSy4rmB0rxHhtNIRWnr4roCyJ2AS6aLILbCxADKcj-CBrc/s320/costanza.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439838098604833506" style="text-align: justify;float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 194px; " /></a></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-83639709989895994082010-02-17T20:58:00.002+02:002010-02-17T21:16:22.526+02:00One State, One People...<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=825">Tzipi Hotovely</a> (Likud) made a name for herself on Saturday evening political programme "The Council of Wisemen" - <i>Moetzet HaHakhamim</i> - before becoming the youngest member of the current Knesset. The program - as do most political programmes in Israel - involves a lot of shouting, which no doubt prepared her well for her present position, as the youngest member of the current Parliament - she's just 31.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But I digress.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Speaking at the <a href="http://www.jerusalemconference.com/eng/">Jerusalem Conference</a> on Tuesday, she came up with a - for a right-leaning MK - startling suggestion regarding the issue of Israel's inchoate borders:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"We should consider giving them (the Arab citizens of the West Bank) citizenship..."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Actually, I've changed my mind: It isn't a startling opinion for a right leaning MK, it is a startling opinion for<i> any</i> MK, except perhaps the members of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadash">Hadash.</a> But before one gets too excited, she tempers her comments somewhat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"...on condition that we legislate a Basic law that Israel remains a Jewish State. They will then at best have a 30% minority. We must then embark on a national mission to bring another million Jews to Israel from the West."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The full article is in the Jpost, <b><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=168904">here</a></b>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-60167999184451785952010-02-12T08:30:00.002+02:002010-02-12T08:45:37.410+02:00Maybe I'll loiter about for a bit after all......but less of my whiny parsing and editorialising. Israel is far too an interesting a place not to write and blog about, after all. That said, I am acutely aware of my lack of knowledge and awareness about all sorts of things in this odd little corner of the world: Far better that I watch and learn, rather than bury myself in the cesspit of "opinion".<div><br /></div><div>(And thank for the kind comments after the last post.)</div><div><br /></div><div>So, I think that for the present, I'll use the blog as a receptacle for the interesting, the absurd and the out and out ridiculous stuff that I come across on the web and elsewhere. But I'll let you, dear reader, decide which is which. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'll start off with a piece by Times feature writer Hugo Rifkind (son of MP and Tory grandee Sir Malcolm, not that this should matter very much) about his first visit to Ramallah, courtesy of Israeli advocacy group <a href="http://www.bicom.org.uk">BICOM</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>"I gather that Ramallah isn't exactly typical of the West Bank, but even so it's a total voyeuristic disappointment. I don't know if I have the heart to tell him (a Jewish relative who lives down the road in Jerusalem)."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The full piece is <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/hugo_rifkind/article7024028.ece">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Have a good weekend.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-89481819737558687412010-02-07T14:43:00.002+02:002010-02-07T14:50:23.761+02:00Hello, goodbyeIt's stopped being fun, and started to feel quite narcissistic. Writing a blog is an excellent way of keeping track of my thoughts: The problem is that it doesn't actually do very much by way of figuring out what other people are thinking, or whether my tuppence worth has any chance whatsoever of influencing the wider discourse. <div><br /></div><div>Actually, I'm jaded with so called "social media" in general: there is a lot of excellent potential waiting to be tapped, but generally - and there are a number of notable exceptions, I must say - it's all about "Me, Me, Me..."</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll keep the page open for a while. I may find a couple of amusing things to post. Or I may even change my mind, who knows? </div><div><br /></div><div>But thanks for reading. It was fun writing this blog, and it is always a privilege to be told that occasionally I do make sense.</div><div><br /></div><div>Take care.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-72148589868424452322009-12-30T10:20:00.004+02:002009-12-30T10:50:13.780+02:00I'm cold<div style="text-align: justify;">...so cold. At least, after the miserable weather in London this week, *winter* in Tel Aviv will be a welcome change. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Leaving Ben Gurion last week:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Stern Faced Child Playing At Security Expert (leafing through my British passport): <i>What is the origin of your name?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Me: <i>Nigerian</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">SFCPASE (Eyebrows raised): <i><b>Algerian?</b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Me: <i>No, Nigerian</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">SFCPASE: <i>What language do you speak with your siblings at home?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I was tempted to tell her to watch <a href="http://www.hbo.com/entourage/"><i>Entourage</i></a>, to get an idea of the potty language that we use. But instead, I humoured her by assuring her that we don't speak Arabic. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see an olive skinned type being escorted decorously to an inner sanctum...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No point going into the pros and cons of ethnic profiling: I have my views, and others have theirs. So be it. But I do object to surly, incompetent small children with no discernible skills other than the capacity to regurgitate stock phrases and questions - I can recite them by heart, and have actually pre-empted them by finished them off once or twice, just so we could get over the preliminaries and move on to taking my luggage apart - determining whether I am a security risk or not. I gather that the job is poorly paid, and many of the petulant children are actually moonlighting students, looking to earn a few extra bucks between classes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Good for them: but as someone said told me once: pay peanuts, get monkeys. They really don't make me feel any safer, to be quite honest...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, whilst I've been freezing my butt off here in London, some stupid sorry-arsed incompetent <a href="http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/profile-of-nigerian-suicide-bomber-suspect-2009122840842.html">Nigerian</a> tried to blow himself up on a plane. As if the *good* name of our country hasn't been dragged through the mud enough already... Amidst all the hand wringing about how he evaded no-fly lists and security to actually get to Detroit, I rather suspect that flying back to Ben Gurion tonight is going to be no fun at all. British passport or not.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I may be gone some time...</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-47440923283102820382009-12-21T09:18:00.004+02:002009-12-21T10:24:59.892+02:00A few things<div style="text-align: justify;">...before I bugger off on holiday:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(Yeah, I should be packing. But I think Mrs Goy has done it all for me. I <i>hope</i> Mrs Goy has done it all for me...)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><ol><li style="text-align: justify;">To be quite honest, the return of the "Organ Harvesting" row doesn't particularly interest me. It's quite obvious that tampering with dead bodies, without the permission of their nearest and dearest, is pretty appalling. However, as the <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h6I8H32kJbxHmG__nQrcVSOcRmUQD9CN62LO2">AFP report</a> makes quite clear, this is something quite distinct from the big stink over the summer, following the story in Swedish newspaper Afton-Bladet:<i> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"The Channel 2 report said that in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, cornea, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives."</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span>Couldn't be clearer: another case of medical arrogance, something not at all limited to this crazy little part of the world. As an illustration, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jun/06/alderhey">this</a> should be rather instructive</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Mind you - as a <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">twit twitting on twitter</a> pointed out last night: "If one's people have a blood libel hanging over one's head, one ought to think a little more carefully about what one does with the bodies of others..."</li><li style="text-align: justify;">This interests me far more: A story in the <a href="http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=43429">Yeshiva World News</a> about a woman in Ashdod asking the authorities to prosecute the city's chief Rabbi for contempt of court. The woman had applied for a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hechsher">Hechsher</a> - Kosher certification - for her restaurant: The Rabbinate declined. The woman sued in the High Court: The court found in her favour. But the Rabbinate still resisted. The problem, it seems, is that she is a Messianic Jew - a Jew for Jesus. Them lot are not terribly popular in this part of the world, for some odd reason. The talk backs for the article are quite illuminating, as well as entertaining. And that's something I rarely say, since I genuinely believe that the talkback facility is only good for keeping the clearly unwell off the streets. There is a bit more background to the story <a href="http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=36443">here</a>: If this blows up - as I suspect it will, if the High Court sticks to its guns - it is going to provoke a very interesting debate about the muddled mix between synagogue and state in Israel.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">(For the record: I should say that I believe, firmly, in freedom of religion. I also believe in freedom <i>from</i> religion.)</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Didi Remez - whom, as far as I can tell, <a href="http://www.benor.co.il/benor/team_member.asp?ID=2">is the only person ever to work in PR with anything approximating a human conscience</a> - runs an interesting blog called <a href="http://coteret.com/">Coteret</a>. His argument, essentially, is that the English speaking press in Israel - which many foreign journalists, as well as people living outside Israel and with an interest in Israel, rely upon - is scandalously limited. Ha'aretz's English language edition and Yediot's English language website only translate a small percentage of all their news stories; jpost has an editorial slant which means that a lot of juicy stories pass it by. (I should say that I have a soft spot for two of these three outlets, but I agree with this assessment). So, to redress the balance and educate the Hebrew-challenged public, he translates stories in the Hebrew Press - Ma'ariv, Yediot, Globes and more - that he thinks have a significant public interest quotient. </li><li style="text-align: justify;">At the moment, he is working on one man's campaign to overturn the traditional obfuscation of the IDF's spokesperson Unit. Matti Golan, a columnist with Globes, decided to <a href="http://coteret.com/2009/12/20/an-israeli-journalist%E2%80%99s-guide-to-handling-idf-obfuscation-part-ii/">take up the IDF</a> on a classic example of saying very much without saying anything at all - the story of a politician clearing an enhanced Army pension, even though his actual service was seriously circumscribed - with surprising results. Remez, after his translation, makes an interesting editorial point: <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"For civilian deaths, even those of children, a common IDF reply is along the lines of 'the (soldiers) felt threatened and fired at suspects', and except for a few exceptions that prove the rule, that is the end of any investigative journalism. Imagine the change if every foreign bureau chief or Israeli defence correspondent, took the Golan approach and really looked into the death of even on of every fifty or a hundred dead children. That's how oversight works - even the slight chance of exposure causes a tremendous change in behaviour."</span></i> And so it should be. </li><li style="text-align: justify;">An interesting story from the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8416443.stm">BBC</a>, this time about organ donation. Apparently, a law has been passed (or is about to be: I should check, but I'm already de-mob happy and refuse to do anything else in the name of 'research') granting Israeli organ donor cards the right to priority medical treatment, should they require an organ transplant. Now, I've carried a Donor card all my adult life, and I always will: I accept that there is a very slim chance that any of my organs will be good for anything in the case of my untimely demise, but on the off chance...quite seriously though, whilst I think that organ donation is pretty important, I'm not sure that this is the way to coerce people into going about it. In England, I think they now have the 'presumed consent' approach, which is to assume that one is happy to donate one's organs to science in the case of ones death unless explicit instructions to the contrary are made. Whilst I'm still not entirely comfortable with that either, it seems a better path to take. Prioritising health care on the basis of criteria such as this seems inequitable, at best.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">In any case, organ donor card or not, who knows whether the Israeli medical authorities will want my innards, anyway? I'm not allowed to donate blood in Israel, a consequence of the BSE/Mad Cow diseases outbreaks in the UK in the mid-90s; aside from that, there are documented cases of medical professionals discarding blood donated by Ethiopians, because they worried - without any evidence - that it might be tainted by all sorts of unpleasant things.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">I was about to look up a link for the latter point, but I've just realised that Mrs Goy didn't pack for me. Her argument is that since she isn't going on holiday with me, she sees no reason why she should sort out my luggage. So she only did the Small Noisy One's suitcase, and now has swanned off to work. Wives! I tell you...</li><li style="text-align: justify;">As any Hebrew speaker would be able to tell you, the word for 'owner' and 'husband' are the same in the language. So, to say 'my husband' is the same as saying 'my owner'. A civilised position that I fully agree with. However, Mrs Goy, feminist that she is, seems to have other ideas. </li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;">Right. I am off. </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-80238207728789007852009-12-18T20:23:00.003+02:002009-12-18T20:30:25.955+02:00This time next week...strikes by British Airways cabin crew allowing, I'll be in London following a time honoured Christian tradition in the United Kingdom - getting drunk in front of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastenders">Eastenders</a>, after eating way too much of my mother's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jollof_Rice">Jollof Rice</a> and Turkey.<div><br /></div><div>Nice.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'd always kind of wondered what Jews do on Christmas Day. And then Saturday Night Live came to the rescue.*<br /></div><embed id="mymovie" width="550" height="350" flashvars="origSize=false&imagePath=http://archivos.metatube.com/uploads/videos/thumbs/image_5439_.jpg&videoPath=http://archivos.metatube.com/uploads/videos/flv/60059a3033a6bef7d75295d5637b686c.flv&autoStart=true&volAudio=40&xmlFile=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emetatube%2Ecom%2Fen%2Fvideos%2Fxml%2Frand%2F68%2F0%2F&subs=undefined&videoTitle=&embedURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emetatube%2Ecom%2Fen%2Fvideos%2F5439%2FChristmas%2DTime%2Dfor%2Dthe%2DJews%2DSNL%2F&embedPlayer=http://www.metatube.com/flash/player.swf" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" quality="high" name="levelupplayer" style="" src="http://www.metatube.com/flash/player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed><div><br /></div><div>*Metropolitan New York only. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-12541265082359026972009-12-14T20:37:00.003+02:002009-12-14T21:46:31.482+02:00Bah, Humbug<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">...used to be the preserve of the Christian-leaning world - you know, the miserable old geezer who pisses over everyone's parade each year by pointing out that Jesus was probably born in October, or that the incongruities in the accounts in the four Gospels makes it at least likely that they were narrated, long after the fact, on the 1st Century equivalent of Facebook. Assuming that there was a Jesus, of course... </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Anyway, I'd always kind of assumed, in a not-terribly-interested way, that Jewish history was kinda immune from this sort of scandalous </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">ex post facto</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> re-interpretation: I mean, you guys can trace your direct lineage back several millennia, no?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Apparently not. This year, the designated Scrooge who ruined Channukah is NYT columnist David Brooks, whom in typically dry and reasoned manner chucks all sorts of things at the nice and cuddly Channukah story of resistance and oil lasting 8 days and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nes Gadol</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> and stuff like that. The link to the article is </span></span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/opinion/11brooks.html?_r=1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">here</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> (and for once, I recommend taking the time to read through the talkbacks; some of them are, unintentionally, hilarious), but here's a sample of Mr Brooks humbuggery (I get the feeling that I made this word up, but it's late and I'm too tired to look for a dictionary)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Maccabees are best understood as moderate fanatics. They were not in total revolt against Greek culture. They used Greek constitutional language to explain themselves. They created a festival to commemorate their triumph (which is part of Greek, not Jewish, culture). Before long, they were electing their priests.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; font-size:15px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">On the other hand, they were fighting heroically for their traditions and the survival of their faith. If they found uncircumcised Jews, they performed forced circumcisions. They had no interest in religious liberty within the Jewish community... </span></span></i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I could be mean and point out some pretty obvious parallels with the situation today, but I won't. Not in keeping with the spirit of the season and all that...</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: -webkit-xxx-large; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Whilst on the topic of 'false' myths, I've just started reading Shlomo Sand's </span></span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Invention-Jewish-People-Shlomo-Sand/dp/1844674223/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260818353&sr=8-1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Invention of the Jewish People</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. To be honest, I didn't expect very much - I assumed that it would be either a book with a few kernels of interesting fact buried under a landside of academic drivel</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: -webkit-xxx-large; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">(academics, as a general rule, can't write for shit: this, more than anything else, explains the enduring popularity of Malcolm Gladwell. But, as ever, I digress...</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: -webkit-xxx-large; line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">- but, so far (p40-ish) it has proven refreshingly readable. Dunno if his conclusions - which caused a bit of a stink here, when the book was published in Hebrew a year and a half ago - will stand up to scrutiny; I remember that one of the criticisms levelled against him was that he was a common-or-garden-variety political historian, and thus had no business loitering in the sacred halls of classical Jewish History. Still, a well written book means that at the very least I'll follow it through to the end, rather than chucking it aside in exasperation before I've cracked the spine properly. I'll try and remember to keep you, dear reader, posted in due course.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And now, back to my mission to taste every variety of Doughnut commercially available in <i>Eretz Israel</i> before the 8th Candle is lit. Reader, I may be gone some time...</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-49899891942786980382009-12-09T11:15:00.003+02:002009-12-09T11:22:17.241+02:00Bring him home - Shalit, redux<div style="text-align: justify;">As a postscript to my musings yesterday, about the emotional and psychological significance of captured soldiers: an interesting <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/world/middleeast/09shalit.html?_r=1&th&emc=th">article</a> about the same subject by Ethan Bronner, NYT's man in Jerusalem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One paragraph in particular caught my eye: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; "><i>“These people, although they are murderers, do it for a political cause and even if they don’t represent a country they are being sent by a military organization that is our rival and one day will make peace with us,” Mr. Liel, the former diplomat, said. “They are not regular criminals. We know that sooner or later when we have a peace deal they will be released.”</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; ">Alon Liel, quoted above, used to be the DG - head of service - at the Foreign Ministry. It's not something you hear people saying in these parts every day, and I doubt that everyone subscribes to this notion. Still...</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-32297146431873996812009-12-08T14:14:00.003+02:002009-12-09T08:32:16.847+02:00On Doughnuts, Gilad Shalit and other Chanukah Miracles<ol><li style="text-align: justify;">When I lived in England, we used to run an ironic Christmas Tree Sweepstakes: the earliest confirmed date for spotting an erected Christmas Tree, indubitable evidence of the commercialisation of a sanctified family holiday (this bit always made me laugh - Christmas has <i>always</i> been commercial), cueing hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth in the petite bourgeois press, like <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/">The Mail</a>. In Israel, I gather that the parallel cue is the sale of <i>Sufganiot</i>, Chanukah themed doughnuts. (I've talked about the link between fattening food and Chanukah before, <a href="http://goysahoy.blogspot.com/2008/12/happy-holidays.html">here</a>). For the record, I spotted my first Doughnut tray just after Sukkoth, a couple of months ago. Given the passage of time, I think the true miracle of Chanukah is that I still haven't had my first doughnut of the season. Mind you, it's a matter of necessity - If I'd started eating the wretched things in October, I'd look like one myself by now...</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Just for the record: The earliest I'd ever spotted a Christmas tree was on August the 27th, at Selfridges. Quite frankly, it's moments like that make me pleased that I don't live in the UK any more. The thought of enduring a four month run up to Christmas, fake cheer and over-priced tat, Wham's <i>Last Christmas</i> and talk about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_No.1">Xmas No1</a>, fills me with horror...</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Here, we don't have Christmas. Obviously. But there is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannukah">Chanukah</a>, and to get in the spirit, newspapers tend to look for some feel-good story to cheer the Jewish State up. Something that can be chalked up as a modern day Chanukah Miracle. Usually quite risible, but hey...</li><li style="text-align: justify;">This year, however, there is talk about a genuine Chanukah Miracle - the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured and held by Hamas for the last 3-odd years. There have been a lot of hopes raised and dashed since his capture; but talk about his imminent release have reached a crescendo in the last fortnight, with rumours that a deal has been arranged, that he's been moved to Egypt, that doctors have examined him to ensure that he is in good condition...hell, even <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1259243057223&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Jonathan Pollard</a> has got in on the act.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">But - and for once, I'm not being facetious - I don't think it is going to happen.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Think about it this way; Hamas - as did Hezbollah, before them - kidnap Israeli soldiers for propaganda, rather than pragmatic purposes. Let's face it: in general terms, the capture of a few odd soldiers serves no strategic purpose whatsoever. But they do recognise the important psychological impact that it has on the Israel populace, of the capture of a soldier - or, as is more often the case, the holding over of the remains of a dead soldier. </li><li style="text-align: justify;">This psychological importance thing, I'm not sure I totally understand entirely. It seems an aggregation of all sorts of things. Perhaps I'll think about it another time. Anyway, the point is that it exists, and that Hamas recognises this state of mind. Thus, its efforts to exchange Corporal Shalit for about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. And the argument isn;t whether it is a fair swap in itself, but whether a very small minority of the prisoners should be freed because they have "blood on their hands."</li><li style="text-align: justify;">So, unless they have completely misjudged the Israeli public sentiment - and I doubt they have, even though Hamas tends to believe what it wants about the "Zionist entity", rather than what is true - there is no way on earth that they are going to award the Israeli public a genuine Chanukah miracle on a platter. It just ain't gonna happen. </li><li style="text-align: justify;">So, Shalit's poor parents will continue to wait and hope whilst their son continues to be used as a political football by all sorts of scum, pond life and career politicians. And the newspapers will find another Chanukah miracle.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">I've broken. I've just had my first doughnut. God, it tastes good.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">And there's <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1133502.html">this</a>. Can't say I'm surprised.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Time for another doughnut. I'll go back to running in the New Year. Hopefully.</li></ol>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-12356869643780121732009-11-30T09:07:00.005+02:002009-11-30T09:33:26.047+02:00Being Jew-ish<div style="text-align: justify;">What does it mean to be, like, <i>Jewish</i>? On the one hand, it seems straightforward enough - matrilineal descent and all that. On the other, it does seem at times a rather complicated matter. Certainly, I for one would struggle to find anything in common between the nice young men (only men, mind - women stay at home and do the dishes) who've been chucking stones at the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027286616&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull">Intel Building</a> over the last couple of weekends, and the very nice young women (there are men too, but they don't immediately concern me) who spend the Sabbath soaking up the sun on Tel Aviv's beaches. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More seriously though, it is obvious a vexatious issue, as the Jewish brethren in England have found out recently, prompted by - of all things - <a href="http://goysahoy.blogspot.com/2009/07/so-who-exactly-is-jew-anyway-uk-version.html">school admission policies</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps one way around it is by creating a sub-group - people whom identify as <i>Jew-ish</i>, rather than <i>Jewish</i>, as the journalist Jonathan Margolis expounds on at length in today's Guardian. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Margolis is, in some ways, whom I'd like to be when I finally get round to growing up - an engaging and perceptive writer with the capacity to soften provocative opinion with wry humour. He starts off light, with a bit of self-deprecating stuff: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"For us, the cool thing about being born a Jew is you can do it as much or as little, as well or as badly, as you like. You can be professional, amateur or pro-am. This understandably pissed off the pros, who marry a fellow full-timer, know all the stuff in the manual and keep up with the latest fads."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">...before dipping into deeper territory. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"I don't pretend any of what I've experiences is more than an inconvenience, an irritant in the scheme of racist things, but at school in the 60s and 70s I was still physically beaten and tormented by larger boys...the reason for the violence was, apparently, that we Jews were at the same time unacceptably rich and flashy and unacceptably poor and miserly. It was, I see now, a writ-small version of the confused Nazi paradigm of the Jew as both arch-capitalist and arch-communist."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There's a link to the full article <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/30/jewish-judaism-jonathan-margolis">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:130%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-82853959052920686602009-11-29T10:53:00.004+02:002009-12-16T07:15:54.922+02:00Flight plan<div>I have to fly through Ben Gurion International Airport next week. Oh Joy...</div><div><br /></div><div>Quite seriously: The security checks are little more than an irritation these days - if nothing else, I find it vaguely amusing (albeit, if I am to be honest, also a little troubling) that the pre-pubescent security officials see fit to waste as much time as they do on me. One day, they may get to understand that crude ethnic profiling doesn't work...</div><div><br /></div><div>A friend sent me this the other day. I'm not entirely certain that it is based on the Israeli Airport Experience, but it isn't far off...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><object width="400" height="267"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1226396&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1226396&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="267"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/1226396">1983</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user559040">Modi</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Why 1983? Because it is one year away from 1984, I suppose...</p><p><br /></p><p>Elsewhere: <a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/airport-security-puts-three-bullets-through-macbook-hard-drive-survives/">Wired Magazine</a>, via the <a href="http://lilysussman.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/im-sorry-but-we-blew-up-your-laptop-welcome-to-israel/">blog of a young woman called Lily Sussman</a>, report that the MacBook's hard drive is capable of withstanding gunshot damage. How do they know? Because the nice fellows in charge of the Israel's security decided that it was a security risk and put three bullets through it. Charming...(there's another report in <a href="http://it.themarker.com/tmit/article/9129">The Marker</a>)</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-47751586088060283762009-11-28T21:40:00.004+02:002009-11-28T22:00:51.932+02:00Macheads, the Movie<div style="text-align: justify;">I've used a Mac for about three years. I switched from PCs mainly because of the iPod, a hypothetical gadget come to life, a toy that I'd had wet dreams over about since I was about 8 years old. The Mac family of lifestyle/productivity tools are cool toys; they also attract an unlikely, unwieldy community of smug 'uns too.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It wasn't always thus, mind. For a long while, Apple Computers were kept afloat mainly by the devotion of dedicated tech-heads who actually cared about what went on inside a computer, rather than what it looked like or the assumptions one could make by association...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apple computers thrived on this community - until they discovered that there were better profit margins in nice gizmos like the iPod, the iPhone and the soon-to-revolutionise-the-world-iTablet. So they dropped the word 'computer' from their corporate name and ditched the weirdos whom had kept the flame burning...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Filmmakers Kobi and Ron Shely made a interesting documentary about the story of the cult of Mac, <a href="http://www.macheadsthemovie.com/"><i>MacHeads</i></a>, a year ago. It premiered at Mac Expo last January, and has broadly speaking been reviewed quite warmly. I quite enjoyed it too. <i>(Full disclosure - The Brothers Shely are related to Mrs Goy).</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's surprisingly sensitive - it would have been very easy to turn the film into a freak show -underpinned by a serious consideration of Apple's corporate strategy. Anyway, MacHeads is on at the <a href="http://www.cinema.co.il/">Cinematheque</a> in Tel Aviv this Tuesday at 10. Worth a peek. Here's the trailer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0QMhOIySiyE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0QMhOIySiyE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">ps - my hard drive died on me three weeks ago. Nonetheless, I still love my (newly refurbished) Mac. The whole Windows Vista argument had passed me by until I tried to use Mrs Goy's PC...</span></div></i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-51224361184258361922009-11-27T07:45:00.002+02:002009-11-27T08:09:01.634+02:00Talk Show Blues<div style="text-align: justify;">...so you have a bit of time on your hands, it's late at night, perhaps you've had a drink or two. The radio is on and some angry men (they are usually men - women write letters) are shouting at each other. They think they're having a rational, lucid conversation. They're not, of course: it's entertainment. Welcome to the world of late night talk radio.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But then you get carried away. Someone says something you don't like. And before you know it, you've picked up the phone and you're dialing away...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Radio talk shows thrive on controversy, testosterone and the complete incapacity of man to hold his fellow man in anything other than the deepest contempt. Without these shouting heads, the format would be dead. It thrives on provocation and overstatement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So pity poor Eli Barak of Ramat Gan, who thought he was playing by the rules when he called Nissim Cohen, of Bnei Barak, a "bum who didn't serve in the Army."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unfortunately for him, Cohen, a 'rightist' (whatever that means) did serve in the Army. And Cohen decided to sue Barak (obviously, a 'leftist') for libel. the result? NIS 40 000 in damages, plus a written apology. The full story is <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131080.html">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I actually found the article rather fascinating, opening up an illicit new world that I scarcely knew existed. Of serial talkbackers <i>(incidentally - someone tells me that 'talkbacker' is a uniquely English-Israeli word, or at least originated here. Can anyone confirm or refute?)</i>, radio show participants/provocateurs and the like. The penultimate paragraph of the article seems to sum the phenomena up quite succinctly. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The respective talk show hosts are tired of airing the same speakers again and again. the participants, who want to talk a lot, all the time, are forced to seek other outlets, such as talkbacks or Big Brother."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The article then quotes a chap called Zur, described as an "obsessive radio listener":</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I've been to two auditions," says Zur. "I told them people talk nonsense on those radio shows. I want to talk politics, to blast people <i>(I didn't realise the two activities were mutually compatible, but there you go)</i>. They took me for a four-hour simulation with 16 other people. You won't believe what morons were there. What ignorance. There's no one to talk to."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Frankly, it sounds like they all deserve one another.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Have a good weekend, post-Thanksgiving and/or Eid. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-41678374645945112742009-11-25T19:23:00.003+02:002009-11-26T15:17:09.071+02:00Eatliz<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TgWtGDd-QoQ&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xc39e74&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TgWtGDd-QoQ&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xc39e74&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />They were on at the Barby last night. Couldn't make it, sadly - someone was picked (against his will) to be childcare for the evening.<br /><br />Their music is worth checking out IMHO: their website is <a href="http://www.eatliz.com/">here</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-30128371374931973132009-11-25T08:48:00.002+02:002009-11-25T09:00:19.172+02:00Oh dear<div style="text-align: justify;">From the Ynetnews website: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">Alert civilian at Tel Aviv Port spots government agent planting dummy bomb near vehicle as part of training course. Panic ensues as alarmed police officials unaware of exercise evacuate area; three employees suspended over incident. </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The full comedy of errors is <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3810114,00.html">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A slight digression: I wonder whether Khaled Mashaal's feet dragging over the <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3810290,00.html">Gilad Shalit</a> prisoner swap might in some way be connected to the fact that Bibi once <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/1997/10/07news.html">tried to have him wiped out</a>. It didn't work out as it happens, mainly because the Mossad agents sent to do the deed were as competent as the fellow above...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Enforced absence was the result of my Mac's hard drive dying on me. I had no idea it was possible to form such a close relationship with an inanimate object...</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-74618624836226171312009-11-04T10:10:00.003+02:002009-11-04T10:32:14.644+02:00And if you thought that the newspapers were bad...<div style="text-align: justify;">Shahar Golan posted this on his <a href="http://frgdr.com/blog/">frgdr.com blog</a> a couple of weeks ago.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LSzzTPSAwGM&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LSzzTPSAwGM&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />It is an interview with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Yonath">Ada Yonath</a>, Professor of Chemistry at <a href="http://www.weizmann.ac.il/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Machon Weizmann</span></a>, and who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last month.<br /><br />Or two interviews with Prof. Yonath<br /><br />Or one.<br /><br />As you'll see from the clip, Yonath was interviewed on Channel 10's evening news programme by Miki Haimovich. The interview was then lightly repackaged, and rebroadcast as new the next morning, making it seem that she was being interviewed anew by the breakfast show hosts, Haim Etgar and Sivan Cohen.<br /><br />It might seem like a small thing. It is Channel 10's content, after all?<br /><br />I disagree. Nothing would have been lost by re-broadcasting the original interview, Haimovitch and all, the next morning. Except the veneer of 'exclusivity'.<br /><br />More to the point, I think that this is only a small step away from creating subtlely different questions to fit the answers that Prof. Yonath had helpfully provided earlier.<br /><br />Which is only a short hop and skip away from creating radically different questions to fit Prof Yonath's answers - and misrepresenting her in the process, of course.<br /><br />I don't think it is a small thing. If I'd wanted entertainment of this nature, I'd go take out a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Up,_Tiger_Lily%3F">Woody Allen film</a>. To be honest, I find it rather patronising. Perhaps the editors at Channel 10 rate their viewers so lowly as to think that they can only engage with the news if it is live and direct? It's that <a href="http://goysahoy.blogspot.com/2009/11/newspapers.html">24 Hour rolling news thing</a> again...<br /><br />Okay, I'm being a grouch this morning. I promise that my next post will be more positive.<br /><br />Again, hat tip to frgdr.com for pointing out the chicanery on the part of Channel 10.and setting up the clip. I didn't notice it. I mean, it isn't like I'd be paying attention to the news in Hebrew...<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-73316404482908937152009-11-02T22:10:00.005+02:002009-11-02T22:55:36.016+02:00Newspapers<div style="text-align: justify;">I read a lot, but I stopped getting a daily newspaper quite a while ago: I no longer see the point, to be quite honest. For one thing, newspapers lost the battle against 24 hour news channels quite a while ago,<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(incidentally, I <span style="font-weight: bold;">loathe</span> rolling news channels...well, that's not entirely true. I have a love/hate/hate relationship with them, I suppose. I always come away from half an hour with Sky News or BBC feeling slightly less informed than I was previously. Maybe it's just me, grey cells corroding and all that...)</span><br /><br />and for another, the wonders of the World Wide Web mean that I can get pretty much anything I want, <span style="font-style: italic;">gratis</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(although Mr Murdoch seems determined to change that)</span><br /><br />but this aside, the truth is that - in the news sections, at least - there is rarely anything worth reading. Straightforward news accounts are generally rather scanty, and more often than not are not followed up, leaving the curious reader with the duty to go get his detailed stuff elsewhere. Opinion and thinly-veiled partisan commentary generally trump sober analysis and fact; and, a lot of the time, new reports are plucked from the same general sources - Reuters, AP, AFP - and gently recycled and spun according to the whims and inclinations of the outlet.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(On the last point, it's worth reading Nick Davies' excellent </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0701181451/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257194746&sr=1-2">Flat Earth News</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. You'll never look at a newspaper the same way again, I promise you...)</span><br /><br />A couple of contemporary examples from <span style="font-style: italic;">Eretz Yisrael</span>:<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Fact_Finding_Mission_on_the_Gaza_Conflict">Goldstone: Has effectively become a football game, with the press merely keeping score. The fundamen</a>tal questions have been lost beneath what is charmingly referred to as the PR War.<br /><br />The Amnesty <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8327188.stm">report</a> on the (mis)use of Palestinian water resources: Even if one accepts every word to be true...it just ain't news. It hasn't been news for <span style="font-style: italic;">years</span>. As proof, I recommend reading Bernard Wasserstein's <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Israel-Palestine-They-Fight-Stop/dp/1861975589/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257194630&sr=8-14"><span style="font-style: italic;">Israel & Palestine</span>,</a> particularly pp 80 - 97. Covers pretty much the same ground, in cool and coherent language...and was published six years ago.<br /><br />Maybe I'm just getting cantankerous and crochety as I ease belly first into middle-age...<br /><br />Anyway, these days I get a paper just at the weekend, which keep me happy for the week. The supplements, thankfully, run to different deadline priorities; write ups tend to have more of a consistence and narration-al coherency to them, I think. It's pretty easy, I think, to bullshit with 500 words, but it becomes much more difficult with 2500.<br /><br />And I subscribe to a couple of magazines...<br /><br />There's an interesting piece in this weeks <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/09/091109fa_fact_wright">New Yorker</a> about Gaza, Gilad Shalit and the Guys in Green. Long enough to remind us of the historical antecedents to the sorry state of affairs down south at the moment. No one comes out of it looking good. Worth reading.<br /><br />On a completely unrelated note: Is there any chance of someone getting the rain to, like, stop? I know I sound ungrateful and all, but my clothes are all wet, I can't do the laundry and I have to dash out for a cigarette between breaks in the rain that's been thundering down since Friday. Most inconsiderate.<br /><br />On the good side, the <a href="http://goysahoy.blogspot.com/2009/10/sukkah.html">Sukkah</a> has come down. Not quite sure how - perhaps the wind dismantled it - but frankly, I don't care. As someone said once, Mission Accomplished.<br /><br />Somehow, I think I'm going to regret saying that.<br /><br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-1609819945505870382009-10-29T11:22:00.003+02:002009-10-29T11:32:09.381+02:00Walt Whitman - O Captain! My Captain!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left"><center><span style="">1</span></center><br />O C<span style="">APTAIN!</span> my Captain! our fearful trip is done;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="1"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="2"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="3"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="4"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> But O heart! heart! heart!</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="5"><i> 5</i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> O the bleeding drops of red,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="6"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> Where on the deck my Captain lies,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="7"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> Fallen cold and dead.</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="8"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> <br /></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"><center><span style="">2</span></center><br />O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="9"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="10"><i> 10</i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="11"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="12"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> Here Captain! dear father!</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="13"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> This arm beneath your head;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="14"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> It is some dream that on the deck,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="15"><i> 15</i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> You’ve fallen cold and dead.</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="16"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> <br /></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"><center><span style="">3</span></center><br />My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="17"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="18"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="19"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left">From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="20"><i> 20</i></a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="21"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> But I, with mournful tread,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="22"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> Walk the deck my Captain lies,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><span style=""><a name="23"> </a></span></td></tr> <tr><td align="left"> Fallen cold and dead.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><br />Whitman wrote this poem after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; it was translated into Hebrew by poet and songwriter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Shemer">Naomi Shemer</a>; she dedicated it to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin after his assassination, 14 years ago tonight (following the Hebrew calender).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-51950531306445782502009-10-21T14:13:00.002+02:002009-10-21T14:21:22.745+02:00Quick follow up to my last post about immigration "policy".<div style="text-align: justify;">From Ynetnews.com: <span style="font-style: italic;" class="text14"><span>A report composed by the Knesset Research and Information Center accuses the government for having a failed enforcement policy, a conflict of interest and lacking implementation of decisions regarding the handling of foreign workers...t</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="text14"><span>he report determines that "the State of Israel <span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> has <span style="font-weight: bold;">no immigration policy, no regulated policy towards foreign workers, asylum seekers, illegal aliens, and human trafficking victims</span> (Emphasis mine). In each of these cases there are laws and regulations; however these are established as a response to certain events, and not as a result of a planned and organized discussion."</span></span><br /><span class="text14"><span></span></span><br /><span class="text14"><span>The full news report is <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3793114,00.html">here</a></span></span><br /><span class="text14"><span></span></span><br /><span class="text14"><span>The English website for the Knesset's Research and Information Centre is <a href="http://www.knesset.gov.il/mmm/eng/about_eng.htm">here</a>: the report hasn't been translated into English - and probably won't be for a while - but the website is an interesting resource, and worth looking at regardless.</span></span><br /><span class="text14"><span></span></span><span class="text14"><span> <p> </p></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-5842543768558752582009-10-20T14:16:00.002+02:002009-10-20T14:53:40.170+02:00The Land of Oz<div style="text-align: justify;">A Jpost article about <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255694848322&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">the efficacy of Operation Oz</a>: apparently, they've deported 700 illegal migrants, and consider themselves responsible for the voluntary repatriation of another 2400. One sentence in the report caught my eye: "<span class="lead">As part of their daily routine, Oz inspectors have continued to patrol the country's migrant-worker concentrations, mainly in southern Tel Aviv, to pick up the illegal residents, arrest them and if possible, expel them from the country <span style="font-style: italic;">the same day</span>." (Italics mine).</span><br /><span class="lead"></span><br /><span class="lead">I'm not sure if this is legal or not, and I certainly think that at the least, it raises issues about due process: but I'm pretty sure that most European countries would love to be able to behave the same way...</span><br /><span class="lead"></span><br /><span class="lead">Also in Jpost: an article highlighting <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255694849433&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">the concerns of residents in South Tel Aviv's Hatikva neighbourhood</a> to the continued presence of the migrant workers and illegal immigrants (i<span style="font-style: italic;">sn't it interesting, how hardly anyone bothers to distinguish between the one and the other?</span>) in their 'hood. </span><br /><span class="lead"></span><br /><span class="lead">I don't agree with their conclusions, but I sympathise with their predicament. For as long as the government refuses to instigate a comprehensive, coherent and fair policy on asylum, immigration and migration, tensions like these will continue to multiply. </span><br /><span class="lead"></span><br /><span class="lead">In case you wondered: I think that there should be a consistent policy on migration (for non-Jews), including the right for long term migrants to remain as permanent residents; I think that there ought to be careful thought about the role of migrant workers in supporting the Israeli economy - it is no accident that farmers in the South protested yesterday about the difficulties that they face in employing staff to work on the fields, <span style="font-style: italic;">at wages that allow the farms to remain economically viable</span>; and I think there should be a careful and thorough overhaul of the (non) process managing claims for asylum that exists at the moment. </span><br /><span class="lead"></span><br /><span class="lead">It's pretty comfortable for unconscionable politicians to bundle all non-Jewish migrants into one amorphous mass, tar them all with the same brush and claim that <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">they</span></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"></span> are an unwarranted burden on the state (not that the state spends much on asylum seekers, to start off with: in any case, migrant workers give far more back to the state than they can ever even dream of receiving); it is also convenient to claim that <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">they</span> are responsible for everything from the increase in crime rates and the spread of communicable diseases to the threat of intermarriage and the increase in unemployment amongst native-born Israelis. </span><br /><span class="lead"></span><br /><span class="lead">But it doesn't take much imagination or intelligence to figure out that the reality is far more complicated than this nice fairy tale. It's time to take off <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_City">the green tinted spectacles</a>; it's time to implement a fair, transparent and just immigration policy. </span><br /><span class="lead"></span><br /><span class="lead"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-35487392434603340862009-10-18T07:29:00.002+02:002009-10-18T08:06:52.185+02:00The Evil Genius of Israeli Advertising (again!)<div style="text-align: justify;">Advertisements in Israel often seem like a masterclass in provocation - whether by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/world/fashionable-protest-lost-in-translation.html?scp=1&sq=James%20Bennet%20%20%20Comme%20Il%20Faut&st=cse&pagewanted=all">shooting a catalogue for a high-end fashion chain by the Separation Wall</a>, by giving the phrase "water-cooler moment" an entirely different meaning (<a href="http://goysahoy.blogspot.com/2009/03/sexist-or-sexiest.html">courtesy of Bar Rafaeli</a>), or by proposing the <a href="http://goysahoy.blogspot.com/2009/09/on-marriage-and-other-life-sentences.html">rescue of inter-married Jews </a>as an act of charity. (Speaking from a personal experience, I consider my marriage an act of charity - in my favour, obviously.)<br /><br />According to today's <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121714.html">Ha'aretz</a>, this cheerful - or, perhaps, cheerfully cynical - exercise in fermenting public approbation may be about to hit a new high - or low, depending upon your perspective - courtesy of the benighted Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"</span><span class="t13"><span style="font-style: italic;">According to Antonello Zappadu, an Italian photographer from Sardinia who took pictures of Berlusconi in the company of half-naked female guests at the billionaire politician's Villa Certosa on the island's Costa Smeralda, a "very large advertising firm" in Israel has asked to purchase the rights to the photographs."</span></span><br /><span class="t13"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span><br /><span class="t13"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>The correct thing to do, I suppose, would be to deplore the invasion of Berlusconi's privacy and dignity. On the other hand, I can't help but remember that his soon-to-be ex-wife cited his proclivity for "consorting with minors" in her decision to leave him; or the fact that his media empire is largely built on the same level of titillating nonsense. And that isn't even without beginning to go into the avalanche of gaffes, misogyny and general misanthropy with which he has deluded us over the years. </span><br /><span class="t13"></span><br /><span class="t13">So I'm just going to snigger. <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></span><br /><br />(ps - I've seen some of the pictures; the description "in the company of half naked female guests", whilst factually correct, is perhaps on the more benign side. )<br /><span class="t13"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></div><span class="t13"> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-15087945797849862742009-10-15T16:22:00.002+02:002009-10-15T18:58:48.760+02:00One for the Weekendדפנה והעוגיות, or Daphna and the Cookies - or Daphna and the Biscuits, if you're a non-Yank like me. I wonder which translation they choose?<br /><br />It matters not. Enjoy...<br /><br /><object width="580" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/80H_j0T9SvM&hl=en&fs=1&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/80H_j0T9SvM&hl=en&fs=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="360"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3136645358311730630.post-49190689957701353022009-10-14T07:31:00.003+02:002009-10-14T07:48:48.289+02:00Memo to Eli Yishai: Never pick a fight<div style="text-align: justify;">...with defenceless women or small children: you can't come out of it looking good.<br /><br />To be fair to MK and Interior Minister Yishai - and I never thought I'd find myself typing these words - the argument about the deportation of the children of foreign workers born in Israel is merely following the absurdity that passes for immigration policy in this country to its (il)logical conclusion.<br /><br />Yishai says that it is necessary to deport the children because their continued presence <span class="t13"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120966.html">"is liable to damage the state's Jewish identity, constitute a demographic threat and increase the danger of assimilation." </a></span><br /><span class="t13"></span><br /><span class="t13">What on earth is the guy afraid of? </span><br /><span class="t13"></span><br /><span class="t13">More to the point, I love the way he bandies about words like "Jewish Identity" whilst carefully avoiding the need to append any sort of actual definition to the phrase. He ought to try that sometime and see how far it gets him.</span><br /><span class="t13"></span><br /><span class="t13">As it happens, I've always associated the phrase "Jewish Identity" with notions of <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255450643514&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">charity, justice, Tikkun Olam and stuff</a>. I'm a bit naive like that. This is not suggesting that the State of Israel should become overly charitable - or <span style="font-style: italic;">frierim</span>, as some people may see it - and fling their borders open to the dispossessed whether they may be in the world. But it is about equity, fairness, an desire to actually engage with the complexities of a mess that was, not incidentally, created by previous Israeli governments. </span><br /><span class="t13"></span><br /><span class="t13">Rather than - to appropriate a favourite quote - sticking one's head in the sand and exposing one's thinking parts.</span><br /><span class="t13"></span><br /><span class="t13">(side issue - in other parts of the world, the argument against allowing children in similar circumstances to remain in their country of birth - if not nationality - normally revolves around the notion - spurious or not - that they are, or will be, a burden on the state. This isn't even part of the argument here. I hate to use words like this, but I think Yishai is a bigot. And the real problem is that he doesn't even realise it.)</span><br /><span class="t13"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0